And the winner is…

First Prize goes to Barefoot Yankee Gal for Kitchen Cupboard Medicine, which was posted on Tuesday, April 3, 2012. She will receive: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A course certificate from onPoint
Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day
civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government
teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and
C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready
Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear, E.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value), and F.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo.

Second Prize goes to W.B. for Lessons from Afghanistan which was posted on Tuesday, May 29, 201. He will receive: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol. It is a $439 value courtesy of Next Level Training. B.) A FloJak FP-50 stainless steel hand well pump (a $600 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. C.) A “grab bag” of preparedness
gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR)
with a retail value of at least $300, D.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and E.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value) and F.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value).

Third Prize goes to Marc P. goes for Change Your Mind, Save Your Life, which was posted on April 12, 2012 . He will receive: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206, C.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, D.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and E.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Honorable Mention Prizes

The following 19 articles have earned their writers Honorable Mention Prizes. The writers will each receive $30 gift certificates from Amazon.com, via e-mail:

• Teach Your Children Well, by Vicki W.
• Cartridge Reloading Dollars and Cents, by R.S.O. in Arizona
• Prepping and Unassisted Childbirth, by an American Dad
• Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants, by Slim
• Cycling Into TEOTWAWKI, by MineT
• Alternate Food Storage: A Week in a Bucket, by ChemEngineer
• An Arrow Re-Fletching Project by H. of Bradenton
• Sheep: The Original Homesteading Livestock, by S.C.
• Beans, Bullets, Band-Aids, and Birthdays, by Kathryn T.
• Prepping: A Nickel, A Dime, a Dollar at a Time, by T.J.
• A Beginner’s Guide to Buying Silver on eBay, by Gil G.
• Motorcycle BOV, by Jeff H.
• What to Do With It, After It Hits the Fan, by Elizabeth J.
• Low-Cost Knives for Long-Term Survival, by M.B.
• Defending Static Positions in a Survival Setting, by J.G.
• How to Extend the Shelf Life of Food and Save on Groceries, by Vicki W.
• Entomophagy Diet Supplementation Options, by C.N.
• Small Unit Tactics in a Post Collapse Environment, by Gunfighter
• Four Seasons of Gardening Lessons, by Mrs. B. in the Midwest

Note to Top Three Prize Winners: Please e-mail us to let us know your mailing address and UPS shipping address.)

Note to Honorable Mention Prize Winners: Please e-mail us to let us know your the e-mail address where you’d like your $30 Amazon gift certificate directed.

A New Prize!

Starting with Round 41, there will be an additional prize included in the Second Prize package: A SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training. This bolt carrier assembly is a true “drop in” training device. Not only does it provide excellent responsive training, but it also temporarily renders your AR-15 or M4gery completely safe for dry practice, even if you inadvertently insert a magazine of live ammunition. This bolt carrier enables your trigger to auto-reset. It is a $150 retail value.

Round 41 ends on July 31st, so get started writing and e-mail us
your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and articles that relate practical “how to” skills
for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Article source: http://www.survivalblog.com/2012/06/survivalblog-writing-contest-round-40-prize-winners----and-a-new-prize-announcement.html

Illinois state representative Mike Bost loses his cool on the House floor Tuesday afternoon after lawmakers call for a quick vote on a new pension reform proposal.

Bost, R-Murphysboro, angry over a Democrat-led, last-minute plan to overhaul state pensions, launched into a screaming tirade Tuesday.

Bost’s outburst, directed at Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, was shown on state and national media outlets Wednesday morning.

Bost tore into Madigan for purportedly making rules that bind legislators and go against the idea of representative democracy.

Source: QC times

If only we could get the 535 Congressional legislators on the Hill in DC to argue with such fury and passion as Representative Bost did we might actually see some real debate and discussion on the legislation being pumped through Congress. It would certainly be a win for the American people if our Senators and Representatives were vehemently arguing among each other rather than voting on legislation they haven’t read and don’t understand on a daily basis.

[Video follows excerpts]

Total power in one person’s hands… not the American Way!

These damn bills that come out here all the damn time… they come out here the last second and I gotta try to figure out how to vote for my people. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

I’m sick of it. Every year we give power to one person. It was not made that way in the Constitution.

We pass rules that stop each one of us. Enough! I feel like somebody trying to be released from Egypt. Let my people go!

My God they sent me here to vote for ‘em. They sent me here to vote for them, to argue for them, but I’m trapped. I’m trapped by rules that have been forced down our throats.

Folks, we live in a democracy. But not here, not here.

Via The Daily Sheeple:

Author:
Mac Slavo
Views:
Read by 2,405 people
Date: May 31st, 2012
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

Copyright Information: Copyright SHTFplan and Mac Slavo. This content may be freely reproduced in full or in part in digital form with full attribution to the author and a link to www.shtfplan.com. Please contact us for permission to reproduce this content in other media formats.

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Hi Jim,
I wanted to let you know about an interesting visit I had last week.  Part of my job is to evaluate start-up companies for potential early-stage investments.    Ran across an interesting one last week.  Located in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, they have embarked on a totally sustainable commercial scale organic farming/ranching enterprise.  They have about 1,000 acres in Oregon and another 1,000 acres in California in the Central Valley.  Here’s their process to convert regular farmland to sustainable organic agriculture and ranching:

1.  First, they acquire standard farmland, usually tilled.
2.  They convert it to pasture ensuring that there is irrigation and planting it with a robust mixture of grasses, clover, grains, hairy vetch, and other sturdy broadleaf plants.  It takes 3 years to be certified as organic so from this point on, they do not apply pesticides [herbicides,] or non-organic approved fertilizers.
3.  They then run sheep on the pasture land, moving them from segment to segment every 3-5 days. They sell the lambs yearly and keep the breeding ewes for about 5-7 years when they are also sold. They also harvest hay to feed the ewes over the winter.  Volunteer weeds are favorites of the sheep and very little land maintenance is required beyond irrigation.
4.  Sheep are alternated with very large chicken tractors that move on winches about 1 foot/hour.  Eggs and meat are harvested.
5.  Cows are run on the land occasionally.
6.  After three years of this production, the pasture foliage has filled in and is very dense.  The biomass has also been completely re-established in the ground.  The ground has rebuilt its nitrogen content and is now ready for crops.
7.  After several additional years of production (optional), pigs are allowed on the pasture.  The pigs rip up the soil and add natural fertilizer.
8.  After a partial season of pig use, the land is tilled and organic crops are grown for two years.
9.  After cropping, the land is re-planted in pasture and the process repeats.

As you can see, this requires substantial farm land in order to rotate the different utilizations at the proper time.  What is interesting is the financial dynamics of this process.  Typical farmland produces about a 4% return on investment (ROI) annually.  Margins have decreased since ethanol production and other factors have driven up the cost of fertilizers, additives and animal feed.  With their process, they are getting 8% ROI and it is indefinitely sustainable.  Plus, the meat, eggs, and crops are all organic commanding premium prices for the farmers.  I should note that their business model is to be simply owners/managers of the land.  They lease out the land to other commercial enterprise who raise sheep, cows, chickens, pigs and crops and sell them into the organic marketplace.  They lease the land on the schedule noted above.

I thought that this may have some value to homesteaders and people setting up their retreat.  Perhaps this could work on a smaller scale; say five acres or so with small numbers of sheep, pigs and chickens.  You would need ongoing access to grass seed to re-seed pastures if you chose to grow crops. – Sid L.

Article source: http://www.survivalblog.com/2012/05/letter-re-commercial-scale-organic-farming-and-ranching.html

UPDATE: Please note that this article has been corrected. Alfred C. Dutton has never appeared on the show “Doomsday Preppers,” though footage from the show was used in helping prosecutors to convict him of the charges described below.

We were made aware of our mistake by NatGeo Doomsday Prepper Executive Producer Alan Madison.

This report has been updated to reflect this new information.

THE FIRST RULE OF FIGHT CLUB IS…
YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB.

-Fight Club Movie 1999 (link)

OpSec, or Operational Security, is an important rule to follow for those who have chosen to prepare for emergencies by stockpiling food, self defense armaments and disaster supplies.

It’s simple, really. Don’t talk about your preparedness supplies unless it is with trusted people with whom you will be working if a worst case scenario comes to pass. Otherwise, if the world around you collapses and your neighbors and acquintances known you have supplies, guess who they will turn to for help. If you deny them help when they come asking, and they have no place else to turn, you can be relatively certain they will do everything in their power to get at your larder – and that means collaborating with those who would do you harm.

The other key reason we don’t talk about our preps, especially the sharing of critical details like what we store and where we store it, is that you are a potential domestic terror suspect with respect to newly disseminated bulletins from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.

Case in point: Alfred C. Dutton was recently convicted of possession of unregistered destructive devices after sharing his preparedness lifestyle with his ex-wife’s boyfriend.

Off Grid Survival Reports:

A number of times in the past, I have warned about how dangerous I think T.V. shows like Doomsday Preppers are to the prepping community. In my opinion, these prepping shows do nothing to help people prepare and are designed to do only one thing – To make Preppers look like complete Wackjobs!

I hate to say I was right, but it seems the popular reality T.V. show about prepping is now being used to help obtain search warrants and convict preppers of crimes.

The case in question, involves a man from Kansas who was prepping for an economic collapse scenario. It seems law enforcement officials in Kansas used the T.V. show and images of preppers to not only obtain a warrant for a residents arrest, but also to convict the man of crimes in court.

Aflred Dutton, a military veteran and self described prepper from Kansas, was convicted last month of making and storing explosive devices. While what he did may have been a crime, this story should serve as a warning to other preppers. USE YOUR RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT WHEN IT COMES TO PREPPING……The fact that you prep can and will be used against you in the court of law.

The Basis for the Search Warrants states:

Mr. Dutton, a military veteran, has been preparing for the economic collapse of the world. In addition to gathering a large supply of non-perishable items, he also has a modest collection of firearms and ammunition. And he makes fireworks.

During the trial, the prosecution played clips from the popular National Geographic Channel show, “Doomsday Preppers”. The prosecution used images of various “crazy ass preppers” from the T.V. show to successfully paint a picture of Mr. Dutton, as someone on the fringe of society that posed an extreme danger to his community.

Mr. Dutton’s undoing came at the hands of someone he trusted but shouldn’t have:

The only source of information for the storage unit search warrant came from Joe Scott, Mr. Dutton’s ex-wife’s boyfriend. Mr. Scott often came to Mr. Dutton’s apartment to pick up Mr. Dutton’s daughter for her visitation. During these visits, Mr. Dutton and Mr. Scott discussed firearms, fireworks, and other explosives.

…

On August 23, 2011, Mr. Scott went to the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office to tell them about the conversations he had had with Mr. Dutton. Based on Mr. Scott’s information, local law enforcement officer, Captain Lumley, prepared an affidavit supporting the search warrant.

Joe Scott came to the Greenwood county Sheriff’s Office to report that Alfred Dutton Jr. possibly had explosives. Scott said that on or about August 9th of 2011 he had gone to Dutton’s apartment to pick up a minor child per court visitation. While standing and talking with Dutton he produced a small cylindrical device about the size, Scott thought, of a triple A battery. Dutton asked if he knew what it was and when Joe said he didn’t Dutton told him it was a fuse for a hand grenade.

During their talk Dutton had said he ordered fuses from the internet and when they arrived and found they were what he wanted he was then going to order Grenade hulls and claymore mine hulls because the fuse worked in either one. When Scott went to pick up the child on August 16th Dutton told him that he could not find the black powder he needed that [sic] to complete the devices and had to order it from Cabela’s website on the internet.

Scott said when Dutton told him that he ordered the black powder he became concerned for safety reasons of the minor child and public safety of the residents around him in the apartment complex. Scott gave me a package of 20foot safety fuse and told me that Dutton had given it to him just after July 4th of 2010 to “blow stuff up” if he ever needed to, Scott has become concerned because Dutton told him when the government starts to round up citizens he will be one of the first because of his military background.

Source: Dept. of Justice

Mr. Dutton was subsequently charged with with knowingly possessing destructive devices, more fully described as five incendiary bombs (Count I) and nine grenades (Count II). He was convicted under Federal Law and sentenced to serve 21 months in prison.

As Off Grid Survival points out in their report, Mr. Dutton was breaking the law and there is a likelihood that he was endangering those living in his direct vicinity.

We’re not defending Mr. Dutton’s actions, though we suspect there is many a prepper out there that possess similar incendiary devices (or parts) intended for use to protect one’s property from looters and roaming gangs in the aftermath of a collapse. Likewise, there are preppers out there stockpiling other supplies that may not be fully compliant with the law or have been obtained by circumventing existing state and federal statutes.

As such, what this report highlights is that if you talk about your preps with anyone but those who will join you at your survival retreat, you are asking for trouble.

Let’s say it together…. The first rule of Prep Club is…

Author:
Mac Slavo
Views:
Read by 16,856 people
Date: May 30th, 2012
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

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The Demon Star lies some 93 light-years away in the constellation Perseus as one of the eyes of Medusa’s head. (Shown here in Johannes Hevelius’ Perseus from Uranographia.)
CREDIT: Public Domain

Ancient Egyptians may have chronicled the flickering of a star known as “the Demon,” perhaps the earliest known record of a variable star, astronomers suggest.

The ancient Egyptians wrote calendars that marked lucky and unlucky days. These predictions were based on astronomical and mythological events thought of as influential for everyday life. The best preserved of these calendars is the Cairo Calendar, a papyrus document dating between 1163 and 1271 B.C. The entry for each day is prefaced by three hieroglyphics that indicate either good or bad luck, with the characters often derived from events of mythology.

Astronomers at the University of Helsinki in Finland had previously discovered that some of the fortunate days recurred in a pattern, every 29.6 days. This almost exactly matches the length of the lunar cycle — the time between two full moons. New moons may have been associated with bad luck.

Dimming demon star

The scientists also detected another pattern in the calendar, one that occurred every 2.85 days. Now the researchers suggest this approximately matches regular dimming of Algol, “the Demon Star,” which lies approximately 93 light-years away in the constellation Perseus as one of the eyes of Medusa’s head. Its name comes from the Arabic phrase, ra’s al-ghul, which means “the demon’s head.”

Algol is the brightest known example of an eclipsing binary system — the large bright member of the system, Beta Persei A, regularly gets eclipsed by the dimmer Beta Persei B. From our point of view, Algol dims by more than a factor of three for 10 hours at a time, dwindling easily seen with the naked eye.

“It seems that the first observation of a variable star was made 3,000 years earlier than was previously thought,” said researcher Lauri Jetsu, an astronomer at the University of Helsinki.

The Cairo Calendar describes how Wedjat, the Eye of Horus, regularly transformed from peaceful to raging, with good or bad influences on life. Horus was the patron god of kings in ancient Egypt. [Gallery: Sun Gods and Goddesses]

“The eclipse seems to be linked with the lucky days, because it represents the pacification of the Eye of Horus,” researcher Sebastian Porceddu, an astronomer and Egyptologist at the University of Helsinki, told LiveScience. “A bright Eye of Horus meant it is raging and a threat to mankind.”

Pinch of salt?

In modern times, Algol actually dims every 2.867 days. The researchers suggest this discrepancy of 0.017 days — about 25 minutes — between ancient Egyptian and modern values for Algol’s dimming may be due to changes Algol may have undergone in the past three millennia. Matter is apparently flowing from the dimmer member of this eclipsing binary to the brighter star, altering their orbit so that eclipses now take longer than they once did. If correct, this ancient Egyptian data could shed light on eclipsing binaries and the details of how such mass transfer might affect their orbits.

“I believe that from now on, Egyptologists will be keeping an eye on possible references to Algol elsewhere,” Porceddu said.

Other scientists are intrigued by the idea, but remain skeptical.

“I think it’s an interesting idea — just how convincing it is is another issue,” astrophysicist Peter Eggleton at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who did not take part in this research, said in an interview.

This pattern “does seem very plausibly attributed to Algol, and the suggestion that it has slowed down by a small amount over 3,000 years is not unreasonable,” Eggleton said. “But you do have to take the idea with a pinch of salt — it’s obviously difficult to pin down what people were really thinking 3,000 years ago.”

The scientists submitted their findings to the journal Astronomy Astrophysics.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/C2C-InTheNews/~3/rz-UJotKRjE/20575-ancient-egyptian-calendar-demon-star.html

Talk of machine guns surveillance spooks hotel guests

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Bilderberg Group has launched an unprecedented security crackdown on the eve of tomorrow’s secretive confab of global power brokers, with guests at the Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles hotel being intimidated by talk of machine guns and high-tech surveillance.

Video streaming by Ustream
Police tell Alex Jones and crew to leave the hotel.

Surveying the scene at the hotel today, radio host Alex Jones described a chaotic picture, with Bilderberg security, including a particularly vocal Swedish woman, stomping around the building announcing that “machine gun nests” were being set up in anticipation of a deluge of protesters arriving over the next few days.

Given the fact that a record number of demonstrators are expected to attend, Bilderberg has been more stringent than ever before in its efforts to get people out of the way, telling customers who had made room reservations for two days before the start of the conference that their bookings would not be honored.

Undercover Fairfax police, secret service, hotel security, as well as diplomatic service personnel are all now rushing to finalize preparations for the arrival of Bilderberg members tomorrow morning.

According to London Guardian journalist Charlie Skelton, conference organizers were also using iPhones to film guests who had arrived for brunch. Regular guests as well as journalists are also having background checks run against their names.

Alex Jones also heard discussions between members of Bilderberg security about how sophisticated surveillance equipment using satellites was being used to tap phones of prominent activists and media personalities set to cover the event.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Although well over a thousand people have signaled their intention to attend the protest, Bilderberg only expects around 500 to be in place at any one time.

Alex Jones himself was contacted yesterday by Bryan Stolz, Director of Hotel Operations at Marriott International, who told Jones that his room booking was cancelled and that he and his crew would be banned from entering the premises of the hotel.

People who are already staying at the hotel have had letters delivered to their rooms ordering them to leave the premises before noon on Thursday.

We are also expecting to receive details of Bilderberg’s 2012 agenda within the next few hours. One topic of discussion already confirmed to be up for debate will be ecological issues and Agenda 21 – part of Bilderberg’s efforts to usher in a post-industrial revolution.

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

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Tags: bilderberg

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RIYADH |
Wed May 30, 2012 7:43am EDT

RIYADH (Reuters) – The dingy corridors and gloomy wards of a long-abandoned Saudi Arabian hospital have drawn hundreds of amateur ghost hunters who believe it to be haunted by jinn, the malevolent spirits of the Koran and Arabian mythology.

The macabre fascination with Riyadh’s Irqa Hospital, which treated Gulf War combatants in 1991, began with tweeted rumours and escalated to the point where hundreds of youths broke into the grounds, smashing windows and starting fires.

“Teenagers sent text messages calling for an operation against some of the jinn who live in the hospital, and they broke into the hospital and smashed its facilities and burned 60 percent of it,” Okaz newspaper reported last week.

The rampage prompted angry press complaints the authorities were allowing the building to fall into disrepair.

Several films have since been posted on YouTube showing grinning young men exploring the building’s deserted rooms in search of evidence of spectral activity.

One showed blazing palm trees that had been torched by the ghost hunters.

Jinn fever reached the point where the Health Ministry issued a terse statement on Monday disclaiming responsibility for the decaying building, which it said was privately owned and too decrepit to be revived as a working hospital.

A columnist in the English-language Saudi Gazette daily on Tuesday recommended that authorities form “a committee for the jinn” to help the owners of possessed houses.

“It would be no understatement to say we are sick and tired of evil sorcerers,” said the article.

Belief in jinn is enshrined in Muslim cosmology, with numerous mentions of them in the Koran.

Unlike in the Western tradition of ghosts, jinn are not the lost souls of the dead but beings who lead parallel lives to humans, whom they sometimes tempt into sinful ways.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; editing by Andrew Roche)

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/C2C-InTheNews/~3/DY1EQ7nbkFY/uk-haunted-hospital-saudi-idUSLNE84T01Q20120530

People with autism appear less likely to believe in God – a discovery that has strengthened theories that religious belief relies on being able to imagine what God is thinking, a capacity known as “mentalising”.

One of the hallmarks of autism is an impaired ability to infer and respond to what other people are thinking, so the investigators wondered whether this would affect their likelihood of believing in God.

In a study of adolescents questioned on their beliefs, those with autism were almost 90 per cent less likely than non-autistic peers to express a strong belief in God.

The study – along with three others that questioned hundreds of people about religious belief and mentalisation abilities – also showed that men are worse than women at mentalising. This correlated with them being less likely than women to believe in God.

“We reasoned that if thinking about a personal god engages mentalising abilities, then mentalising deficits would be expected to make belief in a personal god less intuitive, and therefore less believable,” says Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and joint head of the investigation. “We found support for this in four different studies.”

In each of the studies, jointly reported on 30 May, Norenzayan and his colleagues asked participants to rate their agreement, on a scale from 1 to 7, to questions about their beliefs, such as: “When I am in trouble, I find myself wanting to ask God for help”.

They also asked them to complete a standard questionnaire called the Empathy Quotient, which asks respondents to rate themselves on statements such as: “I am good at predicting how someone will feel”.

In all four studies, professed belief in God correlated with higher mentalising scores.

The researchers caution, however, that the findings do not prove that belief in God relies exclusively on mentalisation. “We cannot infer causality without further research,” says Norenzayan, pointing out that there are many other reasons why people may or may not believe in God, whether or not they are good at mentalising. Norenzayan’s own research team has shown, for example, that analytical thinkers are less likely to believe in God.

Conversely, says Norenzayan, people may adopt religion for a host of psychological and cultural reasons independent of “mind-reading” abilities.

“Several studies have recently shown a relation between mentalising and the belief in a personal god,” says Uffe Schjødt of Aarhus University in Denmark, whose own studies have shown that regions of the brain vital for mentalising are active when people pray. “Their finding that deficiencies in mentalising, as seen in people with autism, correlate with a decrease of such beliefs is hardly surprising, but it now finds support in solid empirical data.”

Journal reference: PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0036880

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Ascribing Agency Where None Exists

Wed May 30 22:35:22 BST 2012 by ullrich fischer

Right. Further evidence that god belief is an outgrowth of the human tendency (very pro-survival where there be tigers) to see agency where there is none. Those of our ancestors who believed that every rustling in the bushes was a tiger, even if they were often wrong and it was just a breeze moving a leaf, survived in greater numbers than those who disregarded such a rustling thinking it was just the wind when in fact it was a sneaky tiger.

Ascribing Agency Where None Exists

Thu May 31 09:21:07 BST 2012 by Preposterous

Right.

We are also intensely curious. We have to find the answers to things.

For a lot of the more eccentric creation myths I blame grandfathers.

‘Grandpa where did everything come from?’

‘Well my boy remember the big old whale we saw last saturday? Well up in the sky is a giant whale and all the stars and this planet are its babies.’

‘Really grandpa?’

‘Yep!’

Grandpa goes leaving behind a new religion. Grandpa would never lie .

Polytheism is very practical. Gods of wind, lightening, rivers, the sea, the sun… forces that exist but that we had no explanation for.

The stranger religions deal with unseen powers, from the magic invoked by witch doctors to monotheism.

Today we know much more than we did when those religions were created. We didn’t know what caused disease and thought it was either a punishment or an evil spirit entering the body. In a way, infecting organisms are like evil spirits. You can’t see them. They are parasites. We just know exactly what has entered the body now. We didn’t know the stars were giant nuclear fusion reactors. How far away they were. Or even that they were like our sun. We didn’t even know about galaxies and thought the milky way represented the whole heavens. We didn’t understand death and still don’t really understand how we think and why at the end we stop. It is frightening. People say is is natural… but so is childbirth. Natural doesn’t = nice!

We know so much more than we did before. As we learn things we discard outmoded beliefs. This is natural. It doesn’t mean that we have to lose our cultures and our traditions, the things which anchor us, but it does mean that we cannot discount the knowledge gained by our reasoning minds. At the end of the day – all we have in this world is how we treat each other. If we are good to each other we live in a nice world, if we are cruel to each other then we build our own hell. We do this – there is nothing supernatural ‘making’ us. We should enjoy our religions as a kind of living history – they also serve as a useful reminder that we can be gullible and are capable of believing the most preposterous things.

Ascribing Agency Where None Exists

Thu May 31 12:17:08 BST 2012 by ian

Just because only those with the right brain setup can see God doesn’t mean He isn’t there. Dogs can’t see colours, does that mean Green is a mass delusion?

Ascribing Agency Where None Exists

Thu May 31 12:41:47 BST 2012 by Poodle Stomper

A rather appropriate comparison in a way. Green doesn’t exist. The color green is nothing more than our brain’s interpretation of signals relayed to it by our eyes in response to a particular frequency of light. Depending on your eyes, you may not see green at all but rather see something else.

However, you say that this study doesn’t prove that a god (why does it have to be a he?) doesn’t exist and you are correct. You cannot prove that something does NOT exist (you can’t prove a negative). You can only prove that something DOES exist and the burden of proof is on those claiming that “he” exists, not on science to prove “he” doesn’t.

Ascribing Agency Where None Exists

Thu May 31 12:50:30 BST 2012 by ian

“and you are correct”

thankyou.

Ascribing Agency Where None Exists

Thu May 31 12:52:43 BST 2012 by Preposterous

That argument has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of a god. You are speaking about something that exits. We use machines to perceive many things that our senses cannot including the infrared and ultraviolet to radio and micro waves. ‘Green’ does not have conciseness – does not cause disease or judge you at death.

I also agree with Heim. He felt that there were whole aspects of geometry that existed, but that our senses could not perceive.

I use to say to my children when they asked me about a god what I thought. I said

‘I can stand out in the garden and bask in the big warm face of the sun and revel in its glory, but I know the big warm face of the sun looks down on our tiny insignificant little planet and does not

see

me.’

Now Ian – you explain your justification for belief in a god. Pick one. There are tons to choose from.

Ascribing Agency Where None Exists

Thu May 31 13:02:00 BST 2012 by ian

Sorry, Preposterous. It’s personal.

Ascribing Agency Where None Exists

Thu May 31 13:43:23 BST 2012 by lamorpa

“He”?

This Is Not Science

Thu May 31 00:49:54 BST 2012 by Wm. Gordon Bacon

I do not understand why new Scientist insists on publishing articles like this. How does one read God’s mind? For me it is trivial, No God, no mind, end of hypothesis. This article and so called research is of no use to the advancement of science.

This Is Not Science

Thu May 31 04:26:51 BST 2012 by Dann

Not unless you consider psychology to be science.

(Not that any non-psychologists do…)

This Is Not Science

Thu May 31 08:01:01 BST 2012 by Poodle Stomper

Actually, it is science. The “No God, no mind” is exactly what the study supports. It basically supports the idea that the belief in a god is an extension of our ability to assign emotions and thoughts to others outside of ourselves. Many autistic people have trouble doing this in a meaningful way, making them less prone to going a step further and assigning thoughts to something that isn’t there at all. You should probably take the time to read the article and the study before berating the New Scientist staff or the researchers that did the study. It actually provides pretty interesting data replicating previous observations.

This Is Not Science

Thu May 31 08:22:44 BST 2012 by marek

I’m afraid that “It basically supports the idea that the belief in a god is an extension of our ability to assign emotions and thoughts to others outside of ourselves” is a kind of misrepresenting the message of this research.

It rather should be: “It basically supports the idea that the belief in a god MAY BE BASED ON our ability to assign emotions and thoughts to others outside of ourselves”

This Is Not Science

Thu May 31 12:35:24 BST 2012 by Poodle Stomper

I humbly disagree. The hypothesis is: “the belief in a god is an extension of our ability to assign emotions and thoughts to others outside of ourselves”. This supports the hypothesis, which means that the *hypothesis* MAY be correct. I didn’t say it definitively proved the hypothesis correct. Generally speaking, your hypothesis will be formulated to have a definitive claim which will be tested, even though you can only ever support or refute it rather than prove it.

Anomaly

Thu May 31 17:21:27 BST 2012 by Em

I think this is simply -as stated- an observation, no hypothesis.

Also, I have Aspergers with very little ability to mentalise (low EQ) – and I have strong belief in a personal God

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Obviously it’s fun talking about boom sticks and charging in to save the day. But here are some other items for your consideration for the other 23 hours in the day when the castle is not under siege:

FOOD WATER – Your body can last 30 days without food, and only 3 days without water. What are you doing to secure a minimum of a gallon/day for each member of your family. Remember, in a grid down scenario, it will NOT take long for industrious groups to recognize that water will be more valuable than gold. Plan on making a hike to a nearby stream each day with your bucket? How long do you think it would take a gang to recognize the power of strategically placing sniper or blockades to/from accessible watering holes? You’re going to need a Plan B – plastic water cans (5 gal) that can be carried, 55 gallon drums, 250 gallon rain capture systems. These will be life savers. One final word on water – consider a well hand pump like this one from Flojak. JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A WELL DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE WATER! Without electricity, how do you plan to get that water up to you?

Figuring out food is easy. What did you eat today? Now buy 30 of that, with your goal to build up to 6-12 months of food for your family. Eggs/milk? Yeah, they have the powdered stuff. Remember that you will want to maintain as much of a normalized, familiar diet as possible so you don’t shock your body.  Don’t forget to throw in some sweets (Hershey Kisses, candy bars, etc.)  When everything seems like it’s off its hinge, you’ll appreciate having something sweet.

CLOTHING – What are you lacking right now that is either missing or in need of repair/stitching? Comfortable, water proof hiking boots should be priority. Poncho. Waterproof cold weather gear. Hats, gloves, sunglasses. Do you have extra batteries for your watch?  Also – 2 categories to prep: Everyday “civvies” /work uniform (khakis and polos, etc), and then your “playtime/hunting” gear. there is a time and place for both. Simple is best. And remember that “two is one, and one is none”.

SHELTER – This is more than do you have a roof. Consider what happens when the power goes down. Do you have light/candles/flashlights/phone service? What about backup heat? Here’s food for thought: In a grid down scenario, how long do you think you can “hold up” without operational sewage? Do you have an emergency 5 gallon bucket with lid and extra baggies? Hint: some extra kitty litter? Not a bad idea. Also – inventory any possible weak spots: Ground floor doors and windows. You may also consider pre-cutting plywood to act as reinforcement in the case of a hurricane (or other man-made threats).  Now is also a good time to begin contingency plans.  Where will you go in the event of some emergency and your house is no longer safe, or has been destroyed or damaged?  Have you considered forming alliances with people in your neighborhood or church where if you are homeless you can stay with them (for a pre-determined period of time), and vice versa.

TRANSPORTATION – Lets step back for a second. Before you go shopping for a diesel Bug-out vehicle, do you have the basics? Jumper cables? Gas can? Spare tire? Reliable jack? Extra quarts of oil and coolant? These cost $50 and can be the difference between a 10 minute ride home, or being stuck in the woods overnight. Also – were you aware that you can purchase a 14 gallon gas tank with wheels to store at the house? Think about it…if the pumps go dry, you have an extra 300-400 miles of mobility that can be bartered or utilized to get to your safe house.

Going Beyond The Four Pillars

Beyond the “4-Pillars” of Food, Clothing, Shelter, and Transportation, there are other vital tactics that you will need to sustain you and your family over the next 6-12+ months: They are Communications, Defense, Medical, and Community.

COMMUNICATIONS: – As the Ghostbusters would ask, “Who ya gonna call?” Do you have a local list of 5 to 10 reliable people that you would trust if you come home to a burning house, or you find yourself surrounded by a roving band of ne’er-do-wells trying to beat down your front door and windows? After the phone tree, given the phone dead zone in New York City on 9/11, you should probably consider getting your ham radio license. When disaster hits, this is the Internet, phone system, and postal service all wrapped up in one little box. In the field of battle, when you control communication, you also control movement of the enemy, and can cut off any vital supplies and shipments.

DEFENSE: This seems to be where us guys like to go first. There’s a reason this is further down the list. If you don’t have these other items squared away first, then what are you going to do? Well, you become one of “them”, the looter crowd that just thinks they are going to take whatever they need by force. The habit of planning the use of non-lethal force will avoid major unnecessary engagements that cost valuable resources, and cost lives. Still, you need to be able to defend yourself, your family, your home, and be prepared to come to the aid of your friends and community. It’s your duty as a man, in my humble opinion.

You don’t need to spend $1,500 on the fanciest AR and a drawer full of Glocks in every caliber. It means you need the basics – 1) Knowledge/Awareness, 2) Hand to Hand/Self Defense training, 3) Concealed carry, 4) Something to defend your home against multiple aggressors for 20 to 30 minutes until help can arrive (see Communications, above). At its core you can equip yourself with a highly-concealable Taurus TCP .380 for only $200, and reliable 12 ga Shotgun for $209.

Guess what? That leaves enough funds to pick up a Mosin Nagant rifle for less than $120 that will take down any large game you may need to put on the table for your family (or even two-legged predators). Now I’m no math major, but for $529 (+FFL fees), you can purchase all the home defense that you really need. But here’s the rub: These will do you no good unless you practice, practice, practice. Get involved with USPSA. Find other like-minded folks in your area who are interested in running various drills, shooting matches, and get the practice and experience you need. Losers practice so they don’t miss. Winners practice until they can’t miss. Chew on that for a minute.

MEDICAL – Preventive maintenance is most critical. Get off your duff and move for 20-30 minutes day. Walk, hike, hit up p90x or Insanity. Heck, go online and find some sort of fitness that you find fun. I have a 20 minute circuit of sit-ups, pushups, pull-ups, handstands, rev pull-ups, dips, burpees, curl/shrugs, weighted jump rope and deep squats/sprints that I knock out in the time it takes most people to watch television commercials. Beyond preventative, you will obviously need some basics: Supplements, pain meds, insulin, Neosporin, Band-aids, rubbing alcohol, etc. Don’t over think it. Just put together what you need as you need it in a water-tight tool box, or Rubbermaid tote container. Then find some place to get CPR certified.

COMMUNITY – No man is an island, and you aren’t going to be able to do this alone. We’re not wire up that way. Got a bug out retreat in the boonies that’s 50 miles from the nearest town? Awesome. Then what. Why not organize with people in your community. Find a common thread, and decide that if TSHTF that you, your family, your neighbors, and people within your community are going to be proactive in setting up all the items listed above.  Since before the formation of our nation, churches have played a vital role in our communities, both for spiritual guidance, as well as for community. We need each other.  As a former athlete I cannot tell you how many times I was reminded of the acronym “TEAM – Together Everyone Achieves More!”.  It became a running joke, but today those words ring truer than ever.  There are people you know who can build shelter, run plumbing, electricity, fix cars and engines, set up and orchestrate civil communications and defense, bake, can, and coordinate anything you can imagine. But apart from community, those talents and strengths all go to waste.  But when combined, we all become a part of something much greater than the sum of our individual parts.

The media seems to enjoy casting “preppers” as outer fringe nut jobs, yet the federal government has underground bunkers and contingency plans for every conceivable disaster known to man. Did you know they even have contingency plans in the event an asteroid slams into the planet and wipes 90% of the population off the face of the earth? Yet you’re told that you’re nuts to set aside 30 days of food and water… well, to me that is nuts not to think about these things and set plans in motion. And above all else, find things that you enjoy doing and share them! Movies, plays, art, music, backpacking, dancing…and my favorite, eating! There is so much worth living and fighting for.

So why not start today with an open discussion with the people in your life? The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Start by picking up that extra 25lb block of rice at Sam’s Club. Then look to add 1 new thing each day or week. Remember, the days are evil, and each passing day is a lost opportunity to do good, not only for yourself, but for the lives of those around you who are beginning to wake up.  And see this time as a tremendous opportunity to become more as a person, and to minister to the needs of others.  Imagine the impact and good you can do when a family member or friend comes to you panicked by the reality that the world that they’ve always know is about to change.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and when a void is created, Edmund Burke once said that “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing”.  Well, now is your chance to do something good.

Article source: http://www.survivalblog.com/2012/05/beyond-the-four-pillars-by-adam-h.html

When President Obama promised Americans ‘hope and change’ during the run up to the 2008 Presidential election his supporters thought he meant a change for the better.

Few would have believed that when Barack Obama said he would “fundamentally change America,” it would actually make things worse – much worse.

This latest video montage from Fox News and now disavowed by the network as the work of a rogue associate producer, has democrats and some republicans claiming it is biased against the President and reminiscent of 1930′s propaganda.

The video, which takes a look at where the nation stood on jobs, prices for food and energy, the national debt, and government assistance programs, compares how far we’ve come (or fallen) since President Obama took office.

Propaganda? Maybe. Probably. It is, after all, the mainstream media.

But facts are facts, and instead of making this about the journalistic integrity of organizations that have long since lost their credibility with a large segment of Americans because they are clearly in the business of entertainment and not news reporting, perhaps we should actually consider the content of the message itself.

Obama – Then and Now:

Key Statistics comparing 2008 and 2012:

National Debt Then: $10 Trillion
Now: $15.7 Trillion (Up 57%)

Jobless Rate Then: 7.8%
Now: 8.3% (officially)

Food Stamp Dependence Then: 28.2 Million
Now: 46.2 Million (Up 63%)

Price of Gas Then: $2.50 /Gal
Now: $3.68 /Gal (Up 47%)

Price of Beef Then: $2.35 /lb
Now: $3.01 /lb (Up 28%)

Price of Bacon Then: $3.75 /lb
Now: $4.60 /lb (Up 23.3%)

Price of Bread Then: $1.97
Now: $2.05 (Up 4%)

Families with no Savings Then: 18.%
Now: 23.4%

Author:
Mac Slavo
Views:
Read by 112 people
Date: May 31st, 2012
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

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