Notes for Sunday – September 11, 2016

September 11th is, of course, the anniversary of the 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S., but it is also the anniversary of the Benghazi Embassy attacks in 2012. Please remember the sacrifice of J. Christopher Stevenson, Sean Smith, and CIA (former Navy SEAL) agents Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Between them, Woods and Doherty reportedly dropped at least 60 of the attackers, before their position was overwhelmed. Please also remember the spineless worms in Washington, D.C. who decided to not back up the embassy staff when they were in dire need of help. Eventually, they will pay for that. Time wounds all heels.

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Today, as we recognize the 15th anniversary of the dreadful Islamic 9-11 terrorist attacks, please pause to reflect and pray about both the loss of human lives but also about the loss of human liberty that has occurred since then. What we really needed to institute was a new closer scrutiny of Islamic military-age Middle Eastern non-citizens coming into our country. But what we got instead was an unconstitutional pervasive Surveillance State that monitors and permanently catalogs nearly every aspect of the public and private lives of our entire citizenry: our travel, purchases, relationships, e-mails, scans of the exterior of every piece of mail (showing both “to” and “from” addresses), keyword searching and archiving of telephone and Skype conversations, hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras, license plate scanners, targeted tax audits, and much more. Today is a day of mourning, in more ways than one. – JWR

Lay The Groundwork for the Future- Part 2, by Sarah Latimer

Building Your Garden’s Foundation

Are you ready? Do you even know where you’d put a garden on your property so that it gets optimum light, water, and wind protection? Have you begun clearing and tilling the land so that it is free from rocks, debris, pests, and unwanted vegetation? Have you amended the soil so that it is not too dense with clay or too sandy, too acidic or too alkaline, too wet or too dry?

If you haven’t even begun to work on a garden, the fall is the time to do it. Actually, now is a good time, especially if you need to put in a fall cover crop, manure, humus, and/or compost. Over the winter these will work in your soil to help prepare it for the spring planting.

Location

When selecting the location for your garden, there are many considerations to keep in mind:

  • Size. To feed a family of four with vegetables and small animal meat, it is generally thought that a minimum of two acres is required. However, if you are not raising animals and are just getting started growing vegetables, I strongly suggest you keep your garden much smaller to begin with. You do not want your garden to be so large that you are overwhelmed the first year and throw up your hands and quit. If you have a family of four, where there will be more than one person helping with weeding and harvesting, you might consider something between 800-2,000 square feet of growing space. Our first garden was three raised beds 5′ x 48′ each. That garden still exists and has just become our medicinal, herd, and tea garden, while a much large garden has been put in for vegetables and another area for fruit bushes. Think about expansion room, but I recommend not getting too big right at the beginning.
  • Sun. Most fruits and vegetables require full sun or at least partial sun for almost all of the day, so the spot you select should not be surrounded by trees, buildings, or objects that produce shade during much of the day. Consider the area you are thinking about using as your garden and visit it early in the morning as well as late in the afternoon and check to see if there are any areas that are shaded. If so, maybe you should consider putting the garden somewhere else or trimming trees.
  • Access. Your garden will need a lot of attention, daily, and will require your protection from predators. If your garden is not easily accessible to you or you cannot keep an eye on it, it will not be well cared for. Remember that it is called a garden and while we who grow gardens are called gardeners, we really are most appropriately “guardians”. We guard it from weeds, dehydration, and destructive pests and predators. Therefore, we need to keep it within easy access of us. Putting it on the back side of your 10-acre field is not a good idea. Keep it close to your back door so you can step outside to check on it throughout the day and easily enjoy the proceeds, too.
  • Protection. You may want to put up some fencing or border of some kind to keep neighborhood animals or wildlife out of your garden. I’m told that sunflowers will keep wild hogs away, and there are some plants that will deter deer. However, a fence is the best way to assure that animals stay out of the garden. I can recall being pretty angry one morning when I went out to pick a cucumber that I had been watching grow only to find it half eaten by a skunk. (His lingering odor gave his identity away.) Additionally, if you live where there are strong winds, you may want to consider putting it where there is wind protection. Heavy, spring winds and rains can knock down a tender young garden quickly. Just keep in mind that you don’t want to block out the sunlight.
  • Level/low slope. A fairly level plot is preferred so that water soaks down rather than running off and washing nutrients, soil, and seeds away. If there is a slope on all of your land, you do have the option of making a tiered or terraced garden, like farmers and ?vintners? do on hillsides. These are rows or flat beds that run perpendicular to the slope so that the water is held in place and then built at various levels. There are many good articles online about building terraced gardens using various building materials. A terraced garden should be built wide enough for your tilling equipment though. If you plan to use a tractor in the future, keep this in mind. However, try to find a level or low grade area if possible, as it will be much easier to handle in the long run.
  • Water. Your garden is going to require a daily, consistent water supply. Having access to your water and preferably multiple sources of water, if necessary, is optimal. A drip system is the most efficient but can be quite an elaborate setup and expense. A sprinkler may be your preferred means to get started. Regardless, a hose or multiple hoses or pipes long enough to reach all sides of the garden plot are required, so consider this when deciding on your garden’s location.
  • Security/OPSEC. Putting your garden in the front yard may be the only place you have to grow food, but it will not be secure. Ideally, you should have it where it is out of sight and not easily accessible by passersby. It is simply good OPSEC to keep outsiders from having knowledge of your food production, because when they get hungry they will be likely to trespass and steal what you have in your garden and also expect that you have stores of more food in your home. It’s just better for folks to not know about all that you grow!

Preparing the Soil This Fall

Once you have a location picked out for your garden, you need to determine what your soil is lacking. It is the foundation of your garden, and through it all of the nourishment and water will transfer to the plants to enable them to grow and produce food for you and your loved ones. Poor quality soil may not produce plants at all, no matter how good the seeds are and how much you water. Yet, some soil may grow plants but then soon cause them to rot and die, or dry up and die. Especially if you’ve never grown a garden in this location, I suggest that you get your soil tested at your local co-op office, which sells kits to take soil samples that you can mail to labs who will do an analysis for you for a fee, or you can purchase a do-it-yourself soil test kit online that allows for repeat testings of basic factors.

Your soil needs:

  • A fairly neutral pH level. A pH level that is too alkaline or too acidic will not be friendly to various plants. Some plants can tolerate more alkaline or more acidic soils than other plants. Most vegetables prefer pH between 5.5 and 8.0, but many won’t tolerate the extremes of this range. So, it is best to get your soil in the 6.0-7.0 range for the greatest variety of vegetables. This is especially important if you rotate your garden arrangement each year, as I do, in order to manage soil nutrients, microbes, and pests.
  • Organic materials to feed the soil and keep it loose and moisture-retentive. Both manure (of vegetable-eating animals like cows and goats only, please) and compost qualify as organic materials. SurvivalBlog has some great articles and letters on composting. However, I will reiterate my opinion that it is important to use only the feces of vegetarian animals in your garden for health purposes. Most manure will need to have been well cured before being added to the garden. The exception is rabbit manure, which can be used immediately in the garden without harm to plants. In fact, I hear it is “garden gold”, but I have not been fortunate enough to obtain any to try myself. If your soil is hard and compact, even with nutrient-rich soil and plenty of water your plant’s roots will not be able to spread easily into hard soil and reach out to extract nutrients. Humus in the form of straw or other organic matter may need to be added to allow air into the soil. If your soil is sandy and light so that roots can easily spread but it won’t retain water in the heat of the day, you also need humus to hold in the moisture and keep tender plants from drying out and dying. Working the soil to add composting, even if it is just the previous season’s dead plant material, into the ground so that it can decompose and feed the soil as well as add air and new life is important.
  • Balanced nutrients, particularly the basics– nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium (N-P-K). You can use chemical fertilizers, but I personally prefer to add only organic amendments to my garden. To add nitrogen to the soil, manure may help but adding a nitrogen-fixing cover crop this fall can also be a good solution. Also, planting nitrogen-fixing plants, like beans, can be the solution especially if there are just spots of your garden that are low in nitrogen. To get the phosphorus increased, you can add bone meal or rock phosphate. Adding potassium can be increased with things like potash and even wood ash or green sand from ocean floors. Additionally, garden vegetables grow best in soils with trace minerals. I have boosted my garden’s production with the addition of Azomite, which has 67 trace minerals in this powder that I lightly sprinkled into my garden soil before planting.

It is important to learn about your type of soil so that you have time to get the process started months before planting time. It takes time for organic materials to break down in the soil and for good microbes to multiply. At least some of my garden is kept alive during the winter and there are plants that are grown and tilled into it in the spring to keep it alive and nourished.

If you haven’t had a garden before and especially if your soil is nitrogen starved, you might think about putting in a fall cover crop to help losen the soil and amend it in time for a late spring planting. According to Wikipedia, a cover crop is “a crop planted primarily to manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in an agroecosystem (Lu et al. 2000), an ecological system managed and largely shaped by humans across a range of intensities to produce food, feed, or fiber.” This is certainly a wide definition. One of the benefits of a cover crop that I like best is that it attracts beneficial insects into your garden, like lady bugs. My research has led me to find hairy vetch a most interesting cover crop. Even dandelions are quite useful, but their seeds are prolific and difficult to control in the spring garden if left to bloom as the weather warms. There are certainly other cover crops that rank high on the list, too, but the legumes are the best at nitrogen fixing. Hairy vetch should be planted at least 30 days prior to the first freeze in your area, so for many people that is coming up very soon!

If you are going to plant a cover crop, remove all of the existing plants from from your garden area. Then till the soil very well to a depth of six inches. Add in well-aged manure or compost or a fertilizer and work it into the top several inches. A good rate of addition of compost or manure is about 20 pounds for every 100 square feet, being sure that the manure and compost is loose and not in clumps. Then, water it into the soil. Let it sit for day so that the soil is not too muddy to plant in. Then, large-seeded cover crops, like hairy vetch and peas, are spread at a rate of about 1/4 pound per 100 square feet. Small grass seed cover crops, like wheat or rye, are spread at 1/6 of a pound per 100 square feet. Then, the seed is lightly covered with soil per instructions (depending upon the size of seed) and watered. Keep it moist until it germinates in a week or two. Water periodically and let it grow during the winter. It should be mowed before it has the opportunity to bloom and go to seed. Then, in the spring, till it into the ground before late spring/summer garden planting. The plant will have drawn nitrogen from the air into the soil through the winter and the plant matter will decompose and provide much-needed nutrients and humus into the soil to feed your food crop. It a life cycle that regenerates.

I really like helping the life cycles rather than just being a consumer. It helps me sleep at night knowing that I know how to feed my grandbabies and those I hold dear if trouble comes and my larder burns to the ground or something else occurs. Life will go on and I will be able to grow nourishing and delicious foods, using what I have grown to grow more. The basis for future gardens are in my gardens and fields as well as my home, barn, and out buildings. The seeds are on the ground. I know how to collect them and use them for next year. Life is all around me, and I know what to do to help perpetuate it. Do you?

You might want to get started learning now, if you haven’t already! You have a foundation to build in terms of knowledge and a garden. Get your soil built and begin the journey to self-sufficient food provision. It feels great!

Letter Re: Storing Cash at Home

Hugh,

A caution to those storing cash at home: Those “fire-proof” lock boxes are only relatively fire proof and are typically rated for temperatures up to 1000F for up to 20 minutes. High temperatures for long periods will completely destroy them. A severe house fire can easily exceed 1000F and take hours to extinguish.

The best place to keep them is in a basement or crawlspace, which tends to remain (relatively) cool even in a devastating fire.

Regards, Don in Oregon

Economics and Investing:

Major Problems Announced At One Of The Largest Too Big To Fail Banks In The United States – W.C.

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Iranian oil output stagnates for third month amid OPEC bargaining

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Oil Markets Brace As U.S. Looks To Sell 100 Million Barrels From SPR. Aging infrastructure could render the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) increasingly ineffective, leading to a potentially smaller reserve in the near future.

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From steaks to furniture, Hanjin Shipping collapse to raise freight costs

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SurvivalBlog and its editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for details.

Notes for Saturday – September 10, 2016

On September 10, 1776, George Washington asked for a spy volunteer. Nathan Hale stepped up to the challenge of an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City. Unfortunately, the British captured and executed him. He is probably best known for his last words before being hanged: “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” He has long been considered an American hero, and in 1985, was officially designated the state hero of Connecticut. It is good for us to remember that every American patriot and hero from the times leading up to and during the American Revolutionary War would have been considered traitors to the crown and would have suffered much the same fate as Hale had America not won her independence.

Guest Article: Lessons Learned From The Pioneer Fire 2016, by Tanker Jack

This all happened within our first month into our relocation to the Redoubt. To start off correctly, we must give you a little background on our family. I was a retired Army tanker ( for 20 years), then in 2009 we started our next career as a government employee with Corp of Engineers and the Navy. Chasing promotions had us moving every two years, taking several jobs with the purpose of climbing the corporate ladder as fast as possible. Then the “come to Jesus” moment” that turned us into the preppers we are today happened. The Kentucky ice storm of 2007– a 8 to 10 inch ice storm– hit us outside of Louisville. This storm left over 50% of the state without power for two weeks in 5 degree weather. That event made me feel helpless as the provider of our family and woke me up as a Christian/man, and we started to pray. A good friend pointed me to SurvivalBlog and the novel Patriots. After that, we were off to the races. I decided to do an AAR “after action review” to see what we did right/wrong, mostly wrong. The main thing we learned was that you cannot just buy a bunch of gear and think you’re good. Knowing your gear’s purpose and practicing with it is invaluable. Trying to find missing parts to your brand new kerosene heater in the dark while freezing is not the way to go.

We then moved to Nebraska and learned a brand new set of skills, but one of the most important ones was over-confidence. Within three months of moving to Omaha, we were hit with a record snow storm that lasted off/on for four months. We had no power loss, but food issues, emergency gear/bag for the truck, and medical preps were way under thought. One important lesson the Lord taught us was through a situation where the main highway into Omaha froze over and two 18-wheelers crashed, resulting in the morning commuters all being stuck for over seven hours in freezing conditions. We learned that always having at least half a tank of fuel, blankets, and food are a must, and some extra never hurts. By the end of the day I had three families crammed into my super cab, due to them running out of gas. We sang hymns, ate their school lunches, and made friends for life.

The next move was Oklahoma, and our next lesson was that no matter how well you think you are covered nature can change everything on a dime. Tornados hit hard. Sometimes they miss your home and destroy your neighbor’s house, and sometimes they don’t. We had a good basic plan for prepping supplies. With our past experiences, we felt comfortable, but we were very wrong. A tornado wrecked our neighborhood. The Lord blessed us with only minor damage, but several of our friends were not so lucky. The lesson was that if you plan to help others you need to triple your food storage, because we had a 6-month supply that just lasted a little over two weeks with us helping others. It woke me up to charity as the Christian thing to do, but your first responsibility is always your family, always. The speed of word of mouth is amazing. Once we helped someone, everyone was knocking on our door for food, all within one day. If this would have been a long-term disaster, we would not have survived. “Loose lips sink ships.”

Then came the big move to Guam– the once in a lifetime promotion I thought was my heart’s desire. How wrong I was. The Lord answers prayers to teach us lessons I truly believe, and this was a hard one for me. The position came with the prestige and responsibilities I thought I truly wanted. It was the chance to be the decision maker for a large chunk of the Pacific. This time the Lord showed us (me especially) not with natural disasters but the dangers of greed or putting your career first over your family’s health. The stress of the job not only effected my health but my wife’s even more. Worrying about me ended up putting her on a whopping seven prescriptions, and then the big scare– a heart attack. I was protected by the Lord and was lucky to have no damage. It was just a mild one, but it was a huge wake up. To see her suffer for my greed just about killed me. I finally just listened to what the Holy Spirit was saying to me all along; we needed to find a place to settle down, a place we would be happy, so we prayed and the Lord answered.

We also learned the Devil loves to throw wrenches into your plans. The way I look at it is if you start having obstacles being tossed in your way, it shows you’re on the right path. After the medical scares and her failing health, I was determined to fix the damage I have caused my family and started applying for positions. I was blessed to receive several offers, but they were all just like they ones I took in the past; they were based off money/promotion and not family. The only thing I was interested in was a job/any job in the Redoubt. Then the big test. We were offered my dream job– a big promotion to move to D.C, an increase of over 50K. It was the position I had been working for since 2009. I have never been so tempted in my life, not only the money but the power as well. I sat down with my wife, but as we were talking she was taking her medicine and that was all I needed to say “no”. We trusted the Lord and turned down the position, then everyone said we were crazy. However, we just laughed and felt better than we had in ages. We prayed some more and asked for help, and then the Lord provided and we were offered a job in central Idaho. The position had some problems, like it came with a $34K loss in salary, but we smiled and accepted the position so fast they didn’t even get to say their whole speech. The move so far has been the best thing ever to happen to us. My wife’s new doc took away two prescriptions, and she was downgraded to a junior diabetic with no medicine needed. Then another unexpected benefit was me shifting from being an information junkie, who used to need 24-hr news TV to so far not even having hooked up our TV, and I do not miss it at all.

Then after being in Idaho a month, the pioneer fire happened. A new opportunity to learn presented itself. The lesson started with our transportation/household goods from Guam getting lost somewhere in China. This included all our long-term food storage, solar power generator, and a bunch of items that would have been handy. We only had our two suitcases and some Costco items to set up our new home, which wasn’t much. We just got back from the doctor in Boise, and POW, we were being evacuated and unable to return home. The prepping lifestyle that the Lord has ingrained in us took over. We grabbed a bargain tent and bargain sleeping bags from Cabelas and then some freeze-dried camping food and headed to the nearest campground. With us being so new to the area, we haven’t established a circle of friend we could ask for help, so we were on our own. The biggest benefit was knowing different styles of equipment and what we needed vs wanted. That alone proved that training and understanding your gear is so much more valuable then tons of expensive gear.

The most important thing that helped was knowing the Lord wanted us here and would provide for us as long as we did our part. It seemed everyone else was freaking out and running around. People who have been through this before seemed to never learn and just like to blame others and wait for the government to come and save them. We learned a long time ago that just smiling and keeping our positive attitude works wonders, and being together as a team and depending on each other knowing we have been through much worse emergencies gave us the confidence to figure this one out, even though we really was winging it. The second important thing we learned was sometimes you cannot make it back to your supplies. We had to act fast and get the items we needed before the horde bought out everything. This situation was not that bad, but we used a training scenario of an earthquake /EMP attack and acted accordingly. So know we are working on having a backup site with preps, be it at a friend’s house or a storage locker, et cetera. It’s important not to have all your eggs in one basket. Also, you can turn any instance into a training one, like if you lose power for a couple of hours. Use that to practice a much worse situation and war game it and learn.

Always be adaptable and learn from your environment. If you can do that and with the Lord having your back, you can accomplish/survive anything.

Letter Re: EMP Telltale

Hugh,

Whenever the power goes out wherever I am, the first thing I do is see if my battery-operated watch is still working. I suspect one of these times, the screen will be blank or just chaos. – Sid, too near Niagara Falls

HJL Comments: As technology advances, the gate sizes grow smaller making such electronics more susceptible, but at the same time manufacturers recognize that they are more susceptible to static electricity as well. As a result, manufacturers almost always include some basic protection in the on-board circuits. Add to that the concept that the amount of energy absorbed by these electronics is directly related to the amount of “antenna” on the circuit board and you end up with practically no idea whether your watch will survive or not. The circuits are so small that the antenna lengths are negligible (unless you happen to be plugged in charging the battery during an EMP event). It is actually anticipated that most modern cell phones will survive an EMP as long as they are not too close to ground zero and not connected to external wiring at that moment. Of course, a cell phone without the corresponding cell phone tower or the ability to recharge the battery is practically useless. I would anticipate that your watch will fall in this same category of electronics. It may be an indicator, but it is not necessarily one that you can reliably depend on.

Hugh’s Quote of the Day:

“I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?” – Isaiah 51:12-13 (KJV)

Notes for Friday – September 09, 2016

On September 9, 1492, Columbus’ fleet set sail west. The rest, you know as history, or is that revisionist history.

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Today, we present another entry for Round 66 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A Tactical Self-Contained 2-Series Solar Power Generator system from Always Empowered. This compact starter power system is packaged in a wheeled O.D. green EMP-shielded Pelican hard case (a $1,700 value),
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate that is good for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,195 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical 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,
  4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper with a hammer forged, chrome-lined barrel and a hard case to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel, which can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools and a compact carry capability in a hard case or 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
  5. Gun Mag Warehouse is providing 20 Magpul PMAG 30-rd Magazines (a value of $300) and a Gun Mag Warehouse T-Shirt; (an equivalent prize will be awarded for residents in states with magazine restrictions),
  6. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  7. The Ark Institute is donating a non-GMO, non-hybrid vegetable seed package (enough for two families of four) plus seed storage materials, a CD-ROM of Geri Guidetti’s book “Build Your Ark! How to Prepare for Self Reliance in Uncertain Times”, and two bottles of Potassium Iodate (a $325 retail value),
  8. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  9. KellyKettleUSA.com is donating an AquaBrick water filtration kit with a retail value of $250, and
  10. Two cases of meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Second Prize:

  1. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  2. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
  3. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
  4. A Trekker IV™ Four-Person Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $250 value),
  5. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
  6. A pre-selected assortment of military surplus gear from CJL Enterprize (a $300 value),
  7. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site, and
  8. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Third Prize:

  1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  2. A $245 gift certificate from custom knife-maker Jon Kelly Designs, of Eureka, Montana,
  3. 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,
  4. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  5. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  6. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances,
  7. Montie Gear is donating a Precision Rest (a $249 value), and
  8. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).

Round 66 ends on September 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

The “Chicken Little” Syndrome- Part 2, by Peter Martin

Opinions

So, what is wrong with opinions? Well, for the person holding it, nothing is wrong. It is their opinion, and that is all that is important.

So, what is the problem? An opinion is not necessarily anything factual. Huh?

If I like my steak well done, then a good steak is a well done steak. To others, a good steak is rare, or medium rare, medium, et cetera. So, the opinion is accurate or valid to the holder of the opinion, but it’s not necessarily valid to anyone else.

The President recently stated, “…that no one ever running for the Office of the President has ever been more qualified than Hillary Clinton.” That was the President’s opinion. I would think that Dwight Eisenhower’s descendants might disagree with that statement. Though never having held a political office previously, his experience leading the Allied effort in Europe during WWII, dealing with the multitude of personalities under his command (from all Allied forces) and with representatives of various governments provided General Eisenhower with very unique qualifications to lead a country. That’s my opinion.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken 1880-1956

(To make this quote more contemporary, I would add the modern Mass Media, as it is just as bad as the practical politics of H.L. Mencken’s day.)

An Informed Opinion

What is an informed opinion? According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is “a belief, judgment or way of thinking about something based on information. ‘She has enough knowledge of the system to offer an informed opinion of why it isn’t working.’”

Most of what we see, hear, or read is not an informed opinion but just an opinion. Some make it sound like the opinion they are expressing is an informed opinion, although for the most part it is just opinion. Some talk radio show hosts are very good at this, and it is misleading. Some news anchors, both local and national, are also quite good at making their opinion sound as if it were the Gospel truth, which it isn’t. We must stay informed, and the only way to do such things is to search for information from as many sources as possible in order to discern what is true and what is not true.

I thought about listing out some of the sources I use, but then those sources are my opinion of what a good news source is, and it’s not your opinion. So, let me provide a good insight into determining good sources of information and determining not so good sources of information.

If a source of information tells you that the economy is going to collapse soon (something I have been hearing since 1990) and it doesn’t happen, then they are just stating an opinion and a really bad one for the most part. If a source of information is telling you that military exercises inside the USA is a rouse for an actual take-over or martial law to be declared and it doesn’t happen, then you need to realize that it is fear mongering and that you need to get a better source of information. Just a side, military exercises have been happening in the country for well over 100 years and are not of any real concern. Some just think that seeing military vehicles in large numbers being transported by train or 18-wheelers is a concern, when that is how they are being moved to the exercise sites. Some of those sites are Yakima, WA, Camp Irwin, CA, and White Sands, NM. There is no real cause for alarm, as these exercises happen quite frequently. I know this from my military background and those of my family, relatives, and friends.

When you need to be concerned about such movements is when the Army Posts, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Bases are suddenly put under high alert status, only authorized personnel (no retirees or vendors) are being allowed in, and there has been no public announcement of why the facilities are under high alert. It would not include when a Post or Base has had an active shooter situation or other such event, as it would only affect that particular Post or Base. Security alerts are normal and announced, and usually they will allow retirees and vendors access to the facilities.

It would probably take nothing short of a nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) agent attack for martial law to be declared. An EMP event could also be cause for martial law to be declared, but it would have to be something that significant of an event for a legitimate martial law to be declared. Anything less would probably meet with resistance from Congress, law enforcement agencies (both civil and federal), and probably the military as well. Many have been led to believe that law enforcement (both civil and federal) and the military will just respond like automatons to any Presidential order for martial law, and in some cases that may be correct, though in other cases they will not cooperate. There are many police chiefs, county sheriffs, and military leaders that will not follow those orders if it is for anything less than an NBC attack or an EMP. Isolated terrorist attacks or riots in the streets would not be enough to declare martial law. Wide spread attacks or riots across the nation that involved every major city in the country, including every states’ major cities and state capitols could be grounds for martial law. Something else to consider, with the current administrations gutting of our military, there isn’t enough military forces combined in this country to enforce martial law. There also are not enough federal agents to do so either, regardless of whether they were acting with the military.

There are 10.2 million people in Los Angeles County alone, so how many military personnel do you think it would take to control it under martial law? Upwards of 30,000 or more would be my guess. That would be three Army divisions, and with troop strength being what it is the government would start running out of troops very quickly. The greater New York City area is approximately 20.2 million people, which would take upwards of 60,000 or more Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force personnel to keep under martial law. By the time they put the top 10 most populous cities in the country under martial law, the military would become exhausted of personnel, leaving vast amounts of the country not under martial law.

As previously mentioned in this article, if the source(s) you use to get your information from are always presenting the “Chicken Little” side of the story, I would caution you to look for other sources of information and to not react or over-react until you are able to confirm from independent sources that the information you have received is valid information.

In conclusion, there is no easy one-stop-shopping for the information you need to keep yourself well informed. You can spread around the time needed to find the information out over the course of the day, if you do not have the time to do it all at once. Be careful and watch the information you are getting by seeing if what they say actually happens, or if it is just misinformation or disinformation. Don’t fall into the “Chicken Little” syndrome and allow some source of information to constantly keep you in a fearful over-reacting mode, as you are just playing into a game you cannot win.

Peter Martin is a resident of New Mexico and has served in the U.S. Army. He also worked for 20 years in the Video production and Television Broadcasting industries. He is currently a civilian contractor working for a major Defense industry contractor to the U.S. Air Force in New Mexico. He holds several college degrees in History/Anthropology, Fine Arts Photography, and Organizational Learning and Instructional Technologies.

Letter Re: Survival on the Road

Hugh,

An item that has made all the difference for us many times are rain deflectors. With these covering up the top of the window you can stay in a vehicle during a rainstorm without fogging up or getting wet. In the winter time a slightly opened window will prevent a rapid exhaust of whatever warm air is in the vehicle as well as keeping condensed breath from frosting up the windshield. – R.T.