Saturday, January 11, 2014

Enjoy the good times as long as they last.

 

It is 2014 now. Another year further away from my survival experience during war, another year closer to the next SHTF situation that can happen anytime. Last year was wild year for me. I enjoyed all discussion and feedback I got for my survival course and here on the blog. At the same time I went through very dark times again. Depression and some anxiety caught up with me.

More @ SHTF School

China’s newest sniper rifle: QBU-10 12.7mm



The Chinese military's latest anti-materiel rifle, the QBU-10, can loft a .50 caliber (12.7mm) round as far as 1 kilometer and still hit its intended target. It weighs nearly 30 pounds. And even though it isn't designed to be as accurate as some sniper rifles, it still punches finger-sized holes in metal plates from up to a kilometer away.

The Third Reunion of Mosby's Rangers

 

This is the Third Reunion of Mosby's Rangers, held in Richmond, Virginia on July 1, 1896. The Rangers are on the steps of the Virginia Capitol. 



 I Spied Black Horse Cavalry, So I Run Like A Deer...........


The Constitution: Why did it preserve slavery and treat black people as 3/5th a person?

Via Cousin John

 http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-the-power-of-impeachment-is-given-by-this-constitution-to-bring-great-offenders-to-punishment-it-james-iredell-239763.jpg
 
While defending the Constitution I am met often with two questions:  1) If the founders were so great and the Constitution such a great document, why did it preserve slavery?  2) Why did the Constitution treat black people as 3/5th a person?  The answers to these questions are rather simple when fact and truth are employed.  To understand the truth, we start with some basics…

In June of 1776 the Lee Resolution was ratified and was the legislative action that authorized the Declaration of Independence.  This Resolution was a three step process to declaring independence from Great Britain and establishing a union of States:

    “Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances. That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.”

The Colonies knew that once they became thirteen independent and sovereign States and formed alliances with foreign nations to break free from the hold of Great Britain, the most important thing they could do would be to form a union of States.  If they failed to form a union, everything that they sacrificed for independence would have been in vain.  They had just bankrupted themselves, invited foreign nations onto their soil.  Failure to unite could result in their servitude once more.  A union would mutually protect their sovereignty from external attack.

As Thomas Jefferson correctly stated, the Constitution would have to be ratified by the “whole American people.”  The framers needed all the States to consent.  Immediately after the revolution, the victors could have very well attempted to force the other States to unite.  However, they never intended to form the union by force, as they never intended to keep it together by force.  James Madison said, in a letter to Robert Walsh (27 Nov. 1819) that “the Constitution was ‘the result of mutual deference & Concession’.”   They knew the only way to form a lasting union, a union based upon Liberty, was to do so by consent.

The Issue for Which We Fought

 http://www.civilwarnews.com/reviews/2010br/july/7months.jpghttp://covers.booktopia.com.au/big/9780826213488/a-prussian-observes-the-american-civil-war.jpg

Five years after meeting President Davis in Richmond as a Prussian military observer, Captain Justus Scheibert revealed in his just-published account of seven months in the Confederacy: "The fact that an uncritical, partisan madness now besmirches his character . . . cannot rob him of the place in history, which will be given him when calm reason stands in judgment over blind confusion."
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

The Issue for Which We Fought

“That we should dare to resort to arms for the preservation of our rights, and “to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” was regarded by our enemies as most improbable. 

Their aspirations of dominion, and sovereignty, through the Government of the Union, had become so deep-seated and real as to cause that Government, at its first step, to assume the haughtiness and imperiousness of an absolute sovereign. 

“I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and aid this effort,” said President Lincoln, in the first proclamation, calling for seventy-five thousand men. The term “loyal” has no signification except as applied to the sovereign of an empire or kingdom.  In a republic the people are the sovereign, and the term “loyal” or its opposite can have no signification except in relation to the true sovereign. 

To say, therefore, that the agent of a sovereign people, the representative of the system they have organized to conduct their common affairs, composed the real sovereign, and that loyalty or disloyalty is of signification to this sovereign alone, is not only a perversion of language, but an error, that leads straight to the perversion of all popular government and the establishment of the monarchical or consolidated form.

The Government of the United States is now the sovereign here, says President Lincoln in this proclamation, and loyalty consists in the maintenance of that sovereignty against all its foes.  The sovereignty of the people and of the several and distinct States, in his mind, was only a weakness and enthusiasm of the fathers. 

The States and people thereof had become consolidated into a national Union.  “I appeal,” says President Lincoln, “to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and aid this effort to maintain the honor, integrity, and the existence of our national Union.”

This was the usurpation.  This lay at the foundation of the war. Every subsequent act of the Government was another step in the same direction, all tending palpably to supremacy for the Government of the United States, the subjugation of the States, and the submission of the people.  

This was the adversary with whom we had to struggle, and this was the issue for which we fought.  

That we dared to draw our swords to vindicate the rights and the sovereignty of the people . . . was adjudged an infamous crime, and we were denounced as “rebels.”

(Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. II, Jefferson Davis, D. Appleton & Company, 1881, pp. 563-564) 

Tenant Charged After Landlord, Father Found Nearly Beheaded in Brooklyn Building

 CES 2014: The Coolest New Gadgets
 
A 27-year-old man has been charged with murder after the landlord of his Brooklyn building was found nearly decapitated in the basement Tuesday, police say.
 
Rasel Siddiquee was arrested early Wednesday in connection with the death of Mahuddin Mahmud, a 57-year-old businessman and father of three who was found with his head nearly cut off and his face burned in the basement of a building he owned, according to the NYPD. 
 
More @ NBC

Feds Fund Validation of Penis-Measuring Tool For Custom-Fit Condoms

 TheyFit Chart

Via Cousin Bill who said "You can't make this stuff up...."......Indeed and this is one which should definitely be a parody

 The federal government is spending $224,863 to test custom-fitted condoms and validate a self-reporting penis measurement system for commercial use.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded the grant with funding through July of 2014 to TheyFit, LLC of Covington, Georgia for the project: “Behavioral and Manufacturing Science to Commercially Develop Fitted Condoms.”

“We also seek to improve upon traditional self-report mechanisms of penis measurement by validating the TheyFit measuring tool,” says the grant description on the NIH website. “This would address an important research question regarding validated measures and supply information on whether users have sufficient proficiency to accurately determine their custom condom size.”


More @ CNS News

Gun Auction Site GunBroker.com Marks Industry Milestone with $3 Billion in Sales

 

GunBroker.com, the world's largest gun auction website, announced Friday it reached a historic occasion since its launch in 1999. The online firearms and shooting gear auction site reached $3 billion in online sales. 

According to a press release, "GunBroker.com is an informative, secure, and safe way to buy and sell firearms, ammunition, and hunting and shooting gear online. GunBroker.com promotes responsible ownership of guns and firearms."

More @ Breitbart

County restores cross to seal, ACLU goes Dracula

 
 

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which represents a population greater than a number of states, has voted 3-2 to restore the cross to the San Gabriel Mission church on the L.A. County seal to accurately depict the Mission, which now appears on the county seal without its cross.

The motion, filed by Supervisor Michael Antonovich, a U.S. Army veteran and a member of the American Legion, and Supervisor Don Knabe (both Republicans) was supported by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, a political liberal who once headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in L.A. and was once a member of the Board of the ACLU of Southern California. Supervisors Zev Zarovslosky and Gloria Molina, the other two liberal Democrats on the five-member board, voted against the motion, as reported by the L.A. Times.

Attorney Peter Eliasberg of the ACLU, which reacts like Dracula to the sight of a cross and has become the intolerant Taliban of American progressive liberal secularism, immediately threatened to sue, to no one’s surprise.

More @ WND

Jaguar Attacks Crocodile



 

Homemade gasifier uses wood pellets to run generator

Via Charlie
 If anyone on your blog is interested in serious off grid living this is an excellent video on gasifiers.   The unit is well built and the video explains it well.  Lots of folks don't think these things will work, but they powered most of Germany during WWII because Hitler was taking all the oil and coal for his war effort.


 Gasifier uses wood pellets to create flammable mixture that a generator can run on without gasoline. This video shows how it was constructed, how it works, and how to use it from start to finish. Great project for anyone looking for alternative energy or wanting to live off the grid.

Just for some clarification -- I mention a rheostat that I ordered; I ordered a 25w 20 ohm rheostat. That rheostat will effectively give me the control to adjust the voltage to the blower motor from 12v down to nearly 0v (I think... I'm not an electrical engineer).

Download the FEMA Gasifier plans at: www.mclawsdesign.com/fema.woodgas.pdf
Download this video (low-res, sorry) at: www.mclawsdesign.com/gasifier.wmv

Video of Grand Rapids open carry incident that sparked federal lawsuit released

 
A police car dash cam video obtained by MLive and The Grand Rapids Press shows the encounter between Grand Rapids Police officers and open-carry advocate Johann Deffert that sparked a federal lawsuit.
Deffert’s suit – filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids – is against the city, Police Chief Kevin Belk, Officer William Moe and two other officers.
In response to request for video of the encounter, the city has released in-car video of the March 3 incident. The camera view shows only a portion of the encounter, but it captures extensive audio from the day in question.
I’m going to make a few comments, and walk away.

 More with video @ Bearing Arms

FPS Russia: 12 Gauge Bullpup

Via Bearing Arms

Zimmerman lawyer O’Mara not buying the cop’s story in the killing of tased and restrained NC teen

 BryonVassey.jpg

Mark O’Mara is a Florida defense attorney who O’ shot to national prominence as the lead attorney in the George Zimmerman trial.

CNN asked O’Mara about the publicly available information surrounding the death of North Carolina teenager Keith Vidal, a 5’3″ 18-year-old battling schizophrenia who was being calmed by two officers before Southport Detective Byron Vassey burst into the scene, ordered Vidal tased, and then allegedly leaned forward between the two officers to kill him with a single shot to the chest less than 70 seconds after he arrived on the scene.

O’Mara thinks Vassey’s claim that he fired in self defense doesn’t ring true:

More @ Bearing Arms

Learning Lessons

 

When I go I to a fast food place and find a sullen teenager behind the counter who acts as if they're doing you a favor just to take your order and that they'd rather be having a root canal done than what they're doing, you start thinking, "Kid you may as well get used to doing this job because, with your attitude, you're never going to rise above it."

A few years ago, I was at an airport, standing at a car rental counter with a lot of other people who were trying to rent a car and get on with their business with three young people who were in bad need of a Dale Carnegie course, listening to a young woman behind the counter explain to somebody that she had to work late while frustrated customers were waiting on service.

Needless to say, it took a long trying time to get a rental car.

I haven't done business with that rental agency since then. I figure, if they don't have any more regard for their customers than to expose them to this kind of indifference and incompetence, I would give my business to someone who would appreciate it.

There is a very dangerous and damaging attitude amongst a lot of our young people: that the world owes them something, that they should be able to just show up with a lackadaisical attitude, do just enough work to get by and draw a paycheck and get promotions right along with the guy who busts his hump for eight hours a day and gives a day's work and a little extra for a day's pay.

More @ CNS News

The rate of violent crime in "white ghetto" Appalacia is half the national average

Via Matthew

 
"So much for an economic theory of violent crime…......."
Last year, 18 big-city mayors, Mike Bloomberg and Rahm Emanuel among them, sent the federal government a letter asking that soda be removed from the list of items eligible to be used for EBT purchases. Mayor Bloomberg delivered his standard sermon about obesity, nutrition, and the multiplex horrors of sugary drinks. But none of those mayors gets what’s really going on with sugar water and food stamps. Take soda off the list and there will be another fungible commodity to take its place. It’s possible that a great many cans of soda used as currency go a long time without ever being cracked — in a town this small, those selling soda to EBT users and those buying it back at half price are bound to be some of the same people, the soda merely changing hands ceremonially to mark the real exchange of value, pillbilly wampum.

*   *   *

‘Oh, we’s jes’ pooooor folllllks, we cain’t afford no cornbreaaaaaaad!” So says Booneville police chief Johnny Logsdon, who has an amused glint in his eye and has encountered his share of parachuted-in writers on the poverty beat.

More @ NRO

Weapons, including AK-47-style rifle, found in car after I-81 traffic stop

 

Thanks Maryland and Herald Mail for making a criminal out of a man transporting a legally owned firearm and pistols. He will no doubt spend a ransom to defend his 2nd Amendment right- not privilege- to do so in the Maryland court system . The majority of persons who own and transport these are not bad criminals with mal intent. However, Maryland and the Herald Mail has already painted this man a criminal. I travel the roads in Maryland often to get to our cabin in PA outside Hancock, MD. I have to take a longer route through PA to get there when transporting my legally owned firearms and pistols. What a shame and sham.

--Doug
 *******************************************

A Pennsylvania man was charged with transporting an AK-47-style rifle, brass knuckles and other weapons after a traffic stop Thursday afternoon on Interstate 81 in Washington County, Maryland State Police said.
Scott C. Smartt, 51, of Needmore, Pa., has been charged with illegally transporting a handgun in a vehicle and possession of an assault weapon, according to a state police news release.
Smartt also was charged with not wearing a seat belt and using a hand-held phone.
Maryland State Police 1st Sgt. Kevin Lewis of the Hagerstown barrack said the traffic stop was not related to the fatal shooting last week on I-81 just north of the state line in Franklin County, Pa.

More @ Herald-Mail

Gun Companies Find Homes in Dixie

Via WiscoDave

While the base of ownership for guns continues to broaden in the U.S., the atmosphere for gun manufacturing is looking better and better below the Mason-Dixon line. 

Although background checks for gun sales in 2013 destroyed previous records, there remains a raw hostility to guns in some Northeastern portions of our country. In turn, this has spawned a culture war that is driving gun manufacturers to greener pastures.

As the International Business Times observed, caught in the middle of this cultural war are "gun manufacturers (mostly small companies that sell a legal product), and millions of gun owners (the overwhelming majority of which do not commit violent crimes)."

More @ Breitbart

The Friday Flyby: Focke-Wulf FW-190



This bird is one of my favorites. The FW-190 Würger (Shrike) was also a favorite of many Luftwaffe aces. Wikipedia has an excellent article on this incredible fighter. Here's a sample:

The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger (English: Shrike) was a German single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank in the late 1930s and widely used during World War II. Powered by a radial engine in most versions, the Fw 190 had ample power and was able to lift larger loads than its well-known counterpart, the Messerschmitt Bf 109. The Fw 190 was used by the Luftwaffe in a wide variety of roles, including day fighter, fighter-bomber, ground-attack aircraft and, to a lesser degree, night fighter.

When the Fw 190 started flying operationally over France in August 1941, it quickly proved itself to be superior in all but turn radius to the Royal Air Force's main front-line fighter, the Spitfire Mk. V, especially at low and medium altitudes. The 190 maintained superiority over Allied fighters until the introduction of the improved Spitfire Mk. IX in July 1942 restored qualitative parity. The Fw 190 made its air combat debut on the Eastern Front in November/December 1942; though Soviet pilots considered the Bf 109 the greater threat, the Fw 190 made a significant impact. The fighter and its pilots proved just as capable as the Bf 109 in aerial combat, and in the opinion of German pilots who flew both, provided increased firepower and manoeuvrability at low to medium altitude.

The Fw 190 became the backbone of the Jagdwaffe (Fighter Force), along with the Bf 109. On the Eastern Front, the Fw 190 was versatile enough to use in Schlachtgeschwader (Battle Wings or Strike Wings), specialised ground attack units which achieved much success against Soviet ground forces. As an interceptor, the Fw 190 underwent improvements to make it effective at high altitude, enabling it to maintain relative parity with its Allied opponents. The Fw 190A series' performance decreased at high altitudes (usually 6,000 m (20,000 ft) and above), which reduced its effectiveness as a high-altitude interceptor, but this problem was mostly rectified in later models, particularly in the Junkers Jumo 213 inline-engine Focke-Wulf Fw 190D series, which was introduced in September 1944. In spite of its successes, it never entirely replaced the Bf 109.

The Fw 190 was well liked by its pilots. Some of the Luftwaffe's most successful fighter aces claimed a great many of their kills while flying it, including Otto Kittel, Walter Nowotny and Erich Rudorffer.
 So what does she look and sound like in her natural habitat?

More @ Old AF Sarge

Evangelical Marxism–part three

Via Billy


Writer Roy Beck noted, in an article back in October, 2009, on http://www.numbersusa.com that: “Leaders of most of the nation’s evangelical Christians made a shocking endorsement of illegal-alien amnesty today in Senate testimony…Rev. Leith Anderson, president of the NAE, was invited by Senator (Charles) Shumer (D-N.Y.) to testify in favor of the Senate immigration chairman’s push to create amnesty legislation this fall. Sen. Shumer asked Rev. Anderson if many of his colleagues agree with his support for legalizing 12-20 million illegal aliens and increasing the legal immigration far higher than the 1 million a year current level…

Rev. Anderson answered that there was no dissent in adopting the pro-amnesty resolution on the 75-member NAE board of directors. Zero dissent!” Not only that, the NAE doesn’t want to be bothered hearing any other viewpoints. Their minds are made up, so please don’t confuse them with any facts! So the entire NAE board of directors is in favor of amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. Charles Shumer is one of the most leftist members of the Senate, yet here he seems to be in concert with the NAE. That should tell you something–not about Shumer, but rather about the NAE (National Association of Evangelicals).