The Daily Mail reports that "Uvalde school police chief Pedro Arredondo and another officer are charged with child endangerment over school massacre that saw shooter Salvador Ramos kill 21." Arredondo stopped all efforts to directly engage the shooter for 77 minutes. The article notes, for instance, that "[a]n investigation conducted for the city of Uvalde also revealed that officers wanted to storm the classroom as soon as bullet proof shields arrived, but they were overruled by Arredondo."
Friday, June 28, 2024
Dems Want Biden Gone
I watched most of the debate last night between Biden and Trump. I didn't think Trump did all that well, although he got some good zingers in at Biden; but Biden did terrible and looked terrible, even considering everything CNN did to make it easy on him such as adding commercial breaks so he would have rest periods (a first for a presidential debate), removing all the distractions normal to such debates, and cutting from Biden when he started to lose his train of thought. He was somewhat spotty for most of the debate, but you could see Biden's drugs rapidly lose their effectiveness at about the 54 minute mark.
The more interesting part to me was the post-debate analysis by the CNN talking heads. While there was the occasional comment that Trump lied (i.e., he didn't parrot their narrative even though their narrative had been debunked) and avoided answering certain questions (unlike Biden who answered sensitive questions of foreign policy, making it clear that Hamas could not trust him in any peace negotiations and daring Russia to start a nuclear war), the majority of comments were about how terrible Biden looked, anger that the White House had been lying about Biden's condition, fear that Biden would cause downstream Democrat candidates lose their elections, and concluding that Biden must not be on the ballot this fall. And this was not just their own thoughts, but repeating what they were hearing from other Democrat officials and politicians. The issue now is whether a call for Biden to step down should be first made privately or publicly.
Islam Is Antithetical To Western Civilization
From the Daily Mail: "Horror in the Med as Iraqi girl, 16, 'is choked to death while being raped in front of her mother on sinking migrant boat by man who had just seen his wife and daughter drown' in disaster that saw dozens killed off Italy." From the lede:
A teenage girl was raped and choked to death by an Iraqi migrant as the boat they were on sank in the Mediterranean, horrified witnesses have claimed, with the attacker surviving the shipwreck that saw dozens killed off Italy.
Survivors claimed the man carried out the unspeakable attack after seeing his wife and daughter drown, Italian media reports, 'venting' his fury on the helpless 16-year-old girl.
The teenager was raped and suffocated in front of her distraught mother by the 27-year-old man as the sail boat sank, news agency AGI reports citing a police investigation.
The murderer/rapist is being held in an Italian jail. Undoubtedly he will eventually be given asylum and released to terrorize the native Italian population.
Thursday, June 27, 2024
Yet Another Way The CIA Interfered With The 2020 Election
From the New York Post: "How CIA interference with the ‘Spies Who Lie’ letter made Biden the president." An excerpt:
The letter claiming the laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian intelligence operation” was instigated by Biden’s campaign adviser Antony Blinken (now secretary of state) in a phone call to Mike Morell, a former acting CIA director, five days after The Post began reporting damaging material from the laptop in October 2020.
Morell would testify that Blinken’s call prompted him to write the letter and organize 50 colleagues to sign it.
Five former CIA directors — Mike Hayden, Leon Panetta, John Brennan, John McLaughlin (acting) and Morell (acting) — signed, as well as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Forty-one of the 51 signatories were ex-CIA.
The Dirty 51 letter, as it came to be known, was timed to appear two days later, on the eve of the final presidential debate, to maximize its benefit to Biden by giving him a “talking point to push back on [President] Trump on this issue,” as Morell put it in an email obtained by the committee.
Sure enough, Biden used the letter in the debate to claim the laptop was a “Russian plant” and “garbage,” and kill the issue.
What Would A Modern Top-Break Revolver Design Look Like
A came across an article from The Firearm Blog from a couple years ago entitled "Looking Forward To The Next Top Break Revolver." As you probably know, top break revolvers were quite popular options for defensive revolvers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the UK's service revolver from the pre-WWI colonial conflicts through WWII and beyond was a top break.
The advantage of the top break revolver is that the action of opening the revolver also ejected the spent shell casings, which made it a bit quicker to reload in those days before speed loaders and speed strips. The disadvantage is that the steel and manufacturing of the day was not up to the higher pressures often found in cartridges using smokeless powder except in rounds like the .32 and .38 S&W, which are considered weak by modern standards.
The author of the article above believes that with more modern materials and manufacturing, top break revolvers would be viable for higher pressure rounds such as .357Magnum or even .44 Magnum. He notes that Detonics had designed a top break revolver in the 1980s that was intended to shoot magnum rounds, but that it--unfortunately--never came to market. The downside is that the lock on such revolvers would likely interfere with using a speed loader. He suggests that a design would need to either be modified to allow the use of a speed loader and/or designed to allow the use of moon clips.
An interesting article of what could be, but probably won't.
On a somewhat related note of envisioning what a future pistol design might hold, T Rex Labs released a video (see below) of the producer's ideas on what a future generation of duty pistols would look like and the features that they would incorporate. Basically, he envisions combining a rotating barrel action (in order to mount a red dot forward and slightly lower than possible with the Browning tilt barrel action) and the "bull pup" feeding and mechanism of the Bond Arms Bullpup 9.
VIDEO: "What the Next Generation of Duty Pistols Will Be Like"--TREX LABS (35 min.)
The Secret To The Habsburg Empire
An author writing under the name "Raw Blood Enjoyer" has published a series of articles on X describing how the Habsburg family spread its tentacles of control over the nations of Europe in the 15th and 16th Centuries using marriages, assassinations conveniently timed deaths, and control of the Catholic Church. I don't remember how I first came across these--probably through Western Rifle Shooters Association--but I found them interesting.
The articles are:
- The Habsburg Coup In Henry VIII's England
- Henry VIII is the Prince in Machiavelli's 'The Prince'
- A list of unfortunate Royal Deaths which Happen to have benefited the Habsburg Family
In the first of the articles, the author argues that the reason that Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon and formed an independent Church of England was to preserve his and his family's power and keep England from becoming another Habsburg controlled state. The author relates:
The Habsburg method for expanding their territory was fairly simple:
- Find a failing kingdom in need of aid or protection.
- Offer to use your influence in the Catholic Church to aid the Kingdom in exchange for an advantageous marriage, protection money, or both.
- Betray the Kingdom and use your influence instead to install your newly wed Habsburg as the sole sovereign.
In his argument, England was the failing kingdom; the Catholic Church (through Thomas Beckett and other Catholic officials) was able to exert domestic influence; and Catherine of Aragon was the Habsburg connected wife of King Henry VIII who, if Henry VIII had suffered an unfortunate death, would have stood to inherit the throne.
The first article ends with noting that Henry VIII escaped his fate by adhering to lessons in Machiavelli's "The Prince". The second article picks up and expands on that topic by arguing that "The Prince" was meant as a message to Henry VIII and provided a road map for escaping Habsburg/Catholic dominance.
The third article goes into more detail of how the Habsburg family was able to extend its control over various European nations by marrying a member of the family to a king or prince, and then that king or prince suffering an untimely and unfortunate death.
These are interesting reads. Those of you with greater knowledge of the time periods involved would probably be in a better position than I to judge the merits of the arguments.
Bombs & Bants--Episode 132 (Streamed 6/26/2024)
My banter mostly bombed, but the rest was great:
VIDEO: "Episode 132Episode 132" (48 min.)
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
The U.S. Dollar Is Dead--And Biden Killed It
A video from Stoic Finance on the destruction of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency, a direct consequence of the decision to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. It has impelled the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and others to stop using U.S. dollars for international trade, facilitated by Saudi Arabia allowing its agreement to denominate oil sales in dollars to lapse.
Stoic Finance (8 min.)
The financial markets are bracing for disruption now that Saudi Arabia decided not to renew its 50-year petrodollar partnership with the United States, MSN reported.This opens the door for Saudi Arabia to sell oil and other goods — instead of exclusively in the U.S. dollar — in multiple other currencies, including the Chinese renminbi, and in euros, yen, and digital currencies such as bitcoin.Saudi Arabia’s shift to other currencies is expected to hasten the global movement away from the dollar.
Saudi Arabia will instead join Project mBridge "to explore a multicentral bank digital currency (CBDC) platform involving central and commercial banks. The CBDC is built on a distributed ledger technology for instant cross-border payment settlements and foreign exchange transactions."
More than 26 nations [sic: central banks] are mBridge members, including Federal Reserve Bank of New York, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Central Bank, Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank of Israel, Bank of France, Central Bank of Bahrain, Central Bank of Egypt, Central Bank of Jordan, Bank of Namibia, and South African Reserve Bank.
- See also: "So Long, Petrodollar: US-Saudi Arabian Agreement Ends After Fifty Years"--Red State.
So does this mean that the U.S. is no longer required to provide a security guarantee to Saudi Arabia? No. Our traitorous Deep State is going to continue to offer the security guarantee. Not in exchange for strengthening the American dollar or the economic wellbeing of American citizens, mind you, but in order to benefit Israel.
The Wall Street Journal reports (via MSN): "U.S. to Offer Landmark Defense Treaty to Saudi Arabia in Effort to Spur Israel Normalization Deal." The article relates that "[t]he Biden administration is close to finalizing a treaty with Saudi Arabia that would commit the U.S. to help defend the Gulf nation as part of a long-shot deal to encourage diplomatic ties between Riyadh and Israel, U.S. and Saudi officials said." It adds:
The diplomatic push for a defense pact with Riyadh marks a remarkable turnaround for President Biden, who as a candidate vowed to treat Saudi Arabia as a pariah and make it pay a price for the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident. Biden is now on the cusp of making a formal commitment to protect the oil-rich monarchy, which is charting an ambitious path of economic and social development while still suppressing dissent.
“It would be the first time the U.S. concluded a mutual defense pact that would carry the force of law since the 1960 revision of the U.S.-Japan treaty, and the first time it concluded such an agreement with an authoritarian country,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank.
A security alliance would elevate Saudi Arabia’s regional standing and entrench the U.S. military role in the Middle East as it convulses from the Oct. 7 attack led by Hamas against Israel and ensuing war in Gaza. A deal would also buttress Saudi Arabia’s security, while risking increased tensions with Iran, which competes for regional supremacy with Saudi Arabia and has been deepening its ties with Russia.
The article suggests that the success of the treaty depends on Israel ending the war in Gaza and working toward a two-state solution with the Palestinian. But this is not because Israel is a party, but because "[t]he treaty—known as the Strategic Alliance Agreement—must obtain a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate as required by the Constitution. It is unlikely to gain support from enough lawmakers without being linked to a Saudi commitment to normalize ties with Israel."
The draft treaty is modeled loosely on Washington’s mutual security pact with Japan, according to the U.S. and Saudi officials. In exchange for the U.S. commitment to help defend Saudi Arabia if it were attacked, it would grant Washington access to Saudi territory and airspace to protect U.S. interests and regional partners. It is also intended to bind Riyadh closer to Washington by prohibiting China from building bases in the kingdom or pursuing security cooperation with Riyadh, the officials said.
And:
A megadeal that includes a U.S.-Saudi security alliance and Saudi-Israeli normalization would represent a geostrategic victory for Washington, said Jonathan Panikoff, a former senior U.S. intelligence official now at the Atlantic Council think tank, with potential to shift historic alliances in the Middle East.
“By ensuring that Saudi Arabia is more fulsomely tied to the U.S. when it comes to security, technology, and long-term economic and commercial efforts,” he said, it would also “disrupt efforts by Beijing to make progress in the region and find additional allies willing to support its efforts to shift away from the U.S.-led liberal international order.”
But note well this part:
The broader deal—but not the treaty—is expected to include U.S. support to develop a Saudi civilian nuclear program with uranium enrichment, another extremely sensitive issue that needs to be finalized.
A majority of Americans do not believe such a deal would be in the best interests of the United States, or are unsure if it would be so. But when has that mattered to the ruling class?
- See also: "Saudi Arabia is seeking a defense pact requiring the US to defend the Islamic kingdom if it is attacked"--Daily Mail (Sep. 29, 2023).
In short, the Petrodollar deal with Saudi Arabia that virtually ensured that the U.S. dollar would be the world's reserve currency has expired. The U.S. probably could have forced a renewal by threatening to no longer guarantee Saudi Arabia's security, but instead is offering a security guarantee in exchange for what? Saudi Arabia keeping China out and inviting Israel in. But this whole arrangement has the backing of the major central banks, so it must be good for the common person. Right?
The primary consequence for Americans will be inflation and the declining value of the U.S. dollar--just like we saw in the 1970s under Carter. (I remember a political cartoon from that era showing a Parisian pick-pocket returning a wallet to an American couple, apologizing that he didn't realize it was only filled with U.S. dollars). So prices of goods imported from overseas (e.g., China or other countries where manufacturing is parked) will increase--probably quite substantially.
In fact, the result of all of this is that foreign countries will no longer need to horde U.S. dollars to use in international trade, the demand for dollars will decline--probably precipitously once other options become available--which will mean that these countries will no longer be willing to buy as much U.S. debt. Don't expect Congress to change its spending habits--at least, not quickly--which means that we will still run deficits; only these foreign countries will not be willing to buy up American debt unless the U.S. offers high interest rates. So the declining value of the U.S. dollar will be matched with a jump in costs of servicing the debt. Hyperinflation? Possibly. Or economic austerity programs such as we have seen in other countries trying to get debt paid off. Either way, the standard of living will decline.
Now it might be argued that a dollar declining in value might make the U.S. more competitive in international markets. That might be true as well, although I question whether most Americans will be willing to work for what workers receive in China or Vietnam. In any event, even if it resulted in a boost to manufacturing in the United States, we can look at employment numbers over the past several years and see that the vast majority of new jobs will go to POCs and not white Americans; and most of those jobs will actually be going to immigrants.
We destroyed Libya and Iraq because their leaders threatened to shift oil sales from being denominated in U.S. dollars, threatening the dollar's reserve currency status; and now Biden and the Democrats and the central bankers have just given away our reserve currency status for a mess of pottage.
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Ultra-Orthodox Jews In Israel Will Now Have Skin In The Game
A 2020 poll conducted in Israel showed that 84% of the ultra-Orthodox community supporting annexing Palestinian lands to be used for Jewish settlements. It is easy to take such a position when you and yours are not the ones that will bleed and die as a result. But this may be changing. "Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously that the military must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men for compulsory service," the New York Post reports, "a landmark decision that could lead to the collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition as Israel continues to wage war in Gaza." The article explains:
The historic ruling effectively puts an end to a decades-old system that granted ultra-Orthodox men broad exemptions from military service while maintaining mandatory enlistment for the country’s secular Jewish majority. The arrangement, deemed discriminatory by critics, has created a deep chasm in Israel’s Jewish majority over who should shoulder the burden of protecting the country.
The court struck down a law that codified exemptions in 2017, but repeated court extensions and government delaying tactics over a replacement dragged out a resolution for years. The court ruled that in the absence of a law, Israel’s compulsory military service applies to the ultra-Orthodox like any other citizen.
Consequently, "[s]ome 66,000 ultra-Orthodox men are now eligible for enlistment, according to Shuki Friedman, an expert on religion and state affairs and the vice-president of the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank."
This will be a big boon to Israel's military ambitions if it goes forward because "[t]he community has a high birthrate, making it the fastest-growing segment of the population, at about 4% annually." As Edward Luttwak writes about at Un-Herd, in his article "Who will win a post-heroic war?," the reason that the Soviet Union, Germany, and the Western Allies could throw away millions of lives in World War II was because "the wars of history were fought by 'spare' male children."
Even as late as the mid-20th century, the average European family had several children. In agricultural households, one male could inherit the family’s land, another might advantageously marry a land-owning wife, and one more might go into the Church — or off to war. If he failed to return, the survivors might miss him most intensely, but the family would not be extinguished. Today, however, with the average fertility of women across Europe less than two and still falling — the EU average was 1.46 in 2022 — there are no spare children.
Thus, European countries cannot tolerate even very modest casualty rates. The same goes for Russia, China, the United States, or pretty much any other country in the world. Israel, however, is different. Luttwak explains:
As for Israel, it is the only country in the world where even secular, university-educated, professionally employed, married women have two or more children on average, with more than three children on average for the religious. This high fertility rate is the fundamental reason why Israel is not post-heroic, and will not be forced to abandon its current military plans because of combat casualties.
Thanks to this recent Israeli Supreme Court decision, the IDF will have even more bodies to throw into the meat grinder.
Kenyan Police Kill Tax Protestors
Per the New York Post: "Kenya’s parliament building ablaze as thousands of protesters enter, police open fire." From the lede:
Part of Kenya’s parliament building was on fire Tuesday as thousands of protesters against a new finance bill entered and legislators fled, in the most direct assault on the government in decades.
Journalists saw at least three bodies outside the complex where police had opened fire.
The protesters had demanded that legislators vote against the controversial bill imposing new taxes on a country where frustrations over the high cost of living have simmered for years.
The protesters outmaneuvered police to enter parliament shortly after legislators voted to pass the bill. Lawmakers fled through a tunnel, but protesters allowed opposition legislators who voted against the bill to walk out of the besieged building.
The office of the Nairobi governor, a member of the ruling party, also was on fire. The office is located near parliament. Police water cannons were being used to extinguish the fire.
Protesters could be heard shouting, “We’re coming for every politician.”
Police officers also fired live ammunition and threw tear-gas canisters at protesters who sought treatment at a medical tent set up at a church near the parliament complex.
I bet CNN, et al., won't be calling these protestors "tea-baggers".
Republicans Only Now Catching On?
The New York Post ran a story the other day entitled: "How non-citizens are getting voter registration forms across the US — and how Republicans are trying to stop it." From the lede:
Welfare offices and other agencies in 49 US states are providing voter registration forms to migrants without requiring proof of citizenship, leading Republicans and conservatives to call for swift federal action to stop the handouts.
Every state but Arizona — which recently passed a law barring the practice on state but not federal forms — gives applicants for either welfare benefits, driver’s licenses, or in some cases, mail-in ballots voter registration forms without demanding proof of citizenship.
There is currently no requirement on federal voting forms to provide proof of US citizenship, though it is illegal to falsely claim one is a citizen or for a non-citizen to cast a ballot in a federal election.
But millions of migrants with humanitarian parole, refugee or asylum status are eligible for benefits that would bring them to the offices where voter registration takes place.
But here is the thing: Republicans helped make this the law. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (often referred to at the time as the "Motor-Voter Law") requires that the federal government and state agencies to make voter registration forms available to people applying for driver licenses and welfare benefits without requiring proof of citizenship.
This is just another example of Republicans not bothering to read or consider the implications of laws for which they vote. And certainly Republicans, when they've controlled both Congress and the White House, haven't bothered to pass laws to make it more difficult for non-citizens to vote. Now the Republicans are attempting to pass a law requiring proof of citizenship, according to the article, but they are not going to get it passed with a Democrat controlled Senate and President. I think they purposefully wait for such times so they can go to their base and say "we tried" even though they never had any intention of fixing the issue.
Sunday, June 23, 2024
Book Review: "After 1177 B.C.: The Survival Of Civilizations"
Book: After 1177 B.C.: The Survival Of Civlizations by Eric Cline (2024), 352 pages.
I reviewed Eric Cline's book 1177 B.C.--The Year Civilization Collapsed back in 2015. That book examined the causes of the Bronze Age Collapse and the nations caught up in that broad civilizational collapse: the Minoans-Mycenaeans in and around Greece and the Aegean, Egypt along the Nile and extending control into Canaan, the Hittite Empire controlling most of Asia Minor, the Mittani which occupied the northern Tigris and Euphrates river region, and the Babylonians. The impact was likely felt beyond even these kingdoms and empires as trade collapsed.
The gist of the book is that there was a perfect storm of events and causes that interplayed and magnified each other to lead to wide-spread disruption and collapse, as there is evidence of a centuries long drought (probably due to the climate cooling), several natural disasters including some earthquakes that destroyed a few major cities, resulting in famine, war, collapse of trust in institutions, collapse of long distance trade, social upheaval, and migrations of people leading to more conflict.
Although Cline and I use the term "collapse," that is not to say that everything regressed to the stone age. Rather this is a collapse in the sense that Joseph Tainter uses the term: a rapid decline in complexity of the civilization until the complexity reduces to a level where stability returns. In other words, while a society can collapse completely, it can also fragment or shed institutions without fully disappearing. Thus, it can occur at different times and to different extents.
In the case of Bronze Age Collapse, the Hittite Empire disappeared to never reappear. The Babyloniann declined but adopted and recovered a couple hundred years later. The Mittani were absorbed into the Assyrian Empire. The Minions-Mycenaeans society disappeared to reappear later as the Greeks and Cretens of the Archaic age. The Egyptian Empire went into a decline from which it never fully recovered although it also did not collapse. Some of the territories over which it established control became independent and actually seemed to thrive during the dark ages that followed the collapse, such as the Phoenicians who developed a trading empire and, more importantly, spread their alphabet around the Mediterranean. The collapse of the international tin trade also drove a shift from bronze to iron.
After 1177 B.C. explores what happened to the major civilizations and cultures after the Bronze Age Collapse and the next 200 to 300 years. While Cline takes a "glass is half full" approach, emphasizing that the Collapse did not mean the complete loss of civilization, but that cultures adapted--some even thrived--with comparable complexity and international trade reappearing between 200 and 300 years later, depending on the location.
That doesn't mean that it was an easy transition. Cline notes, for instance, that "there was a dramatic drop in population on mainland Greece immediately after the Collapse." Recent estimates indicate a decline in population of between 40 and 60%! To put that in context, that is greater than the die off from the Black Plague in the 14th Century. That is merely one of many societal changes. Cline identifies seven (7) changes:
- The collapse of central administrative organizations;
- The disappearance of the traditional elite class;
- A breakdown of the centralized economy;
- A settlement shift;
- Population decline;
- Loss of writing (what I would characterize more accurately as a loss of certain technologies); and,
- A pause in the construction of monumental architecture (which is a symptom of the loss of centralized authority--with its taxing power--and decline of the elites and overall disappearance of wealth).
In this respect, Cline writes:
Joseph Tainter notes that a systematic collapse of a civilization or society is also usually thought to bring an end to "the artistic and literary features of civilization, and to the umbrella of service and protection that an administration provides." As a result, he says, "The flow of information drops, people trade and interact less, and there is overall lower coordination among individuals and groups. Economic activity drops ... while the arts and literature experience such a quantitative decline that a dark age often ensues. Population levels tend to drop, and for those who are left, the known world shrinks" All of this is usually seen as a fearful event, "truly paradise lost." However, according to Tainter, sociopolitical collapse is quite a normal occurrence and even to be expected in the general course of the life of complex societies.
But while a dark age followed the Bronze Age Collapse, Cline contends that the question in studying such a period is "'dark' for whom and in what respects?"
This is the question at the heart of our explorations. What was it like for those living in the aftermath of the Collapse, and how was it different in each of the affected areas? What did it take to survive?
Cline then explores different the different regions and what happened in each region, rather than simply address all regions in a chronological fashion. First he examines the fate of Egypt, Israel, and the Southern Levant. Second, Assyria and Babylonia. Third, Phoenicia and Cyprus. Fourth, Anatolia and Northern Syria. Fifth, the Aegean region.
Egypt was the only one of the prior great powers that survived with any substantial continuity of government. But the pharaohs that rules following the Collapse oversaw a permanent decline in the power and influence of Egypt. They were faced with disruptions and upheaval within their borders taking the form of an significant jump in tomb robberies (this was the period that Egyptian officials were forced to gather up mummies from scattered tombs and hide them), famine and food shortages, in-fighting among the elites, and "disruptions" caused by foreigners (probably both migrants and slaves) inside Egypt. As Cline put it, the Egyptians "were able to cope and continue to exist but really failed to make the transition properly, neither adapting particularly well nor transforming at all."
Of course, Egypt's loss was another's gain. Losing its control over Canaan, it appeared that the mantle of control would fall on the Philistines, but it was actually the Israeli kingdoms that emerged the dominate power over Canaan in the wake of the invasion by the "Sea Peoples". The success of the Philistines and Israel were helped along by climate: although much of the region was gripped by a centuries long drought, the southern Levant experienced an uptick in moisture starting around 1150 to 1100 B.C. and lasting until about 950 B.C. permitting intense cereal and olive cultivation. In fact, newer research shows that the Levant may have been one of the few areas to experience in increase in population during the post-Collapse dark age. But as minor kingdoms, the Israelite kingdoms only flourished until other larger regional empires arose again.
Turning to his next region, the upper and lower regions of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, Cline observes that "[o]verall, the Assyrians and the Babylonians proved to be among the most resilient and successful of the affected societies to weather the aftermath of the Collapse," being able to retain writing, keeping their systems of government, and even able to engage in some massive building projects. Nevertheless, they did not escape unscathed, as Cline writes, pointing out that "archaeological evidence obtained from surveys in the region of ancient Babylonia suggests that there may have been a decrease in population of up to 75 percent during the three hundred years between the Collapse at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Babylonia resurgence after 900 BC." As for the Assyrians, it is notable that there were almost no royal inscriptions during the period from 1208 BC to 1133 BC. Nevertheless, Assyria was able to grown and expand swallowing up the city-states and smaller kingdoms that arose after the Collapse. As Cline writes:
Without any strong competitors, Assyria eventually filled the political void to become the most resilient large state recovering from the Late Bronze Age Collapse. In doing so, the Assyrians invented many of the elements that were adopted by later empires: standing armies, effective communication and transportation systems, and policy propaganda (like the Balawat gate inscriptions).
Cline next examines the Cypriots and the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians took the advantage of the sack of other port cities during the Sea Peoples invasions to win control of the trade routes across the Mediterranean Sea, "spreading their version of the alphabet, and exchanging trade goods such as purple dye for silver and other metals coming from as far away as Sicily, Sardinia, and Iberia." The Cypriots similarly spread iron goods and iron technology east and west. "Together," Cline contends, "they were the two societies that weathered the transformation to the new normal most successfully; both could even be labeled as anti-fragile, flourishing during the chaos that followed the Collapse."
Cline next examines Anatolia and Norther Syria--areas dominated by the Hittites prior to the Collapse. Cline indicates that the Hittite Empire in Anatolia had collapsed and disappeared almost completely in the years after 1200 B.C.
The capital city of Hattusa was initially abandoned and then partially destroyed, with a small Iron Age village subsequently established on one small portion of the original city. The situation has been recently summed up by Lorenzo d'Alfonso of New York University and his colleagues as follows: "A deep transformation took place in the former core of the empire around the capital Hattusa, resulting in a drastic decrease in political complexity, a shift to subsistence household economy and a lack of evidence for any public institutions." Furthermore, James Osborne, a professor at the University of Chicago, cites recent research stating that there may have been "a drastic settlement drop of about 90%" in south-central Anatolia at this time and says that "despite evidence for continuity in certain locations ... the general picture is one of marked decline and social complexity until the ninth century."
What is significant about the 9th Century BC is that when the drought that played such a large role in the Bronze Age Collapse ended, when the climate returned to one that was warmer and wetter.
Nevertheless, "despite the collapse of the Hittite Empire proper, we can see that there were survivors and that life did continue, especially in the hinterland, even if the centralized government and its attendant bureaucracy and administration had essentially vanished, leaving the various areas to their own devices." In addition, some remnant of the Hittite royalty apparently retained some control over as many as 15 city states in northern Syria. And while the region appears to have suffered the most from the invasion of the Sea Peoples, most sites were almost immediately reoccupied following the destruction and resumed agricultural, industrial, and trade activity. Eventually, however, this area fell under the influence of the Assyrians.
Mycenae on the Greek mainland similarly fully collapsed, although not as quickly. Cline notes that "[i]t is now clear that it took more than a century for the last vestiges of the Bronze Age Mycenaean palatial society to fade away and the succeeding culture of the Iron Age to begin on mainland Greece." The primary cities were largely abandoned, but life appears to have continued in the countryside, albeit free of a centralized government control and within a simpler economic environment. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing for the commoner: as Cline notes they were freed from the overwhelming taxation to support the palatial elites and their projects, "such that some rural areas may have actually experienced a brief moment of prosperity in the decades immediately after the Collapse." But the collapse of the urban centers also led to the loss of writing for centuries as well as the loss of the representational arts and crafts. "The complex forms of political, social, and economic organization fell into oblivion. Palaces, kings, and royal families became matter for Greek myths." "In short," Cline concludes, "Greek civilization was reduced to the level of a prehistoric society." Thus, while there were survivors, "it was not until the eighth century BC at the earliest that we can talk about Greek culture resuming on a path that led to more than simply basic subsistence and scratching out a living."
In summing up his book, Cline writes:
Painting with broad brush strokes, what we see in general from the twelfth century BC onward is a fragmentation and decline in security and material standards of living in the years immediately after the Collapse, continuing down through the tenth century or thereabouts, as the Bronze Age kingdoms fell apart. In the areas that were affected to the greatest extent, including mainland Greece, Crete, Anatolia, and the southern Levant especially, there was a collapse of the local palaces, states, or kingdoms (including government, centralized economy, and so on) even if segments of the population managed to survive.
However, reintegration then begins during the ninth century and continues through the eighth century...
To put it another way, and to emphasize the material side of things, in general the period from the twelfth through the tenth centuries BC saw population crashes, abandonment of cities, violence, probable migrations, the collapse of trade routes, disease, earlier ages at death, falling economic output, lower standards of living, and the loss or decline of advanced skills, though the extent varies depending on where one looks in the region. In contrast, the period from the beginning of the ninth century BC onward saw many of these trends reversed. By the time we reach the second half of the eighth century BC, we see new life and innovations in many of the areas, and a fully interconnected world begins to take shape once again for the first time in several centuries.
He sees the Bronze Age and its subsequent collapse and recovery fitting into what is termed the "adaptive cycle" with the early part of the Late Bronze Age representing the Exploitation phase, the Late Bronze Age as the Conservation phase, the Bronze Age Collapse as the Release phase, and the subsequent Iron Age is the Reorganization phase which, will, eventually start the cycle over again--in this case, the Archaic age followed by the Classical age.
Cline also examines why some cultures seemed to weather the collapse better than others. Some of it may have been a matter of luck: located in an area that was not as affected by drought as others, being shielded from the attacks of the Sea Peoples, better leaders, more redundancies in their state administration, or armies better able to fight off raiders or conquer neighbors. But he notes, at least as to the Assyrians, that "they may have proved to be resilient because of four things that they were able to retain for whatever reason: their centralized government, still led by the king; their basic economy; their writing system; and their army."
But the main lesson that Cline wants to emphasize is that "Collapse can involve both the end of old social institutions and the beginning of new ones."
Unfortunately the archaeological record is too incomplete to come to firm conclusions as to why one culture did better than others. Unlike Cline, I think luck played a major role both as to climate and to which areas were subject to invasion or attack by the Sea Peoples. Some must have been due to the cultures--some were more, perhaps, fatalistic and others more adaptable by nature. I suspect that the relationship between the people and their elites played a role. That is, that elites that maintained their legitimacy even in the face of drought, disaster, or war, were more likely to continue their rule; and for those hated by their populace, the events of the Collapse provided an excuse for their elites "to disappear". Unfortunately, while the loss of elites may have been a temporary boon in those civilizations that were heavily taxed, it also didn't help with recovery (although the conflict among elites in Egypt appears to have been almost as crippling to recovery).
And while there are no guarantees, it appears that on an individual basis, living in a rural area that provided water and arable land was vital; and combined with access to trade and trade routes was ideal.
My Theory: Biden's Blunders And Frailties Are In Preparation For The Debates
My theory on why we have seen more fumbles, bumbles, and tumbles from Biden lately is that his handlers have had to ween him off his drugs so that they are more effective when they administer them just before the debate. I suspect that Biden will come across as more cognizant and forceful at the debate.
Friday, June 21, 2024
Chicago Tribune Attempts To Scare City Into Hiring More Police ...
... by raising the specter of people defending themselves. The editorial from the Tribune's Editorial Board is entitled: "Potential victims are shooting back. This should raise alarms for Chicago public officials." The Board chastises Chicago officials for letting criminals loose and not hiring enough police to keep crime down because "[w]hen a large slice of the public believes that crime is out of hand and most offenses go unpunished, some people inevitably take the law into their own hands." And by "take the law into their own hands," the Board means the peasants exercising their right to self-defense. Because apparently, in the minds of the Board members, crime victims are supposed to lay back and enjoy it so long as there is a chance the criminal might be apprehended later.
The Board writes with concern:
Worryingly, we’re seeing more signs of that phenomenon in Chicago, with three separate episodes over the last weekend in which would-be victims proved to be both armed and willing to fire at their assailants. Four people who police said were attacking these concealed carry holders were shot and wounded, all of them critically, according to a report by Block Club Chicago.
I think its funny that the Board had to turn to a source outside their newspaper to get the news. But, back to the subject, the Board summarizes their concern: "Here’s the situation: People who go through a relatively minimal process can legally defend themselves in their homes or even on the city streets with a gun. More and more of them are doing just that."
Oh no, we can't let the peasantry be armed!
Realizing how bad that sounds, the Board attempts to obfuscate its position by shifting their ire to City officials:
This is not to pass judgment on those who for their own protection go through the steps necessary to get a concealed carry permit and then take advantage of the legal rights that license gives them.
It is to say that it’s the job of the mayor, the Police Department, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, judges and all involved in the criminal justice system to make it so that those prone to crime feel there’s a decent chance they will be caught, prosecuted and punished if they commit those acts. For several years now, it’s fair to say, the risk-reward calculation has been far too heavily weighted toward the reward side for street criminals in Chicago.
Chicagoans considering whether to purchase a gun and get a license to carry and use it aren’t likely to be dissuaded from doing so when, for example, the Cook County state’s attorney says she favors simply not prosecuting those accused of gun offenses when illegal guns are discovered during a police stop of a car for a minor violation. They can be pardoned if the thought occurring to them when reading stories about that prosecutorial policy is that they better get a gun because those tasked with combating the scourge of illegal firearms say they won’t take action when they get the opportunity.
In other words, they are saying its okay for an innocent to lose his or her life or be raped because they lack the arms to defends themselves so long as there is a decent chance the criminal will be caught and punished.
After some more recriminations against the city officials and noting the sharp increase in violent crimes over the past several years, the Board returns to its original theme that if it is a choice between people owning firearms or cops making arrests, the City should make arrests:
Surely, our public officials, no matter what side of the criminal-justice-reform divide they’re on, can agree that the growing risks of more ordinary citizens taking responsibility for their own safety at the point of a gun isn’t a healthy development. They ought to think of an ordinary Chicagoan, maybe right now mulling whether it’s a good idea to carry a firearm as they head to the store, and prove to them there is no need. For crime in this city won’t be allowed to pay.
Japan Going Quietly Into The Night
A couple stories that caught my eye as they represent the dire straights into which Japan has fallen due to its declining population.
First, the Asahi Shimbun reports that the "Majority of Japanese support government-run dating apps," with women that have already "hit the wall" being most enthusiastic. From the article:
According to an Asahi Shimbun survey, the majority of Japanese citizens wouldn't mind a state-backed service to help boost marriage and the declining birthrate.
The nationwide survey, conducted over the phone on June 15 and 16, found that 54 percent of respondents supported such initiatives, while 36 percent voiced their opposition.
The survey follows the Tokyo metropolitan government's recent announcement of its upcoming AI-powered matchmaking app.
Tokyo officials are emphasizing the benefits of a government-backed app, highlighting its credibility and the sense of security it can provide to users.
The survey results indicated no significant gender disparity in terms of support for government-run dating apps.
However, younger generations were more enthusiastic about the idea, with 64 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds and 74 percent of those in their 30s indicating their approval.
Notably, among women in their 30s, support for such services topped 80 percent.
It won't change the decline--hypergamy is too strong of an instinct.
Second, government and industry leaders have decided that if their population won't have children, they will simply replace the population: "Migrant labor law revised to allow longer, flexible stays." The article relates:
Under the new system, workers can remain in Japan for three years. They can then apply for Type 1 specified skilled worker status, which extends their stay for a maximum of five additional years.
To apply for Type 1 status, workers need to meet certain skill and Japanese language proficiency requirements.
The new system grants workers eligibility for the same range of occupations as Type 1 status for the initial three years, streamlining the transition to the higher skilled worker category.
However, the new system maintains the existing restrictions on bringing family members to Japan and does not permit family reunification for the first eight years of a worker's stay in the nation.
Also:
The new system will allow workers to change jobs within the same industry after one to two years of employment. This flexibility will empower them to leave low-paying positions with abusive employers.
The bill also includes controversial provisions to revoke permanent residency status for those who refuse to pay taxes or social insurance premiums.
This provision has sparked concerns about the potential impact on long-term foreign residents, including generations of ethnic Koreans and Chinese who hold permanent residency in Japan.
It may seem a trifling, especially compared to the mess that is immigration to the United States, but I suspect that it is just the beginning as the population crises in Japan deepens.
Pride Flags Torn Down In North Boise
I refer to the Boise North End neighborhood as "Portlandia" because to be there is like stepping onto the set of that old comedy show, Portlandia. They are the reason that the recent Boise mayors have been socialists. The premier street--large, expensive, old houses on a beautiful tree lined street--is Harrison Boulevard. And being Portlandia, it wouldn't be complete without Harrison Blvd being lined with flags celebrating the religion of the left. But not everyone appreciates the LGBT religious symbolism, as the local ABC affiliate reports: "Residents on Harrison Blvd continue to see damaged flags." Someone has been damaging and stealing both the pride flags and the flag poles on which they have been hanging.
Wednesday, June 19, 2024
Revolver Guy Reviews Colt's New Blued Python
If you have been keeping on Colt's revolvers, you probably are aware that Colt has released 4.25" and 6" versions of the Python with a blued finish (in addition to the stainless versions already out there). Kevin McPherson, at the Revolver Guy blog, recently got his hands on a blued model and gives his review there. Most of his review was a review of how the Python shot, its fit and function, mechanical differences between the newer models of Pythons versus the old classic version, accuracy, etc. For instance, he thought it was more comfortable to shoot than the S&W 686 using factory stocks:
The “hump” of the grip’s back strap is sloped and less severe than on an S&W. It made the Altamont stocks more comfortable than the factory target stocks on a 686, for example. Covering the backstrap with soft rubber isn’t a necessity with the Colt. The muzzle heavy feel combined nicely with the shape of the backstrap to make magnums reasonable to shoot. The Remington SJHP stayed true to its roots and gave an average velocity of 1,536 fps–impressive velocity from a 4.25” barrel. Sixty rounds were fired on the maiden voyage.
He liked the accuracy, reporting:
I shot groups from offhand and field supported positions and came away very pleased with how the new Python shot. It would generally keep six rounds in an inch and a half to two inches, standing offhand at fifteen yards, whether I was shooting match wadcutter or Magnum fire breathers. From a prone position, or perched on a stadium seat cushion, most loads held two to three inches at 25 yards. I shot a few single action groups at twenty-five; They tended to be better than double action groups, but not by a great margin.
He found that while it gave good accuracy with lighter bullets, it gave its best accuracy when shooting Federal 158 grain JSP loads. The exception to accuracy was "CorBon’s .357 Magnum 100 grain Pow’RBall. It shot a disappointing group with a flyer that stretched it to 'barely on B-8 paper' from 15 yards."
But, with the weapon being offered in a blued finish, the big question is how good was the finish. McPherson reports:
When I removed the big revolver from its packaging, the first thing I noticed was my reflection in the frame. It had been very well polished before the finish was applied. The blue was deep and even, with no visible flaws. It was a shade or two darker than the classic “Royal Blue,” but it was very nicely done.
And that is what the accompanying photographs show.
If you are interested in the Python, or just beautiful revolvers generally, be sure to read the whole thing.
The Immigrant Shell Game In Action
The Daily Mail reports on the sudden surge of illegals and asylum seekers flooding into Utah. Most of the article is about how the illegals are seeking the state out because they think the Mormon population would be suckers and support them. But near the end of the article, the truth of the matter comes out:
Bright orange fliers issued by the state have since been handed out to those crossing the border telling them to stay away from the state.
The advisory warns migrants: 'There is no room in shelters. No hotels for you. Housing is hard to find and expensive. Food banks are at capacity.'
Despite this, people and families continue to arrive into the area from already overwhelmed cities like New York and Denver.
KUTV reported earlier this week that the city of Denver has being paying for thousands of migrants to travel to Utah.
The report prompted a response from state Governor Cox who said: 'We recently learned that the Democrat mayor of Denver has been sending illegal immigrants to Utah without proper notification or approval.
'This is completely unacceptable and follows on the failed catch-and-release policy of the Biden administration.
'Every state has received illegal immigrants and Utah’s resources are completely depleted.
Cox is a RINO suckup who had previously welcomed illegals until Utah actually started receiving illegals. His position has since evolved.
And Some Cultural Enrichment In The U.S.
From the Daily Mail: "Bloodied Uber driver appears in court covered in bruises after being battered by furious father 'who caught him raping his drunk daughter in car'." The article explains:
Ahmed Ali, 58, had injuries to his face and bandages on both hands as he appeared in a Washington state courtroom on Monday.
A father-of-five himself, Ali is accused of kidnapping a woman who he picked up from a bar when she was too drunk to return home alone on Saturday night.
Police say that instead of driving her home, Ali took her to a secluded location close to the Nisqually River in Olympia, where he sexually assaulted her in the back of the car.
Before allegedly launching the attack, Ali manipulated the Uber app to indicate that the drop-off had been completed.
He was caught out by the alleged victim's father, who had grown worried waiting for his daughter to return home so tracked her phone to the riverside location.
Along with other relatives, he searched for her and found her naked in the backseat of Ali's car. The driver hurriedly pulled up his pants and scrambled into the front of the car.
The victim's furious relatives responded by attacking Ali, and two shots were fired. Badly injured, Ali tried to run away, but he was later detained by authorities.
And, of course, Ali's "family and neighbors turned out en masse to support him in the courtroom on Monday."
Some More Cultural Enrichment In France
The Daily Mail headline reads: "Macron condemns 'scourge of anti-Semitism' after Jewish girl, 12, is 'gang-raped by boys who accused her of hiding her religion from her boyfriend' as three youths are charged in case that has shocked France." Because it might reflect poorly on certain races or religious groups, French officials are very reluctant to release details of criminals. In this case, for instance, they are only described as three youths. But the article relates that "[t]he girl from Courbevoie, in the Hauts-de-Seine suburb northwest of the French capital, told police on Monday that she had been raped at the weekend by three youths - one of whom she said was her ex-boyfriend." The "youths" had dragged the victim to an abandoned warehouse where, "[a] police source said[,] the youths 'forced her to have anal and vaginal penetration, fellatio while uttering death threats and anti-Semitic remarks' amid the heinous attack - as the ex-boyfriend reportedly accused the victim of 'hiding her Jewish religion'." So almost 100% likely that her ex-boyfriend was a Muslim. And as authorized under Islamic law; e.g., Surah 33:50: “O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war.” France should have sunk the boats.
Over The Rainbow Crazy and Dangerous
Murdering trans ... something ... on the run after killing man and woman in Utah. From the Daily Mail article:
A manhunt has been launched for a transgender woman who police say murdered a man and a woman in a Utah residence.
Washington City Police are looking for Collin Troy Bailey, 28, who also goes by the name Mia Bailey, who is currently transitioning.
Police said they were called after reports of shots fired at the home, and upon entry found the two deceased adults, confirming they died from gunshot wounds.
No identities for the victims have been released.
The home where the victims were found shot dead is listed as Bailey's home address, according to public records.
Also living there are Gail Bailey, 69, and her husband Joseph, 70, who appear to be Bailey's parents, though police are yet to confirm they were the victims.
Seems that there are more and more of these violent and murdering trans-people around. I guess it comes with encouraging them in their mental illness.
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
China Showing Weaker Manufacturing and Continued Real Estate Issues
Via the Asahi Shimbun: "Asian shares mostly lower as China reports factory output slowed." The relevant part:
Shares were mixed in Asia on Monday after China reported its factory output slowed in May, with the property market still deep in the doldrums.
* * *
Factory output fell 5.6% in China in May, the government reported, below analysts’ forecasts and slowing from 6.7% the month before. Retail sales rose just 4.1% in the first five months of the year.
Overshadowing those lackluster numbers, property investments fell 10% in May from a year earlier, while home prices in major cities fell 3.2%.
Property sales plunged 30.5% year-on-year, in further evidence that a raft of measures to try to turn around a slump in the property sector have yet to take hold.
New Defensive Pistolcraft Newsletter
I think I'd mentioned last year that my wife had given me a Glock 43X, which I promptly (well, as promptly as circumstances allowed) took out to shoot and immediately discovered I shot it like crap, with large groups off to the left. I adjusted the rear sight so that although my groups were large, they were reasonably centered. A few weeks ago, I was out with it again and, although at just a few yards or so from the target, was able to get tight groups including one with 4 out of 5 rounds through a single hole and the fifth one nearly touching the larger hole.
What happened in between is that I undertook time (and bought some tools) to understand why I was a decent enough shot with most of my handguns, but not this one. I initially reached out to Jon for some advice. Just going off my description, he suggested that I work on my surprise trigger break to make sure that I wasn't anticipating the recoil and jerking the gun down and to one side. So, I started conducting some dry fire. And to help me with my dry fire, I purchased an inexpensive laser dry fire/bore sighting cartridge.* I was just using small targets of opportunity in my house for practice (my wife's small collection of china dolls on a high shelf, a clock face, etc.) but Jon links to downloadable dry fire targets from Memphis Beach that might work better.
Using the laser training cartridge, I still noticed some movement even when I was absolutely sure that I had a surprise trigger break. I realized that what was happening was even though I thought I had a good grip on the pistol (and I think it is a matter of the ergonomics but might also be that I'm getting older) I actually wasn't gripping as tightly as I needed when I brought the pistol up to aim, with the result that when I pulled the trigger, the sympathetic reflexes caused my hand to tighten up slightly, thereby pulling the barrel down slightly. By making sure I had an almost crushing grip on the weapon, I was able to address that issue in my dry fire.
Unfortunately, due to a wet winter and spring and other obligations, I was not actually able to go out to the desert to do more live practice until last month. Due to the time gap, I did jerk the gun my first couple of shots due to anticipating the recoil. But keeping in mind Jon's advice and what I had discovered about needing an extra strong grip, I was able to get the tight groups that I wanted. And, frankly, in retrospect it makes sense because I had a similar issue with a 1911 until I switched out the flat recoil spring housing with one that was arched.
This has been a long intro to some shooting advice Jon has in this most recent newsletter. He writes:
You may think that God gave you your little finger to clean your nostrils and ear canals. But the truth is that God gave you your pinkies to control muzzle flip (a part of recoil). Not to prevent or eliminate muzzle flip, control it.
Your modern semi-auto combat (self-defense is combat) pistol is designed to pivot about the tang (where the web between your thumb and index finger is jammed up high and tight) on recoil. [If the pistol did not dissipate impulse (force X time) by rotating, the jerk (3rd derivative of displacement with respect to time) could cause medical problems in your wrists.] Recoil is just conservation of momentum. It is neither good nor bad. It's just reality. We accept reality and accommodate it. The tang (deepest indentation of the backstrap) is the fulcrum. The lever arm is the distance from the fulcrum to the force perpendicular to the lever arm. The longest lever arm you have is the force from your support-side-hand little finger against your grip. So your grip must be long enough to allow your support-side-hand little finger to press the grip.
You will not pull with the little fingers to prevent muzzle flip. That would be WRONG! You simply grip tight, aware that the little fingers are active (because they usually are not in untrained persons), and allow the pistol to recoil.
Pushing with the firing side hand and pulling with the support side hand (which is difficult with an isosceles arm position, that's why Chapman, advocated the Chapman version of the Weaver arm position) will minimize movement of the pistol upon recoil. Actively gripping with the little fingers will minimize muzzle flip.
Of course, this is assuming you always strive for and have achieved a surprise trigger break. It is the surprise break that will defeat all of your autonomic nervous system responses to the report and recoil by allowing the bullet to exit the muzzle before you jerk, flinch, push, freeze, etc.
Actually, you can train yourself not to blink when something approaches your eye. But, it's a stupid thing to do. That's why your optometrist surprises you to get your eyeball pressure.
Moving on, I'm well aware of the dangers of firing warning shots, but sometimes people need reminders. Thus, I liked that Jon included this bit:
Never fire warning shots. You will not be on a multi-million dollar range with soft dirt berms to catch your bullets. Any bullet fired down will hit the concrete floor, the asphalt pavement, or a rock and ricochet injuring someone (maybe killing him), maybe you. Any bullet fired up will come down with equal speed (gravity on Earth is a conservational field) on someone's head probably killing him.
Never shoot to wound. Shooting in combat is a low probability event. So you must always shoot to the center of mass of whatever your intended target is to get a significant probability of hitting your intended target. Shooting for an arm or leg just about guarantees you will hit an unintended target. There are no misses. There are only unintended hits, which destroy property and injure innocent persons (maybe killing them).
Taking a slightly different tack, focusing on the elements of self-defense, are you really facing an imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death if you are shooting into the ground, the air, or deliberately trying to hit a criminal's leg?
If you are considering appendix inside-the-waistband (AIWB) carry, Jon has some thoughts about it, including his attempts to use the technique. AIWB carry is not for everyone.
I've always used the modified Weaver stance, termed the Chapman stance, for as long as I can remember, which probably means that is how I was taught by my father. Jon writes about the Chapman stance:
I think that pushing with the firing-side hand and pulling with the support-side hand is fundamental to control recoil which includes minimizing muzzle flip. In the Chapman version of the Weaver arm position, the firing-side arm is locked out straight, as the stock of a long gun, and the support-side arm is bent at the elbow and the elbow is down, not sticking out to the side. This allows the bicep of the support-side arm to pull the pistol grip in towards you.
It's hard to get this push-pull tension with an isosceles arm position. And most instructors of the isosceles position don't teach the push-pull tension. But note that the support-side hand is in front of the grip, so can only pull. (Ya, the support side hand can squeeze the grip, but that's only the grip strength pressure. Maybe 100 pounds for a man, maybe 70 pounds for a woman. It's nothing compared to the force due to the larger muscle groups closer to the spine and of course the bones used in skeletal structural support of the pistol.)
After linking to an article from Massad Ayoob on different types of pistol stances, Jon lists a bunch more reasons why he likes the Chapman stance. Be sure to check it out.
Jon had caught my post about the Army offering a reward for information leading to the recovery of M17 pistols that went missing, and offers up a story that illustrates how little interest the Army appears to have in recovering any such missing weapons. Basically, Jon was at a gun show when he was approached by someone wanting to sell what appeared to be a NIB M-17 for a ridiculously low amount. The man claimed to have many more in the trunk of his car. Jon was naturally suspicious and reached out to Army CID to try and get information on the serial numbers so he could identify whether the pistol offered for sale was one of the stolen ones, but they were unwilling to share that information. Which, of course, begs the question of how they expect a dealer to identify one of the missing weapons should it cross their counter. It's an interesting story, so check out the full thing.
Anyway, a lot more tips, information, and links to article and videos, so be sure to read the whole thing.
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* I purchased the CVLIFE 9mm Laser Training Cartridge & Laser Bore Sight from Amazon (don't worry, I don't get anything from Amazon for referring people so if you find a better price elsewhere, go for it). Please note that they offer other calibers, but those are just the laser training cartridge and do not include the constant on endcap for bore sighting.
Voyager 1 Returning Data From All Working Scientific Equipment
You may remember that several months back, NASA had lost almost all communications with Voyager 1--it was just returning gibberish due to a computer issue. Robert Zimmerman, author of the Beyond the Black blog, reports that the first step in restoring communications was in April when engineers were able to get the spacecraft to start returning engineering data.
On May 19, the mission team executed the second step of that repair process and beamed a command to the spacecraft to begin returning science data. Two of the four science instruments returned to their normal operating modes immediately. Two other instruments required some additional work, but now, all four are returning usable science data.
The Voyager spacecraft have had a remarkable run, being in operation for 47 years. But sadly, as Zimmerman notes, "[t]he nuclear power source for both no longer provides enough power to run all their instruments, and will run down completely sometime in 2026, as expected, when operations will finally cease."
This Is Not The Way: Biden To Shield More Illegal Aliens From Deportation
From the Daily Mail: "Biden to give hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who are married to US citizens protection from deportation, work permits and path to citizenship in the biggest immigration shakeup in decades." From the lede:
President Joe Biden is planning to announce a sweeping new policy Tuesday that would lift the threat of deportation for hundreds of thousands of people married to U.S. citizens, an aggressive election-year action on immigration that had been sought by many Democrats.
Biden will announce the new program at a White House event to celebrate the Obama-era 'dreamers' directive that offered deportation protections for young undocumented immigrants, according to three people briefed on the White House plans.
The policy will allow roughly 490,000 spouses of U.S. citizens an opportunity to apply for a 'parole in place' program, which would shield them from deportations and offer them work permits if they have lived in the country for at least 10 years, according to two of the people briefed.
The announcement is supposed to be made this afternoon.
This Is The Way: Throw 'Em Back
The BBC reports: "Greek coastguard threw migrants overboard to their deaths, witnesses say". The article relates:
The Greek coastguard has caused the deaths of dozens of migrants in the Mediterranean over a three-year period, witnesses say, including nine who were deliberately thrown into the water.
The nine are among more than 40 people alleged to have died as a result of being forced out of Greek territorial waters, or taken back out to sea after reaching Greek islands, BBC analysis has found.
The Greek coastguard told our investigation it strongly rejects all accusations of illegal activities.
So who were these people being "thrown overboard"? The article recounts: "We showed footage of 12 people being loaded into a Greek coastguard boat, and then abandoned on a dinghy, to a former senior Greek coastguard officer." That's not being thrown overboard.
Anything else? "In five of the incidents, migrants said they were thrown directly into the sea by the Greek authorities. In four of those cases they explained how they had landed on Greek islands but were hunted down. In several other incidents, migrants said they had been put onto inflatable rafts without motors which then deflated, or appeared to have been punctured." Well, they weren't thrown to their deaths because they are still alive. As for the rafts, they were probably the rafts used by the migrants themselves which are well known to be of crappy Chinese manufacture and prone to sinking. Again, not being thrown overboard to their deaths.
What else?
One of the most chilling accounts was given by a Cameroonian man, who says he was hunted by Greek authorities after landing on the island of Samos in September 2021.
Like all the people we interviewed, he said he was planning to register on Greek soil as an asylum seeker.
"We had barely docked, and the police came from behind," he told us. "There were two policemen dressed in black, and three others in civilian clothes. They were masked, you could only see their eyes."
If they were masked and dressed in black, how does he know they were policemen?
He and two others - another from Cameroon and a man from Ivory Coast - were transferred to a Greek coastguard boat, he said, where events took a terrifying turn.
How does he know it was a Coastguard boat?
“They started with the [other] Cameroonian. They threw him in the water. The Ivorian man said: ‘Save me, I don’t want to die'… and then eventually only his hand was above water, and his body was below.
"Slowly his hand slipped under, and the water engulfed him."
Just like something out of a movie instead of what an actual drowning victim acts like. (See, e.g., this article from the Journal of Search & Rescue; this article from State Farm Insurance; and this article from the Red Cross).
Our interviewee says his abductors beat him.
"Punches were raining down [a common saying in Cameroon (sarc.)] on my head. It was like they were punching an animal." [Oops--let his native culture show through] And then he says they pushed him, too, into the water - without a life jacket. He was able to swim to shore, but the bodies of the other two - Sidy Keita and Didier Martial Kouamou Nana - were recovered on the Turkish coastline.
Given his culture's propensity for lying, why should we believe him? He had, after all, broken laws and lied in order to get to Greece in the first place and has a strong incentive to lie in order to get additional sympathy to support an asylum application.
And another incident:
Another man, from Somalia, told the BBC how in March 2021 he had been caught by the Greek army on arrival on the island of Chios, who then handed him to the Greek coastguard.
He said the coastguard had tied his hands behind his back, before dropping him into the water.
"They threw me zip-tied in the middle of the sea. They wanted me to die," he said.
He said he managed to survive by floating on his back, before one of his hands broke free from the ligature. But the sea was choppy, and three in his group died. Our interviewee made it to land where he was eventually spotted by the Turkish coastguard.
Again, why should he be believed?
And another incident:
Of the incidents we analysed, the one with the highest loss of life was in September 2022. A boat carrying 85 migrants ran into trouble near the Greek island of Rhodes when its motor cut out.
Mohamed, from Syria, told us they rang the Greek coastguard for help - who loaded them onto a boat, returned them to Turkish waters and put them in life rafts. Mohamed says the raft he and his family were given had not had its valve properly closed.
"We immediately began to sink, they saw that… They heard us all screaming, and yet they still left us," he told the BBC.
"The first child who died was my cousin's son… After that it was one by one. Another child, another child, then my cousin himself disappeared. By the morning seven or eight children had died.
"My kids didn't die until the morning… right before the Turkish coastguard arrived."
Once more, there is no corroborating evidence offered in the article that this incident occurred, let alone that it happened in the way described. Instead, we are supposed to take the word of an admitted criminal, a member of a religion that authorizes lying if it benefits the liar, and who, if his story is to be believed, let his children drown while he survived.
What's ignored in the article is that this is a type of war. Turkey, the sworn enemy of Greece, is allowing illegals from countries throughout the Middle-East and Africa to traverse its country and encouraging them to swim or boat out to Greek islands near the Turkish shoreline for the purpose of undermining and weakening its enemy. It is, literally, an invasion by a hostile power. In war, soldiers are killed and weapons destroyed. Why should it be different in this case? And why is the BBC glossing over Turkey's criminal conduct--including violating international treaties and agreements to keep asylum seekers in its borders?
Monday, June 17, 2024
Give A Man A Hammer .... UK Police Edition
From the New York Post: "Cop suspended after horrifying video shows him repeatedly ram calf with patrol car." When I first saw the headline, I thought the idiot was trying to get the calf to move off a road. But the story indicates that the cops were trying to capture the calf and put it in a trailer. My guess is the officer was simply following his training which required that a suspect be taken to the ground and then handcuffed or zip-tied. Walking up to it and putting a rope around its neck to lead it to the trailer would have required actual thinking.
Gun Control In Action: Prison Inmate Shoots And Kills Worker And Himself
The New York Post reports: "Violent inmate manages to get gun, fatally shoots young mom working in prison kitchen before killing himself." Prison officials and law enforcement are being mum on how the prisoner was able to get hold of a gun in a high security prison. But if gun control doesn't work there, why would anyone expect it to work in the real world?
An Example Of Why I've Grown To Dislike Father's Day
I don't know how other churches deal with Father's Day, but I've noticed over my lifetime how Father's Day in my church has devolved from the sacrament meeting talks being in praise of fathers or fatherhood, generally, to being a second Mother's Day. That is, the talks are generally about how the only reason that the speaker (generally the male speakers) have amounted to anything is because of a wife or mother; or the speaker outright just talks about the importance of mothers ignoring the fact that it is Father's Day; or it's a talk reprimanding the men for not doing a better job of being fathers and husbands.
And this Father's Day short video put out by the Church perfectly illustrates my point, only showing the wife and never the father, and focused on his wife giving birth to his child and his increased love for his wife as a result. Can you imagine if the Church had released a comparable video on Mother's Day with a woman talking about how getting knocked up by her husband and giving birth made her love her husband even more? And only showing pictures of the husband holding the baby?
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (52 seconds)
Compare it with this short released for Mother's Day this year, that puts women at the center of the family and emphasizes all the things that mothers do, without ever mentioning a husband/father or the mother's role as a wife.
VIDEO: "Every Woman A Mom By Divine Destiny"
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (56 seconds)
Or this one, also released around Mother's Day this year, which focuses on a woman's work as a mother to a handicapped son and as an advocate for handicapped children.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (55 sec.)