The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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 the devastation of some recent tornadoes in the central United States.

Tornadoes Tear Through Missouri, Leaving 3 Dead

“It Felt Like An Earthquake”: Violent Tornados Tear Through Missouri, Leaving 3 Dead

30 Tornadoes in the Central US

At CNN:  There were reports of 30 tornadoes in the central US on Tuesday. JWR’s Comment: Watch the NWS forecasts closely, and leave your NOAA weather alert radio turned on!

The Spycraft Revolution

Reader T.Z. spotted this, at Foreign Policy: The Spycraft Revolution. The article begins:

“The world of espionage is facing tremendous technological, political, legal, social, and commercial changes. The winners will be those who break the old rules of the spy game and work out new ones. They will need to be nimble and collaborative and—paradoxically—to shed much of the secrecy that has cloaked their trade since its inception.

The balance of power in the spy world is shifting; closed societies now have the edge over open ones. It has become harder for Western countries to spy on places such as China, Iran, and Russia and easier for those countries’ intelligence services to spy on the rest of the world. Technical prowess is also shifting. Much like manned spaceflight, human-based intelligence is starting to look costly and anachronistic. Meanwhile, a gulf is growing between the cryptographic superpowers—the United States, United Kingdom, France, Israel, China, and Russia—and everyone else. Technical expertise, rather than human sleuthing, will hold the key to future success.”

Nevada Bypasses Electoral College

This is some genuinely ominous news, folks: Nevada passes National Popular Vote bill in bid to upend Electoral College. At the risk of sounding sententious, I predict: If an American presidential election is ever truly stolen, then the next round of votes will come from the rooftops.

Venezuela: Cue the Mad Max Theme Music

Reader J.M. sent us this from Organic Prepper: Venezuela: The Final Stage of the Collapse is Here

Snakebites: World’s Biggest Hidden Health Crisis?

Reader G.P. sent this: Snakebites declared world’s biggest hidden health crisis. A quote:

“A multimillion-pound programme has been launched to improve treatment for snakebites, which are thought to kill up to 138,000 people each year.

Scientists said research is urgently needed into the problem as they described snake bites as the world’s biggest hidden health crisis.

Snakebites are treatable but doing so can be expensive, and experts say ineffective antivenom medicines, often in less developed countries, mean people living in the world’s poorest places are worst affected.

Wellcome, the London-based independent global charitable foundation, has announced £80 million in funding for a new programme to focus on changing the way treatments are researched and delivered.”

New ‘Farm Bailout’ Could Cost $20 Billion

A hat tip to Miss Jennifer, for this link: Second White House ‘Farm Bailout’ Could Cost As Much As $20 Billion.  Here is a pericope:

“In a departure from last year, the administration is reportedly considering basing payments on the acreage planted for the coming season, rather than farmer’s current production levels. This has spurred questions from some economists.

While the payments last year were based on farmers’ current production, the basis will be modified, the people familiar with the plan said. The administration is considering basing payments on the acreage farmers plant this year and their historic yield of crops per acre, the people said.

Former Agriculture Department officials and economists have warned that a decision to base payments on current acres planted risks skewing farm production decisions and adding to the rising stockpiles of crops, particularly soybeans. That risks depressing commodity prices even after the current trade dispute is resolved.

The combination of a disparity in payments favoring soybeans over corn and rainy weather in the Midwest could encourage farmers to change plans and decide to plant soybeans rather than corn. Soybeans have a shorter growing season, so they can be planted later.

You can send your news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) Thanks!

 

 

 




25 Comments

  1. I have read that the new 5G may interfere with weather predictions. It kind of reminded me of back when the fcc wanted to have Internet over electricity and they found it to interfere with GPS.

  2. Ubiquitus emanations of electro magnetic radiations have effects which can be harmful to the environment and to humans. While I am in favor of the use of the spectrum for positive influences in our society, I am concerned about the lack of enthusiasm by for profit companies to investigate the effects on us.

  3. On my 9 acre patch of Cotton I had last year I was subsidized 6 cents per pound due to trade tariffs. So yes if you sign up for it you should receive something.

  4. Re: National Popular vote… Nevada, a low populist state, has shot itself in the foot. So by passing the NPV, Nevada has become sheep instead of sheepdogs and are telling California, NY, Mass, NJ and other high population states that Nevada’s votes don’t count. ‘Our very rural voters don’t count and we will just go along with you…whatever you decide is ok with us’. Too bad for our Constitutional Republic as a whole…

    1. Rucksack Rob, you are exactly right. Nevada has been taken over by liberal Californians who came for the natural beauty, simple life, and inexpensive housing, and want it to be “just like back home”. Idiots. Las Vegas was lost long ago, and now Northern Nevada has been taken over by liberals as well.

  5. Modern technology may make it harder for open societies to penetrate closed societies, but its never been easy. IIRC we never had a successful penetration of North Korea during or after the Korean War. They were simply too well organized at the local level for outsiders to slip thru.

    Nor am I aware of many Western HUMINT agents in Japan during WW2. Their society was too racially homogenous for non-Japanese to move without detection. The one famous agent, Richard Sorge, was a German working as a Russian agent in Japan. As a German journalist he was accepted as an ally by the Kenpetai.

  6. So what happens if one party wins the President by the old system and the other claims victory under the new one. THINK ABOUT IT? Civil war? Martial Law? The split up of the USA?

    1. Martin Armstrong has repeatedly written that in the next election, NEITHER side will accept the results. HIs computer is too good to argue with, but it made no logical sense. Now it may.

      So one candidate wins by the traditional Constitutional method, and the other wins by the new method. Neither side will accept the results.

      Thank you, Seminole Wind. I’m afraid you may have solved the question.

    2. The vote in Nevada went for Clinton in 2016, so did their electoral college votes. Colorado went for Clinton in 2016, so did their electoral votes. So far the only states signing on to this are basically leftist states whose electoral votes go to Dummycrats anyway. Hopefully this will all backfire on these states. They will vote Dummycrat and and the popular vote goes Republican (Trump). So their state electoral votes won’t go to the Dummycrat they vote for, they will go to the Republican instead. Pray brothers and sisters for a just outcome of their election meddling, an even greater electoral college victory than in 2016. Wanna bet they try to change their minds after the fact?

  7. Re. Nevada Bypasses Electoral College

    Movements like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, sanctuary cities and the levels of hate on both sides are testimony to a nation in a death-spiral. The left are sharks smelling blood in the water while the right are clinging to Republicans and a system clearly designed to reduce them to absolute Despotism.

    SurvivalBlog folks have been forewarned and should be forearmed. The demographics (and opportunities for liberty) will be changing soon.

    1. This will likely make it’s way to the supreme Court. It should be reversed because it appears to be unconstitutional. But… who knows what the Supremes will say.

  8. Rats…I love rats. When I was a kid there was a rural landfill (dump) about 2 miles from our place. An old gravel pit where the residents just threw their garbage over the bank and when it got too high the county would doze it further over the bank. It was home for thousands of rats. Summer evenings I would pedal my bike with my single shot 22 and a pocket full of ammo there. The killing would begin! Great practice. I would not be alone as many of the other rural kids would be there as well. No adult supervision. No one got shot. The problem with big cities is they can not give every kid a 22 and a pocket full of ammo. We should go back to open landfills and give kids something fun to do…shoot rats. Fat chance, huh?

    1. GWH, you must be an old guy like me. My pals and I started a Junior Rod & Gun Club. On Friday nights our Fathers would take us ‘rat rapping’ at the town dump. We used CO2 pellet guns. Rats were everywhere. The mounds of trash almost seemed to be moving. I was a little skittish. I taped the bottom of my jeans to make sure no rats could climb up my legs! Oh yes, great fun. We were well supervised and no one ever got hurt.

  9. Unless 2/3 of the state legislatures call for a constitutional convention–an idea which is a nonstarter for most Americans–2/3 of the Senate and 2/3 of the House of Representatives must approve any constitutional amendment. Then the amendment must be submitted to the states for ratification by 3/4 of the state legislatures before it becomes law.

    The decision by the small state of Nevada to approve the abolition of the Electoral College makes no sense from a pragmatic political point of view. Perhaps Nevadans have been swept up in the politics of the Left, given that the state becomes bluer each year as a result of immigrants looking for low-skilled jobs in the service sector. While illegals, themselves, can’t (at least shouldn’t) vote, their children born in the US can.

    Personally, I cannot imagine that, in the lifetime of anyone reading this comment, that enough of the smaller states will voluntarily surrender their impact on national political leadership and allow the abolition the Electoral College. Should the Left succeed, the East and West Coasts will control the outcome of Presidential Elections.

    1. Should the Left succeed, the East and West Coasts will control the outcome of Presidential Elections.

      The exact reason for the electoral college in the first place. To keep the large population centers from dictatorial control of the rest of the country. I don’t understand the leftists and the neocons (two sides of the same totalitarian coin) desperate love of dictatorship. They keep installing dictators in other countries, now they desperately want to do it here.

    2. Survivormann99 I beg to disagree. Nevada’s blues started with the low paying service jobs in Las Vegas but the disgusting blue Tsunami came with all of the tech industry high paying jobs who fled Silicon Valley for Northern Nevada to work at Tesla, Panasonic, Switch, apple, etc. They sold their McMansions in overpriced California and now pay cash for an artificially inflated overvalued house in Northern Nevada. They brought their horrible driving and voted in the same lunatic minded liberal demonrats that ran their state into the ground. The quislings have invaded Nevada and taken over. Native Nevadans are not these people and are not happy about it!

      1. I actually scouted housing in the Gardnerville area in the past year, so I am more than a little familiar with it.

        The majority of Nevada’s population is still in and around Las Vegas. I passed through there yesterday. It is amazing what has transpired since I last passed through there perhaps ten years ago. The Las Vegas Strip is now simply an artery, as casinos now stretch on each side away from it for several blocks.

        I believe that it was in a NatGeo program, “Electronic Armageddon,” (available on YouTube) which was aired maybe ten years ago, I seem to recall that it said that Las Vegas had 80,000 hotel rooms. Now, according to http://www.reference.com, “Las Vegas has 152,275 hotel rooms spread across a total of 355 hotels. This means that this city has more hotel rooms than any other city in the United States.” (Among other things, the program discussed what would happen after an EMP attack if water was no longer pumped there, and tourists and residents would have to attempt to walk out of the desert. The result would not be good.)

        This gambling industry work force, along with so many other service industry jobs, can be expected to vote reliably Democratic. As I said, “Perhaps Nevadans have been swept up in the politics of the Left, given that the state becomes bluer each year as a result of immigrants looking for low-skilled jobs in the service sector.” It is simply the case that these immigrants are coming disproportionately from California.

        I had considered moving to Prescott, AZ, in the past. A friend who lives there and who I saw a couple of days ago on the same trip mentioned that there was local resistance to California Blue State-types moving there. I asked him if I would be okay if I slapped a Trump bumper sticker on my pickup. He laughed and said that I would.

  10. re: snakebites In 2017 one of my kids was bitten by a copperhead poisonous snake. He spent 18 hours in the hospital, was given6 viles of antivenin and received a $48,000 bill.

    1. With all due respect to conventional medicine, and the $48,000 bill–
      In a SHTF situation, be sure to have a few pounds of pulverized charcoal (or better, activated charcoal) on hand. Mix with water, and apply to the bite. Change it every 15 minutes.
      Another thing that can be mixed with the charcoal to good effect, is the pulverized leaves of plantain (broad-leaf or narrow-leaf). This plant is quite musilaginous, which helps hold moisture, in addition to its antidotal properties.
      The charcoal and plantain will help relieve/control the infection as well as draw out the venom.
      We have used this on ranch dogs many times. It typically reduces their “down time” from rattlesnake bites from 1 week, to 1 day.

  11. Nevada Bypasses Electoral College,

    Why They REALLY want to Abolish the Electoral College
    (YouTube Video)
    Reid Henrichs
    Published on May 24, 2019
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I067AYzvX_I
    Duration – 6:31

    “The Founding Fathers set up the Electoral College for specific reasons. In this educational video, Reid explains the differences between a Republic and democracy, the importance of representative government, and the concept of the rule of law over emotions.”

  12. The founding fathers did not set up the electoral college; the 12th amendment did. The amendment took the power of electing the president and the vice president from Congress elected by we the people, and put it in the hands of what has become the so called two party system. If any state decided to hold a popular vote election outside the 12th amendment such election would not be valid and the court would certainly decide that. In the meantime, a fighting war would break out due to the meddling of the powers that be attempting to destroy this Republic since the 12th amendment was written by them …

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