Shooting and self-defense roundup

A few articles caught my eye over the past few days relating to firearms and self-defense issues.  I thought I'd throw the links up here for those of my readers who may be interested.

1. Shooting Drill - 'The Humbler'.  Greg Ellifritz gives us a course of fire that may look slow and easy in parts, but can be brutally humbling (hence the name).
2. “Don’t talk to the police” — good advice?  Kathy Jackson highlights the pitfalls with this popularly recommended tactic after a defensive shooting, and offers some alternative thoughts.
3. H&K and Backwards Bullets: The Real Story.  How H&K got egg on their faces at the 2004 Shot Show.  I wonder if the guy responsible ever got fired?
4. An Army Of Knife Experts Share Tips On Choosing The Best Survival Knife.  It's certainly a lot of food for thought.  I'm an African boy, and as such I was brought up with a strong bias towards K.I.S.S., so I'll second Tim MacWelch's advice.  Click over there to read it for yourself.
5. FBI 9MM Justification.  From September last year, an explanation of why the FBI has retreated from the .40 S&W round and is adopting the 9mm. Parabellum as its issue cartridge.

Interesting reading.

Peter

Big badaboom

(Those of you who remember the movie 'The Fifth Element' will recognize the post title.)

Students of military history will be familiar with the old-fashioned spigot mortar, used in such classic weapons as the Hedgehog anti-submarine projector of World War II.  Interestingly, that design lends itself to rough-and-ready home-brewed artillery such as that constructed in many amateur workshops around the world during irregular conflicts.  It can be built to much less precise standards than conventional mortars or artillery, yet still be accurate and powerful enough to deliver a devastating punch.  (There have also been interesting variations on the theme;  see, for example, the Davidka or 'Little David' produced in Israel's War of Independence, a hybrid conventional/spigot mortar design.  It was spectacularly inaccurate but ear-shatteringly loud, and had a definite psychological impact on those within range.)

Syrian resistance fighters deploy a home-made spigot mortar in the video clip below, complete with home-brewed propellant - white powder in plastic bags!.  They use it to take out a Syrian government missile emplacement on the roof of a building.  It's rather impressive. I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.

I'm not sure I'd want to stand too close to that spigot mortar when they fire it . . . but I know I don't want to be in the blast radius of its projectile when it lands!

Peter

"How student debt reduces lifetime wealth"

That's the subtitle of a very interesting article at Demos.  Here's an excerpt.

Student debt has skyrocketed over the past decade, quadrupling from just $240 billion in 2003 to more than $1 trillion today. If current borrowing patterns continue, student debt levels will reach $2 trillion in 2025. Average debt levels have risen rapidly as well: two-thirds (66 percent) of college seniors now graduate with an average of $26,600 in student loans, up from 41 percent in 1989. The rise of this “debt-for-diploma” system over the past decade was largely caused by the sharp decline in state funding for higher education, which has fallen by 25 percent since its peak in 2000.

However, despite the fact that student debt is now nearly a prerequisite for a college degree, we have not yet fully explored the impact of tying opportunity to debt. Though a college education remains the surest path to a middle-class life, evidence has begun to mount that student debt may be far more detrimental to financial futures than once thought, particularly for those with the highest levels of debt: students of color and students from low-income families.

This brief attempts to quantify just how much these soaring debt levels impact college-educated households’ financial stability over a lifetime. It creates a model using data from the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances and other datasets to estimate household debt and assets, comparing the projected debts and assets of a college-educated household with average levels of education debt to a similar household without debt. It finds that, over a lifetime of employment and saving, $53,000 in education debt leads to a wealth loss of nearly $208,000.

We can generalize this result to predict that the $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt will lead to total lifetime wealth loss of $4 trillion for indebted households, not even accounting for the heavy impact of defaults.

There's more at the link, going into a lot more detail about those numbers.  If you are studying for a degree, planning to study for one, or have children or other relatives who are or are planning to do so, you really need to read the whole thing.  Demos appears to be a left-of-center/progressive organization, but don't let that stop you reading more;  their political orientation doesn't affect the reality they discuss in this article.

I have four university qualifications, all obtained through part-time study while working and earning my living.  I was never in debt at all, paying for each year's study out of the earnings of the previous year;  and because distance education is so much cheaper than full-time tuition, I saved a bundle.  If I had kids today who wanted a basic degree in almost any discipline, that's the recipe I'd recommend to them.  Sure, there are certain fields where full-time study is mandatory (e.g. medicine, engineering, etc.), but even there the preliminary qualifications can be obtained part-time.  It makes so much financial sense that I'm mind-boggled more people aren't doing that.  Yes, it takes greater self-discipline, but it also teaches self-discipline - something that'll stand kids in good stead later in life.  What's not to like?

Peter

Not your average "all hat and no cattle"

This made me laugh out loud.  Someone mixed a cattle auctioneer's patter with a rap beat.

I have to admit, I loathe rap with a passion, but this is funny.  You'll find more of it here.

(BTW, if you don't know the expression "All hat and no cattle", see here.)




Peter

This man tells it like it is about the economy

Steve Ricchiuto is Managing Director of Mizuho Securities USA, the local arm of the Mizuho Financial Group in Japan.  With assets of over $2 trillion (!), Mizuho is not exactly a small player on the international financial markets;  and it's not the sort of corporation to install a dummy as the head of its US operation.  This man knows what he's talking about.

Here he is on the air with Simon Hobbs and Sara Eisen of CNBC.  The meat of his remarks begins at 1m. 27s. into the clip, but watch the whole thing anyway.

In case you missed it:

"There is no acceleration in underlying economic activity. There’s this wrong concept that I keep on hearing about in the financial press about the acceleration in economic growth. It isn’t happening. We had a horrible retail sales number, we had a horrible durable goods number, we’re likely to have a very disappointing retail sales number coming forward, this month we have a strong payroll number we say everything’s great – it’s not great. It’s been the same thing for the last five years, there’s no improvement in the economy. After a string of dismal data on durable goods, retail spending, and inventories, we get a good jobs number and everyone saying the economy’s good. It’s not good."

Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.  Those who want warm fuzzy pious platitudes instead . . . let them listen to the Administration, the Fed and the mainstream media.  That's all we ever hear from them.

The other day, fellow blogger The Silicon Graybeard pointed out:

The earliest prices I can recall for a gallon of gas were around 20 cents a gallon: "19 and 9" because Florida prices always ended in that 9/10 of a cent.  Today's silver price of $17.05 says one of today's greenbacks is worth about 8.11 cents of 1964 silver.  In other words, one of today's dollars isn't worth a 1964 dime.  Today's gas price of about $2.15/gallon would cost 17 1/2 cents back in 1964.  Maybe the prices I remember weren't from 1964; but gas is basically the same price it was in 1964, measured against a standard.  Higher gas prices aren't from "peak oil", they're from worthless dollars.

There's more at the link.

That puts Mr. Ricchiuto's remarks into a different, but no less scary context.  All the so-called 'growth' we're seeing in the economy isn't really growth at all:  it's the effects of inflation, multiplied by the exponential growth in debt (about which we've also spoken recently).

Scary times.

Peter

"Bringing Criminals into the Stores Where You Shop"

Greg Ellifritz, who's a police officer, firearms instructor and blogger, has some interesting news on a new crime threat in some upmarket neighborhoods.  Here's an excerpt.

Recently I’ve noticed a trend among the shoplifters I’ve arrested. They all have a huge number of department store gift cards in their wallets and purses. Most of the shoplifters I arrest have between five and twenty gift cards in their possession at the time of arrest.

I assumed that these cards had been stolen. When I started asking my prisoners about how they got all the cards, a few were remarkably candid. They don’t steal them. They use the cards to get fast cash to buy drugs. Here’s how they work their scam.

The shoplifters will steal clothing or other merchandise from department stores. They often pick baby clothes because they are relatively expensive and smaller in size (thus easier to hide).

The shoplifters don’t keep the clothes or sell them in second-hand stores. Instead, they take them to a different store and return them. Since they don’t have receipts, the store gives them credit (in the form of a store gift card) instead of cash.

You may not have noticed, but a lot of grocery stores now have a machine near the front entrance where you can exchange store gift cards for cash. The machines take a percentage off the top as profit (3%-15% depending on the machine) and then give the person the remainder of the balance in cash.

Criminals take the gift cards they get from their stolen goods and turn them into cash (usually for heroin) at one of these machines. They use different stores and multiple (usually stolen) ID cards to redeem the cards so they don’t arouse suspicion.

One of the larger grocery stores in my city has recently added one of these gift card-for-cash machines. It has attracted quite a few criminals and thieves. I spoke with a manager at the store and he has noticed a change in the store’s clientele since the addition of the gift card machine. When I asked the manager about the machine, his comment was “I hate that machine. It draws people into our store who really don’t belong here.” The criminal element attracted by the machine then steals things from the grocery store as well.

Why is this important to you? I assume that most of my readers aren’t looking for easier ways to steal things or get money for drugs.

It affects you because you have to buy groceries. If your grocery store has a gift card-for-cash machine, it WILL attract a criminal element that wouldn’t otherwise frequent the store. If the criminals are there while you shop, you are more likely to be victimized. These criminals are the same people who will also steal from a person like you if given the opportunity.

There's more at the link.  Worthwhile reading, as are most of his articles at Active Response Training's Web site.  Recommended.

This just goes to show:  you can never take your security for granted.  You may be perfectly well aware of, and prepared for, the routine threats in your area . . . then a store will install one of these cash-for-gift-card machines and the risks change almost immediately.  Situational awareness is of paramount importance - as much as, if not more so than, the means to defend yourself if necessary.

Peter

Quote of the day

From Rev. Paul, in a post titled 'Differences Between North and South':

If you do settle in the South and bear children, don't think they'll necessarily be accepted as Southerners ... at least not right away. After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, you wouldn't call 'em biscuits.

Peter

So much for the Rule of Law

I take the concept of the Rule of Law pretty seriously.  After all, I swore the Federal law enforcement oath of office:

I [name] do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

The Constitution is the foundation for all US laws and regulations, which must be made 'in pursuance thereof'.  If they're not in accordance with the Constitution, they're not valid.  Period.

I've known for years that the supremacy of the Constitution has been under threat by ever-encroaching 'nanny state' and 'Big Brother' legislation.  However, the Atlantic has just reminded us how badly it's been eroded.  Its article is titled "America Fails the 'Rule of Law' Test".

The U.S. Army field manual defines "the rule of law" as follows: "The rule of law refers to a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards. It requires, as well, measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, separation of powers, participation in decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance of arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency."

Going by that definition, the U.S. government does not operate according to the rule of law. A panel of former executive-branch employees, many of whom served in the U.S. military or the CIA, made this point bluntly in a recent report on drones. "Despite the undoubted good faith of US decision-makers, it would be difficult to conclude that US targeted strikes are consistent with core rule of law norms," they declared. "From the perspective of many around the world, the U.S. appears to claim, in effect, the legal right to kill any person it determines is a member of al-Qaida or its associated forces, in any state on Earth, at any time, based on secret criteria and secret evidence, evaluated in a secret process by unknown and largely anonymous individuals—with no public disclosure of which organizations are considered 'associated forces,' no means for anyone outside that secret process to raise questions about the criteria or validity of the evidence, and no means for anyone outside that process to identify or remedy mistakes or abuses."

Just so.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government violates "rule of law" norms in other areas too.

There's more at the link.

Makes you think, doesn't it?  The question is, what are we going to do about restoring the rule of law and doing away with institutions and individuals who stand in its way?

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #813

It takes a special kind of Doofidity to be fired from your job before you even start work.

Texas teen fired from pizza shop for complaining about 'f--k a--' new job on Twitter before her first day

Robert Waple, the boss of Jet’s Pizza in Mansfield, saw the tweets from his new hire, @Cellla, and quickly fired her before she even started. ‘Good luck with your no money, no job life!’ he tweeted. The teen didn’t seem to take the news too hard: She announced her lay-off with a series of laughing emojis. Waple explained the gig required employees to take orders and eat free pizza: ‘How hard would that have been?’

There's more at the link.

When I was young and indigent, I looked for work knowing I was likely to get only the poorly-paid, demanding positions, because that's all I was qualified to do.  I made darn sure to get better qualifications as quickly as possible, so I could move up and onward, but I never disrespected my employer in public like that.  I needed to eat and pay the rent!  My first jobs were too poorly paid to afford a car, but I coped with public transport and my own two feet, and in due course a small motorbike.  It wasn't fun, but I made it to where I could afford a car;  then things got better.

If you don't want to do a particular job, why apply for it in the first place?  What is it with young folks today?  (Yeah, yeah, I know - I sound like an old fart.  Heck, I suppose I am an old-fart-in-training by now!)

Peter

Political candidates and the ethics of choice

I note with displeasure that the mainstream media are already talking as if the 2016 Presidential elections are going to be a choice between Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, and Jeb Bush for the Republicans.

Given a choice between those two, I'll agree with Jerry Garcia:

Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils

IS STILL CHOOSING EVIL.

Word.




Peter

Dumpster diving for fun and (BIG!) profit

I was amazed to learn that dumpster diving can be far more profitable than merely fishing out usable and edible food.  Wired reports:

Malone stops his Chevy Avalanche next to the dumpster in back of an Office Depot. Within seconds, he’s out of the truck and sticking his magnetized flashlight to the inside of the dumpster’s wall. He heaves himself up onto the metal rim to lean inside and begins digging through a top layer of cardboard and packing materials. Half a minute later I hear what I will learn is Malone’s version of eureka: “Hell yes! Hell yes!” He comes out with a box containing a complete Uniden Wireless Video Surveillance System—two cameras and a wireless monitor—which normally retails for $419. A quick inspection reveals that it’s all in perfect condition, although someone has clearly opened and repacked it. “A return,” he says, then plunges back into the dumpster.

Ten minutes later, when he’s again behind the wheel of the Avalanche, Malone continues to tell me about the material benefits of dumpster diving. If he were to dedicate himself to the activity as a full-time job, he says, finding various discarded treasures, refurbishing and selling them off, he’s confident he could pull in at least $250,000 a year—there is that much stuff simply tossed into dumpsters in the Austin area. He lists a few recent “recoveries”: vacuums, power tools, furniture, carpeting, industrial machines, assorted electronics. Much of it needs a little love, he says, but a lot of it, like this Uniden system, is in perfect condition.

. . .

At first, Malone mainly used his discoveries for various hobby projects. Along with his mini choppers, he built an electric skateboard, a set of plasma speakers, several 3-D projectors, and a computer that ran while submerged in mineral oil. “People would come over and ask, ‘Man, where’d you get that?’” he recalls. “I’d say, ‘Well, I made it.’ I didn’t say right away that I made it mostly from stuff I got out of dumpsters.” Inevitably his friends would ask to buy his various toys, and—usually already bored with them and having moved on to a new project—he would agree to sell. Even so, his garage soon overflowed, and Malone decided he should make some space by staging a weekend yard sale.

That sale provided several revelations. The biggest was what sold with the drive-by public. “I had all my cool stuff out front, a couple of very nice computers, mini choppers, some high-end printers—the big-ticket stuff—thinking, ‘This is what’s going to make me the money.’” It wasn’t. Instead, people flocked to “the small stuff”: the photo paper and toner he’d pulled out of the dumpsters at OfficeMax and Office Depot, the hand tools he’d found in the trash at Harbor Freight, the CDs from GameStop dumpsters, the assorted seasonal tchotchkes that had been tossed by the employees at Pier 1 and Cost Plus. “I eventually figured out that I had to sell the big stuff on Amazon or Craigslist,” Malone says. But all those small sales added up: By Sunday afternoon he had collected a little more than $3,000 in cash. “And that was when I realized, ‘This has the potential to be something.’”

There's much more at the link.

That's a pretty amazing story.  Y'know, if it weren't for my fused spine and damaged sciatic nerve, I'd be sorely tempted to try it for myself . . . I've already got a pickup truck, after all!

Peter

Supercavitating penguins?

Having studied supercavitation in the past, with specific reference to torpedoes such as the Soviet VA-111 Shkval, I was intrigued to find this video clip about Emperor penguins in Antarctica who appear to use something similar to boost their underwater speed.

I find that amazing.  So much for this particular modern technological advance . . . Mother Nature's been doing it for millennia!  I wonder if that's where the Soviet scientists got the idea?

Peter

It's done at last!

Earlier this evening I typed the last words of the fifth draft of the fourth book in the Maxwell Saga, 'Stand Against the Storm'.

It's taken me over a year to put this one together.  There were times I got so frustrated with it I wanted to just walk away from it, jump a few years ahead in Steve's life, and do something else;  but that would have been cheating.  I went on changing the storyline, reworking the plot, and trying again.  I think at last I've got something that's both feasible and enjoyable.

Now comes the tricky part:  editing a year's worth of work to make sure that everything hangs together, nothing's left dangling, and the purple socks Steve wears on page 137 don't morph into black fishnet stockings on page 142.  (Just kidding!)  I'll do a major editing pass over the next four to five days, then ask two long-established beta readers who haven't yet seen it to give it a quick read over next weekend and see what they think.  While they do that I'll do more editing passes.  All being well, the novel will be published in e-book format within 10-12 days, unless I need a few more days to fix any unexpected problems.  (Here's hoping not!)  A print edition will follow within another 1-2 weeks.

Yours truly is going to sleep well tonight. I'm a tired puppy!

Peter

A nifty idea for separating egg yolks

Go see it over at The Lonely Libertarian.  It's ingenious!  That just got added to my kitchen repertoire.

Peter

"The biggest science scandal ever"?

Last month I published an article titled 'Climate change fraud in a nutshell', which looked at how temperature records had been deliberately falsified by climate change alarmists.  Now the Telegraph follows that article with another, claiming that 'The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever'.  Here's an excerpt.

When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.

. . .

One of the first examples of these “adjustments” was exposed in 2007 by the statistician Steve McIntyre, when he discovered a paper published in 1987 by James Hansen, the scientist (later turned fanatical climate activist) who for many years ran Giss. Hansen’s original graph showed temperatures in the Arctic as having been much higher around 1940 than at any time since. But as Homewood reveals in his blog post, “Temperature adjustments transform Arctic history”, Giss has turned this upside down. Arctic temperatures from that time have been lowered so much that that they are now dwarfed by those of the past 20 years.

. . .

Of much more serious significance, however, is the way this wholesale manipulation of the official temperature record – for reasons GHCN and Giss have never plausibly explained – has become the real elephant in the room of the greatest and most costly scare the world has known. This really does begin to look like one of the greatest scientific scandals of all time.

There's more at the link.

So much for 'the science is settled'!

Peter

Bullets, balloons and resistance

Here's a fun excerpt from a TV program showing how water, so much more dense than air, can slow down a bullet.

I used to think that the stories of divers attacking harbors, and swimming safely underneath a hail of bullets fired by sentries on shore, were just that - stories.  However, way back when, I saw some South African divers training at Walvis Bay prior to an operation in Angola. Part of the training was to show them that sufficient depth of water (about 3 meters, or 10 feet) would, indeed, protect them from AK-47 fire.  Sure enough, as they swam along next to the quay, their instructor fired an AK-47 at them, and the bullets were slowed to a crawl before they could reach the swimmers.  It was very educational.

(Note to readers:  DON'T try that at home - or anywhere else!)

Peter

I'm not sure how many men still wear ties . . .

. . . but for those who do, here's 30 ways to knot them.  For example:

THE FISHBONE KNOT

This awesome work of tie artistry is shaped in the form of a fishbone, hence the name. It's a remarkable formal knot that is increasingly gaining respect. While somewhat challenging to tie, it's definitely worth the effort, because it never fails to make the ultimate impression.

(Click the image for a larger view)

There are 29 more ways to knot your tie at the link.

I could have used that information during my secular career.  Back in the 1980's and 1990's, ties were de rigeur for business attire in South Africa.  Nowadays I hardly ever wear them.

Peter

Music, generations and families

Chris Byrne tells a tale of music, generations, and families.  If it doesn't bring a lump to your throat, I submit you may need help.

Go read, and enjoy . . . then go do something like that with your children, if you're blessed enough to have them.

It might be worth listening to this, too.

Peter

Shipping tells the real story

I mentioned the Baltic Dry Index a year ago in this article.  For those who aren't familiar with it, Wikipedia describes it as follows:

Most directly, the index measures the demand for shipping capacity versus the supply of dry bulk carriers. The demand for shipping varies with the amount of cargo that is being traded or moved in various markets (supply and demand).

The supply of cargo ships is generally both tight and inelastic—it takes two years to build a new ship, and a ship's fixed costs are too expensive to take it out of circulation the way airlines park unneeded jets in deserts. So, marginal increases in demand can push the index higher quickly, and marginal demand decreases can cause the index to fall rapidly. e.g. "if you have 100 ships competing for 99 cargoes, rates go down, whereas if you've 99 ships competing for 100 cargoes, rates go up. In other words, small fleet changes and logistical matters can crash rates..." The index indirectly measures global supply and demand for the commodities shipped aboard dry bulk carriers, such as building materials, coal, metallic ores, and grains.

Because dry bulk primarily consists of materials that function as raw material inputs to the production of intermediate or finished goods, such as concrete, electricity, steel, and food; the index is also seen as an efficient economic indicator of future economic growth and production. The BDI is termed a leading economic indicator because it predicts future economic activity.

There's more at the link.

The Baltic Dry Index is thus a very accurate predictor of world economic trends.  It measures the volume of all goods dispatched by sea all over the world.  If there's heavy demand for shipping, this indicates high economic activity and good times.  If there isn't, it shows declining economic activity and warns of bad times ahead.

With that in mind, take a look at this graph.

Right now, the Baltic Dry Index is lower than its lowest point during the financial crisis of 2007-2008.  That should worry us.  In fact, in economic terms, it should scare the hell out of us.  As Zero Hedge puts it:

... since Thanksgiving, The Baltic Dry has fallen on 43 or the 47 days, down over 60% from ... late October ... At 569, The Baltic Dry is inching ever closer to what will be the lowest level ever (554 on 7/31/1986) for the global shipping cost indicator ...

One or two more days like this and it will be the all-time low ...

Again, more at the link.

What this means is that companies and nations are simply not ordering or shipping anything like the quantities of goods needed to sustain economic activity at its present level, let alone provide growth.  The Christmas shopping season was difficult for retailers, as consumer demand simply didn't materialize.  This is our warning sign that things are going to get a lot worse over the next few months.

Next, consider that 'Consumer spending comprise[d] 71% of the US economy in 2013'.  If that falls off even further, where does it leave our economy?

You figure it out.  Just don't take too long about it, because otherwise events will overtake you.

Peter

Not your average road rage incident

Courtesy of an e-mail from reader Michael C., here's one of the weirdest traffic altercations I've ever seen.

Okay . . . WTF???




Peter