SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. Today, Steven Crowder answers his critics over the allegations that he faked his Alexa video.
North Korea
Reader P.S. sent in this article with North Korea showing that it is continuing in their quest for an ICBM that can reach any part of North America. In their latest test, the missile reached the highest altitude of any NK missle test yet and splashed down in the Sea of Japan. The test shows that they now have a vehicle capable of striking the U.S. but they do not yet have the miniaturized nuke to place on the missile. However, it is only a matter of time. In conventional thinking, this ability is a ploy to gain concessions from the U.S. as they have done over the last two decades because any such first strike would lead to certain annihilation. But it is Kim Jong Un we are talking about.
Mark Zuckerberg is showing a remarkable inability to grasp the dangers of AI. Facebook recently announced that they would be running algorithms to identify users who are suicidal. Stating that this automatic recognition simply forwards the posts to human managers, Facebook believes it will be able to save lives and everyone will love it. The company does not have any answers on how it will avoid scanning for political dissent or petty crime. Additionally, users do not have the ability to opt out of the scanning. Every user account will be scanned. Thanks to DSV for the link.
Firearms Confiscation
Hawaii is the latest state in legalizing the medical usage of marijuana. The difference with this state is that if you obtain a permit to use the drug, you get a letter in the mail stating that you have 30 days upon receipt of the letter to “voluntarily” surrender your firearms, permit and ammunition to the police. There is an active clash of laws as the states move to legalize the drug while the federal laws prohibit firearms purchases and ownership. The Honolulu letters possible represent the first time a law enforcement agency has proactively sought state registered patients out though. Thanks to D.S. for the link.
Alexa Controversy
On Sunday, SurvivalBlog ran an article in Odds ‘n Sods with Steven Crowder showing that Alexa was a liberal SJW. Apparently Crowder received much backlash over this video with many people claiming he faked the interaction with Alexa. SurvivalBlog even received some communication from our readers regarding this exact subject. Now, Crowder has released the original video without cuts so that viewers can see the unedited version showing that Alexa did indeed answer in a very liberal fashion. With the video garnering over 1 million views in just three days, it is entirely possible that Amazon took notice and changed things so you may not get the same responses. However, many viewers did.
Buns of the Illegals
A chicago bakery (which makes buns for McDonald’s and other restaurants) is struggling to keep its door open this year. They have lost nearly $21 million dollars because INS raided the company and it lost nearly 800 workers. That is one-third of their entire workforce. The company says they are struggling to replace the workers and are facing pressure to raise wages. On wonders how you can unknowingly employ that many illegal aliens and not have a clue?
Socialism
Reader Mark B. sent in this video from Bill Whittle: Socialism is for Suckers. If you have friends who believe in socialism, you should get them to watch this video with you. Bill profiles Venezuela and how they have been turned from the richest country in South America with quite possibly the largest oil reserves in the world to one with starving people. Bill shows pictures of the plight of Venezuela’s zoos and pets because currently, one can of dog food costs nearly a full day’s wages but then assures us that we don’t have to worry about those animals anymore. The starving people of Venezuela broke into the zoo and ate all of them. A similar fate has befallen the family pets. Yet through it all, there is one person in Venezuela who is worth over four billion (with a “B”) dollars. Maria Chavez, the daughter of the late Hugo Chavez, is the richest woman in Venezuela. Somehow, she ended up with all this wealth as her country starves to death. Yep, socialism sure has been good to her.
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Please send your news tips to HJL. (Either via e-mail of via ourContact form.) These are often especially relevant, because they come from folks who watch news that is important to them. Due to their diligence and focus, we benefit from fresh “on target” news. We often “get the scoop” on news that is most likely ignored (or reported late) by mainstream American news outlets. Thanks!
Wow! the piece on Socialism was a real eyeopener. Thanks for the video link. It will be put to good use.
Regarding the Chicago bakery that lost the workers, it can easily happen. I deal with a company that was sold to a bigger conglomerate. It turns out the large 70%? of the workers were hired through an agency. And many had been there for many years. If the hiring agency did or did not know the legality of these workers- I do not know. Maybe not because I understand they were subsequently busted for not remitting the payroll taxes withheld to the govt. But the company management just cut a check and the agency “took care” of the rest. It became a fiasco.
.450 Bushmaster,
How long of a barrel are you planning for this project? Scout Rifle?
I’m looking from someone who can do a conversion of a Sig 556 STANAG rifle with folding stock to .450 Bushmaster with a 20 inch barrel?
1) I think the corporate news media is deliberately understating the threat from North Korea — to suppress voter recognition of how Obama’s refusal to stop North Korea’s nuclear tests let North Korea acquire the FUSION bomb (far more powerful than the mere atomic (fission) bomb. The USA is now in significant danger from a fifth rate economic power.
2) Deterrence doesn’t work if Kim is a proxy for China — he could gravely damage the US economy if offered a secret refuge and lifetime of luxury in China. Did no one see what rising power gained 20 years of time from the Sept 11, 2001 attack — while the USA was diverted into focusing on impotent Al Qaeda. Did no one notice WHERE Bin Laden was hiding –and how close it was to the Chinese border? But, hey, we are only $15 Trillion dollars deeper in federal debt — roughly 7 years worth of our total GDP.
3)When the Sept test occurred, our liberal news media reported it as 60 –maybe 100 –kilotons. But the US Geological Survey said its meters recorded a Richter 6.3 shock — which says the test was roughly 542 kilotons by the well-established Bower Rule. After several days had passed and the story became old news, the Washington Post finally acknowledged that the test was closer to 250 kt.
4) The significance is that the yield of the Sept test indicates a fusion bomb and fusion bombs can be increased greatly in yield by stacking. See Wikipedia on the Tsar Bomba test. Others have noted the damage an EMP pulse could cause to the US economy. But two 50 megaton bombs exploded off Los Angeles and San Francisco in merchant ships could destroy those cities — especially if constructed as radiological weapons spreading massive clouds of intense radioactive fallout. The bombs don’t need North Korean fingerprints on them — ISIS or Al Qaeda would be happy to skipper the vessels.
5) Even with huge defense budget cuts, Bill Clinton still spend almost $4 Trillion on defense in his two terms — and let Al Qaeda pull off the Sept 11 attack for a cost of roughly $180,000. Who in Washington paid a price for that massive failure?
Well, aside from Bill Clinton’s national security advisor Sandy Berger — who lost his law license after being caught stealing classified documents out of the National Archives in order to destroy them and cover up Clinton’s failures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Berger#Unauthorized_removal_and_destruction_of_classified_material
Maybe NK will nuke us. It is certainly possible, their leader is certifiably crazy and it may well happen. Maybe Islamic Terrorists will get a nuke and touch it off in Times Square on New Years Eve. Maybe one of the other nuclear powers will drop a nuke on an American or European city. Likely Iran will one day nuke Tel Aviv. All of these are real possibilities. All of this was set in motion years ago leading up to that day when someone for some reason nukes a major Western city. It will happen and given the tensions and the proliferation it seems likely it will happen sooner rather than later. Once that Rubicon is crossed life and politics on earth will change dramatically and never return to the kind of laissez-faire attitude our politicians have about defense and offensive nations today. IMHO it will happen and when it does it will be impossible to NOT have many many more nukes used in retaliation. The only unknowable questions are which city and when?
1) The problem is that mankind may never recover from a significant nuclear war — in terms of returning to the present levels of prosperity and technology. We have used up all the easily exploited non-renewable resources — coal, oil, metal ores,etc. Some people will survive but will be stuck in the stagnation of Qing China.
2) It takes economic surplus and freedom to fund scientific research/technological advancement — people on the verge of starvation have neither. They will support authoritarian government to ensure law and order because the slightest conflict brings famine.
3) 15,000+ scientists say we are at risk even if the status quo continues:
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/bix125/4605229
4) When a smaller group of scientists issued an earlier warning in the 1992, the Washington Post and New York Times refused to report it — deciding it was not newsworthy.
5) As with the North Korea threat, the latest warning from the scientists has been buried in favor of extensive reporting about Harvey Weinstein groping some ambitious women who responded to his request to meet him alone in a hotel room. Because Harvey evidently is a greater threat to national security.
Our major opponents — Russia, China, EU — don’t need to destroy us. They just need to cripple the US economy badly enough that we can no longer support a military with the size and power it currently has. Forcing us to withdraw to North America and close overseas bases. How big a bribe to Kim would that be worth?
Re: Socialism is for Suckers.
Talk about Trigger Warnings…
Maybe I’m just a cream puff masquerading as a crusty old misanthrope, but the images of innocent, helpless animals slowly starving in Venezuelan zoos and being butchered for food at the hands of their owners makes me cry like a little girl.
Same thing happened when I read One Second After and the protagonist had to shoot the family dog for food.
I don’t begrudge families doing what they have to do to stay alive, but please Lord let there be a special place in Hell for the creatures that make this kind of thing necessary, and some kind of Heaven somewhere for Innocents who suffer at their hands.
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Please hurry.
Thanks, Gene, for this reminder of REV 21:4–I really needed that today.
I totally agree. Thank you, Gene.
Don- That day is already here and long gone- we currently CAN’T support the military that we’ve got. Whats that interesting little thing called the NATIONAL DEBT… it’s $20 trillion. And that’s only the declared debt. There’s well over 100 trillion in “unfunded liabilities”.
Lets get that visual down to scale. That hundred dollar bill in your pocket? A billion dollars in hundred dollar bills would be 63 miles long. It’ll take you a bit over an hour to drive past a billion dollars of stacked up hundred dollar bills at 60 miles per hour.
A trillion dollars is a thousand times that. 63,000 miles. At your sedate speed of 60 miles per hour, driving 24 hours a day, it’ll take you almost 44 days to drive past a stack of a trillion dollars in hundred dollar bills. Of course, it’ll take you longer, since I didn’t give you any time to stop for gas, food, or sleep. Your average family car will have lost somewhere half of it’s value by the time it runs 63,000 miles.
Now let’s step on over to the actual National Debt. 20 trillion. It’s actually 20 trillion and a half at the moment, but lets just say it’s 20 trillion for the sake of this calculation.
Twenty trillion is 1,260,000 miles. That’s the equivalent to going around the Earth 50 times. Now… most of us don’t have a clue how far around the Earth is. In other terms, to follow along with our discussion up above, if you drove 24 hours a day, at 60 miles an hour, it would take you 2.4 years to drive past twenty trillion stacked up along the side of the highway.
Let’s reduce it into rational terms. Let’s say the average lifetime is 80 years. You started driving when you were 15 and you drove the same number of miles every year until you were 80 years old. You would have to average over 19,000 miles a year, or over 53 miles every day, in your sedate family car, chasing a stack of hundred dollar bills along the highway, to get an idea of how big the national debt really is. Now… you can you think of driving along the highway for 53 miles, at 60 miles an hour, nearly an hour, every day of your life, chasing a stack of hundred dollar bills, for your entire lifetime?
According to official figures that I have seen our debt is only 979% of our revenue. And Japan is in even worse shape than we are. Mind you, that’s official. I think our national productivity is well under half the official figures because they count “service” businesses in their figures and other things that don’t actually make things or produce things. China is the smart one… they actually make all the shit Americans want.
Now if you are paying any attention to alt-media the rumor is that China and Russia are working on implementing a gold standard that will eventually destroy the dollar. Then we can all stop thinking about driving past stacks of hundred dollar bills and start thinking about streets paved with gold, but alas, all the gold that has ever been mined in the whole wide world would fit into a cube 67′ x 67′ x 67′. That is about the height of a seven story building. Lets put it another way. If we took all the gold in the whole wide world, cast it into standard size bricks, and paved a street with them, that street would be 35′ wide by 2,287′ long. That’s just a bit over a half mile of normal residential neighborhood streets, the type that you normally drive between 25-35mph on.
If everyone in the world had their share of all the gold in the whole wide world, everyone would have well under an oz of gold, or about 4-5 gold rings.
On another note, if you loaded up two semi trucks with gold bars, you’d have just enough gold at current valuations to buy a particular Da Vinci painting that sold not too long ago.
An excellent you tube representation of 20 trillion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqUwr-Nkq9g
Another thing the news corporations are covering up is how Obama increased our NIIP — our net debt to foreigners — from $2.5 Trillion to over $8 Trillion. How are we supposed to pay that off? Sell our Interstate Highways, National Forests, and Midwest farmland to China and Japan?
https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/intinv/2017/intinv217.htm
But the Washington Post thinks this is unimportant compared to the groping story of the day. See — the News Media doesn’t have to tell outright falsehoods in order to lie to you — it just has to cover up inconvenient truths, loudly hype unimportant facts that support its agenda and throw out a massive barrage of nonsense to distract the voters from what is going on.
Your comments are correct for one dollar bills. However in your example you used one hundred dollar bills. The height of a billion dollars in one hundred dollar bills is 0.63 mile, and a trillion in one hundred dollar bills is 630 miles high, rather than 63,000.
“Firearms Confiscation”
WHy would any Hawaiian get a permit from the state to grow and smoke “pakalolo”? It’s a weed. It grows everywhere, easily. Hawaii is a tropical paradise. I’ve personally seen freshly cut sticks stuck into the wet ground, and grow. No need to go to the state to procure your weed.
So good luck to the FedGov and state in trying to collect firearms through the push-pull of “if you want this, then give up that”.
Silliness personified.
It appears that Mark Suckerberg has watched to many episodes of “Person of Interest”