Archive for December, 2010

Mexican Gunmen Kidnap Last Police Officer In Guadalupe

“Gunmen kidnapped a 28-year-old woman who was the sole police officer in the town of Guadalupe, close to the violent northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, state officials said.

Erika Gandara ... house set on fire. Photo: AFP

“Some ten unidentified gunmen on Thursday set Erika Gandara’s home ablaze and torched two cars parked outside before abducting her, witnesses told the state of Chihuahua prosecutor’s office.

Gandara was the last police officer in Guadalupe, located on the US-Mexico border some 60 kilometres south-east of Ciudad Juarez, after her colleagues either resigned and fled or were killed.”

http://www.smh.com.au/world/gunmen-kidnap-towns-female-lone-ranger-28-20101228-198qh.html

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Preparedness or Paranoia?

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Hot Zones in 2011

Foreign Policy has a run down of potential conflicts and wars in the coming year. Here is the quick list:

Côte d’Ivoire, Colombia, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Venezuela, Sudan, Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Lebanon, Nigeria, Guinea, Democratic Republic of the Congo

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YEAR IN REVIEW:Watch a video of 2010’s extreme moments Countless Juarez residents flee ‘dying city’

No one knows how many residents have left the city of 1.4 million since a turf battle over border drug corridors unleashed an unprecedented wave of cartel murders and mayhem. Business leaders, citing government tax information, say the exodus could number 110,000, while a municipal group and local university say it’s closer to 230,000 and estimates by social organizations are even higher.

The tally is especially hard to track because Juarez is by nature transitory, attracting thousands of workers to high-turnover jobs in manufacturing, or who use the city across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, as a waystation before they slip north illegally.

Massacres, beheadings, YouTube videos featuring cartel torture sessions and even car bombs are becoming commonplace in Juarez, where more than 3,000 people have been killed this year, according to the federal government, making it among the most dangerous places on earth.

El Paso, by contrast, has had three violent deaths — and one was a murder-suicide.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/lt_drug_war_leaving_juarez;_ylt=AuzvqpdVPWELGSrUwile8xN0fNdF

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Short discussion of shotgun loads for home defense

There’s a lot of discussion out there, weighing the pros and cons of using birdshot or buckshot for a home defense situation. It seems to boil down to varying opinions on either the uncertain stopping power of birdshot, or the danger of over-penetration with buckshot. Here’s an interesting take on the subject:

“The 12 gauge shotgun is the most devastating and lethal weapon yet devised for inflicting rack and ruin at close range.  A safe bet for ammunition selection is to use the 2-3/4-inch 00 buckshot load.  The impact of one of these shot shells is essentially equivalent to getting hit with a nine round burst from a submachine gun.
Read the rest of this entry »

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FBI Gel test of various rounds: 12 guage shotgun, 000 Buckshot

http://www.brassfetcher.com/FBI%20Test%205%20%28Exterior%20door%29%20Winchester%203%20inch%20magnum%20unplated%201%20buckshot.html

Through 3/4 inch plywood and into ballistic gelatin

“Going by various nicknames such as : “street sweeper” and “riot gun”, the 12 gauge shotgun, using buckshot, has a well-earned reputation for effectiveness during close-range shooting events.

Good pump action shotguns from Mossberg, Remington and others may be purchased for no more than $300 – about a third of the asking price of the AR-15 and similar rifles and having a terminal effectiveness far out of proportion to the price of the gun itself.

Using a standard 10 pellet, 000 buckshot load, one shot from a 12 gauge is equal to a 10-shot burst from a 9x19mm submachinegun – with all FMJ bullets impacting at almost the same instant.”

http://www.brassfetcher.com/12%20gauge.html

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Message to the UK: Quick! Ban all crossbows – and knives – and sticks…and stones, too.

The UK has banned or made nearly impossible to own just about any kind of firearm, supposedly on the grounds that firearms make citizens less safe.

Well, those wacky and resourceful UK Bandits have found a way around not having firearms—now they’re using crossbows and knives. Obviously, those need to be outlawed as well. Next, anything hard that could be used to club or poke someone will need to be outlawed. Eventually marshmallows will be outlawed, since they can be used offensively as effective suffocation weapons.

How long do you think it will take the UK to start wondering: “Hey, maybe banning the weapon is not getting at the real source of the problem here?”

Given their track record, I don’t give them very good odds on figuring this out. They’ll probably be banning marshmallows and plastic wiffle ball bats first.

“Face to face with the crossbow raiders: Thugs burst into post office and threaten shopkeeper with weapon

Snarling and brandishing a crossbow, two thugs burst into a post office and thrust the weapon in the face of a terrified sub-postmaster.

They were so brazen they didn’t even bother to wear masks, their faces contorted with aggression and captured clearly on CCTV.

As they approach the counter, one leans over and aims at the victim at point-blank range, while his accomplice, who was carrying a knife, appears to punch him.”

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Making Sense of the START Debate

Making Sense of the START Debate is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

By George Friedman

Last week, the U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which had been signed in April. The Russian legislature still has to provide final approval of the treaty, but it is likely to do so, and therefore a New START is set to go into force. That leaves two questions to discuss. First, what exactly have the two sides agreed to and, second, what does it mean? Let’s begin with the first.

The original START was signed July 31, 1991, and reductions were completed in 2001. The treaty put a cap on the number of nuclear warheads that could be deployed. In addition to limiting the number of land- and submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and strategic bombers, it capped the number of warheads that were available to launch at 6,000. The fact that this is a staggering number of nuclear weapons should give you some idea of the staggering number in existence prior to START. START I lapsed in 2009, and the new treaty is essentially designed to reinstate it.

It is important to remember that Ronald Reagan first proposed START. His initial proposal focused on reducing the number of ICBMs. Given that the Soviets did not have an effective intercontinental bomber force and the United States had a massive B-52 force and follow-on bombers in the works, the treaty he proposed would have decreased the Soviet quantitative advantage in missile-based systems without meaningfully reducing the U.S. advantage in bombers. The Soviets, of course, objected, and a more balanced treaty emerged.

What is striking is that START was signed just before the Soviet Union collapsed and implemented long after it was gone. It derived from the political realities that existed during the early 1980s. One of the things the signers of both the original START and the New START have ignored is that nuclear weapons by themselves are not the issue. The issue is the geopolitical relationship between the two powers. The number of weapons may affect budgetary considerations and theoretical targeting metrics, but the danger of nuclear war does not derive from the number of weapons but from the political relationship between nations. Read the rest of this entry »

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Weapons Bug Out Bag

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Rumblings of wide-scale war in the Muslim world: Sunni vs. Shia

This guy was once a jet pilot in the military. The first part of his presentation is an interesting overview of some serious trouble brewing in the Muslim world that could have a profound affect on the US and other countries all around the planet (the second part of this presentation is clearly a sales pitch for a set of financial products, we make no recommendation; don’t know if this group is any good or not – we have no financial ties with them).

http://www.agorafinancial.com/reports/OST/NewWar/vp/OST_NewWar_vp.php?code=LOSTLC08

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Quark Turbo Flashlights: “Weapon Light Standard” by Nutnfancy

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How Disney Designed The Military’s Electromagnetic Launch System

This week we learned about an amazing new Navy (and NASA) electromagnetic launch system that moves a jet 240mph across a 300 foot runway. What we didn’t know is this ulta-advanced technology was developed by Disney. As in Mickey Mouse.

The Navy’s Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) is designed to use electromagnetic energy to propel a 100,000 lb. jet 240mph across a 300 ft. runway. According to the Navy, not only is EMALS a smaller and more efficient method of launching planes than steam turbines, it can deliver 30% more power. The Navy says they will to use this system to launch all aircraft from carriers going forward, including heavy strike fighters and lightweight drones.

The technology was first developed not in a secret lab in Area 51, but in Florida for the Rock n’ Roller Coaster (photograph above) found at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida — and designed jointly by Disney’s Imagineers (what Disney Co. calls their engineers) and Vekoma, a company that builds high-end amusement rides.

http://jalopnik.com/5716980/how-disney-designed-the-militarys-electromagnetic-launch-system

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Navy’s Electromagnetic Catapult

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Pilot punished for pointing out TSA security flaws

Three days after he posted a series of six video clips recorded with a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff’s deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm. The pilot recorded that event as well and provided all the video to News10.

At the same time as the federal marshals took the pilot’s gun, a deputy sheriff asked him to surrender his state-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Full Article

This administration seems determined to make sure there is another catastrophic attack, by persecuting people who point out the absurdity of the current security measures and by not admitting to themselves that most of the violence directed at the United States comes from Islamic death-worshipers.

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Fort Hood Soldier Tells CNN: Hasan Yelled “Allahu Akbar”

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