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 “JWR”. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. Today, we look at possible Federal body armor restrictions.
Senator Schumer Wants Body Armor Restrictions
Several readers sent this: Senator Chuck Schumer Now Wants to Regulate the Sale of Body Armor, Too. JWR’s Comments: Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer is a notorious anti-gun career politician. Now, he also wants to require background checks to buy purely defensive items. This proposed legislation clearly illustrates how statists want to empower and insulate themselves while leaving the general citizenry defenseless.
Some Device Privacy Tips
The folks at DuckDuckGo have posted a web page with some Device Privacy Tips.
C. Diff Bacteria Now in Two Distinct Strains
Reader C.B. sent in this interesting news: Diarrhea-causing bacteria adapted to spread in hospitals. A quote:
“Scientists have discovered that the gut-infecting bacterium Clostridium difficile is evolving into two separate species, with one group highly adapted to spread in hospitals. Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and collaborators identified genetic changes in the newly-emerging species that allow it to thrive on the Western sugar-rich diet, evade common hospital disinfectants and spread easily. Able to cause debilitating diarrhoea, they estimated this emerging species started to appear thousands of years ago, and accounts for over two thirds of healthcare C. difficile infections.”
Gondola Cable Cut in Canada, in ‘Deliberate Act’
Reader Tim J. sent us this: Gondola cable cut in Canada, sending cars crashing to the ground in ‘deliberate act,’ police say
Body Posture Affects Confidence in Your Thoughts
A hat tip to DSV for spotting this: Study: Body posture affects confidence in your own thoughts
Getting Smuggled from Afghanistan to Texas Is Easier than You Think
At Middle East Forum: Getting Smuggled from Afghanistan to Texas Is Easier than You Think. An excerpt:
“The United States has long bestowed immigration rewards on Iraqis and Afghans who assist our troops in “War on Terror” combat zones. Our government has granted special immigrant visas and legal permanent residence in America, for instance, to thousands of Iraqi and Afghan linguists, logistics personnel, and forward operating base employees who might be targeted for their service to our cause, especially after significant U.S. troop withdrawals.
Too often, though, some of the beneficiaries have repaid the favor with betrayal.
Another such case surfaced late last week, when the Department of Justice published a press release about a new indictment alleging that Mujeeb Rahman Saify, a former Afghan interpreter for U.S. forces, conspired (while living in New Jersey) with a Pakistan-based smuggling network to transport at least two other Afghans through Mexico and over the U.S. southern border in 2016 and 2017. Of special significance in the case is the allegation that one of the Afghans whose smuggling Saify is alleged to have successfully arranged was an interpreter fired from U.S. Army employment as a security threat and who had been denied one of the special immigrant visas on that basis.”
How Monsanto’s ‘Intelligence Center’ Targeted Journalists and Activists
Revealed: how Monsanto’s ‘intelligence center’ targeted journalists and activists. A snippet:
“Monsanto adopted a multi-pronged strategy to target Carey Gillam, a Reuters journalist who investigated the company’s weedkiller and its links to cancer. Monsanto, now owned by the German pharmaceutical corporation Bayer, also monitored a not-for-profit food research organization through its “intelligence fusion center”, a term that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies use for operations focused on surveillance and terrorism.
The documents, mostly from 2015 to 2017, were disclosed as part of an ongoing court battle on the health hazards of the company’s Roundup weedkiller.”
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You can send your news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) Thanks!
C. Diff Bacteria
I had runaway case of C. Diff Bacteria. It resolved only after almost a year of treatment. The last round of drugs cost over $8000 Dollars. I got no answers as to where it came from or why it got out of control. The best guess was that a round of drugs to clear up a lung infection allowed C. Diff Bacteria to bloom in my gut. I am now slower to reach for the drugs and let my system try to fight off an infection on it’s own.
Stool transplant (not antibiotics) is probably the single quickest and most effective treatment, but is rarely used due to a ‘distaste’ (pun intended) for the treatment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant
Someone should tell Schumer that there is such a thing as home made body armor.
Better not, he’ll try to ban that too!
Maybe we should ban him instead.
I found the article on Body Posture quite fascinating. I remember in the late 60’s in my Connecticut High School, that the teacher emphasized on how we in her secretarial class (I was in the Commercial Course in HS), were to dress, greet, sit when being interviewed for an office position. We “role played” an interviewing process. We dressed like ladies, sat like ladies, etc. When I interviewed at a major Hartford Insurance Company after two years at an excellent Business College, I was the ONLY women in the room that was wearing a suit, matching pumps and purse, and a HAT. I had NEVER worked outside of the farm. My marks were good, but not all A’s, though my speed at shorthand and typing were above average. I was offered two positions: Secretary to the Assistant Vice President of Personnel, or Steno-Typist for Casualty Engineering. I have always loved being around men (starting with following Dad around on the farm and workshop) who were engineers (had one older brother who was a brilliant Electrical Engineer), so I took the “lesser job”. It was the MOST interesting, informative, educational job I ever held! I believed then, and I believe how, that first appearances can make all the difference! Some of my much younger relatives do not quite agree with me, but I am living proof. Thank you Ma for always dressing like a lady when off the farm, and to that very tough and proper High School Teacher. I was always shy, but no one ever picked up on it, because I knew how to “present myself”. Certain standards taught so long ago by my parents set the foundation of who and what I became. Alas, that has almost disappeared from so many American homes. There was NO participation trophies on the farm, nor is there is REAL life. Honest, hard working competition, to the best of one’s ability, and hope that it is recognized. If not, then find an employer who will appreciate what you do. They are out there. Leaving, on a GOOD basis, and NOT burning bridges is difficult, but I have done it, and always had marketable skills.
HL. Your story is so true. I wish young people today would make an effort to “present” themselves. I was in a position where I hired many people for professional office work and those who showed up in t-shirts and flip-flops never made it into my office. There was an exception one time when a young person’s resume, knowledge and command of several languages got him hired on the condition he adhere to the company dress code. Even if the work is in a lumber yard or a garage, at least show up for an interview clean and dressed appropriately for the job.
I believe we should impeach Schumer/Pelosi
If the politicians who are promoting tyranny do not change course I predict that in the not to distant future impeach will turn into impale.
Heads on pikes would do a lot to put the fear of God back in the lackwits who populate the halls of guvment in Mordor on the Potomac.
IMHO that is.
RE: C. Diff Bacteria Now in Two Distinct Strainss
It is a big deal. There are many casues of colitis. Given our modern diet, it is running rampant and undiagnoised in many cases. I just recovered from a bout of reoccuring colitis. I suffered for over a decade with debilitating chronic level that went undiagnoised. When I finally cut out all refind sugars, it subsisded. The dotors had no clue. I know of several persons, one of which has suffered much worse, and nearly died. it is likely that many readers here have some form of colitis, so I share this with you:
Jon Horn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwMKNYT2C5E
If prescribed clindamycin, be sure to hit the probiotics hard for several months afterward. If one has colitis of any kind, avoid clindamycin, unless there is no alternative. I am not a doctor. It is best to exercise caution, and that is all I offer here…
This is an individual health issue. What affected you most likely won’t affect someone else. If you get this then it is YOU not sugar or ‘antibiotics’.
Yes, it is an individual issue, yet it is contagious, and increasingly so, as our gut flora is thrown off balance by modern foods, not only through excessive use of sugar, and antibiotics. The emergence of antibiotic resistant bugs and fungus, requiring aggressive use of antibiotics and drugs exacerbates the problem. And now I learned today, there is a highly contagious C. Diff. In the past 10 to 20 years, the prevalence of intestinal colitis (inflammation of the intestines) of various causes, has become wide spread, yet often goes untreated because the symptoms are misinterpreted.
There is now being recognized the extreme cases that defy the ability of modern medicine’s ability to diagnosis and treat. It took myself, and others I know, years of suffering to figure this out, and I hope more folks will learn about this, and get the help they need. This video explains it all very well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwMKNYT2C5E
This is yet another reason to go organic and non GMO. Persons who avoid modern foods do recover at least somewhat, if not entirely. This is a fairly common issue that goes unrecognized.
Feel free to not follow an aggressive use of antibiotics and drugs next time you are ill. Your choice. As for sugar being the problem you are wrong. 100% of the carbs you eat are converted to sugar before they can pass through your intestinal tract into your blood stream. Your body runs on sugar. It is stored in your liver and muscles to power you through the day. If it drops below a threshold level you go into a coma and die. You can literally live longer without water than you can without sugar. But sugar is the boogyman for the food witch doctors so it gets blamed for everything.
Saul, please provide evidence for your assertion that one could live longer w/o water than w/o sugar.
By evidence, I mean an article from a medical journal rather than a youtube video.
At the very least, give us the source for your opinion that you state as fact.
Carry on
Perhaps you can help diagnose. When I consume refined sugar I become ill. Symptoms are the same on each and every time. But I can eat all the complex carbohydrates I want and feel healthy. What is wrong with me? thank you.
Saul, buddy, your body is supposed to run on FAT. If you are burning sugar, you are not burning fat. If you don’t burn fat, it just accumulates, hence you and everyone else who think they should be burning sugar will get fat. That is the primary reason for the obesity crisis in America and in most of the Western world.
You store fat, you burn sugar. Your muscles burn glucose and your body can convert stored fat to glucose if it needs to.
It is entirely possible that you would feel “ill” when you consume to much sugar, or too much fat or too much potato chips or too much of almost anything. But it is more or less unique to the individual. I got sick one time eating baked beans.
https://www.healthline.com/health/hypoglycemia
Tunnel Rabbit, yes on the probiotics. After a course of anti-biotics, I began buying kombucha like crazy. Expensive.
Then, a friend gave me a “scoby” or kombucha starter. Now I have kombucha by the gallon. The only cost is for teabags and a cup of sugar. And, my intestines are smiling.
Carry on
Re: Kombucha
Roger that! I should get some starter, so it is affordable. This could be a break though, thanks! I cured my dog of C. Diff years ago with a kiefer. I’ll take better care of dog than myself.
Tunnel Rabbit, thank you for your comments and sharing link to Jon Horn. I know two people who suffer similarly to what he did, and I am passing on this informative video. After they have had a bazillion tests and suffered for years, this will give them hope of healing.
My experience with antibiotics & probiotics:
During a routine CT scan 2 1/2 years ago for toxic thyroid (size of my fist) growing downward, a non cancerous .25 cent size pancreatic tumor was discovered (praise God). MD Anderson surgeon removed thyroid & 3 months later performed Wipple surgery (very complicated gastro surgery). Sixty percent of wipple patients develop abscesses which I did even with 4 drain lines. Heavy dosages of various antibiotics were prescribed over the month I was in the hospital. Pancreatic enzymes were prescribed but after several months MD nutritionist recommended both Florastor & probiotic (they’re different) & I got off enzymes based on test results. I had been taking (Garden of Life) Primal Defense before each meal 5+ years prior to surgery. Currently take both Florastor & Primal Defense each 3 times a day before meals & have added tumeric twice a day since surgery. Praise the Lord my digestion has recovered & back on my normal diet which was healthy & I’m a regular exerciser.