WatchI've been reading about the events in Egypt and I found myself wondering what would happen if the US entered some kind of period of social/political unrest. I was surprised at how quickly the Egyptian government could shut off the internet, close the banks, etc.
Thinking back to the period after 9/11 I was also surprised at how everyone here panicked, and how quickly habeus corpus, and civil rights in general, were tossed to the side like trash. I don't have any faith that the US would act any better if something hugely disruptive came around again.
I was thinking of making my own "survival kit." I'm soliciting comments as to what you would keep on hand, like how much cash (it's useless in my savings acct. anyway). I plan also to get my radio operator's license (HAM). I'm not going to get any guns (there are kids in the house), and I reject on principle that kind of Armageddon-head for the hills mentality, but I want to be able to lie low, communicate with my family, keep people safe and fed, and get out of town if the need arises.
I already have the basics of food, water, battery-operated radio, etc. for earthquakes, but I'm thinking about a more disruptive scenario.
What do you think?
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Ojai, CA
Well said Phoenix.....you are a true American. I'm 50+ and my father fought in WWII, Korea and Viet Nam. It took me many years to recognize the sacrifice's he made for God, family and his country. A man of ourageous courage, faith and loyalty. A dying breed. thanks for posting!
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I dont think anyone is advocating armed revolution. Guns are a deterrent to tyranny in a democratic society.
When the majority of the electorate becomes ignorant of the Constitution, American history, Christianity and vote for who looks and sounds good we are in serious trouble like its been happening a couple of generations we get trashy leaders and politicians AND STATISM.
Someone quoted "this country was founded on people who were persecuted by god. There is a reason state and religion were separated, because the founders had no interest of having religion being part of their new country." This is a very ignorant saying and believing in a lie (historical revisionism).
Someone commented my quote about the 4 G's asking "How do you get a year supply of God?" The bible says "O ye of little faith". Faith in the true God will carry you through bad times and give you wisdom. Do what you can to prepare for bad times and faith will carry you through. In the meanwhile eat, drink and be merry! Balance is the key.
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The Christian Taliban have just arrived. Excellent.
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Nomograph says
I was thinking the exact same thing.
God help us from fundamentalists.
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Nomograph says
Much better than the God-less Taliban, however. A man with a value system and morals is a more trustworthy man than one without.
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Ojai, CA
Pleaaasssee! I said God not Christianity. I respect all paths and that is a part of being a true American. Jesus was a great way shower, who taught love, faith and courage, as were many other great prophet's. Taliban isn't a very good example. Either is religion.
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redrider says
I recommend you read Niki Raapana's material regarding why Christianity is under attack in the United States. Very insightful for thinking people of faith.
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@Iwog
>Unfortunately more and more Americans are accepting this lie and “preparing” for a battle that will certainly be a mindless mob punishing the wrong people.
Who do they want to punish?
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M8R-0dxnlo says
A person with values and morals never feels the need to force them on others, and a free person of true faith will go to any length to keep the government out of his beliefs.
You are obviously not one of us.
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Los Angeles, CA
I know exactly one person in Los Angeles with a gun. Last year he had a home invasion robbery while sleeping and the home invaders found the gun and held him up with it. He is a rabid right-winger and if it wasn't such an awful thing to happen to someone I would've laughed hysterically and thrown his teabagger words right back at him. But I just couldn't, it was just too pathetic and predictable.
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The fundamentalist Christians have rewritten the history of Ronald Reagan. Give them time and they will convince everyone that the founding fathers ideal was a nation of fundamentalist Christians who keep eachother distracted with non issues while the plutocracy and the corporatocracy slowly enslave us.
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Bellingham, WA
wcalleallegre says
The funny thing is that "ObamaCare" hasn't changed a goddamn thing with my health care.
Other than jacking up the premiums 20%, largely thanks to it not allowing companies to discriminate premiums based on gender any more. The other stuff -- young adults staying on parent's plans, no rescission, is maybe 5% according to BlueShield.
The right wing nut brigade (see above) has somehow gotten it into their pinheads that the bill passed last year was something the socialists up in Canada might be envious of, while the reality of the situation is that "ObamaCare" is just pretty much what Mitt Romney got implemented in MA and what Republicans like Bob Dole, Ted Stevens, Orrin Hatch supported in 1993 (the Chafee bill).
It is HIGHLY conservative in nature, since it had to pass through the Senate Finance Committee, who changed it to what they could get 60 votes for after Kennedy died and Brown replaced him. Basically the most conservative Democrat (Lieberman) determined what was going to pass the Senate, since no Republicans voted for it, for their usual BS hyperpartisan reasons.
marcus says
They're already doing this, bigtime. wallbuilders.org does weekly presentations in churches, for some reason my sister dragged me to her church down in OC and half the service was a powerpoint from some affable Texan telling them about Gouverneur Morris and all the rest of the founders were Christian men making a Christian country.
That was the last time I went to church with her. Now when I'm visiting I let mom & her go do their church thing and I just fuck off for the morning.
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elliemae's website
Troy says
The majority of changes don't kick in for years - yet I have patients/families blaming Obama for everything. I love it when they complain that Medicare won't pay for their room & board just because they don't have a medical need to be there.
I've been yelled at, sworn at and called a liar (this week it was twice) when a patient's family is told the patient isn't eligible for Medicaid and the patient must either pay out of pocket or go home. My new nickname is "bitch."
The newest assessment tools were created while Bush was in office, but no one wants to hear that.
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elliemae says:
How do you get a year supply of God?
Answer: I went to church once. That pretty much held me for a year.
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Chula Vista, CA
tatupu70 says
My mistake, dimes quarters and half dollars only, again before '64.
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Chula Vista, CA
iwog says
Those were only 40% though, same for the Kennedy's between '65-70.
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NuttBoxer says
That's true, but two silver nickels still had more pure silver than a single silver dime. On a times face value basis, nickels fit right in.
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The US Government is completely aware of what's going on. While Bush was President they made plans for the food and job riots this depression will soon cause when people revolt because they hit the breaking point. The camps were constructed with barbed wire in 1,800 locations all across the country. The truth is, society doesn't need all of us anymore. They can get by just fine and still generate huge corporate profits. Us extras are just a burden now. I think what's going to happen soon may be similar to the inhumanity we saw during WWII and that's what you have to prepare yourself against, though how do you prepare for 20 million deaths in your own country and the rise of the corporate/police state?
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vandervert says
Lots of God. I'd say at least 3-4 years worth.
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Bellingham, WA
wtf's going on with the flood of new account whackos?
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maybe shrek invited them all over from one of his other online forums.
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Spring Lake, NJ
I got an AM/FM/Weather band radio for $25 from Amazon, Eton Microlink, self powered by handcrank and solar cell, has cell charger capability and LED flashlight too, decent audio.
Next survival step is an ebay bid is a DC/AC inverter big enough to power a room AC and refrigerator. A $100 inverter is a better deal than $1000 generator since I'll only be using it for a short term emergency. We had a blackout here (metro NYC) with 3 days of 103 degrees and a/c or a fan isn't a luxury then. Obviously a diesel is better for long term idling but I bet a fuel injected 4cyl with synthetic oil won't have any trouble on a cycled basis.
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Spring Lake, NJ
There have been some horror stories here about keeping guns in the home. You should always keep the ammunition separate from the gun and the gun is easy to lock in a number of ways including a trigger lock. A shotgun is the safest and most effective gun you can get for self protection in the home IMO.
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rktbrkr saysA shotgun is the safest and most effective gun you can get for self protection in the home IMO.
That reminded me of something funny that happened when I was only about four years old. My father had a double-barrel shotgun that he kept on top of the chest of drawers in their bedroom--you could just see part of the butt of the gun sticking up over the top. One day we were in the front yard and my father had the gun which I had seen him fire before. He held it down just in front of me so I could see it more clearly--I simply reached over and pinched the trigger and the thing fired! The shell went across the street and struck one of the three metal buildings that had been built by the CCC in the late 30's and was then part of the vocational education campus of the high school--it made a loud bang and I'm sure the gouge is still there because the buildings are. What was even worse a lady was walking from the bus stop down at the end of the street not far from there. The term "freak-out" didn't exist then, but that's what my father did. I thought he was going to have a heart attack. He yelled at me that you're never supposed to press the trigger of a gun when you don't know if it's loaded or not, but it was his fault for putting it in my range knowing I had no more knowledge of such a weapon. Needless to say the shotgun wasn't brought out in my presense any longer and a few years later it was stolen--so much for protection.
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Troy says
Three-day weekend.
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Nomograph says
If you purported "regulars" need to swim only in your own elitist inbred opinions, then why not start your own Yahoo Group for free and have at it? Your tolerance for any new or different ideas on these forums is quite low. So low that you need to regularly demean anyone who does not share the same ideas as your little inbred clique.
So please, go somewhere else and revel in your inbred ideas. Expose yourselves to nothing different. If that's Heaven for you, and what you struggle so hard to maintain here -- why not put two and two together for a change, get off your ass, and get it done?
Here's the link to get you started -
http://groups.yahoo.com/
Otherwise, please STFU already. Your mindless emotional and personal attacks are boring, if you haven't figured that out already. You're like a freakin' robot.
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Outside Party . says
I'm pretty sure that any well thought out and well supported ideas would be welcome here by all the "regulars", even if they come from the right. I'm not particularly liberal and I often blast feminists and tree-huggers on various issues. I even own guns!
The problem is that much of what passes for "conservative" discourse today is totally corrupt, unsupportable, and little different than religious dogma. The birther idiocy is a great example of opinions that have no merit and cannot be supported.
There are a few sincere conservatives that post here, but the vocal majority refuse to answer questions, are caught frequently with exaggerated data or outright lies, and will resort instantly to personal attacks when cornered or pressed on a point.
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Apparently Outsideparty thinks that a couple observations of the kookiness factor of vandervert and a couple other recent new accounts makes the observers "elitist." He's right. We should try to minimize that kind of predictable robot like "personal attack."
.
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iwog says
This is why you should drive to work with your gun, to protect yourself from Wrecks.
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Davis, CA
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In the end, after years of non-stop freefire fights, all ammo depleted, bayonets dulled from tearing through the bones of thousands of starving attackers, you may end up having to defend yourself with rocks.
Find a rock defense course and take it and update your skills yearly.
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Spring Lake, NJ
Looks like we'll have to start stockpiling fuel sooner than expected.
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Spring Lake, NJ
People can't get water or batteries in Tokyo which is hundreds of miles from the epicenter of the earthquake, this is an extraordinary natural calamity but earthquakes happen here too, plan ahead
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Redwood City, CA
People will be fine there, it will take a few days but they will get things back to normal for those people who are mobile. They will have issues for a few days, but things will clear up pretty quickly. For those trapped and/or hurt, it could take awhile for them to get help.
The unique thing about Japan is the population densities. It would be like having an earthquake up and down both sides of the US, with tsunami's hitting on both coasts to basically have the same kind of effected population.
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Bellingham, WA
^ actually the recent quake is pretty identical to a big one going off in Monterey Bay (if such subduction faults existed there)
You could imagine the 101 corridor from Salinas to San Jose (same population as Sendai) losing power and all the coastal communities from Santa Cruz to Pacific Grove getting washed into the sea. Throw in some valley farmland and it's a closer match.
Only 4 deaths in Tokyo so far is a pretty damn good survival, given this quake was almost as bad in Tokyo as our 1989 quake.
But it's going to take a lot of time and investment to replace the hundreds of billions of dollars of economic loss to the Tohoku seaboard. Maybe a hundred thousand people have lost everything in this world, and they're going to be need to be recapitalized to get back into the primary sector of the economy, and meanwhile the secondary sector that served the ag and fishery industry is going to get similarly wiped out.
And this is not getting into the issues with the crippled nuke plant spewing radioactivity right now. Tohoku may only be a small part of the Japanese economy but this 2% or so just got kicked in the nuts.
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@Troy
Where did you get the 2%? Not saying you are wrong, just curious.
I have enough stocked (especially water for now).
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Spring Lake, NJ
It's now been a few days, I wouldn't say things are back to normal.
People will be fine there, it will take a few days but they will get things back to normal for those people who are mobile. They will have issues for a few days, but things will clear up pretty quickly.
The situation at the power plants is a ticking bomb
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The danger of nuclear power plants is all hyped up. We have a serious group in our county attempting to create an energy park including nuclear power. That would be awesome and an economic boon.
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Davis, CA
So are potatoes more or less likely than other foodstuffs to accumulate radionuclides?
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Bellingham, WA
American in Japan says
Tohoku has 7% of GDP, so the coastal fishing industry is one fourth of that?
Plus Sendai serves as a regional center supporting the Tohoku coast, too, so lost GDP from fishing will bleed back to Tohoku.
Then again, if Japan can't get its energy situation sorted out by summer, it will be losing more than 2% of GDP just from the blackouts. Imagine trying to run a conbini when a third of your goods go bad every day. Plus all the transit mayhem.