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 phone surveillance.
US Colleges Using Phone Surveillance of Students
Our Editor-At-Large Michael Z. Williamson spotted this: US Colleges Turning Students’ Phones Into Surveillance Devices, Tracking Locations of Hundreds of Thousands. The article begins:
“When Syracuse College freshmen stroll into professor Jeff Rubin’s Introduction to Info Applied sciences class, seven small Bluetooth beacons hidden across the Grant Auditorium lecture corridor join with an app on their smartphones and enhance their “attendance factors.” And once they skip class? The SpotterEDU app sees that, too, logging their absence right into a campus database that tracks them over time and might sink their grade. It additionally alerts Rubin, who later contacts college students to ask the place they have been. His 340-person lecture has by no means been so full.”
New State Laws for 2020
Linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site, there was this from USA Today: Don’t throw food in the trash in Vermont, or ask about salary history in New Jersey. Here are 7 state law changes for 2020
Kansas: The Christian Withdrawal Experiment
Reader Paul in Tennessee sent a link to this Redoubtable article at The Atlantic: The Christian Withdrawal Experiment. The article’s subhead: “Feeling out of step with the mores of contemporary life, members of a conservative-Catholic group have built a thriving community in rural Kansas. Could their flight from mainstream society be a harbinger for the nation?”
A Robot Home Invader
Another from the Whatfinger.com site: Terrified Couple Calls 911 From a Closet to Report Home Invasion…Turns Out it was Their New Robot Vacuum
An Ebola Vaccine Approved
Reader Ray K. spotted this: FDA Approves Merck’s New Live Ebola Vaccine Which It Says Can Shed and Cause Immunosuppression. Ray asks: “What cold possibly go wrong?” This artic;e begins:
“On Dec. 20th, 2019, Merck announced it received FDA approval for an Ebola vaccine which contains the virus known as recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus–Zaire Ebola virus (rVSV-ZEBOV), and will be marketed under the name ERVEBO.
The rVSV-ZEBOV is a live, replication-competent virus, produced with the same African green monkey derived Vero cell line Merck used to create the Rotateq vaccine targeting rotavirus infections. The Vero cell line has been previously identified to carry at least two surreptitious simian endogenous retroviruses whose significant risks to human health have not yet been formally evaluated.
VSV-ZEBOV is produced through genetic modification, combining the vesicular stomatitis virus (which on its own can cause flu-like illness in humans) in which the gene for native envelope glycoprotein (P03522) is replaced with that from the Ebola virus (P87666), Kikwit 1995 Zaire strain.
In its recent press release, Merck acknowledged that the vaccine may result in the shedding of RNAs from the live virus in the blood, saliva, urine, and fluid from the skin of the vaccinated, and could result in the theoretical transmission of the vaccine virus to others (based on previous RT-PCR testing).”
Irish Politicians Banned By Twitter
Tim. J. sent us this one: Discussing Ireland, The Future & The Patriot Purge
The FBI is Still After Your Fingerprints!
I saw this video linked over at the McAlvany Intelligence Adviser (MIA): They’re Still After Your Fingerprints! – Propaganda Watch.
SHOT Show Preview
The folks at GH&G have posted their annual round-up article on a lot of the new products that will be debuting at the upcoming 2020 SHOT Show.
When a Government Fights the Citizenry
A piece by NC Scout, over at American Partisan: What Happens When A Government Fights A Dirty War On Its Own People?
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Attendance surveillance would have seriously sucked if someone had tracked my 8am class attendance. Of course, maybe I would have gotten better grades.
The Kansas: The Christian Withdrawal Experiment shows how many people want nothing to do with the utopian hell that the socialists are trying to force on the nation. Do not be surprised if more communities form and partially or fully withdraw from the “New World Order”.
Las Vegas firefighters discover illegal gas station at home
Updated: Thu 8:01 AM, Jan 09, 2020
https://www.wcjb.com/content/news/Las-Vegas-firefighters-discover-illegal-gas-station-at-home-566838911.html
There is an awful lot of conjecture in this article… [possible, may be]
As long as it is not inside the home, what is illegal about it? Number of gallons stored?
Could this simply be someone’s preparations? [the setup kind of looks familar]
Three to six month supply for a commuter?
Re. College Surveillance
“They know I (Rubin) am watching and appearing on it. So, behaviorally, they alter.”
Of course today’s young adults comply. They have been indoctrinated since childhood.
https://i.imgur.com/gkQXBJ3.jpg
Re. College Surveillance
Have one person carry everyones phone to class
Have everyone turn off their phones,delete the app and demand the professor be permantly tracked and recorded(visual and audio) for the students/public
Anyone have the Amazon link for the pump and hose assembly?
TIA
The story about the couple hiding in the closet thinking they were the victims of a home invasion when it turned out to be a vacuum cleaner is a sad commentary on the American male today. Hide in the closet with your wife? How about grab your gun and confront the danger?
On Phone Surveillance.
Did anyone else notice how poorly this article was written? Sentence structure and grammar was horrible.
Yes. It was terrible. I would suspect that of being Chinglish.
Any time you push fuel through a hose static electricity is created. I’ve seen it dance on a siphon hose at night while transferring diesel fuel using an ungrounded hose. it’s not all that noticeable, but a chemical engineer present during the procedure pointed it out to me. I thought of all the times I’ve done this using gasoline and gotten away with it. Static, jumping from a hose to a vehicle when gasoline fumes are gushing out of the filler port, can have very unpleasant consequences. Flash point of gasoline is nearly 35 degrees below zero, with diesel, it’s something like 145 degrees F. So it’s far less likely to experience a fuel fire with diesel.
Having this much gasoline near your house (not to mention your neighbor’s house) is insane. The slightest goof will cause a disproportionate problem. One more reason to own and use diesel powered vehicles. Much safer to maintain large stores of it than gasoline, and it stores for decades. This is still unlawful in most urban settings, but many of the readers here live in rural environs.
Christian Withdrawal Experiment; Rod Dreher wrote a book called The Benedict Option. It is a call for ALL Christians to withdraw (as they can) from the Beast System (my term).
As Christians we are COMMANDED to “be in the world, but not of the world”.
Just sayin…..
Well said, Snotty Boy. I greatly appreciate Rod Dreher’s point of view and his writing.
I remember growing up in the old style Catholic Church, the incense, the Latin. I also remember the lack of kindness and lack of direction or training. Structure and commandments without those things becomes oppressive, bordering on authoritarian.
I wonder how many of the children in this community will depart in adulthood as I did.
And, I salute their experiment. May they thrive.
Carry on
Thanks for your comment Once a Marine….
As I read the article I had the same thoughts about authoritarianism and legalism.
There is a lot that is good about the Catholic church, but there is also a lot that is blatantly un-Scriptural.
Beliefs, unchecked and un-guided by the Holy Spirit, can degenerate into authoritarianism and legalism.
As you do, I wish them the best as they seek to “be in the world, but not of the world”.
PTR 32 in 7.62 x 39
This is an excellent You Tube channel that usually features all things AK-47, ideal for AK fans.
The claim is that it shoots 1 MOA with cheap Wolf ammo when using a scope. The camera in the scope shows the hits out to 400 yards. The PTR is 9.5 pounds with accessories and uses AK mags. 7.62×39 is lower recoil, and half the price of the inexpensive 7.62 NATO. This means your ammo pile can be at least twice as large.
PTR 32 in 7.62 x 39
OOOOps forgot to include this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k7F5N8mwMQ.
Perhaps the best Adapt2030 video I’ve seen. This is an interview with farmer/homesteader in the south, who shares invaluable experience and insights about the weather changes in his area, the challenges he is witnessing, and some solutions.
https://youtu.be/eGobDXaWxXM
I took a few college classes before I realized it wasn’t for me.First day the prof.said “Hey,your the ones that paid 3000$ for this class,its up to you if you want to show up and get your moneys worth,not me”
And yes,even to an uneducated bumpkin like me,that article was painful to try and read.
The attendance surveillance issue follows naturally from the K-12 years that the current crop of college students have not been allowed/encouraged/forced to grow up, take responsibility for their own actions, face consequences, act like adults and actually think for themselves. Welcome to the New World of “1984”. When I was in college in the early 1970’s, we had classes where attendance was required and tracked with a sign-in sheet – we had an Honor Code which precluded lying about it on your own or anyone else’s behalf – and we had classes where it was assumed you were smart enough and responsible enough to either attend class and take your own notes or get the necessary information some other way. Your grade reflected how well you performed on tests or projects. Lots of our classes required handing in your notebook at the end of the semester for part of your grade. No notes, no credit, no excuse. Pretty simple. It encouraged attendance.
With “Participation trophies” for all, what do they expect from the students when/if they make it into college? They are being treated like the pre-pubescents they act and think like. And these people are supposed to be the leaders of tomorrow… how sad.
As for the article, it looks like it was written in another language (possibly Chinese since it mentions “social credits) and then translated by a computer that was programmed by a non-English-speaking person. The blind leading the blind machine. I couldn’t stand to read all the way through, my ” proofreader” brain was in so much pain.