U.S. Navy Mocked for Photo of Rifle Scope Mounted Backwards.

This weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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U.S. Navy Mocked for Photo of Commander With Rifle Scope Mounted Backwards. JWR’s Comments: Perhaps the Navy should stick to their time-proven M14 deck rifles with iron sights. Thankfully, our potential opponents have much bigger guns and missiles to worry about, and the Navy handles those with deadly competency.

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I expect to hear the announcement of a Starlink satellite phone service, later this year: SpaceX: Cellular Starlink System Works on iPhone, Pixel, Galaxy Devices.

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Peter mentioned the free set of PDF files available at this web page: USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning. Peter included this note: “It would be nice if it was a single PDF, but the content is free.”

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Reader C.B. spotted this article: Dutch aim to quarantine populism; rest of the world may follow suit. JWR’s Comments: The bias of the writer is obvious. Can you imagine how different the tone of this piece would have been if it were a left-wing party that prevailed and if it was a left-winger that had been blocked from becoming Prime Minister? They would be livid. The double standards run deep, in Europe!

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SPOILER ALERT for these three Civil War movie reviews:

Tim Pool and his pals’ analysis: A24 Civil War Movie SLAMMED As Anti-Trump Film, Its CLEARLY Leftist.

and,

Forward Observer: CIVIL WAR: Movie Review + Intelligence Lessons Learned.

and,

‘Civil War’ Review: Ridiculously Dopey, Anti-Trump Snuff Film.

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On a semi-related note, there is this “food for thought” video from Dirty Civilian: What Kind of American Are You? — Morality & Civil War.

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Reader B.G. had these comments:

“Dr. Joseph’s article was thorough and insightful. However, he overlooked one element in combat that is core to all of this: the mind. His examination of MMA and sport grappling covered its vulnerabilities to dirty techniques and that they could be applied. But what if they could not be applied?

The standard assumption amongst all of the cult acolytes that is grappler is that they will magically pull the dirty techniques out of the truck bag and apply. But what if they could not? Answers can be found elsewhere to base our theory. Law enforcement learned decades ago to be very specific in how they trained as even small habits could turn out to be disastrous. This is the conundrum. We see the fallacy of MMA/BJJ on video. Watch even a few hours of BJJ and you get the picture. The groin is wide open to all manner of kicks, stomps, and strikes. MMA pro fights where the groin kick happens as a by-product of a poorly aimed inner thigh roundhouse kick. Yet none of these very effective groin kicks are ever blocked. They are illegal [per the MMA rules] so they are never practiced in sparring.

Eye pokes. An instant fight-stopper. Illegal in sport fighting. Yet we continue to see match after match go to instant stop with an eye poke. Another example. A recent article by a no-name guy illustrated the point well. He went to a BJJ gym and got to roll, spar, with one of the big-name BJJ guys. In the session, he made it a point to lightly strike the other guys throat at every opportunity. Soon big-name BJJ guy noticed his throat was getting sore. Then the epiphany: He would have been severely injured or worse if any of these numerous light strikes were done with real force. And he was completely and utterly vulnerable. He was trapped in his own habitual training practice of sport.

So what we have arrived at is subconscious habit and sports leakage. When you practice under pressure, spar, and fight by sporting rules, then it is sporting rules-style fighting that you get in real fights. And the kicker is that you have no choice. Sport style will come out. So while Forrest Whittaker has some interesting ideas about fighting, his experience and techniques are not street-based. For example, the choke is great until that ever-present third-party attacker shows up with that ever-ready ambush. And proof of this is found in hours upon hours of video.

Today’s social media has an interesting aspect. Street criminals just love to film their street fights for proof and bragging rights. At any time average Joe can watch anything from average street fights to top pro fighters and martial artists do their thing. Another example: Training with boxing gloves and wraps are great until, as Mike Tyson found out boxing gloves are no substitute in the street for properly conditioned hands. According to Wolff’s Law, bones will remodel and strengthen with stress over time. The ancient martial artists learned to gradually condition the bones first striking thus achieving some impressive feats of striking skill. Boxing also displays a particular vulnerability by not allowing strikes to the back of the body. Thus, we have a serious flaw exacerbated by sports leakage that is easily capitalized upon in the street. And any street fighter worth his salt knows about how brutally effective rabbit punches and kidney punches are. Again, these strikes are foreign to the sportsmen.

Another problem in learning real combat skills are the “one-trick ponies”. I worked with a young lady at a law enforcement agency. She was engaged to a marine sniper. She was astonished to learn that her boyfriend had been stabbed in street combat in Iraq. She could not understand how a marine sniper, an expert could be attacked like that. I tried to explain to her that he was an expert in long-range rifle marksmanship and not in close combat. And therein lies the rub. Most folks are specialists. You may train with a boxer to improve your punches but not for knife work. Just as having a BJJ guy teaching unarmed street knife defense is ludicrous. And Filipino martial artists do great with stick and blade but not so much with empty hands, as a general rule. And none of these arts teach you the American martial art: Gunfighting.

The main thrust of the discussion is: Be very careful who you train with and what arts you train in. As the saying goes: you must train like you fight for you will fight like you train. And you must ensure your training brings out the actual fighting skills that you need.”

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I found this video very interesting: I Overheard a Secret Chinese Meeting in Micronesia on Vacation.

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Reader H.L. wrote:

“I am pleased that you have discovered the ancient wheat Einkorn. Though I have no intolerance to gluten, I did read about it some years back. We switched to Einkorn Flour (my sister likes to bake) and Einkorn spaghetti. Delicious and one could not tell the difference (unless perhaps one was raised in Italy) in the taste.

We switched because when we were growing up, the vegetable seeds were NOT “messed” with – they were heirloom seeds. I read about what had been done to wheat over the years and we switched to Einkorn. Bob’s Red Mill is a company whose product we see here in Connecticut – all different kinds of ground grains, generally from the OLD strains of seed.

I NEVER remember any of my childhood classmates having gluten intolerance. Nor could my parents born in the early 1900s remember. Also, there were fewer allergies. I do know that houses back then were built from natural products, the furniture had NO foam (which off-gases), the wall paint was more natural, the insulation was horse hair, plaster and lath. The rugs were natural fibers, and our clothes were primarily cotton, linen or wool.

For the last several generations, Americans are living in a TOXIC SOUP in their homes, and wearing TOXIC CLOTHES. No wonder they have so many allergies. I do know studies have shown that children that grow up on a farm have fewer allergies.

By the way, I do watch Aviation Disasters, and this week one of the experts said that often in a crash it is FIRE that kills, and if one lives their clothes MELT TO THEIR BODY. She said, wear ONLY natural fiber clothes – WOOL, COTTON, OR LINEN. Makes sense to me.”

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The latest video essay from Bjorn Andreas Bull-Hansen: Do You Still Trust Them?

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And lastly, a recent video essay from conservative commentator Mark Dice: They’re Coming for the Christians.