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”. Today, we look at preparedness and large families.
Television Hits a New Low
The ongoing churlish decline of American television culture has reached a new low. Consider, if you will: The New TWILIGHT ZONE Has A Swearing Problem. (Warning: In describing the show’s foul language problem, author Scott Wampler uses foul language.)
SSRIs and Mass Shootings
Here is some documentation for whet we’ve recognized anecdotally, for many years, over at Ammo.com: Prescription For Violence: The Corresponding Rise of Antidepressants, SSRIs & Mass Shootings
Range of Iranian Ballistic Missiles
The Countries In Range Of Iranian Ballistic Missiles
U.S. Suspends All Flights to Venezuela
Reader G.P. sent this: US suspends all flights to Venezuela citing safety and security.
The Case for Larger Families
This article recommended by Ol’ Remus at Yer Ol’ Woodpile Report caught my eye: The Case for Larger Families. JWR’s Comment: Virtually all English-speaking countries now have birth rates that are below the replacement rate. (That is, an average of 2.3 children per couple.) In the long term, this is demographic suicide for western cultures and people groups. I encourage SurvivalBlog readers to prayerfully consider having at least four children!
Here is a key quote from the article:
“Larger families are often believed to be unaffordable. This is wrong for several reasons:
- The initial cost is large, but for subsequent children, the infrastructure is present. No need to buy most of the furniture new for the next kid, such as strollers, car seat, crib, etc. For many families, the biggest initial cost is the loss of a second paycheck, That cost will not increase with additional kids.
- Once the commitment to managing on one paycheck is made, purchases such as homes and cars are viewed with an eye to how affordable they are for the chosen lifestyle. For that reason, it’s important for families not to lock in a lifestyle that requires two paychecks. From the start, they should commit to living on one paycheck (as soon as possible – sometimes, prior debt must be cleared first).
- College is one big expense that is often brought up. This negates the tuition reduction that comes with more family dependents. It also puts more pressure on the graduate to choose his/her college, and major, with an eye to the best bang for the buck. That’s a feature, not a bug, as kids SHOULD learn that budgets are necessary.
- Seeing the example of parents working as a team for maximum family good is a wonderful model for life. That team experience comes years before sports participation, and has a greater impact on their character.
- Budgeting, a necessity for nearly all larger families, allows kids to learn about the value of prioritizing needs over wants. It might also prod some of the older kids to get a part-time job – that experience alone is priceless. Better a paid job that a make-work “internship” – the lessons a REAL job teaches are beyond compare.”
Birthrate Decline Crisis in Illinois
At Zero Hedge: If A Decline In Births Is A Problem Nationally, It’s A Full-On Crisis In Illinois.
Nigel Farage on Upcoming EU Election
Farage on What Is at Stake at European Election: ‘Democracy, It’s Quite Simple Really’. Here is a snippet:
“We had a referendum, a full free and fair referendum. We were told by the government whatever [the result] was, would be implemented. That couldn’t be clearer. We then had a general election in which about 75 per cent of people voted for Labour and Conservative parties, both of whom promised they would honour the referendum and deliver Brexit.
…we are a democratic country, our great tradition is that we’ve always been a great democratic country… I think this is a moment whether you’re a leaver or a remainer to say ‘promises must be kept’ because if they’re not, trust in the entire democratic system breaks down. So let’s deliver Brexit. We have a new date now, the 31st of October, we absolutely must leave on that date if we are to be in the eyes of the rest of the world a credible, democratic nation that obeys the rule of law.”
California: Cluttered Yard? $60,000 in Fines
H.L sent this: City Steals Elderly Man’s Home for Having a Cluttered Yard, Fines Him $60,000
Government Will Pay You $1,000 to Adopt a Mustang
Another from content contributor G.P.: Government will pay you $1,000 to adopt a mustang.
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The problem with that adopt a mustangs and the other post a few weeks ago on adopting a wild horse from Uncle Sam is opsec.
The forms are daunting and more like an IRS information grab up to and including your SSN and your corporate charter EIN if you go that route.
I’ll just wait for the next Batch of wild horses to roam into my property in the Redoubt and there I have my horses. Without Big Brother ever knowing my address from some form I give them.
God bless.
The man who is fighting city hall to keep his home made 2 mistakes: 1. living in California 2. living in city limits.
Re. Range of Iranian Ballistic Missiles
Let’s hear from even one family on US soil who had trouble sleeping last night for fear of bombing by Iran.
Yet while they were sleeping, the US military dropped 40 bombs (Trump drops 121 bombs every day compared to Obama’s 34 bombs) on people 7,000 miles across the ocean.
Dare to support Jesus’ principle of non-aggression today and the ‘Golden Rule’ (Matthew 7:12) and you will be mocked and even banned. How did Americans become so blood-thirsty?
Absolutely correct, Iran is not the problem, the USA is.
Montana Guy, This is the only real problem I have with Trump. He promised to get us out of all these unconstitutional wars and to not get us into any more unconstitutional wars. That is his real failure. Everything the MSM brings up is just political theater, nothing more.
I can’t name a time or a date where Syria or Iraq or Yemen or Afghanistan or even Iran actually attacked the United States. I can name a time when a bunch of Saudis and Egyptians attacked the United States, that would be 9/11/2001. But those are our “friends”, so that’s OK. That would also be with the full support of the Saudi government, and evidently the full support of our own government, based on the illogical reaction to the attacks. Yet we go after Afghanistan and Iraq as a ploy to get back at Iran for the 1979 coup. Our CIA has a long memory. They couldn’t take the payback the Iranian people dished out for the CIA/MI6 coup of the lawful, democratically elected government of Iran in 1953.
So our 18 years of constant warfare was never about 9/11. It was always about Iran. Now it’s about the problems Israel has with Iran. Israel has every right to exist. Just not on the US taxpayers dime. We give Israel $3.8B per year in foreign aid and another $2-4 B per year in military aid. Why, Israel is a wealthy country, they have a modern military and they have Mossad. It’s time to let them fend for themselves.
Israel has every right to exist. Their government has every moral authority to defend the citizens of Israel. If you as an individual wish to support Israel, you have the right to voluntarily choose to contribute to their cause. You have the right to go there and join their military if you believe their cause is moral and just. But in all frankness, there is no country in the middle east that is worth one more American life, including Israel.
Montana Guy. Can you list sources for your data of daily bombs dropped overseas? Thanks
HDR, one of many sources supporting Trump’s record breaking rate of bombs dropped every 12 minutes can be found at:
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/june/21/bombs-away-us-airstrikes-every-12-minutes/
thenewamerican.com, truthdig.com, cfr.org, thenation.com and many others confirm the same statistics.
Thank you. Truly depressing….
So true. Smedley Butler was right about the thuggery of this Imperial USA. SIgh.
The land of the what? And the home of the what?
As grateful as I am for the many blessings of living here, I am appalled by the covert murder our country commits.
Carry on
Once a Marine, yes sir. I sure wish I had read Butler’s ‘War is a Racket’ decades earlier. It was one of the first real wake-up calls for me.
Nigel Farage and Brexit.
Nobody is exiting anything. As to all of the investigations in America into Clinton et al; nobody will ever get in trouble. The brain damage is amazing. Your governments are not yours, they are theirs. You are a subject. Enjoying the show? Because that’s all it is. The notion that England, the creator of the banking NWO, is going to withdrawal from the global communism is laughable and the notion that the US rulers are going to start arresting themselves is one of the funniest jokes I’ve ever heard. The joke is on you.
Talk about television hitting a new low. I read where PBS kids showed a episode of Arthur where Arthurs teacher married a special someone. Yep, Mr. Ratburn married another man. This is why we only have a DVD player. That way rotten things can only be brought in to our home through the front door.
Yep, several years ago I threw my perfectly serviceable flat screen TV into a dumpster. Literal and actual evil ideas and images not of my minds own creation were pouring forth onto my frontal lobe. Voluntarily subjecting yourself to this is…not even sure what adjective to call it. It started shortly after I got saved by the grace of Christ Jesus. Over the next few years the number of channels and shows I could watch became narrower and narrower. Finally, I determined that I was paying 70 bucks a month to be offended by the workers of iniquity. How Christians can sit in front of that thing every night is beyond me. I would suggest the King James Holy Bible instead.
Anonymous,
Why , in this day and age are we, taxpayers, supporting the Public Broadcasting System? The same goes for NPR . If they cannot survive on their own then they should go away.
@ Larger families, college is not a guarantee, if you go , fine. but I’ve seen and read about college grads that didn’t or couldn’t go into their field of choose. I worked along side of people in the packing house that had college degrees and couldn’t find work. I know of a woman with two master degrees and her husband stated that she made more money as an LPN than she did with a master’s degree. Right now you can make more money on the trades and labor side than you can otherwise.
A few thoughts for your consideration on the excellent points in the article and discussion today:
– We raised four kids. Many time we heard comments about ‘large family’, and my quick response was always that we had a “mid-size” family and that a large family has more than five kids.
– A my last checking, there are about 1.2 million abandoned and orphaned children just within the actual legal system in our beloved USA and they are placed into foster care until rare adoptions happen, or more commonly kicking them into the street at age 18.
– Please consider with prayer and deep introspection about taking in a foster kid to become part of our patriot family.
– For 9 years I devoted two weeks each year to the required training and counselor duties just to provide a week of love in a fun camp environment for foster kids. So many have been subjected to a life that embitters them from the frequent home changes, but love from you and me always brought about positive change which often grew to a loving, grateful child and parent relationship.
– On the last days of our foster camp, run by the Royal Family Kids organization, when the two little boys entrusted to me by their regular foster parents were returned to them, I had a good hard cry that I couldn’t do more for their lives. The little kids at our camp are from ages 6 to 11.
– Some case managers were using the period of our camp to shuffle kids to a new foster host and most times the kids were not informed. Usually the kids just had one small suitcase of clothes with them to move from home to home. I started writing ‘foster family’ for this note, but remembered that quite often there was only a single adult in many foster homes.
– Our group use a staff of 60 during camp week, and provides a week of love and joy to 32 kids every year. We make personal donations and accept outside donations for the $25,000 it takes to do all the prior work, camp fun activities supplies, big tent rentals, bike repairs, water sports gear, resort camp rental costs, etc.
– Taking in some foster kids could be a fantastic way to provide future patriots, build your family up, and grow your personal love as well.
– I was counselor for a total 17 boys over nine years, and 15 of them were absolutely wonderful and just wanted a loving family to belong to. The other two needed more intense care.
– Most of them had at least one living parent and had been subjected to death in their homes, drugs/achohol, brutality, assault, body violations, emotional and verbal abuse of themselves and other defenseless family members.
– If you don’t take them in, the deep state raises them in their own way. Time after time I met foster parents who were pretty scummy.
– There are many notable exceptions to the bad foster parents and it gave me great joy to see good foster parents with the kids. Quite often those folks were processing adoptions of these children of God.
– Over the nine years I got to be at camp, I got to see the change in abused kids who were placed into God-loving homes and it was staggering to see how wonderfully the kids changed for the good.
– Healing wounds takes time and patience, and after two or three years the kids grow in confidence they won’t again be rejected….by you.
– The magnitude of change is like holding a tiny sunflower seed next to a six foot tall sunflower, and reflecting; ” This came from that?”
– The little boys I cared for were often terrorized by other, older foster kids and victimized by school peers.
– Job 29:12 says: “For I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him”
– Can you be one of these great-hearted adults, become a hero and rescue a little boy or girl? I’m praying with tears in my eyes at the situation, for you to take action.
May God Almighty, Lord of Hosts, bless each of you.
Marvelous commentary, Wheatley. Brings tears.
RE: SSRI and School Shootings. There are some 50 million students in 100,000 US High Schools. Some 3.4 million of them are on SSRI drugs for anxiety or depression. If they were distributed evenly, that would mean 34 per school.
Dr. David Healey has analyzed school shootings and reports that 90% of shooters are on an SSRI prescription.
I suggest we apply Insider Threat risk models to the 34 students. Visualize a pyramid with four levels. At the base are the full group of 34. The next layer up is composed of those on SSRI that have disciplinary problems in school. The next layer up is composed of those on SSRI that have Law Enforcement issues. And the top of the pyramid is those on SSRI who have both school and LE issues.
Of course the defensive steps taken to mitigate the risks would vary from school district to school district, but steps like regular review of social media and enhanced observation within the school for those most at risk would be likely, and likely useful.
The problem with blaming the drugs that are given to people with serious mental health issues is… They have serious mental health issues!!! That alone is enough to explain why they do what they do without the need to bend over backwards to blame the treatment.
re:
banning commercial flights from fUSA to Venezuela
By what legitimate authority?
How do the government agents tell companies to not provide a legal product or service to willing customers? UPS? FedEx? US Postal Service to Venezuela?
And another thing:
If the government agents are all so worried about my ‘security and safety’, they can less infringe on my firearms, my ability to own and transfer and carry firearms. I would buy a ticket on that flight!
Historical Christianity has embraced the ‘Just War Doctrine’ ~ just like Jesus embraced His Cross, on his way to Calvary.
There is ample explanations about the ‘Just War Doctrine’ on the Internet. … Trump seems to be trying to reduce the ‘endless wars’ ~ that serve the goals of >other countries and NOT the USA. … There has been a change in our government policies; and also the number of US Military deaths, in the useless/endless wars.
There are a lot of bombing by the USA in Afghanistan. ~ Unfortunately, the USA seems to be bombing the wrong targets.
According to Information on the Internet:
‘The DEA’s National Drug Threat Assessment, which was released Friday, shows that heroin, fentanyl and other opioids continue to be the highest drug threat in the nation.’ + ‘Most of the heroin sold in the U.S. is being trafficked from Mexico, …’ + ‘The DEA has said China is a main source of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids ..’ [APNEWS 11/2/2018]
“The resurgence of the illicit drug trade in Afghanistan is unprecedented; the country is now the source of almost 90% of the >global supply of heroin.” [aspistrategist(dot)org April 11, 2019]
Drugs should be categorized as a Zombie Terrorists’ problem. The Zombie Terrorists are unleashed by foreign governments to terrorize American citizens. …
In the ‘Just War Doctrine’ ~ Governments can attack first, rather than wait for another Nation to decimate a population first. … When threatened by an >endless army of terrorists, it would be wise to attack the source of the terrorists, and terrorism.
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The Just War Doctrine comes out of Christianity in our society. … But, it is also part of the Natural Law and ordinary common-sense. It is part of an individuals right to use force for self-protection; = Our Right to Self Defense, and the Defense of Others.
As individuals, we do NOT have to wait for a crazy criminal to kill us, our family, or our neighbors >before we can use deadly force.
‘To Love God and your neighbor as yourself’ does NOT mean we should let crazy criminals, kill as many people as possible, while we sit passively twiddling our thumbs.