Liberal/ MSM Stupidity: Womens Rights in Afghanistan

Afghan lawmakers block law on women's rights

This article has been in the yahoo news you see when  checking your email for a few days. Honestly it baffles me. Clearly the person who wrote has either never been to Afghanistan or has been brainwashed and is borderline mentally retarded. 

 Women's rights in Afghanistan isn't going to happen. My odds out lifting Jim Wendler in the morning, beating George St Pierre in an MMA match before lunch, out shooting Gerry Miculek in the afternoon then making a better dinner than Rachel Ray are higher than the odds of women in rural Afghanistan having anything that resembled rights or freedom.  It's just not going to happen.

 Major cities may differ slightly, and are historically more western/ liberal, however in the majority of Afghanistan women have no rights and are essentially properly. Women can be raped, beaten, killed, sold or married (same difference in that culture) as the male head of the family wants with no repercussions. That is the culture and it is not going to change.  I do not say that happily but it is absolutely true. Changing rural Afghanistan, and do not be confused the majority of the population, as well as the real axis of power in Afghanistan is rural, is next to impossible. The Soviets tried for 20 years, spending untold billions and killing millions of people. If there is a way to more brutally attack a way of life than the Ruskies did in Afghanistan I don't know what it would be. Heck, We've been there for more than a decade trying the soft and nice approach. The Afghan and in particular Pastun culture is not going to change. 

 Without getting further into Islam or Afghanistan lets get back to what this article shows us. Liberals seem to believe they are capable of imposing their beliefs on anyone. They seem to believe they know what is right for everyone, everywhere. They are confused when their agenda's simply do not appeal to people. They are even more confused when legal statutes and the implicit threat of force fails to make people comply. The idea that people are willing to ignore laws, face risk or ultimately fight/ die for their viewpoints is something they do not understand.  

 

 

Syria- No Easy Options

Analysis- No Good Military Options in Syria for the US
Syria is a large country with a robust anti aircraft capability.  Doing a "No Fly Zone" there would be a lot harder than tossing an F-16 into the air. In fact without significant preparation to destroy their AA abilities that F-16 would likely be shot down. This is not to say we couldn't do it. Sure we COULD own the skies over Syria 48-72 hours after beginning operations. It would take a fair amount of missiles, aircraft and effort. There is a distinct probability that a couple of those aircraft would be shot down. The point is a minimal cost/ negligible risk scenario like Libya would not be possible.

The Syrian AA capability prevents strategic strikes to support the rebel forces, knocking out C2 nodes, armor, etc. Also there is the unwritten truth that people need to conduct targeting then ultimately call in the birds to hit those targets. In today's environment that is problematic. 

Syria's chemical weapons are a concern or to some degree the problem itself. Destroying those weapons, if we can even find them with any accuracy, from the air is at best problematic. Realistically they would probably need to be secured by troops at least temporarily before evacuating or destroying them in place. Can't see us being willing to send in enough troops to make that plan work.

Just tossing guns at the problem is a technique. However as we've seen decades ago in Afghanistan and much more recently in Libya this strategy has some risks. Vetting unknown fighters in a timely manner with few personnel involved is not something that generally works well. This means at least some of the weapons would go to folks we do not want to arm.

So if No Fly Zones are prohibitively costly, securing chemical weapons more so and just tossing guns at the situation isn't a great choice what is left? I haven't even talked about Russia's influence which even further muddles the waters. Doing nothing is a valid realpolitik option. So far that has seems to have been our plan.

However the recent movement of 200 people from 2nd Armored Division shows we are interested in gathering data to make more informed decisions. All my info on this is open source so the exact composition of that group interests me. It might tell a lot about what we are planning. Fundamentally we don't send a lot of folks around the world in support of a plan to continue doing nothing. This means an action of some sort is becoming more likely.

Certainly this could get interesting.

Militia opens fire on government forces

BOSTON – Police and National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed Sunday by elements of a para-military right wing extremist faction.
Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.
Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist militia faction has citizens whohave links to the radical right wing tax protest movement.
Gage blamed the militia for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices.
The governor who described the group’s organizers as “terrorists” , issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the governments efforts to secure law and order.
The law enforcement team augmented by elements of the National Guard, were sent to raid a militia arsenal after widespread refusal of right wing extremists to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons.
This decision followed a meeting in early July between government and law enforcement which authorized the confiscation of the illegal arms, known as the weapons of choice among criminals and militias.
One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out “that none of these people would have been killed had right wing extremist obeyed the law and turned over the weapons voluntarily” .
Police and government forces initially succeeded in confiscating a large supply of outlawed weapons and ammunition.
However, troops attempting to seize arms and ammunition in Lexington met with resistance from heavily armed militia extremist who had been tipped off regarding the government’s plans.
During a tense stand-off in Lexington ‘s town park, National Guard Colonel Francis Smith, commander of the government operation, ordered the armed group to surrender and return to their homes.
The impasse was broken by a single shot, which was reportedly fired by one of the right wing extremist.
Eight civilians were killed in the ensuing exchange.
Ironically, the local citizens blamed the government forces rather than the extremists for the civilian deaths.
Before order could be restored, heavily armed militia groups from surrounding areas had descended upon the police and guard units.
Colonel Smith finding his forces over matched by militia mobs, ordered a retreat.
Governor Gage has called upon citizens to support the state/national joint task force in its effort to restore law and order.
The governor has also demanded the surrender of those responsible for planning and leading the attack against the government.
Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, who have been identified as “ringleaders” of the extremist militia faction remain at large.
( The American Revolution begins, as reported by Associated Press)
(Compiled by Charles Norton and New American Magazine.)

Somebody's Killing DA's in Texas

The Kaufman county DA and his wife were found dead. Maybe it's drug cartel business moving north or something to do with the Aryan Brotherhood. One of his ADA's was shot in broad daylight two months ago. Is this related to that mess with the Colorado prison Executive director getting killed, by a rather white fellow, not so long ago? My gut says a large criminal enterprise( or two) killing important government officials in the same region right around the same time isn't a coincidence.

This definitely is not good.

Hugo Chaves is Dead!!!

This news brightened up my afternoon.

Diane Feinstein's AWB Version 2

The much dreaded Assault Weapons bill was presented. I urge you to write your representatives and tell them in a nice polite way that criminals by definition break the laws and this will only hurt law abiding gun owners. If you are lazy like me Ruger makes it super easy by having a nice form letter ready to go and looking up your reps automatically. Seriously if you care about anything I say take the time to let our representatives know that you are against this.

Also if you have not already JOIN THE NRA.  They are not perfect but are big enough and strong enough to actually do something. Join some other organization(s) if it makes you happy but send the NRA some love first.

If your personal 2A preparations are not where you want to be I would think about working on it. Do not spend the rent money or max the visa but if you want it and can afford it then think about buying. Yes AR's that cost $650 2 weeks ago are going for 1,400ish BUT THEY ARE AVAILABLE. Cannot say that will be the case in 2 months.

Some folks might want to think about caches. I have heard 6" PVC pipe and end caps as well as PVC glue can sell out in a hurry. Spare parts and manuals (a weak point of mine) are good things to have also. The cleaning stuff to put a greased up gun back into action would be smart also.

This weekends coming purchase binge will take care of most of my lingering accessory needs. Thankfully the stuff we need (vs want) is not targeted thought the overall everything with or around a trigger buying binge is affecting things all the same. Sure there is more stuff I want thankfully these are wants not needs. Some will be purchased when available like ammo and other stuff might be indefinitely postponed depending on how things go.

Honestly I am getting pretty bored of talking about this all the time. Think it is time to talk about other stuff and begin to resume normal operations.

Midway is Pushing Partial Back Orders Out The Door

 I ordered a bunch of different AR parts from Midway a couple weeks back. A full BCG, a spare bolt, a couple receiver extensions and some other stuff. The stuff that was in stock shipped and the rest was on back order. I wasn't worried about exactly when it showed up as it was just spare stuff anyway. This morning I got an email. It is unchanged except that obviously my last name is not XXXXXXX.

-Email follows-

Dear Ryan XXXXXXX,

We have been holding some products for you, waiting for other items to arrive so we could ship your order complete.  However, we believe an Executive Order could be released any day prohibiting the sale of certain products such as high-capacity magazines and AR-15 parts and accessories.  Therefore we have done a partial release of your backorders to ensure that any of these items and other items we had in inventory waiting to ship complete are all on their way, in case such an Order is forthcoming.  You will receive a shipping notification shortly.  Other items on backorder, that we have not yet received, are not affected by this partial release.

We appreciate your understanding and your business.  We always put Customer Satisfaction first and believe this action is in the very best interest of our Customers.

Sincerely,

MidwayUSA Customer Service

-End-

Maybe they are just doing this to appease customer concerns or do they know something I do not? Thoughts?
 

From Around The Web

Thousands of Portuguese soldiers protest budget cuts. This individual event may be nothing but broadly speaking large scale military protests are indicative of serious instability. Often this sort of thing is followed by the executive branch trying to fire/ arrest a couple of key Generals next week followed by a bloodless coup that puts in a "transitional council" of key military leaders that may or may not go away.

Syria fires at Israel who returns a warning shot. Those two countries haven't exchanged fire since 1973. This is obviously not good.


On a lighter note
Meth has been proven to help fight the flu. Talk about the cure being worse than the disease.

Interesting News

Israel shoots down a drone suspected to belong to Hezbollah.

Mitt Romney is ahead in the polls by 4 points after the first debate.

Gun Carrying Man Ends Stabbing Spree

Read the story here.

Random Thoughts # Whatever

To rehash a valid topic. It is very difficult to substantially change your current spending patterns unless there is some sort of event forcing you to do so. Most folks like what they spend their money on. [Or if you are married at least one partner does; you might think it is fine to ditch the wife's pet cable tv and hobbies and she might think you could cut back on beer and smokes and preps but I digress] It really sucks to stop doing things you like to do and adjust your lifestyle downward so most folks won't do it if they have a choice, heck a lot of folks won't do it if they really don't have a choice.
The thing is that it is much easier to make intentional choices about new money because you are not used to having it. Money that has not been part of your operating budget, be it additional income or a windfall, is a great opportunity to make good choices. We have hit on this before talking about becoming debt free. The short rehashing is that I got promoted and started making significantly (for us anyway) more money. If memory serves me correctly we put about 85% of this new money toward becoming debt free. Between this and what we were paying before we were making adiditional payment of about 200% a month. We did this for right around a year and got it paid off, instead of making minimum payments for two extra years.

I was recently reminded that folks who choose to make stupid decisions, in this case financially, will do so even if their situation is improving. It is really hard to outearn stupid financial choices if you increase your poor decision making when more money comes in.
Awhile I saw a review on Survival blog of Grip Pods. They are a pretty cool piece of gear. Basically it is a forward vertical grip that, if you hit a button on the top, has a bipod that pops out. I have one of these things. Slaps right onto a standard rail. They are pretty darn tough. I have seen a few break but that doesn't mean anything. If you gave every enlisted Infantrymen (Not NCO's, or O's) each a brick and a bowling ball a bunch would get broken and it doesn't mean they are not sturdy objects, just that Infantrymen break things like nobody else. These things aren't beefy enough to use during buddy rushes and whatnot like the bipod on a machine gun, though I have seen those break too. It looks like they cost between $80-100ish. More than about $110ish would definitely be overpaying. If you like to run a strait vertical grip and think a bipod might be handy sometimes it is worth looking into. If they are worth it I would say maybe (didn't pay for mine;). A quick search of the web says vertical foregrips from names I recognized tend to be $50-80ish. Another 20-30 bucks for that foregrip to have a bipod isn't a bad deal really.

Over the past year I have been shocked and saddened by things public officials I grew up trusting have done. In any case the amount of times I have thought "I would do something terrible to that person" have been on the rise. Maybe it is a change in the news cycle or particularly the democratization of information via the web and particularly the drudge report, I don't know. I get that in any bunch there are always a few bad apples. If you have enough bad apples there is always something bad going on. (Example, an Infantry Battalion has somewhere around 700 soldiers, depending on its configuration, of that probably 450-500 are young men between 18 and 23ish. Prime age to drink way too much and do stupid things. On any given weekend at least one will get into a fight, another will use drugs, and another will commit some other crime. Almost always at least one of them will get caught. So saying that a Battalion has a problem because every weekend somebody gets in trouble is while accurate, misleading. Saying that 1 in 700 soldiers got arrested looks very different.] That being said it seems like these sort of events are on the rise.
This saddens me and means I need to relook how different groups may act in various circumstances. It is worth noting that local conditions matter the most. Look at your local laws, culture and recent events. These should tell the tale. I hate to rain on the tin foil hat folks conspiracy theories; however the odds of your local deputy sheriff/ policemen/ dog cater/ zoning inspector/ health department getting into your business are far higher than a SWAT team from a federal alphabet agency taking down the door at 3 am. The importance of living in a place that doesn't suck may not be possible to overrate.
Anyway that is about all I can think

Worth Consideration

Life is What Happens When You Turn The News Off

I seem to go into a sort of cycle with the news. Right now I am about sick of it. I still check out the drudge daily and if things get boring cruise the BBC. Instead of listening to the news at work I have been using a comedy show as background. I keep up enough to have a clue what is going on but really am having a hard time pretending to care.

The issues of police abuses has been weighing pretty heavily on my mind lately. Over a short time (since my being able to pay attention to these things at a relatively adult level) the changes which have occured are widespread and universally negative. Right now I do not have any additional thoughts on this topic which I am willing to share in a public venue.

Gang/ Mob attacks seem to be on the rise. The perpetrators, victims and area demographics seem to be quite consistent. The only thing that concerns me more than this is the total ambivalence of law enforcement about these crimes. The widespread efforts of government and media to conceal these events does not weigh positively into the mix either. I am not personally concerned about this. I do not frequent the kind of areas where this sort of thing has been happening. Also my life patterns, like being home at 7 to put the kid to bed, drops the odds even further. In any case it is still troubling.

Greece getting out of the Euro may almost be a foregone conclusion at this point. The idea of Euro bonds is laughable. Like cosigning for a loan your deadbeat brother in law/ whatever to get a loan it would require Germany be on the hook for things in the end. Like cosigning in general it is just a terrible idea. Banks or private markets are far better judges of who is a worthwhile risk than friends and family. I get what is in it for everybody but Germany, who actually has their financial house in order.

Also to complicate things there is significant risk to the Euro itself. As Tam put it "So Greece's profligate habits are threatening to drag the Euro under. Germany, the only wino at the bar keeping a squinty eye on the tab, is urging some restraint on Greece's part, which makes the Jerries the no-fun bad guy of the story."

The biggest way this inconveniences me is that it means I am not going to Greece which sucks. It was definitely on our short list before the mess of the last few months. Now the risk of getting stuck somewhere with a toddler in tow makes it a no travel zone for us. I guess it is a significant global risk, blah blah blah but I don't care about that.

So what did I do today?

After getting off work I came home for some quiet family time. For no clear reason I decided to make home made pizza. I had never done this but with some help from Wifey utter disaster was averted. I learned to do something new and we had a pretty good dinner. It was a nice quiet evening and I got something out of it.

It is worth noting that Dave Duffy wrote an article that inspired this one but was much better.

Anyway I hope you all have a nice quiet evening.

The Plot Thickens

It turns out that George Zimmerman actually got smacked around some.

Wednesday Randomness

China is buying oil from Iran with yuan.

Check out this interesting infograph on Zombie proofing your home.

For no particular reason I want to talk about a couple of rules or guidelines.

The first is that in firearms there is an inverse relationship between reliability and accuracy. Obviously a gun that shoots minute of barn at 10 paces is not useful but a jamamatic that shoots 1/10th moa when it occasionally decides to function isn't either. Personally for real world applications I am inclined to lean a bit toward reliability. Really you just need minute of man (or deer or elk or whatever) accuracy to get the job done and if a weapon is capable of that then the rest is on the shooter. Also most weapons will outshoot people anyway.

The second is that you typically get what you pay for. Expecting more than that out of a tool/ weapon is just not very realistic. Given comparable models/ styles a more expensive product is probably better. A $15 Wally world special is not going to perform like a Buck 110. Expecting a $550 "plinker" AR to perform like a rifle from Bushmaster, Smith and Wesson or Colt is not realistic. Some products do offer a lot of value and while they don't break this rule they might just bend it a bit. Glock and XD pistols, Buck and Cold Steel knifes and REI brand camping gear come to mind.

Also I would like to let you know that LPC survival an authorized Berkey water filter dealer and long time advertiser are launching a completely redesigned website on the 21st. I got a chance to preview it and the new format is very nice. Much easier to use and a better shopping experience. You should definitely check it out.

Anyway that is about all that is floating around in my head today,
Later

Seriously?

Just get drunk and drive around with a monkey. This sounds like an episode of Reno 911.

Context: George Zimmerman

Interesting read. Does he sound like an evil Wacist just itching to kill someone now?

Why Statistics Can Suck

I am a big believer in studies, particularly scholarly peer reviewed ones. However I am pretty skeptical of statistics. In college we had a saying "statistics don't lie but liars use statistics." In explanation that meant you could make the stats say about whatever you wanted by manipulating them in many subtle ways. However that is not what we are talking about today.

The issue we are talking about today is called confounding. Basically confounding is where a bunch of things can go together and have similar results which may make the inpact of a single variable look far bigger than it is. Example, some study comes out that says people who do yoga are 57% more likely to have a healthy body weight than people who do not do yoga. The thing is that people who do yoga probably don't eat a whole pizza for dinner and suck down soda all day long. Yoga is just a part of their overall healthy lifestyle. Make sense?

So you might as well just disregard most of those shocker statistics that come out on the tv.

In Case The News Hasn't Gotten You Down Already

Greece default credit event leads to the payout of credit default swaps.
What does and America without a Middle Class look like?

I Can Haz Economic Recovery

I heard on the news today that our economic recovery is at risk. I wondered what that guy was smoking and if it showed up on drug tests. Unemployment is around 10%, real inflation (I don’t know about you but I can’t magically factor out food, housing  and energy) is nipping away at purchasing power, home prices are down and the markets are painfully in the hole.

Granted the economy is a complicated thing so it is best judged by a broad variety of indicators. To be blunt I would say that finding any indicator that is positive would be difficult and even then it would be an exception proves the rule sort of situation.

In normal people’s lives unemployment, followed by inflation (maybe inflation would go after home prices as home prices trickle into a lot of things but I went inflation first because most people are not buying or selling a home at any given time), followed by home prices and then the market are probably the indicators that matter the most.

Come to think of it the only really positive thing I have heard anybody say about our economy in some time is that it is probably a buying opportunity for real estate and stocks.

The phrase “don’t piss down my back and tell me it is raining” comes to mind.