Scary Times

So much is going on right now...ran across some YouTube videos this morning that I want to share. I will update this post over the course of the day with more stuff. Prep hard and Pray Hard. Time is short.

The Most Important Prep

We, as preppers, try to plan and prepare for any and all contingencies in life. We stockpile food, buy guns and ammunition, and train ourselves mentally, physically, and emotionally to deal with a myriad of situations. Well, ladies and gentlemen, when it all comes down to it, this prepping that we engage in is all for naught if one very crucial prep is missing. We might be able to survive for a period of time when the SHTF here on earth. That’s all well and good but it’s not going to matter when you die. And, despite all your preps and planning, you ARE going to die someday. If you die without one very crucial prep, the S will HTF in a way that exceeds anything any of us can possibly imagine. The S will HTF in a spiritual sense and you will

That crucial prep is to accept the free gift that is offered to every one of us. The gift that Jesus Christ paid for with his suffering and blood on the Cross. This is the week we commemorate His death and celebrate His Resurrection. Contemplating the gift He gave us so long ago really put it on my heart to do this blog post. Take some time this week to think on this and, if you have not done so, close this important hole in your prepping.

The Obama Lunch Snub-More anti-Republican Elitism or something more?

I ran across this article and read it, thinking, there Obama goes again, dissing the Republicans at any opportunity...but then I thought about it more deeply...See below the article for my conclusions...

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/03/barack-obama-wouldnt-touch-food-at-gop-luncheon-he-didnt-bring-royal-taster/

WASHINGTON — Following President Obama’s lunch meeting with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill, Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins described the food served and said the president was not able to eat since his “taster” was not present.

“University of Maine recipe for healthy lobster salad — I pointed that out to the president in keeping with the first lady’s initiatives and Fox Family Potato Chips made in Aroostook County where I’m from and wild blueberry pie full of anti-oxidants, see this was a healthy lunch as well. We did have a little ice cream on the pie too, also made in Maine, Gifford’s Ice Cream. So in all seriousness this was well received,” Collins told reporters on Thursday after the meeting at the Capitol.

“Unfortunately, you know, the president can’t,” said Collins when asked if Obama ate at the lunch meeting.

“He looked longingly at it,” Collins continued. “He honestly did look longingly at it, but apparently he has to have essentially a taster, and I pointed out to him that we were all tasters for him, that if the food had been poisoned all of us would have keeled over so, but he did look longingly at it and he remarked that we have far better food than the Democrats do, and I said that was because I was hosting.”

According to a 2009 AFP report, the U.S. Secret Service has “always refused to confirm that US presidents travel with a food ‘taster’, in line with their policy of discretion on all security related issues.”

 

...I thought about this article and something hit me...the main part of the meal was lobster-based. Under Islamic law, lobster is considered haraam, or forbidden...Coincidence?

A- Sea creatures.
We are allowed to eat any fish as long as it has scales (see list here) . All other sea creatures such as whales, sharks, turtles, lobsters and crabs are Haraam.

http://www.islamic-laws.com/halalharamfooddrinks.htm

 

The Man in St. Peter's Square yesterday

Hey all. I watched a little bit of the festivities surrounding the new pope being inaugurated yesterday. Being familiar with the Prophecy of St. Malachy, it is a little chilling. If the prophecy is to be believed, and I am not certain it is, this pope is to be the last pope. I ran across this this morning and got chills. This man was photographed in St. Peter's Square yesterday during the papal festivities, barefoot and in sackcloth, off by himself. I saw him and immediately thought of the 2 witnesses that are supposed to appear on the earth during the Tribulation. Not saying this was one of them. It could very well just be a crazy guy. With the direction the world is rapidly heading, though, who knows. The question is, was he praying with the people in the square or for them?

The State of The World (as I see it)

                Hey y’all. Georgia Geoprepper here. The post for today is my take on the state of the world. In my opinion, my friends, we are in the End Times. The times immediately preceding the return of Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of the Universe. I actually think 9/11 was the catalyst for all of this. I think 9/11 truly lit the fuse to accelerate matters and put us on the “terminal path” to the End of Days. Now, I am very aware that every generation has believed that they were living in the End Times, but there were things that had to happen or factors that had to be in place before the End Times could begin. Chief among these is the existence of Israel as a cohesive state. Anyway, as I said, I believe we are in the End Times, probably in the early stages of the Tribulation. It is not clear to me how far into these Times we are and how bad things are going to get before the Rapture spoken of in the Bible happens or the end finally comes. There are three major schools of thought within Christianity concerning the timing of the Rapture: Pre-Tribulation, Mid-Tribulation, or Post-Tribulation.

                Most Christians seem to cling to the Pre-Tribulation theory, in which believers will be raptured off the planet before the Tribulation even begins. Personally, I don’t subscribe to any of these schools of thought. The way I look at it, it is just sweating the small stuff. The important thing is, He IS coming back. The timing of His return and the rapture is up to him. I think the Pre-Tribbers cling to their theory as rabidly as they do largely out of fear. They don’t want to go through the Tribulation, so they won’t listen to any theory that posits the concept that they might have to. Truthfully, I would rather not go through the Tribulation, but if that is what God has for me and my family, we will deal with it. That is a lot of why I prep. Something bad is coming and coming quickly. A quick rundown on the state of the world supports this:

Domestic:

The Economy: The United States is almost 17 TRILLION dollars in debt. I heard something recently that really showed how much trouble we are in. Check this out. If, from the time that Jesus Christ was born, you put 1 million dollars A DAY in the bank (with no interest), you wouldn’t have 1 trillion dollars. Yet, somehow, we are 17 of that in debt. This Sequestration is a joke. It is an $85 billion spending cut. What most people don’t understand is that it is not even a real cut. It is not a cut from zero. It is a decrease in the rate of increase. The Federal Reserve is now printing $85 billion dollars A MONTH. So, this Sequestration is going to make no difference in reducing the catastrophic debt and is probably going to do more harm than good. As Jack Spirko has said recently, the economy is on life support and the life support machinery is now on battery backup power. I don’t see how the system can continue to sustain all of this much longer. Look at Greece and much of Europe as a model for what is very likely to take place here in the foreseeable future. Scary times.

Political Correctness: “Political correctness” is destroying this once-proud nation. Children’s sports have largely been reduced to “fun games” where score is not kept and everyone gets a “participation ribbon” so that Suzy or Johnny don’t get their little sensibilities injured by being on a team that loses. It’s no wonder that so many of the children and young adults today are walking through life with a sense of entitlement. They have been indoctrinated that performance is unimportant. You are great just because you exist.  If you make the mistake of speaking the truth openly about illegal immigration you are derided as a racist or a bigot. If you speak the truth openly about the evil that is Islam, you are quickly hushed and herded into “sensitivity training” or other such nonsense.

Gun Control: In the wake of Sandy Hook, gun control has once again reared its ugly head. It’s not clear where this is all going. As things stand right now, firearms themselves are outrageously expensive and the majority of types of ammunition are sold out with no hint as to when they will become available again. I think there is more at play here. I am not trying to get too paranoid or tin-hatty here, but I think the real reason behind the gun control efforts is that the government is very aware that a collapse or something bad is coming and an armed citizenry is not in their best interest. There are sporadic reports of confiscation efforts already occurring in various jurisdictions within the US. In addition, there are the reports of the Department of Homeland Security buying massive amounts of ammunition (for “practice purposes”). It appears that not only is DHS arming themselves to the teeth, they are also going on the theory that if they can’t take the guns, they will buy up the ammunition instead.

Gas Prices: Prices at the pump are steadily increasing (already almost $4/gallon here in Georgia). I have never seen them increase this much this early in the year. Typically, we see these types of increases closer to summer. If they are already this high, what are they going to look like when summer comes?

Foreign:

Iran: Iran is continuing down the road to building and/or acquiring nuclear weapons. Reports on the news this morning show what appears to be a heavy water facility, which indicates that Iran may now not be dealing only with Uranium as a nuclear fuel but Plutonium as well. There were more talks in recent days over the issue between Iran and the west but they don’t appear to have borne much fruit. Israel keeps speaking of “red lines” saying that Iran is rapidly approaching a red line that will trigger an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The fear with that is that such an attack may very possibly send the entire Middle East spiraling into a regional war. If we think our gas prices are tough now, just wait until a major war erupts over there. Bottom line: Iran can NOT be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. We have a POTUS who is content to just sit on his hands and “talk” to them while they smile, nod their heads, and continue to work on their bomb. Not sure how this is all going to shake out, but I do think it is all very likely to come to a head by the end of the year, likely this summer.

Muslim Brotherhood and the rebuilding of the Caliphate: The Arab Spring has brought with it the spread of Islamist states in countries in the Middle East that previously had secular dictators in place. Now don’t get me wrong, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Moammar Qaddafi in Libya were not good guys. Not even close. That being said, they were the Devil we knew. Now, we have the Muslim Brotherhood (offshoot or forerunner to Al Qaeda) in charge in Egypt. We have a similar ruling junta in Libya. Bashar Assad is clinging to power in Syria by a tenuous thread while Al Qaeda-backed resistance fighters are seeking to topple him so that they can fill the power vacuum that will occur there. Why is all of this happening? They are seeking to rebuild the Muslim Caliphate that was seen during the Ottoman Empire in an effort to spread the influence of Islam and Sharia law throughout the region and beyond.

I could go on with this but I won’t. In short, forces of dark change are gathering and lining up. Something is coming and very soon. Keep prepping.

Mental Preparedness with GHB/BOB/INCH bag tangent

What I want to talk about today is something that I feel gets neglected in a lot of people’s prepping and that is mental preparedness. In my opinion, you can have months to years of food and supplies, a secure home or bugout location, enough weapons and ammunition to hold off an army, and redundant systems ad infinitum, but if you are not truly mentally prepared for when the SHTF or TEOTWAWKI, your prepping may be all for naught.

I think a lot of people that have been prepping for awhile probably are pretty prepared mentally. They have usually taken the time to sit down and think through the scenarios and really think about the implications of various situations and how they might respond.  There are also a lot of people who have jumped on the prepping bandwagon recently because it is a “hot” subject right now, thanks to television shows such as Doomsday Preppers. Some of those folks have gone out and spent a lot of money to get the gear, stock their larder, and are declaring themselves to be prepared, without really thinking about what an SHTF situation would really mean for them and for their families. Their newly acquired “stuff” sits in the basement, gathering dust, and they blithely go on about their lives, thinking that their future is secure. I believe a lot of these people truly have no idea what they are in for if the balloon goes up so to speak. A lot of these folks have never been through a disaster more serious than the fact that a thunderstorm knocked their power out for an hour or two. They have been through inconvenience, not true crisis. I’m not faulting these people, I am just stating what I believe to be a fact. I am also not suggesting at all that anyone should be obsessed with prepping and doomsday. I don’t think that is necessarily healthy or good either. I think everyone needs to find balance in their lives. That healthy balance is going to be different for everyone, so there is no “set in stone” right answer.

One very good way to check your mental preparedness for the feces striking the fan blades is to put yourself into a simulated, but realistic longer-term situation where you will have to sustain yourself. By longer-term I am meaning more than a few hours. Go from inconvenience to crisis. As a means of achieving this goal, I encourage you to put together a bugout bag. There are plenty of videos, checklists, and resources out there that will guide you in the construction and assembly of such a bag. In a future video, I will give a detailed tour of my bag. My bag actually is a work in progress and probably always will be as I find things I like, things I don’t like, things that work for me, and things that don’t work for me. I also have 3 separate (but highly inter-related) load-outs for the bag that I am working on. A Get Home Bag (GHB) load-out, which would be the stuff I would need to make the journey from my workplace to home on foot. It is the lightest and easiest configuration. The next loadout is the Bugout Bag (BOB) loadout. It has stuff in it that I would need if conditions warranted that my family and I needed to leave our residence, but it appeared that we would be able to return at some point. It is a heavier and more complex configuration. The final loadout is the I’m Never Coming Home Bag (INCH) loadout. It is for the most extreme situation, where conditions are such that my family and I need to vacate the residence and chances are good that we will not be able to return. This is a much heavier and more complex loadout that would likely require multiple bags and a wagon or cart. I have the GHB loadout pretty well set, the BOB loadout is getting there, and the INCH loadout is largely still in the theoretical and brainstorming stage.

I have kind of gone off on a tangent with a discussion on bag loadouts. I am going to try to get back on topic now, but I do promise a more detailed post and video or videos about my bag coming up very soon. Anyway, once you have your BOB put together, I recommend testing it out by going off the grid for a minimum of 24 hours and sustaining yourself with just what you have in your bag. This can be as simple as turning off all lights in the house, declaring all electronics off limits, declaring all utilities off limits (with the exception probably of use of the toilet), declaring the refrigerator off limits. In short, declaring all the normal comforts of everyday life off limits. If you want to get even more daring, find a local campground that has a primitive camping area and go camp there for a day or so using only what is in your bag.  Doing this will serve two purposes. One, it will let you see holes in your BOB that you might not have foreseen in your prepping. There is always something that will arise that you didn’t consider. Trust me. The second purpose is, it will let you see, in a somewhat controlled situation, how you mentally handle the adversity that comes with a longer-term crisis. You will learn a lot about yourself and it will help you to build the mental tenacity to handle the curveballs life may throw at you.

UFC On Fuel TV 7: Barao Vs. McDonald: My Predictions

This post is going to detail my predictions for tomorrow’s UFC on Fuel TV card from London. It is a 3pm start time, so be sure to be at your TV or have your DVR set. In all honesty, this is not a great card, so if you have something else to do, DVR it and watch later. I am not terribly interested in any of these fights except for the final two.

Matthew Riddle vs. Che Mills: Don’t really have a horse in this race. Mills has twice as many fights as Riddle, so based upon experience, I will go with Mills by TKO.

Ryan Jimmo vs. James Te Huna: Also don’t really have a horse in this one. This is a rematch of a fight from December that ended in a draw. I will go with Te Huna by decision.

Justin Edwards vs. Gunnar Nelson: Again, not a terribly meaningful fight in my mind. I will go with Gunnar Nelson by submission.

Cyrile Diabate vs. Jimi Manuwa: This is another fight I don’t have a vested interest in. I will go with Manuwa by TKO.

Dustin Poirier vs. Cub Swanson: This one has the potential to be a real barnburner. I predict Fight Of The Night for this one. Both of these guys can go. I predict Poirier will win this one by submission, most likely using the D’arce Choke, which is his specialty.

Renan Barao vs. Michael McDonald: This fight is for the interim Bantamweight title. I am predicting really good things from this fight as well. I think this is going to be an exciting, action –packed fight. I am also predicting Michael McDonald pulls the upset here and wins the title from Barao.

So, there are my picks: Mills, Te Huna, Nelson, Manuwa, Poirier, and McDonald. Anyway, like I said, not a GREAT card, but it’s free so I really can’t complain. Hoping we get some BJJ to watch and that these don’t all end up being stand-up wars, but we will see.

Introduction and Term Limits

Hello and welcome to my blog. This blog is going to be for the purpose of talking about things that are important to me and that I hope may be interesting or useful to you. Some of the topics will include, but definitely will not be limited to prepping, geocaching, camping, current events, martial arts, and the like. Most of my blog posts will be "simulcast" as YouTube videos as well. In the videos I may go into somewhat more detail or rant and rave a bit so watch for that. The topic that is sitting on my mind right now is term limits for DC.

 I am absolutely disgusted with Washington. I am furious with both parties right now. The DC machine is horribly broken and in my mind at least some of this brokenness is due to one reason. That reason, ladies and gentlemen, is career politicians. You have politicians on both sides of the political divide who are much more concerned with furthering their political careers, building their individual empires, and feathering their own nests than they are with making the right decisions and doing the right things for this country. Too many politicians are existing in a bubble of perpetual campaign mode, just focusing on doing what they need to do to get re-elected so they can keep that high status position and keep getting that paycheck.

My friends, this needs to end. The frustrating part is that, in order for what I am about to propose to happen, presently, Congress would have to vote in favor of this, which they will never do. It is not in their best interest to do so. In this case, the American people need to make this decision.

The first part of my proposal is term limits on congress of twelve years. I could probably be persuaded to go to sixteen years on this, but definitely no longer than that. That will solve the problem of  people making Congress their career. And, yes, it IS a problem.

The second part of my proposal is to change the length of term of the President of the United States to six years, but limit the President to one term. As things are right now, halfway through his first term, the President is usually already in the early stages of the campaign process to win a second term in office. This would solve that problem and would allow the President to focus on his job without worrying about re-election.

The third part of my proposal is term limits on the Supreme Court. I am not keen on any political appointment being “for life”. I think that, like Congress, a Supreme Court appointment should be for twelve years. Again, I could possibly be persuaded to go a little longer, but not much.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am NOT saying that this proposal will cure all that ails the DC machine. Part of me thinks that the machine may not really be fixable at this point. I do think this would be a good start, however.