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”. Facebook employees are panicking? What’s so bad about that?
Rural Hospitals Gone
Small rural hospitals across the nation are filing for bankruptcy because they can’t stay afloat in today’s healthcare environment. This means that many small towns don’t have access to local hospitals and emergency crews must transport to the nearest hospital which can be up to an hour away in some cases. The rates of local hospital closures is the highest seen in the last few decades.
I know my town is a victim of this. It had it’s own hospital for nearly 100 years, but starting about 25 years ago, began to struggle. The city run hospital closed and two private entities have tried to run a hospital in that time and both have failed. The county is now trying to raise taxes to run one, but the tax base is so fractious, they’ve been fighting for nearly 10 years just to break ground. The closest ER is over 45 minutes away. Thanks to G.P. for the link.
Free-Range Parenting
It’s a sad day when you can’t teach your children to be independent because of state social services or nosy neighbors, but that is where our litigious society has brought us. Reader H.L. sent in this article on how the State of Utah has actually passed a law to allow parents to do what they should be doing – Let your kids grow up. While the law is a step in the right direction, it does spell specific situations out and since no specific age is given, it may have room for parents to still be prosecuted if things go wrong. By the way, if you live in an area where it is actually dangerous to let your kids be self-reliant, perhaps you should consider moving to a more family friendly area.
Sleeping Bag in a Can
Sometimes the U.S Military can have novel ideas that are really neat. Mike Williamson, SurvivalBlog’s Editor at Large, sent in this article on what looks like a giant sardine can, but is, in reality, a full military sleeping bag. The can was vacuum packed in 1952 and is part of an Air Force aircrew bailout kit. Even after 65 years, it functional and compact. Just remember that if you’re really tall, it may not work so well for you.
Fighting Tanks with Rifles
Mike Williamson also takes on the myth that a man with a rifle can’t take on tanks or planes with just a rifle. Obviously, that statement is made by a person who has no real world experience and hasn’t studied history very well. Sure, you can’t stand toe-to-tow with a tank and win that battle, but even other tanks don’t like to fight pitched battles that way. Those methods of fighting dies out with the American Revolution over 200 years ago. Mike walks through the whole process to show just how effective light infantry can be. Remember, the tank probably isn’t your target. There are bureaucrats, leaders and soft targets that are necessary to any occupying force and these present much better targets, even to the lone infantry man.
Lightning is More Dangerous
Reader T.J. sent in this video where Reid Henrichs talks about some of the more ridiculous positions that the progressive left has taken regarding firearms and gun control. He has also sent in these Reference sources so you can see the data for yourself:
- National Weather Service Study
- National Center for Education Statistics Study
- Center for Disease Control (CDC) study on drowning
- 2013 CDC Report on Gun Violence
“The left wants to ban the AR-15 due to an ‘epidemic’ of school violence and children being ‘slaughtered.’
Government studies however, reveal the extent of their deceit.
The reality is that one is more likely to be struck by lightning.
The reality is that swimming pools kill more people than firearms.
The left willingly distorts reality. The left is absurd, sensational, and logically inconsistent.
They lie, then lie some more in order to enact their utopian, socialist agenda.”
DOJ Wants Your Phone
Reader G.P. sent in this article on how the DOJ has revived its push to mandate a way to unlock all cell phones. They want your phone manufacturer to build in a back door so that they can access your data whenever they wish. Sure they claim that they will only do so when they have obtained a proper warrant, but if you believe that, then you haven’t been paying attention lately. The information collection services of the U.S. government have cast a wide net (much, much wider than what is legal) and they use this data as they want to. Very little has been done to stop them either.
Facebook Employees Panicking
Reader D.B. sent in this article on how Facebook is scrambling to calm employees after a disastrous week of damage control. Remember, Facebook was OK with harvesting your data and using it when they thought it was going to get a Democrat elected. Once the Republicans figured out how to use the same data, it became evil. It turns out that Facebook employees themselves actually wrote much of the programming that was used by Cambridge Analytica to harvest that data. Just like the “Russian collusion” scandal, it appears that progressive/liberals are much to blame for the problem.
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Please send your news tips to HJL. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact 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!
…and on a related note regarding Facebook:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/03/facebook-scraped-call-text-message-data-for-years-from-android-phones/
regarding fighting tanks with a rifle- While it was not based on a true story, this was a pretty good movie about a soldier taking on a german warship with just his rifle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_of_the_King
If you need a reason to homeschool, the 5yo Grand Rapids boy repeatedly raped by 4 boys in public school filmed on video looks like it might be like the 5yo blond girl raped on video in Twin Falls by 3 Somalis. It certainly reads like they are protecting the rapists more than the victim
http://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/grandville/child-sodomized-by-classmates-assaults-recorded-on-school-issued-ipads-lawsuit-claims/69-531027866
In fact this from a recent UK article on moslems gang raping children confirms the pattern
“It’s the by-now classic pattern: organized gang-rape and child prostitution are ignored and even facilitated by a Labour council full of feminists. Why so? Because the victims were White and the gang-rapists and pimps were non-White. ”
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2018/03/24/rape-gangs-unlimited-third-world-people-mean-third-world-pathologies/
“Free-Range Parenting”
I’m not as sure that this is a step in the right direction. What has been done is to insinuate that all activities not mentioned may be bad. You’ll see, lawyers will flip this within 2 years. By way of omission all other activities will be deemed to be bad and the people will then beg their new god government, for more permissions to raise their own children.
Free-range parenting brings about funny visions of kids pecking at the ground with their hands stuck in their armpits to imitate wings.
Sad seeing anyone murdered. Strange how abortion isn’t talked about. Adults using children for an agenda of giving up freedoms and rights is disgusting.
I was born as a Light Infantry Soldier in the 80’s. The article is very true. We used the very same kind of tactics during our Korea rotations. Once they had us dig in and try to defend a fixed position against Mech attack. We, being highly trained jungle specialists basically said “Say what?” And as some of you can imagine, with a few other words mixed in. A few minutes after the attack came, they literally had blown right through us, our dismounted TOW section was dead, and we were shooting flares at the back of the tanks because we had nothing else. After the “fight” the graders were all about telling our Commander about how bad we did, which he and we all chorused together that the exercise was against our doctrine and training. The big shot grader then asked what were we good for. About 72 hours later, we had almost 400 men behind the Blue forces lines in groups no larger than platoon size and had the Blue guys crying because we took out maintenance sections, fuel points, command posts, setting up road blocks that had to be cleared by dismounted personnel who were then made very aware of our presence, hit and run stuff. Never tied down and allowing ourselves to be directly engaged. Tank commanders, they were a special target sitting in their hatches. Hell, one of groups even hit and took out a BN Aid Station. They ground to a halt and lost the exercise.
An aside to all that.
Shooting flares at tankers as they roll by you is not good for your well being. Especially if you light one of their bustle racks on fire and burn their personal gear. They didn’t find it very funny and a good brawl ensued. Also, creating any kind of trouble I today’s Army ends careers.
Anyone remember when you were told that the book was made as reference material and we were to feel free to try variations of what was written in them?
Maybe I’m missing something here. The 2013 CDC report states: Firearm-related injury, in particular, is a serious threat to the health of the nation, with direct costs to the victims of violence as well as societal costs to families, friends, and communities. In 2010, there were twice as many nonfatal firearm-related injuries (73,505) as deaths.4,5
That would indicate about 36,000 firearm-related deaths per year.
The CDC study on drowning says: From 2005-2014, there were an average of 3,536 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States — about ten deaths per day.1
Then the editor says: The reality is that swimming pools kill more people than firearms.
Please help here. What might I be missing?
Carry on.
The CDC includes suicides in the firearms related deaths. These make up the bulk of them.
“These make up the bulk of them.” How many is that put of 36,000?
I take no position on what is more deadly. I simply point to your link, note the numbers, and request clarity regarding your statement.
The bit you are missing is that AR-15 type rifles only account for a tiny percentage of firearms deaths.
I like the FBI’s webpage for this kind of thing:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-4.xls
Assume the worst case: that every “firearm, type not stated” is a rifle. Assume every rifle is an AR-15 (I really hope it is redundant to mention that both of these are most likely off by an order of magnitude). In every year listed handguns STILL kill twice as many as those horrible AR-15’s.
Now, let’s take a more realistic assumption: that the unknown firearms are proportional to the known ones. That drops ALL rifles murders COMBINED below people who were *beaten to death with someone’s bare hands and feet*.
Now, make whatever estimate you like for the proportion of AR-15 type rifles out there compared to every other type of rifle combined. You are probably more likely to be murdered by *being set on fire* than by being shot with an AR-type rifle.
Lightning is more dangerous..
Be Careful!
Trying to tell the truth to people who don’t want to hear it could get you put on a hate list – one of the the signs of a worthwhile Human Being!
Jesus told the truth…
Look up Lahti anti-tank rifle. Thank you and keep up the good work .
The Lahti was cutting-edge when it was designed, but by the time it got to the troops, it was falling behind the armour/firepower curve.
The tanks it was facing had been up-armoured to the point where the Lahti could not penetrate.
It was too powerful (and too heavy to carry far!) for trucks or troops, not good enough to use on tanks.
An evolutionary dead-end…
I realized immediately after I posted the Lahti comment that I should have mentioned that after armor improvements the Lahti was no longer effective against tanks . What I wanted to illustrate is that a determined group can improvise and make the opposition doubt their technology . Tanks are engineered to withstand what the enemy has in the field . After tanks were disabled by the Lahti or other means they had to up armor , this took time ,money and operators confidence . Added armor increased the weight making the engine work harder ,slow down tank and use more fuel . Thank you CeeJay0714 for calling me on this and keep up the good work .
Don – Hi!
It’s good to meet like-minded people on a site like this!
The more we talk, the more we learn.
We ALL need to keep up the good work…
God bless
Re: Sleeping bag in a can
You might want to note that those things can occasionally be found on eBay, but they rarely sell for less than $300.00 average price is closer to $500.00 No thanks.
Regarding rural hospitals closing: Obamacare has a lot to do with this. Many rural hospitals are marginally profitable, and often take care of, or have a disproportionate number of medicare patients, as the youth moves out to find opportunities and the parents stay and, well, age. Obamacare cut the provider reimbursements for medicare and redirected some of the money “saved” from those cuts to Medicaid. The large cities have a problem with having to provide for Illegals, homeless, and working poor people, and less of a problem with too many medicare patients. The shift has made small rural hospitals that were marginally profitable, or perhaps slightly unprofitable impossible to keep open. Many non-profit hospital groups kept their rural hospitals open even if they ran in the red by a few thousands per year. They could re-direct charitable donations to help cover the losses. With ACA, the losses shifted dramatically, with no hope of being able to keep them afloat. It goes right along with Agenda 21. Push people out of rural areas and into big housing blocks in big cities.