Makes Perfect Sense.........

Via Blue

Watchlist? How Many? Let Me Count The Ways........

Via WRSA

On Government

Via Ninety Miles From Tyranny

Surviving: Let's Be Honest

Via Dixie Critter

 

It is my opinion that if you are a prepper or survivalist, as most everyone reading here are, then you should be able to be brutally honest with yourself. I know there are a few who stop by and read and very often get totally pissed off at what I have to say. Well those readers (admitted ones or not) are more than likely going to be even more pissed off at me after this post I have no doubt.

I have always said I am a numbers guy. Doesn't mean my numbers are always correct but you have to start somewhere. Sustainable living is a science but a science with so many variables it might as well be an art form. The canvass that can be used to create your sustainable masterpiece is as varied as any other factor so what works for one may not work for another. This allows so much leaking of fantastical thinking or possibilities into things that whatever fairytale you wish to believe can be reasoned in your own mind to be sustainable. Until it isn't.

Let's start off with a scenario. One of complete collapse for at least a time. One that is well known enough that little background building is needed. Let's use "One Second After". An EMP has struck and everything is dead. No electricity, very few cars or other vehicles. No goods coming in by rail, no trade, you are on your own.

We will add to this mythical scenario a total vacuum. For this study in brutal honesty we are not going to worry about roving bands of cannibals, looting officials for the common good or even sickness and/or injury. No invading foreign armies but also no friendly neighbors or distant relatives showing up with a semi-trailer full of MRE's either.

The first thing I am going to tell you is if you are alone you are not going to make it.

More @ The Small Hold - Will Not Go Down Without A Fight

The U.S. Will Regret Intervention in Syria

When pundits debate military options for any of the many U.S. foreign interventions, most of them buy into some version of the “America-as-World-Policeman” approach to foreign policy. They usually either skate over the question of why the particular target nation is strategic to U.S. vital interests or simply say that issue is irrelevant, because whatever tragedy has occurred is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportion.

This predictable debate is now happening over U.S. intervention in Syria. To deal with the latter canard first, the hundreds of people killed in the most recent alleged chemical weapons attack and the more than 100,000 souls killed in the Syrian civil war are truly tragic but are dwarfed by other much more lethal recent conflicts in which the U.S. did nothing. The United States did not intervene militarily in Congo, where 5 million people and counting have been killed, in Sudan, where the civil war and famine killed 2 million people, and in Rwanda, where the Hutu tribe killed 800,000 members of the Tutsi tribe.

Even if the United States could have intervened and done something effective to make these places better—unlikely if the recent U.S. debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya are any indication—the “responsibility to protect” doctrine advocated by U.N. ambassador Samantha Power and others is against international law for a reason. In the world’s system of nation-states, in which only self defense is recognized as a legitimate excuse to use force, the “responsibility to protect” is illegal because of the tremendous potential to cause many more deaths by its huge potential for abuse.

For example, the United States has used the “humanitarian” excuse for intervention many times, but the absence of intervention in the above most heinous cases and the existence of other underlying agendas in cases of U.S. intervention show the potential for cynical exploitation; other great powers have done the same.

Even if one buys into the dubious doctrine, why does it always have to be the United States that assumes the responsibility?

More @ The Independent Institute

Tulsa Couple Adopts Triplets, Finds Out They Are Expecting Twins

Via Freedom Outpost

A Tulsa couple arranged to adopt a baby, which turned out to be triplets. Then they found out, only a few weeks later, they were going to have twins of their own.

Meet the Justice triplets, Hannah, Joel and Elizabeth.

We stopped by to talk with Andy and Sarah Justice about the adoption of these beautiful babies.

So we set up in the living room. Andy had Hannah, Sarah had Joel and Uncle Rick took a turn with Elizabeth.

Then we got down to talking about how this all happened.

Andy Justice said, "We were married about three and a half years."

More @ News On 6

Amazing: New Study Shows Babies Can Remember Words from the Womb

 

Those lullabies your singing to your growing tummy? Your child just may recognize the tune after birth, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
From DeseretNews.com,

Researchers at the University of Helsinki in Finland examined 33 mothers during their third trimester of pregnancy. Out of the 33 participants, 17 listened to a CD that loudly played two, four-minute sequences of the made-up words "tatata" or "tatota," pronounced differently with varying pitches from week 29 to birth.

The words were repeated 50 to 71 times. Following birth, all 33 babies were tested for normal hearing and then were scanned with an EEG (electroencephalograph) to see if the newborns reacted differently to the same made-up words they were exposed to in the womb.

Researchers found the babies who listened to the CD recognized the words and were able to distinguish between the pitch changes due to increased brain activity. The babies who did not hear the CD in utero did not have increased brain activity, thus were not able to recognize the words or distinguish pitch changes.

More @ Townhall

Question

NC: police search for men who allegedly shot and killed 27-year-old Navy veteran

Via LH

 

Surveillance images: Suspects in robbery, murder

The family of Errol Williams gathered to mourn and pray Monday, a day after the 27-year-old father of two was gunned down.

Fayetteville police are searching for the men who robbed Williams early Sunday at a Bragg Boulevard Kangaroo, forced him into his car and shot and killed him just blocks away.

"It's horrible to take somebody's life like that, over nothing," Williams' sister, Sadie Everett, said Monday.

Everett is sure her brother would have cooperated with his attackers, and she said she thinks they killed him because he had seen their faces.

Within hours of the crime, much of North Carolina had seen the suspects, too. Fayetteville police released surveillance images and video from the gas station, at 5642 Bragg Boulevard, in hopes that someone would come forward to identify the culprits.

More @ WRAL

Assad: Eighty to 90 percent of those we are fighting belong to Al Qaeda.

 

We have yet to see the evidence that Bashar al-Assad actually used chemical weapons against his own people. In fact, the evidence we have seen indicates that the weapons were used by the opposition to Assad. Now Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin have called the Obama administration's bluff and demanded to see evidence that the Assad regime is responsible for the chemical attack.

In, an exclusive interview, Assad told Le Figaro, a French news outlet,

"Show me the proof of regime chemical attack."

"Whoever accuses must provide proof. We have challenged the United States and France to provide the slightest proof. (US President Barack) Obama and (French president François) Hollande have been incapable (of doing so) even to their own people," Assad told French newspaper Le Figaro in an exclusive interview.

The Obama administration claims that 1,429 people were killed in an August 21 attack outside of Damascus. In a State Department speech on Friday night, Kerry claimed there was evidence from "thousands of sources" that Assad had launched the attack, but just could never actually provide the evidence. It seems like we've heard this one before.

(As a side note, we should be questioning what is being reported, just take a look at this video if you don't think so.)

More @ Freedom Outpost

Al-Qaeda militants kill 24 civilians near Ras al-Ain

 

You know, the rebels that Obama is sending money.

 Al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Syria have beheaded all 24 Syrian passengers traveling from Tartus to Ras al-Ain in northeast of Syria, among them a mother and a 40-days old infant.

Gunmen from the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant stopped the bus on the road in Talkalakh and killed everyone before setting the bus on fire.

According to media reports, the attack was carried out because the passengers who were from three different villages in Ras al-Ain, supported anti-terrorist Kurdish groups which were formed recently to defend Kurdish population against anti-Syria terrorists.

Bodies of a mother and her 40-days infant were also seen among the dead, which were recognized by their relatives.

More @ Alalam

Faster on the draw, clerk dissuades Marionville liquor store robber

Via Equal Force

The guy with a gun picked the wrong clerk.

How wrong?

A veteran of four tours in Iraq. A 30-year military man. A former prison guard, private investigator, professional extraditor of federal prisoners and — most important on this particular Sunday night — a proud owner of a Walther PPX 9 mm handgun.

Loaded, with one in the chamber, like he always carries it. (There is no other way. BT)

More @ News-Leader

Repost: The Army assaults veterans of the Bonus Army. Eisenhower and Patton were involved: Disgraceful

Via Michael

***************************

3 more videos below @ NamSouth

15 Jul 2009

March Of The Bonus Army (Same Treatment Today?)

Suicide rate for veterans far exceeds that of civilian population

Via LH

 

Nearly one in five suicides nationally is a veteran, 49,000 took own lives between 2005 and 2011

Veterans are killing themselves at more than double the rate of the civilian population with about 49,000 taking their own lives between 2005 and 2011, according to data collected over eight months by News21.

Records from 48 states show the annual suicide rate among veterans is about 30 for every 100,000 of the population, compared to a civilian rate of about 14 per 100,000. The suicide rate among veterans increased an average 2.6 percent a year from 2005 to 2011, or more than double that of the 1.1 percent civilian rate, according to News21’s analysis of states’ mortality data.

Nearly one in every five suicides nationally is a veteran — 18 to 20 percent annually — compared with Census data that shows veterans make up about 10 percent of the U.S. adult population.

“Anytime a veteran who fought our enemies abroad or helped defend America from within our borders dies by their own hand, it’s completely unacceptable,” Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veteran’s Affairs, told an American Legion conference in Washington earlier this year.

The suicide rate has remained consistently high, he said, adding that more work was needed to address gaps in veterans’ mental health care.

“It’s not enough that the veteran suicide problem isn’t getting worse,” he said, “it isn’t getting any better.”

More @ Public Integrity

Charlie Rangel: Obama's Handling of Syria 'Embarrassing'

Miracles never cease.

".......this whole idea of any president of the United States drawing lines saying that if any country does something that he considers wrong, that the nation is going to war, it’s unheard of, drawing a red line.......”

****************************** 

 President Barack Obama’s handling of the Syria crisis has proved “embarrassing,” Rep. Charles Rangel, a staunch Democratic supporter of Obama, told MSNBC Monday.

The president's declaration last year that the use of chemical weapons by the Damascus regime would cross a "red line" was "unheard of" the veteran New York Democrat said.

More @ Newsmax

Syrians gassed with help from U.S.?

Rush Limbaugh today raised the possibility that Syrian rebels were responsible for using chemical weapons on their own people – not President Bashar al-Assad.

Limbaugh said he based the theory on emails he received from friends over the weekend, both of whom “have lived in the Middle East” and “claim to know Bashar.”

The correspondents told Limbaugh that they suspect Assad is “being framed.”
The Syrian leader, they insist, would not have gassed his own people. In any case, Limbaugh’s friends asked, What would Bashar gain from committing such an atrocity?

An estimated 1,400 people died in a gas attack on a Damascus suburb just two weeks ago.

Limbaugh told listeners he was prepared to brush his friends’ opinions aside until he read an article by Yossef Bodansky, former director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare,
which claims that the chemical weapons attack was carried out by al Qaida terrorists posing as Syrian rebels – and that the U.S. may have had foreknowledge of the attack.

More @ WND

S&W Bodyguard .380 Iron sight modification“The why and how” (Inexpensive ‘night sights’)

Via Twynk & Doug

 I recently purchased the Smith &Wesson BODYGUARD .380. The first time I fired it, I found there were two features I didn’t like and I’ve set out to correct them.

  I noticed, when sighting, it was difficult to pick up the front site between the rear posts. The following is my attempt to eliminate that difficulty.

 The second feature to address is the excessively long trigger pull and reset. A modification kit is being developed and should be on the market in September.

First position the slide in the  vise.

Using a bubble level, I insured the  back of the slide, that is parallel  to the rear sights, is perpendicular to  the drill column.

Now I drill a spot, using a small  center drill, approximately .025 deep. Repeat  to other side.

Then I aligned the slide in the  vise to repeat the drilling of the  front site.

The final step is to apply the white paint to the three spot drilled  depressions, using a metal marking soft  point pen.

The spot drill on the front site didn’t show up sufficiently when painted. I decided to paint the entire top surface. The grooved surface were ideal and held the paint well

What Obama's hidden left hand does is key

Via avordvet

With his right hand, Barack Obama has made sure through his lackeys in the mainstream media that Syria is the topic of national discussion. Photos of Syrians whose lives have been snuffed out with chemical weapons dominate the headlines. Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry, who was a dove before he joined the administration, now demand that the United States take military action against Syria, even if they have to go it alone. Congress has objected, with many if not most Democrats exhibiting a stark reluctance to launch such military strikes, creating a grand Congressional debate that will claim the nation's attention for another two weeks.

But what is Obama doing with his left hand? The answer is key.

As a president who is controlled almost entirely by political operatives, Americans can rest assured that decisions Obama makes are carefully crafted and calculated with a purely political goal in mind.

Thus, the real issue at hand is never what the president does publicly for all to see with his right hand. The real issue is what he is doing with his left hand, which is carefully hidden from public view. While the attention of the news media and citizens is focused on the right hand, the left hand is where the real action is.

What, then, has Obama been doing with that infamous left hand? The clues abound.

More @ Examiner

U.S. Travel Warning: Al Qaeda-Affiliated Syrian Rebels Have 'Claimed Nearly 600 Attacks'

Via avordvet

 While President Barack Obama is now asking Congress to authorize him to use military force against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad because that regime used chemical weapons on its own people, the State Department is maintaining a travel warning advising Americans not to travel to Syria because the al-Nusrah Front, the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria--which is participating in the rebellion seeking to overthrow Assad--has carried out about 600 attacks in the country since November 2011.

These al Qaeda terrorist attacks, according to the State Department, have killed many Syrian civilians.

More @ CNS News

Ross Perot Foundation Donates $1 Million to Scandal-Hit Planned Parenthood

 

The Ross Perot Foundation has provided a $1 million gift to Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Texas following the abortion giant’s payment of $4.3 million for a settlement in a Medicaid fraud case.

According to Steven Ertelt at LifeNews, the foundation associated with billionaire businessman Perot announced the $1 million donation last week.

In a statement through Planned Parenthood, Margot Perot said:

For nearly 100 years Planned Parenthood has helped to educate men and women regarding family planning and general family health. Our family has supported this nonprofit for many years because we are impressed with the work they do — providing birth control, scientifically-based education, breast health exams, and basic life-saving healthcare for women who cannot afford services otherwise.

On July 24th, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced that his office had obtained a $1.4 million settlement against Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (PPGC) for Medicaid fraud. The total settlement, according to the Houston Chronicle, was $4.3 million. The settlement was to be split among the state of Texas, the federal government, and the whistleblower who uncovered the fraud.

More @ Breitbart 

Gun-carrying criminals taunting NYPD cops after stop-frisk ruling

 

Thugs with guns think they’re the ones calling the shots on the streets in the wake of the anti-NYPD stop-and-frisk ruling.

“You can’t stop me! You can’t do that no more! There are new rules!” suspect Steven Sidbury, 21, allegedly yelled at officers as they approached him in crime-riddled East New York last week.

The cops walked over to Sidbury when they spotted a suspiciously heavy object in the pocket of his hoodie outside 225 Wortman Ave. in Brooklyn just before midnight Thursday.

He taunted them over stop-and-frisk, then ran and tripped — and a loaded .38-caliber revolver dropped out of his jacket, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

Firearms seized by the NYPD in the largest seizure of illegal guns in the city's history on August 19. The operation, which involved an undercover agent buying guns that were smuggled from North Carolina and South Carolina, yielded over 250 guns. ninteen people have been charged in the operation.

Sidbury was arrested — his third weapons bust in three years.

More @ New York Post

North Carolina law prohibits police from destroying guns

 

A new law going into effect this week in North Carolina law prohibits law enforcement from destroying unclaimed guns and firearms acquired through gun buyback programs.

The so-called "save the gun" law passed the Republican-controlled Legislature in the spring as the state moved to strengthen gun rights in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The law requires that law enforcement agencies donate, keep or sell confiscated guns to licensed gun dealers. Guns may only be destroyed if they are damaged or missing serial numbers, according to the report.

In the past, North Carolina law enforcement agencies needed a judge's permission to sell or destroy guns.

The move to strip judges and local police's options in dealing with unclaimed guns was backed by the National Rifle Association.

More @ Fox

Russia may send lawmakers to lobby Congress on Syria

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes to send Russian lawmakers to lobby Congress against a strike against Syria.

According to a report by the Interfax news agency, Putin has signaled his support for a proposal made by two Russian lawmakers to send a delegation to Washington.

The initiative, championed by Russian legislators Valentina Matvienko and Sergei Naryshkin, still requires formal approval by the country's Foreign Ministry — although an informal group of Russian lawmakers may decide to travel on their own.

There's precedent for Russian parliament members to travel to the U.S., according to the Associated Press.

Last summer, a delegation visited Capitol Hill in an unsuccessful bid to keep Congress from passing sanctions against Russian officials believed to be responsible for the imprisonment and death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who revealed fraud perpetuated by tax officials.

 More @ The Hill

The Shocking Tales of 11 of the Most Over the Top US Police Paramilitary Raids and the Innocent People They Victimized

Via avordvet

 

Dated 

 The proliferation of SWAT tactics has resulted in wildly disproportionate responses to suspected crimes.

Recently, AlterNet reported on the wrongful police raid of an organic farm suspected of growing marijuana in Arlington, Texas. The massive SWAT team raid lasted for more than 10 hours and resulted in the seizure of vegetables and flowers—but no marijuana was found on the premises. 

This is not the first time police have used paramilitary tactics to raid people’s properties to enforce regulatory laws in the absence of any justifiable threat of harm. Here’s a list of the most outlandish SWAT team raids across the county. 

1. Armed agents raid animal shelter in search of baby deer—and kill it.

More @ Alter Net

Revealed: Extraordinary story of British WWI captain released by Kaiser from German prison camp so he could see his dying mother in Kent - on condition that he returned to his cell... and he DID

Via WiscoDave

 

• Captain Robert Campbell was injured and captured in France in July, 1914
• After two years in German camp his mother in Gravesend, Kent, fell ill
• Briton wrote to the Kaiser asking to return home and enemy leader agreed
• Story revealed in documents unearthed by historian Richard van EmdenA British soldier was freed from a German POW camp during WW1 to see his dying mother - and kept his promise to the Kaiser by returning, historians have discovered.
  
  Captain Robert Campbell, aged 29, was captured just weeks after Britain declared war on Germany in July, 1914.
  
  But after two years in Magdeburg Prisoner of War Camp the British officer received word from home his mother Louise Campbell was close to death.
  
  He speculatively wrote to Kaiser Wilhelm II begging to be allowed home to visit his mother one final time.
  
  Incredibly the German leader granted the request allowing the professional office two weeks leave - as long as he returned.
  
  The only bond he placed on the leave was Capt Campbell's ‘word' as an army officer.
  He returned to his family home in Gravesend Kent in December 1916 and spent a week with his cancer-stricken mother.
  
  He then kept his promise by returning to his German prison - where he stayed until the war ended in 1918.
  
  The remarkable example of wartime honesty was uncovered by historian Richard Van Emden, 48, as he researched his new book. 
  
  
  More @ Daily Mail

Boehner Comes Out, "Supports Obama's Call For Action" Says Colleagues Should Also; Stocks Slide

Via WiscoDave

 

Idiot

Gold and silver prices are jumping, bonds are bid off their high yields, and US equities have dropped to the lows of the day as Boehner gets behind Obama:

• BOEHNER SAYS WILL SUPPORT OBAMA'S CALL FOR ACTION IN SYRIA, BELIEVES COLLEAGUES SHOULD DO THE SAME
• BOEHNER SAYS `ONLY THE UNITED STATES' CAN RESPOND TO SYRIA
• BOEHNER SAYS UN, NATO UNLIKELY TO TAKE ACTION ON SYRIA

Of course, given the military's moves over the weekend, was there really any de-escalation (as we warned Friday).

So what did the oil traders know that stocks didn't?

More @ Zero Hedge

NY case puts N-word use among blacks on trial

Via WiscoDave

A federal jury has rejected the argument that use of the N-word among blacks can be a culturally acceptable term of love and endearment, deciding its use in a workplace rant was hostile and discriminatory.

Jurors last week awarded $250,000 in compensatory damages to a black employment agency worker who was the target of an N-word-laced rant by her black boss, and they return to a Manhattan federal court Tuesday to decide on punitive damages.

More @ AP

NC: Urgent: Support Gov. McCrory on veto of extremely unwise immigration bill H786

Governor Pat McCrory was in Hendersonville yesterday for the Labor Day/Apple Festival Parade. It was the largest turnout for the parade I have seen in 8 years, and the crowds along Main Street greeted him enthusiastically.

Governor McCrory has recently taken a courageous action in vetoing an NC House bill that would have have effectively nullified North Carolina's E-Verify law requiring the screening of job applicants for legal presence in the United States.

H786 contained a paragraph--Section 8 (f) that would have changed the definition of a seasonal worker to allow tens or even hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants coming to North Carolina to be hired by U.S. firms without checking their legal status through the E-Verify program.

A few days ago, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released data that showed North Carolina has one of the three highest unemployment rates in the nation, 8.9 percent.

North Carolina needs to be creating jobs for North Carolinians, not illegal immigrants.

According to a recent study by the Heritage Foundation, the average household headed by an illegal immigrant uses $14, 387 more benefits and services per year than all income, sales, and property taxes paid. Using both Heritage Foundation and  Migration Information statistics, North Carolina's 502,000 unlawful immigrants, are costing North Carolina taxpayers $2.1 billion  in 2010  dollars per year in federal, state, and local taxes. The vast majority of this is in state and local taxes. This coincides fairly closely with the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform estimate of $2.3 billion per year for North Carolina. The Heritage Foundation figure does not include the additional cost for dual-language education in our schools.  Neither includes the hard to estimate cost of illegal immigrant crime and DWI damages to property and human life. You can quibble about the exact figure, but illegal immigration is costing North Carolina far more than we can tolerate.

Yet last year, North Carolina was number one in the percentage increase of illegal immigrants. According to an American Community Services Survey in 2010, less than two percent of illegal immigrants are here picking crops, but 40 percent receive at least some form of welfare.

North Carolina taxpayers cannot afford the punishing tax burden of illegal immigration.  They certainly cannot afford the effectively open door to illegal immigration supported by the outrageous fiscal irresponsibility of H786.

Yet powerful special interests are putting terrific pressure on the NC Legislature to overturn Governor McCrory's courageous veto of H786.

Here is a bit of economics that needs to be widely known, because the self-enriching propaganda of special interests who employ cheap foreign labor continually use shallow economic analysis to make their case.

Foreign born workers add $1.6 Trillion annually to the U.S. GDP. That sounds good on the surface, but this $1.6 Trillion increase is not currently profitable to the American people.  It is like selling a widget for $1.00 that actually costs you $1.25. The more you sell of them, the quicker you will go bankrupt.

According to Harvard labor economist George Borjas, himself a Cuban immigrant, the vast majority of the benefit of the $1.6 Trillion goes to the foreign workers. The net economic gain to U.S. GDP is only $30 billion annually, and that is far more than offset by annual fiscal costs of $55 to $100 billion. (Heritage Foundation and FAIR), not even counting hard to measure things like crime and dual-language costs. The is largely due to the low skill and education levels of recent immigrants. Before 1965, a higher level of immigrant education and skills made immigration profitable.

But here is the most revealing part of the analysis: The corporate, business, and individual users of foreign labor are gaining $435 billion per year, while American workers lose $405 billion per year. Spread across 144 million U.S. workers our lax, almost open-door, immigration system is costing U.S. workers slightly over $2,800 per year in depressed wages Furthermore, according to the latest BLS release there are 21.8 million U.S. workers who want a full-time job and cannot find one.  Many of these are North Carolinians.

Every North Carolina voter with any sense of fairness; compassion for North Carolina workers, and their families; and a sense of fiscal responsibility should urge their legislators to support Governor McCrory in his veto of H786.

Time is running out within hours, so please contact your NC legislators ASAP urging them to support the governor's veto of H786.

Mike Scruggs

Former Republican County Chairman,

Hendersonville, NC

NC Fall 2013 PATCON: 17 days until fees are due

All fees are due by September 20th 

 

I will deposit all checks on Monday the 23rd of September and may go to Dixieland after that.  If so, I will be unable to receive late submissions and fees cannot be paid at the door, so please remit ASAP. Thank you.  

Please post any comments @ 

 

2013 Fall NC PATCON UPDATE: ONE (1) TWO (2) months to go. Wednesday October 2nd to Monday October 7th