tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45741125066671303362024-02-07T12:27:41.773-08:00Omega Survival ProjectsAn organization to provide a range of specialized services and projects on a case by case basis. The services provided will depend on the independent contractors available at the time, and the needs of the client. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15573233903308693414noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4574112506667130336.post-63359436038417043362014-03-31T06:40:00.003-07:002014-07-17T16:22:15.167-07:00Flight MH370<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
OK now, here's where some people are going to swear I dove into the deep end of the pool and joined the tin hat crowd. Truth be known though, I go where the available facts take me, regardless how stupid it sounds.<br />
<br />
Frankly, I hope they're correct ..... I'd rather be wrong than to have what I have come to believe might happen, actually happen.<br />
<br />
When flight MH370 went missing back on March 08, to be honest, I didn't think too much about it. Another plane went down ... too bad for the people on board, praying for their souls is good but other than that, oh well. However, when the stories surfaced about relatives being able to call the passengers' cell phones and listen to the phone ring, normally, as if any second someone was going to pick it up, I knew something was fishy. <br />
<br />
Cell phones are persnickety little beasts and absolutely will not work when submerged; particularly when submerged in salt water. You see, all cell phones are nothing more mysterious than duplex system radios. No radio will work well when submerged because the water 'shorts' out the signal (for lack of a better explanation) but that same body of water, if a signal is broadcast across the top of it, will act as a signal amplifier and permit the signal to travel further than it normally would. Since the largest cell size of which I have personal knowledge is 20 square miles, that means that there has to be a city nearby, and the plane has to be on/around dry land.<br />
<br />
Odd, don't you think, for a plane presumably lost at sea?<br />
<br />
And if the plane and the phone are intact, then where is the phone's owner?<br />
<br />
Now, this person named Jeff Kagan, has his own view on the subject ......<br />
<br />
“We are used to the landline world. When you dial a number and hear
ringing, it is ringing on the other end,” he told FoxNews.com via email.
“However wireless is different.”<br />
Any ringing the family members heard wasn’t replicated on the
other end of the line. Instead, the ringing sound a cellphone makes in
your ear is essentially a mask for the emptiness that would otherwise
exist as the network looks for and attempts to reach the number you’ve
dialed, he explained.<br />
“With a wireless call, you dial and hit send, then you hear
ringing. However it is not ringing on the other end. What is happening
is the network is searching for the other phone. That can take up to
several rings,” Kagan said. “If it does not find the phone, it cannot
complete the call.”<br />
<br />
Well, I can't comment on this other than to say that as both a cell phone user, and a person who used to be one of the top technical/customer service rep's for Cingular Wireless (damn, wasn't THAT a while ago!) I never heard of the system acting like that .... your phone, even if it's switched off, is constantly involved in making contact with the network, essentially 'shaking hands' with every cell tower you travel past. Each tower has two separate memory units, one for their registered customers (further divided into different classifications) and one for the non-customer's who's carrier might have a contract to be piggy backed on the tower.<br />
<br />
Querying the network involves only a quick search command among the routers to see who's registered where, and generally is done before the phone even begins to ring. If you'd like, you can try this for yourself ..... get two cell phones and try making a call to the other one. First with the SIM card in (yes, you do need to have at least one there which still requires a SIM card) and then with the SIM card out. Taking the battery out won't do it as most cell phones of current manufacture usually have a few capacitors which act as batteries. This gives the cell phone just enough power to respond when queried by the network, thus foiling people who think they can become "untraceable" by simply taking the battery out. (the subject for another tirade, another day)<br />
<br />
Just in case you were wondering, how my speculation based on personal experience holds up against Mr. Kagan's knowledge of the system? Here's what other industry insiders said on the subject .....<br />
<br />
"Representatives for the major cellular carries either did not respond or
declined to offer additional details for this story. The CTIA, a trade
group representing the wireless industry, also declined to comment,
referring FoxNews.com to outside analysts."<br />
<br />
Questions?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://news.discovery.com/tech/gear-and-gadgets/malaysian-air-370-passengers-cell-phones-didnt-ring-140325.htm" target="_blank">http://news.discovery.com/tech/gear-and-gadgets/malaysian-air-370-passengers-cell-phones-didnt-ring-140325.htm </a><br />
<br />
<br />
But then, other oddities about the flight's behavior began to surface, the transponder was turned off, the ACARS system was turned off (which requires that someone manually remove a fuse) and other such things as would render the plane, if it was still airborne, invisible to the usual means we have to track such things.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/03/08/malaysian-air-flight-mh370-how-can-a-boeing-777-aircraft-suddenly-lose-all-contact/" target="_blank">http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/03/08/malaysian-air-flight-mh370-how-can-a-boeing-777-aircraft-suddenly-lose-all-contact/</a><br />
<br />
Then there was the plane's behavior in flight .... reports of the plane ascending to around 45,000 feet before descending to roughly 12,500.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/assessing-the-theories-about-flight-370s-disappearance/2014/03/19/d5d59f5a-af7f-11e3-9627-c65021d6d572_story.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/assessing-the-theories-about-flight-370s-disappearance/2014/03/19/d5d59f5a-af7f-11e3-9627-c65021d6d572_story.html</a><br />
<br />
An interesting thing about aircraft at 45,000 feet .... well ..... just a minute, let's take a look at a pilot's handbook on the physiology of flying to see what it has to say on the subject.<br />
<br />
"A human clothed in everyday street apparel, rapidly exposed to an altitude of 45,000<br />
feet, would become unconsciousness in 9 - 12 seconds with death shortly following."<br />
<br />
So, if the emergency oxygen system is disabled (according to an aeronautics professor interviewed by one of the many news services about this event, it could be done) people in the cabin would have about 9-12 seconds to notice that something was wrong and storm a reinforced cockpit to take the plane to a lower altitude. Now, does this really sound likely?<br />
<br />
How many people get asphyxiated each year by carbon monoxide, in their own homes?<br />
<br />
Get the point yet?<br />
<br />
All it would take to accomplish this are two people, two people in the cockpit. It doesn't matter which two but the most likely two are the pilot and co-pilot or the pilot and flight engineer.<br />
<br />
How would they be compromised?<br />
<br />
It doesn't matter at this point, it just doesn't matter because obviously it was accomplished.<br />
<br />
So ..... we have a possible means to accomplish this ..... what's next? The location the plane would have been taken to ..... my personal choice because there are airfields there which were constructed by the US and the USSR would have been Khazakstan (sp?) This leads us to the question, if the plane was last tracked on the radar; with a heading suggesting that it was moving northwest of it's original position, then why are they looking in the opposite direction?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1459098/search-lost-flight-mh370-shifts-significantly-following-new-lead-malaysia?page=all" target="_blank">http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1459098/search-lost-flight-mh370-shifts-significantly-following-new-lead-malaysia?page=all</a><br />
<br />
"Professor Sun Jinping , a radar signal processing scientist at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said he was baffled by the shift in the search region, adding that there was "no room for such a mistake" on any radar system in use today."<br />
<br />
"If the radar has been tracking the plane, it can definitely, precisely get its speed," he said.<br />
<br />
However, there is an Air Force general with credible statements that the plane is in Pakistan.<br />
<br />
Lt. Gen. McInerney discussed why the plane flew to Pakistan.<br />
<br />
“LIGNET put out a report, substantiated yesterday, that there sources got their information from Boeing sources, which is covert. Not that they got their information from the Boeing Company because they’re involved in the investigation, that the airplane was in Pakistan. That was confirmed by LIGNET on Monday and I got another source at LIGNET that confirmed it yesterday… I do believe that those people in Pakistan, in the ISI, those people who knew where Osama Bin Laden was and didn’t tell us. I believe those same elements could be involved with getting that airplane into a Pakistan air force base.”<br />
<br />
<a href="http://counterjihadreport.com/2014/03/22/breaking-lt-gen-mcinerney-says-mh370-is-in-pakistan-i-got-a-source-that-confirmed-it-yesterday-video/" target="_blank">http://counterjihadreport.com/2014/03/22/breaking-lt-gen-mcinerney-says-mh370-is-in-pakistan-i-got-a-source-that-confirmed-it-yesterday-video/</a><br />
<br />
That works too, for the same reason<br />
<br />
By the way, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_McInerney" target="_blank">general</a> and <a href="http://www.lignet.com/About" target="_blank">LIGNET</a>? As far as I can tell from where I am?<br />
<br />
Legit as all get out <br />
<br />
OK ..... so we have the possible means, and a possible location, now for the big question,<br />
<br />
What's the end game?<br />
<br />
Let's say for the sake of argument, you have this state of the art aircraft vanish from the skies on a routine flight, all the media drum up excitement about it trumpeting loudly that the plane is here, then, it's here, then, we were wrong the first couple of times, it's actually over here!<br />
<br />
Constantly, John Q Public is barraged with images of how hard the government is working to find this plane .... LOOK we're using the latest surveillance atellites we have to find this plane .... LOOK we're running computer simulations to approximate locations where this plane could be found.<br />
<br />
At this point, we're going to sit down for a minute, take a deep breath, and ask the question, why, with all this high tech equipment, can't they find one of the largest commercial airliners made?<br />
<br />
Why is it that no one, has been able to verify any of the 'wreckage' found so far? Why does all their proof of where the flight is seem to vanish when they get there?<br />
<br />
Welllll, a really suspicious person might think it's because the plane was never there, never missing, to begin with ......<br />
<br />
They've known exactly where it's been all along ..... and it's being refitted.<br />
<br />
Refitted for what?<br />
<br />
There are a couple of possible uses for such an aircraft, one of them even uglier than the first which sprang to my mind. It could possibly be used to deliver a nuclear device to Israel, which would pretty much be a death sentence for whatever country tried that because Israel would never allow that plane into their airspace.<br />
<br />
It could also try to deliver a nuclear device to New York city, with pretty much the same result.<br />
<br />
But what if the plan, is to run a false flag operation against one of the two countries.<br />
<br />
What kind of weapon only needs to get close, without actually landing in the place it's intended for?<br />
<br />
What kind of weapon actually has it's performance enhanced, by a certain amount of distance between it, and the intended target?<br />
<br />
A nuclear device, used to generate an EMP pulse<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/04/the_emp_threat_electromagnetic.html" target="_blank">http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/04/the_emp_threat_electromagnetic.html</a><br />
<br />
"EMP was discovered as a byproduct of the Starfish Prime nuclear test on July 9, 1962. A 1.5 megaton bomb set off 240 miles over the Central Pacific blew up street lights and TV sets in Hawaii 1,000 miles away, created a mock aurora visible even further, and destroyed a number of orbiting satellites, including the Telstar I, the pioneering telecommunications satellite."<br />
<br />
This relatively small device was set off and caused an effect approximately one thousand miles away.<br />
<br />
Our coastal territory only extends eight miles into the Atlantic ..... a more powerful device, detonated just eight short miles offshore?<br />
<br />
Damn .....<br />
<br />
..... and that isn't even factoring the effects of the shockwave and thermal blast.<br />
<br />
There'll likely be some sort of 'tidal surge' from the concussion caused by the device.<br />
<br />
Properly placed, it doesn't even have to do more than to just get close. If it's within range of the power grid of a country, it can cause a cascade failure across their power grid in addition to charring all the solid state electronics in use, in the target area.<br />
<br />
End game?<br />
<br />
If it's done to Israel .... well .... it's going to get ugly and we'll likely find ourselves in another mid-east war, and Israel is probably going to be real pissed too.<br />
<br />
If it's done to the US, in the area of New York city it'll take out the power grid for pretty much the entire length of the east coast and probably about as far inland as Indiana. The end game there would be the establishment of military law across the country 'to guard against any further disruption of the US government'. This military law would be in effect for the duration of the emergency, a minimum of five to ten years to rebuild the grid. In the meantime, you can figure that all those people on the east coast who have pacemakers and insulin pumps are going to be dead. As are the people who depend on cochlear implants to hear, whose implants will likely be fried inside their heads, the trauma could be lethal.<br />
<br />
As for their little declaration of martial law?<br />
<br />
Well, a lot can happen in five to ten years .....<br />
<br />
This is the scenario I figure is likely, largely because FEMA has been stockpiling supplies in the area at a higher than normal rate, by their own admission.<br />
<br />
Then there's also the matter of the Constitutional convention that people are trying to plan, it's currently slated for the end of May, if I recall correctly. People want to impose controls and sanctions on the Federal government because the Federal government doesn't wish to control itself, and has voted itself more raises and benefits than even the Queen of England has ......<br />
<br />
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.<br />
<br />
I'd really like it if someone could come up with a rational argument against what I think might be in play .... because when I think of this, all I can see is the 'collateral damage' that would result.<br />
<br />
Dead women, children, and people who've never harmed a soul in their lives.<br />
<br />
I want .... very much .... to be wrong.<br />
<br />
But right now, I fear that all we can do is to wait and see ....<br />
<br />
If you can think of a scenario which takes in all the facts, that runs counter to mine ..... I'd be real happy for it to be right.<br />
<br />
<b>UPDATE 04/18/2014</b><br />
<br />
This update comes to you courtesy of one of my many associates, no, there won't be any naming of names here because this is about the missing airliner, not our group.<br />
<br />
So, there is further evidence on the flight's direction and likely altitude, it seems that the co-pilot, one Fariq Abdul Hamid attempted to make a phone call from the plane ... probably shortly after it was being hijacked.<br />
<br />
"The Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times reports that Abdul Hamid “made
a desperate call from his mobile phone as the plane was flying low near
Penang, the morning it went missing.” The brief connection was only
possible, experts say, because the plane had “dropped to as low as 5,000
feet” as it flew northwest of Penang. Even at that extremely low
altitude, it appears that Abdul Hamid’s attempted call did not go
through. It was cut off “because the aircraft was fast moving away from
the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one.”<br />
<br />
So, wherever Penang is, the plane had to be flying AWAY from it, in order for the call had to be dropped so quickly (no, I haven't checked a map yet, the information came to me a while ago but I only just had time to give it the attention it deserved) and it also means that anyone who says tries to say that the phone call would ring "while the network was attempting to locate the callee" is, quite plainly, talking through his hat.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/presstv-mh370-call-exposing-911-cover-up/">http://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/presstv-mh370-call-exposing-911-cover-up/</a><br />
<br />
Now on to another subject, closely related, this body of information also calls another plane hijacking into question .... one which has nearly been forgotten due to the time since the incident. You may want to read THESE articles .....<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/ted-olson-s-report-of-phone-calls-from-barbara-olson-on-9-11-three-official-denials/8514" target="_blank"> http://www.globalresearch.ca/ted-olson-s-report-of-phone-calls-from-barbara-olson-on-9-11-three-official-denials/8514</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.consensus911.org/point-pc-2/">http://www.consensus911.org/point-pc-2/</a><br />
<br />
Now, ask yourself this question .... if they, whoever <b>they </b>may be .... thought nothing of killing, or simulating the deaths of (depending on which theory you believe) three thousand people, why would the deaths of just three hundred even make them blink?<br />
<br />
There are a great many more questions which have also been brought to my mind about the 9/11 hijackings but that will wait for another time and place.<br />
<br />
<b>Additional Information</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Now, according to what they reported about the phone call from the co-pilot, this is pretty much the direction they'd have been taking at the time he tried to contact the ground. According to Google Earth, the distance between the two is somewhere around 149 miles. Now, at cruising speed, would anyone care to guess how soon after take off the call came? It also implies that the co-pilot knew they were in trouble before the plane <b>even turned west. </b>Which then begs the question, was it truly the co-pilot who was talking to air traffic control just before the hand off, or just someone who kind of sounded like him?<br />
<br />
Someone who wasn't real familiar with the protocols, maybe?<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHuRnaqSpZHwafo-kAqSY8NsaAqHATtC8QXjNcIPE7DyE_O_kMYRrhDHVaoVU0GzKymGcIxqu13lm5st04h17nW9fxwgL4tJyb76TgpmgjzhanhRfvBqBqPU4EWdC1ZK8cg8ouU2-9aaD3/s1600/Copilot+cell+phone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHuRnaqSpZHwafo-kAqSY8NsaAqHATtC8QXjNcIPE7DyE_O_kMYRrhDHVaoVU0GzKymGcIxqu13lm5st04h17nW9fxwgL4tJyb76TgpmgjzhanhRfvBqBqPU4EWdC1ZK8cg8ouU2-9aaD3/s1600/Copilot+cell+phone.jpg" height="208" width="320" /></a><br />
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Now, this map is from Wikipedia and shows the approximate flight path of the plane, as best as we currently believe it to be .......<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ew3LV9KZNIdRdFejXkLnWkMCE4BbU_xszT1SU5Age0cyurLu-okQNKOxGnJz6Qt21OeHcQacOjj50U8yW4pYzsiqWGkmkXY-LcO6ZwhJQXPIzdTHSGAwFSzC5q88PrKBGWCbaVLzkMlB/s1600/Malaysia-Airlines-MH370_insert.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ew3LV9KZNIdRdFejXkLnWkMCE4BbU_xszT1SU5Age0cyurLu-okQNKOxGnJz6Qt21OeHcQacOjj50U8yW4pYzsiqWGkmkXY-LcO6ZwhJQXPIzdTHSGAwFSzC5q88PrKBGWCbaVLzkMlB/s1600/Malaysia-Airlines-MH370_insert.png" height="279" width="320" /></a></div>
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Any more questions?<br />
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Are you beginning to question the official accounts, YET?<br />
<br />
<b>UPDATE 04/27/14 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SON NIKKO!!!!</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Well, now that I've got that out of my system, let's get on with the actual reason I'm updating this .... it seems that the device which they're using to locate MH370 is known as the <b>Towed Pinger Locater/TPL-25, </b>which is manufactured here in the United States by <b>Phoenix International.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b> </b>Now, what is not being broadcast, by the news sources, is that the <b>TPL-25 </b>has a unique capability, it has a <b>self test cycle </b>which nearly exactly can replicate the ping from a black box. Have a look at the specifications for it yourself ......<br />
<br />
<b>Self Test / Emergency Pinger </b><br />
Type: Teledyne Benthos Model #: ELP-362A/PL<br />
Frequency: 37.5 kHz, ± 1 kHz<br />
Operating Depth: 0 to 6,000 msw<br />
Pulse Length: ≥ 9 ms<br />
Repetition Rate: ≥ 0.9 pulses per second<br />
<br />
Strangely enough, I don't appear to be able to locate any information on precisely how the <b>Self Test </b>cycle works or even if it's a closed system which can't be "heard" by any device other than the unit being tested.<br />
<br />
But .... with the details on the operation of the device not being known, it gives rise to the questions .......<br />
<br />
With crews from the sub-hunters, off the record, saying that there is <b>no reason </b>to bring in a specialized device because the black boxes are <b>designed </b>to be able to be located using the <b>regular equipment </b>found on <b>any one of the sub-hunters.</b><br />
<br />With the TPL-25 being able to <b>generate "pings" </b>itself .......<br />
<br />
It then gives rise to the question, <b>could there be more sinister reasons for bringing in the TPL-25?</b><br />
<br />
Could it be that the TPL-25 is being used <b>to authenticate the official story of the government?</b><br />
Without further information about the "test" cycle, and having that information corroborated, it does leave one to wonder, doesn't it?<br />
<br />
Here's the link to the spec sheet from Phoenix, have a look, see if you can find anything else and feel free to let me know, I'll pass on anything I can authenticate.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.phnx-international.com/specs/MKT-EQPS-006C-00%20Towed%20Pinger%20Locator-25.pdf">www.phnx-international.com/specs/MKT-EQPS-006C-00%20Towed%20Pinger%20Locator-25.pdf</a><br />
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<br /><b>17 July 14 ....... UPDATE .....<br /><br /><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/07/11/Dirty-Bomb-Fears-after-ISIS-Seize-Uranium" target="_blank">http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/07/11/Dirty-Bomb-Fears-after-ISIS-Seize-Uranium</a></b><br />I don't know about you, but for me, this next bit of news is causing me a bit of concern.<br /><br />You see ISIS recently got their hands on some uranium, not weapons grade stuff but still uranium. They've also managed to gain control of some bunkers where Saddam had chemical weapons stored.<br /><br />Chemical Weapons?<br /><br />You mean the stuff that everyone told us didn't exist?<br /><br />The chemical weapons which could have easily been manufactured in a "mobile agricultural research station" AS I ATTEMPTED TO EXPLAIN TO PEOPLE, WHO PERSISTED IN BELIEVING THE "EXPERT" .... THE SAME "EXPERT" WHO WAS IN THE PAY OF THE USG?<br /><br />But now, CHEMICAL WEAPONS HAVE TO COME TO LIGHT AND EVERYONE SCRATCHING THEIR HEADS AND GOING, "OOOOOOHHHHH .... NOW WHERE DO YOU SUPPOSE THOSE CAME FROM?"<br /><br />So NOW ..... those same EXPERTS are telling us "DON'T WORRY, WE'RE KEEPING AN EYE ON THOSE BUNKERS THAT CONTAIN CHEMICAL WEAPONS WHICH WE TOLD YOU DON'T EXIST, TO MAKE SURE THAT PEOPLE WE TOLD YOU AREN'T DANGEROUS, DON'T GET HOLD OF THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS WE TOLD YOU DON'T EXIST, SO THAT THEY CAN'T GET THEM THROUGH THE WATCHFUL EYE OF THE TSA INTO OUR COUNTRY WHERE THEY CAN POSSIBLY HARM YOU"<br /><br />I don't know about YOU, but I'M certainly REASSURED ......<br /><br />One other item worthy of note, ONCE COMPANY, ALWAYS COMPANY ......<br /><br />Just because they tell us that ISIS is no longer with the CIA, that they're "off the leash ...."<br /><br />DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN THAT IT'S TRUE.<br /><br />So ...... somebody ....... no matter who it necessarily is ..... has a DELIVERY VEHICLE ...... and TWO POSSIBLE PAYLOADS ......<br /><br />WHAT IN HELL IS NEXT?<br /><br />So we wait, hopefully with open eyes ......</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15573233903308693414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4574112506667130336.post-29517219894532128212013-04-21T15:37:00.000-07:002013-04-21T15:37:12.129-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="userContent">Outrage doesn't even BEGIN to describe what I'm feeling right now!!</span><br />
<span class="userContent">I'm a veteran of the US Army, both during my time in service and since, I've had friends who DIED defending what they believed to be a Constitutional government. A government that had, as its HIGHEST law a document known as the Constitution. A document so clearly written and with principles which could easily be applied to changing times and changing technology.</span><br />
<span class="userContent"><br /></span>
<span class="userContent">So now we have the details of what was happening in Watertown coming out .... and unfortunately, its not all as noble as the officer bringing milk to a family who needed it.</span><br />
<span class="userContent"><br /></span>
<span class="userContent">I need eyes on this footage, I need someone to
confirm or deny what is shown here .... was it the actual SOP they used
during their search or was it an exceptional circumstance for some
reason?<br /> I have long supported law enforcement, at all <span class="text_exposed_show">levels,
so long as they operated within Constitutional boundaries. I've never
balked at cooperating with them when what was being done was within
ethical and legal boundaries.<br /> But if this is the new reality .... if
this is what is now presumed to be acceptable, clear violations of the
4th Amendment, possibly others .... then I have to re-consider what it
is I'm supporting and my reasons for supporting them.<br /> <br /> I will
also re-consider what information I've elected to keep out of the hands
of the general public and what information I may begin to share openly. <br /> <br /> Keep your eyes on the Omega Survival Projects blogspot page ... it may get interesting.</span></span><br />
<span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span></span>
<span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show">Here are links which show the incidents I'm talking about .....</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2be_1366536241<br />
<br />
<br />
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/abc-news-producer-describes-heart-stopping-encounter-with-police-they-thought-i-might-be-the-suspect/</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15573233903308693414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4574112506667130336.post-11894209546524567882013-04-02T05:15:00.003-07:002013-04-02T05:21:16.189-07:00<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<i>Escape Route Planning</i></h2>
<h3 style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This
article, as with all the other articles on this blog, is strictly intended to
be informative in nature. By no means is it a set of instructions that
completely cover every legality and every contingency which may arise if you
choose to attempt this skill. It relates what my experience has been with
regard to these matters and what changes I’ve found in the technology since
those times when I’ve had to employ these skills.<o:p></o:p></span></i></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you choose to attempt this
skill, you are completely on your own with regard to the consequences which may
occur from the attempt.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">OK,
so you’ve built your caches and feeling pretty proud of yourself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">YOU
ARE READY FOR ANYTHING, right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well,
maybe … just exactly where do you plan on placing those caches? <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On
public land? <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On
private land?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">…
and how do you know whether or not you’ll be able to get to them when/if you’re
on the move out of the danger zone?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There’s
a little thing they used to teach in the military called the <b>5 P’s of Command</b> …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">P</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">rior <b>P</b>lanning <b>P</b>revents <b>P</b>iss <b>P</b>oor <b>P</b>erformance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
NCOA isn’t known for worrying about the delicate sensibilities of civilians;
neither am I. As a matter of fact studies have found that if it’s a bit
annoying, or shocking, that you’re more likely to remember it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So
please, be shocked or offended, just so long as you remember it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So
you’ve made your caches, gathered the materials you need to bury and conceal
them and now you’re about to load up your vehicle; drive off and get them
concealed against Z-Day, D-Day or whatever other letter of the alphabet you
care to use to signify THAT DAY WHEN YOU FINALLY NEED THOSE CACHES.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So
where are you going to place them?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well,
for starters you’re going to need to establish what your primary means of
transport will be, motorized and what type of vehicle, muscle powered and
whether you’ll be on foot or using some sort of bicycle or perhaps even some
sort of draft animal, horses or goats. Then you need to take a look at a
gazetteer (a sort of map book that shows topographic information and street
placement, but not street names) to plan your primary route of withdrawal and
at least one alternate route for your primary means of transport.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well,
the first thing you need to cross off the list of possibilities are any
highways or other major roads you might have crossing through or near your
town. If something like Katrina happens those will be the first place that the
National Guard and local authorities will place control points, and if you’ve
kept up with documents such as the NDAA and protocols put into place by FEMA
you’ll find that your private assets can be seized if they’re deemed to be
required for the public safety and good. I know that some of you reading this
will scratch your heads and ask, “But I don’t have that much and it’s not the best
quality, why the hell would anyone from the government want to seize it for
anyone else to use?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Let
me explain a small, minor; possibly even miniscule fact of life that may have
escaped your attention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">GOVERNMENTS AND CORPORATIONS WANT
YOU AS DEPENDENT ON THEM AS POSSIBLE. IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING WHICH REDUCES OR
ELIMINATES THAT DEPENDENCE, THEN THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO HAVE IT, OR HAVE
CONTROL OF IT.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Does
that make things a little clearer to you?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So,
are we clear on why we avoid the major highways and thoroughfares now?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With
that out of the way, let’s take a look at some of the other possibilities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Secondary
roads are roads that you might refer to as back streets; those are a good
choice as long as they lead fairly directly from your residence to the town
limits. Dirt roads are also a good choice but a little more care is needed if
you select them as your primary route. Often times those aren’t as well
maintained as the other three road types mentioned. Depending on the type of
emergency causing you to leave your home, there exists the chance those roads
will be flooded or blocked by fallen trees or even downed power lines. I
wouldn’t say that this should cause you to exclude those routes but you do need
to exercise due caution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well,
now comes the time to look at that damned map again. By now you’ve eliminated
the main routes out of town from consideration …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Check<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">... and you’ve selected
the shortest route out of town from the myriad secondary streets and dirt roads
around your home … <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Check<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">… and you’ve planned
the primary route you’ll need to take to get to your first rally point, again,
avoiding as many of the main roads through the area as you can manage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Huh?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Whuzzat?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Yep … more planning ….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Your rally point is the first chance that all members of
your group who’ve missed the connection at your house will have to re-connect
with the group. The rally point, for these purposes, also needs to be within
walking distance of the town limits. <b>Do
not confuse this with being within walking distance of your home, I would
generally advise the location to be no more than five miles from the town
limits. </b>If you’re being pursued, or in any way followed you need to avoid
proceeding to the rally point. The rally point is a reasonably secure location
where a group of vehicles can meet without drawing undue attention to their
presence. Which means that <b>no member of
your group who is being pursued should go anywhere near it, they should take
one of their bail out routes instead. </b>There are measures which can be taken
to further reduce the chance that your group may be noticed but those will
likely require another article.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At the rally point
you’ll wait a pre-designated amount of time for the others to catch up. <b>DO NOT WAIT FOR THE OTHERS FOR EVEN ONE
MINUTE PAST THE DESIGNATED TIME. </b>As a matter of fact, the vehicles should
be started and idling at least five minutes before you give the signal to move
out. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend waiting there for more than about twelve
hours, after that, depending on the situation that caused you to decide to
leave, they’ve either been compromised or aren’t joining you for personal
reasons. What <b>you</b> should be doing
during that time is assessing the state of your supplies …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Does everyone have their personal
equipment?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Does everyone have the share of group
equipment they’re supposed to be carrying?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Is anyone in need of medical attention?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Is everyone dressed appropriately for
the weather conditions which <b>may </b>come?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Any deficiencies in any
of these areas need to be addressed as quickly as possible. This would also be
a good time to share a meal and discuss what everyone has seen or heard; that
meal should be one which can be prepared without a fire or stove. I cannot
emphasize enough, the need for shared information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> This is also one of the main locations you’ll need to
place a cache.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Bet you didn’t see that one coming …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Each cache location
should be selected along the main line of travel you’ve planned. You’ll also
need to select locations for planned bail out points where you can bolt if
anything threatens to stop your main line of retreat. The main caches should
also be able to be accessed, with only a minimal effort, from the alternate
paths lined out by your bail out points. Whether you place secondary caches in
these areas will depend on your resources and your level of comfort with your
main route. Just realize that if your plans work out the way you intend, that
the caches along your bail out points will usually be lost to you forever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> The next stop for your group will be the rendezvous
point, this is a place which should be better secluded and more secure. This place
should be able to conceal your presence for a number of days. It’s the last
chance for the members of your group who missed the rally point to make a
connection with your main party. Everything mentioned about what to do at the
rally point holds true with the rendezvous point, especially the part about
what to do if being pursued. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, at this point I’m
going to interject something about group security, this and command structure
are also likely to be the subjects of another article but we’re going to touch
on them really quickly here. Whether you like it or not … during a crisis
situation there have to be leaders who make decisions and are responsible for them.
<b>There won’t generally be time for a
debate so make certain that, when you select your leaders, you select people
whom you would not only trust with your own life, but whom you would trust with
the lives of everyone you know and care for. </b>How you select your leaders is
up to you, for all I care you could vote to entrust your lives to the first red
haired man under five feet tall that you’re group encounters while retreating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> My criteria are slightly more demanding than that ….. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> In the end, how you select your leaders is entirely up to
you … you, after all, must live with the consequences of that decision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">HOWEVER, what I
strongly advise that you do is to keep the information about the route, the
alternates and the location of the caches limited to as few people as possible.
There should also be only one file/document which contains all the information
about the group’s main plans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Only one person should be thoroughly acquainted with that
document.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> There should, of course, be an alternate, but the alternate
shouldn’t be reviewing the document until the group has hit the rally point.
The alternate should also <b>not</b> be
riding in the same vehicle as the primary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So the rule of thumb is
that no one except the section leaders of the group are supposed to know the
location of the rally point, and no one except the group leader is supposed to
know, at the beginning, where the rendezvous point is, right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> So … this is the point where most of you are probably
thinking, “So how is it that the members of the group who missed the rally
point are supposed to meet the group at the rendezvous point, if no one but the
group leader knows where the rendezvous point is?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> I suppose that could be a problem …. so this is where we
introduce the concept of the <b>dead drop</b>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A dead drop is so
called because no one is there to hand over, or by any other means communicate,
the information that you need to proceed to the next step. The information will
be in a concealed location, designed to blend into the background of the rally
point. Each section leader should know the place or the indicator to look for
the information. <b>The information should
not be in the clear, which is to say; it should not be printed plainly, on a
piece of paper. The information should be encrypted or otherwise concealed, so
that if anyone other than the intended addressee would find it, it would make
little or no sense to them. </b>Personally, I’d place the information on a
memory stick, encrypted and accessible only if you had a laptop with the
correct encryption program on it.<b> </b>What
happens next is that the section leader finds the memory stick, hooks it up to
a laptop; then enters the password and … voila! … the needed information is
revealed, in addition to the time frame they have to get there! There are many
freeware programs out there capable of doing the job; one of the many I’ve
tried and which seem to do a pretty good job is <i>Crypt4Free</i>. Again, check around and see which program serves your
purposes the best. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Using an encryption program sounds pretty good to me ….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In all honesty you
don’t need to necessarily use a memory stick and laptop to conceal the
information, the <b>first</b> level of
protection for the information is the fact that as few people as possible know
it. The <b>second</b> level of protection
is the procedure of physically concealing the information from easy view. The <b>third</b> level of protection is encrypting
it; for that you can use something as simple as a Vigenere` table or even a
substitution cipher. What you need to understand though, is that the only thing
which any of these protocols will do is to delay the eventual discovery of the
information. Nothing you do will keep information you leave behind from
eventually being uncovered. The idea is to make that delay as long as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Isn’t it interesting how intertwined all these subjects
are?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> The final goal, your sanctuary is what we’ll discuss next
… as you may have already guessed the Sanctuary will share many of the same
characteristics of the first two stopping points. The major points where it
will differ are:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Distance
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">…
Your Sanctuary should generally be at least fifteen miles from your rendezvous
point. There are myriad reasons for this but the main one is to discourage any
OpFor (Opposing Forces) from even attempting to locate you. First of all, for
whatever, reason most people who are attempting to conceal themselves do not
travel more than seven miles from their last known location. Second, even the
best military unit, unless given a strategically sound reason, will have second
thoughts about a search area of seven hundred six or seven miles (given a
minimum radius of fifteen miles). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Concealability
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">…
The place which becomes your Sanctuary must have enough parking area, sheltered
from both ground and aerial observation, to hide all vehicles you plan on
keeping with you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Water
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">…
Water must be somewhere nearby; ideally it will be some sort of spring with
sufficient flow to support twice the number of people in your group. Otherwise
work at avoiding ponds that once had industrial waste flowing into them or
bodies of water which place you downstream from any industrial or medical
facility. This is probably the most crucial aspect of your Sanctuary so take
the time and cross check all your information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Defensive
Posture </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">… This just means you have to be able to defend
yourself once you’re in place. Whether you’re going to defend your Sanctuary
from outlaws or from governmental forces this is a question to be taken with
the utmost seriousness. Because if you’re going to defend yourself there’s a pretty
good chance lives will be lost. On <b>both</b>
sides.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Food
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">…
This is pretty self explanatory, so I’m going to keep this relatively short.
First of all, <b>unless you are searching
through <u>abandoned buildings</u> give up any thought of scavenging for
supplies</b>, if you’re caught by LEO’s or the military you’ll be lucky if they
just arrest you. Given recent events I would not be surprised nor would I blame
them if they decided to simply shoot you instead. You need to take, and cache,
sufficient supplies to keep your group isolated for at least six months longer
than the longest period you believe you’ll be out there. If you have reason to
believe you won’t be returning once you leave you’ll need to obtain training in
foraging, hunting, trapping, fishing and general farm work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <b> </b> I
can already hear someone out there, reading this article, who’s complaining,
“Hey! This was supposed to be about getting my escape route set up; what’s with
all this other stuff?” Real simply put, all these instructions are necessary
because when you first begin to scout the areas you plan on using for all this,
you’ll need to do all these things but on a lesser level. Get a notebook and
use it to take the first notes you need to create the plan; don’t dispose of
any notes you make about this in your trash, shred it and burn it in your BBQ
grill instead. If it’s good enough for the security of classified government
documents it’s just dandy for you. Remember, <b>according to the US PATRIOT Act our 4<sup>th</sup> and 5<sup>th</sup>
Amendment rights have gone bye-bye</b> and they no longer need search warrants
or other such niceties if they make the decision that you’re an “enemy of the
state.” <b>Any effort to make yourself, or
your group, self reliant can lead to your being harassed by the government even
if you advocate for adherence to Constitutional standards and peaceful (e.g.
voting and legislative change) revolution.</b> They can even go to your home,
search through the contents without your permission or even your presence; take
anything believed to be part of your ‘operation’ and leave … all without even a
kiss before they @#$% you long and hard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> They probably already have my page
bookmarked but not for any good reason<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After
you have your route selected and the bail out points chosen the next step is to
scout it all out as thoroughly as you can. You’ll want to walk these pathways
at different hours of the day and night to be certain they’re as quiet as you
need them to be. Go to the rally point, rendezvous area and sanctuary and camp
for two or three days in each one, keeping your campsite as low key as possible
without any attempt at camouflaging it. Ideally you should be on public land
and preferably somewhere you’re actually allowed to camp. On the other hand,
and facing up to the reality of life in our modern world, the chances are
pretty good that the areas best suited to your needs are going to be on private
land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> What you do, or don’t do, is between
you and your conscience<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Don’t attempt to involve me on even
the slightest level<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On
a more personal note … I’ve been known to offer to act as a steward/game
control agent for the owner of a farm I wanted to use for a rally point, I only
had to prove that my skills at keeping my camp/presence clean and low profile
were up to his standards of performance. If my peoples’ skills weren’t up to
those standards we were going to lose a valuable resource, and the fault would
be mine because I was the leader.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>When
you’re in charge, you’re in charge of the successes <b>and </b>the failures.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> No one else<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <b>YOU<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> … and here you thought that being in
charge meant that you could duck responsibility for everything … suuuuccccker …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Now … to review … your <b>cache placement</b> is going to depend on
your preferred method of <b>transport </b>and
the <b>route </b>you select for your <b>line of retreat. </b>Your <b>bail out points </b>and their subsequent <b>alternate route </b>may or may not have
<b>caches</b> but you should still maintain access to the <b>caches </b>on your <b>main route,</b>
from the <b>alternate route. </b>Any <b>caches</b>
you might place on your <b>alternate route </b>should
be small and able to be abandoned, which is what will happen to most of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Your <b>rally point </b>should only be known to your <b>section leaders; </b>the only person who should know the entire plan,
backwards and forwards should be the <b>evacuation
boss, </b>the <b>alternate evacuation boss </b>should
be briefed on everything but only after the <b>group </b>departs from the <b>rally
point. </b>Any personnel who are late arrivals to the <b>rally point </b>should know to look for a <b>dead drop </b>for the information about where the <b>rendezvous </b>is located. There should also be a means to let the late
arrivals know whether they should destroy the message or not, this is why I
prefer an <b>encrypted</b> memory stick. As
a protection against the <b>group </b>being
compromised the <b>evacuation boss </b>and
the <b>alternate </b>should ride in
separate vehicles from the <b>rally point </b>to
both the <b>rendezvous </b>and the final
destination, the <b>Sanctuary.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
<b>Sanctuary </b>needs to provide all the
advantages of your home, the <b>rally point
</b>and your <b>rendezvous. </b>It also
needs to supply access to either <b>potable
water </b>or water which can be rendered potable with a minimum of effort.
There also needs to be <b>concealment </b>for
the <b>vehicles </b>which you retain. The <b>defensive posture </b>of the <b>Sanctuary </b>is important but you also
need to consider that you may want to have two <b>escape routes. </b>Something very important to remember about <b>escape routes </b>is, that they can also
become <b>lines of attack </b>for the <b>OpFor </b>if you fail to camouflage them
and set guards to watch them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Believe it or not, this is only a
quick overview of running an evac operation. But, if you do a little homework
and apply yourselves to the project with an analytical approach, it should be
enough to get you through the worst of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So,
until my next posting, keep your steel sharp and your powder dry …..<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Storm<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15573233903308693414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4574112506667130336.post-33189219648294617552013-02-09T04:05:00.003-08:002013-02-09T04:21:15.406-08:00Caching<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<h3 style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This
article, as with all the other articles on this blog, is strictly intended to
be informative in nature. By no means is it a set of instructions that
completely cover every legality and every contingency which may arise if you
choose to attempt this skill. It relates what my experience has been with
regard to these matters and what changes I’ve found in the technology since
those times when I’ve had to employ these skills.</span></i></h3>
<h3 style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">If you
choose to attempt this skill, you are completely on your own with regard to the
consequences which may occur from the attempt.</span></i></h3>
<h3 style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Caching</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> …. the
word means many things to many people. In the Free
Merriam-Webster Dictionary we find it defined as:</span></h3>
<h2>
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>1 <i>a</i></span><span class="ssens"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><b><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">:</span></b><span class="ssens"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span class="ssens"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">a hiding place
especially for concealing and preserving provisions or implements </span></i></span><span class="ssens"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span></span></h2>
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<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>b</span></i><span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
</span></span><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">:</span></b><span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a secure place of storage</i> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a</i><b>:</b><span class="ssens"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something hidden or stored in a cache</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For our purposes we’re going to
work with definition number one even though both meanings apply equally.</span></span></div>
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<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, when I first began researching
this subject and making notes about what my past experience has been, I thought
it was going to be relatively straightforward. Because when I first learned
about the subject it was relatively straightforward. Find a place, dig your
hole, put your stash in it, fill the hole in and make certain you have some
method for finding it even in the dead of winter.</span></span></div>
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<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></span><br />
<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Which
is the time you’re most likely to be in dire need of it’s contents.</span></span></div>
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<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> But
the subject has become more complicated, some of it because my level of
education has grown and some of it because technology has advanced sufficiently
to make it less simple.</span></span></div>
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<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
first, we’ll start with the basic premise.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cache
</i></b>is a place where you conceal resources or supplies that you feel you
may need at a later date, kind of like a savings account only this savings
account does better if it doesn’t draw any interest. What goes into a cache is
a highly personal selection of goods. The main things that these goods share in
common though is that they must be:</span></span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 74.65pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">protected from
the elements</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 74.65pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">protected from
detection or depredation by wildlife</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 74.65pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">protected from
insect life</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 74.65pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">kept from
discovery by other humans (this is generally easier than the first two)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 74.65pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></span><span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">protected from
hazards inherent in the topography of where you’ve built your cache </span></span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The first consideration
for your cache is what you plan to put into it. The type and amount of material
you’re planning on storing will influence the type and size of the container.
As will your purpose in setting up the cache. Most caches are set up for rapid
access to supplies when a disaster or calamity strikes, while keeping those
same supplies from other victims or the authorities. For people planning these
units in more populous areas a part of this will be trying to keep the magnetic
profile of the cache to a minimum in order to avoid people being able to locate
it with a metal detector. For many years the belief was that the only way to
avoid this kind of detection completely was to use plastic containers and bury
it at least six feet deep. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Houston, this is
Reality calling, we have a problem …..</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You see, if the only
thing you were trying to avoid was frost heave, you dug down three feet further
than what you needed to … </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">… now, for the bad news
…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you wanted to defeat
a metal detector, you’ll have to burrow down below ten or fifteen feet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Say what? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Are you kidding?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The land I live on is a
century flood plain, with farm country all around. At best it’s ‘interesting’
to dig through, at worst it’s a bloody be damned nightmare. I’ve had to dig two
graves on it (I can pretty much guarantee it’s not for the reason you’re
probably thinking) to bury two of my dogs (told you so) and it was all we could
do to get it down four feet. The thought of maybe ‘having’ to dig down another
six to eleven feet is NOT a cheery one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">…and here’s the ‘worse’
news ….</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There exists a mine
detection technology which can detect mines while flying overhead to a depth of
six meters or <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">more. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For those of you
unacquainted with the metric system, that’s around eighteen feet and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">deeper, </b>depending on the size of the
cache.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s called a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Digital
Gradiometric Magnetometer. </i></b>It’s a fairly new technology and is not
susceptible to the usual interferences that render most types of magnetometers
useless.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cheery thought, eh?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So what to do about it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The first thing you’ll
need to do is to figure out what kind of caches you’re going to establish, how
many of them you want or need and roughly what locations you want to use. For
the sake of simplicity in storage I would usually suggest that your major
caches should be specialized caches; dedicated to food, weapons or medical
supplies. You’ll also need Bug Out caches in multiple locations to give you
access to basic escape tools and a three or four day food pack. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The caches should be placed along your planned
line of retreat but not so dedicated to that one line that you can’t reach them
from other points of access. That bramble thicket may have a real cool place at
the center of it, where you can conceal things, but if the only access point is
from a Metropark bicycle path then you may have problems obtaining that cache. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Set up your cache
vaults prior to placement. The Bug Out caches should be equipped and placed
first, at the entry points for your planned routes of withdrawal. Your major
supply caches should be as isolated as possible and spread out far enough to
protect them, but not so far from your planned encampment that you aren’t able
to get to them on foot. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Bug Out caches are a
bit different from other types of cache because they’ll usually be placed
inside the city limits to allow you to be able to ‘escape’ the area that you’re
in. Basic, basic, basic should be the rule of the day for these, nothing terribly
complicated, expensive or that you would hate to lose because despite placing
multiple Bug Out caches, you’re probably only going to have the time to get to
one before you leave that AO. After that, all the other’s become write off’s
and you don’t look back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Unlike the other
caches, the Bug Out caches should be in a metal container. I generally use
empty paint cans, unused paint cans (which are usually my first choice) or
number ten cans (large coffee cans). One of the first things to go into the can
is a desiccant pack. There are a number of things you can use for this, an
actual desiccant pack, which is available in most hardware stores, a cotton
sack filled with dry rice (this can also be part of your food supply) or
shipping packs that came with any items you ordered online. There are other
things you can use but that’s a subject for another day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, what comes next is
kind of important, do you plan on carrying the items in your pockets (as in a
field jacket or hunting coat) or do you plan on carrying them in some sort of
bag? The reason I bring this up now is because there is one type of bag that
will hold your belongings and should generally fit inside the can fully packed.
It’s a kind of bag that my parents used to call a ‘vagabond’ or ‘hobo’ bag. As
a matter of fact, they used to be made by soldiers mustering out of the service
who didn’t want to lug a duffel bag around. I believe that these days they call
them string packs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The contents of your
Bug Out cache are going to vary depending on your skills and what you
personally need. Particularly any medicines you may need. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Again, this is an
article for another day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Back to preparing your
Bug Out cache … The first thing you’re going to do is to load the can with your
desiccant and then your tools. This is where I do things a bit differently. I’ll
slide in a piece of corrugated cardboard cut to fit the inside of the can. It’s
going to crumple and become mangled but just as long as you can expand it out
again so that it fills the space from wall to wall, you’re good. Stabilize the
cardboard in place, I use a button attached to a string and run it through the
center of the cardboard and then gently pull on the string until the cardboard
is pretty well wedged in there. Then, while holding the string, I pour in a cap
of wax on top of the cardboard and secure the string until the wax sets up.
Once the wax sets, carefully put the can’s lid on and make certain it’s as
secure as possible. It shouldn’t, however, be so tight that it takes more than
a Swiss Army knife to open the can. The last thing I do is to give the whole
assembly three or four coats of Rustoleum paint. Usually flat black. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Take your time, make
certain that everything is perfect the first time you do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You may not get a
chance to rework it even if you want to ….</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cache placement for
this sort of cache is pretty cut and dried. It doesn’t need a lot of prep work
or supplies to do this one. The first thing you want to do is decide where
you’re likely to be if you need to get to this cache. Will you be going to or
coming from work? Will you have a separate one for possible shopping trips or
trips to the mall?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What are your travel
patterns?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What are your movements
like?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sit down and map out
all your usual movements, use different colors for each type of route,
shopping, doctor’s visits, work; recreation. Put them all on the same map. What
you’re looking for are places where they intersect on a regular basis. Places
that have the possibility of being relatively secluded, or even semi-secluded
places where small packages can be concealed. You’ll also want to see how
they’re situated with regard to your planned escape routes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Remember, your escape
routes will need to be of the vehicular and pedestrian type, you never know
what you’re going to have to do in order to get clear of the danger zone. After
you do this and have a thorough understanding of your own movement patterns you
should be ready to place the cache, and this is where it starts to sound like
James Bond.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You aren’t going to do
anything that unusual when you leave to place your cache except to make certain
that you leave your cell phone, pager or any other communication device at home
and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">OFF. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s right, you’re
going to be incommunicado for probably a couple of hours.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Don’t worry though, the
world won’t end if you’re not interacting with it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So leave your
techno-umbilical cord/tracking device (why do you think I said to leave it at
home?) at home and … what?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s right, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">OFF.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you have one of
those wonder cars with the built in cell phone or assistance networks hard
wired into it you might even want to consider using a bicycle to get to your
destination. It all depends on how paranoid you want to be. If it doesn’t
bother you too much, then take your vehicle to someplace you normally travel to
and park it there while you load up your haversack and take a walk.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Walking is good,
everyone needs some exercise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So you walk to where
you’re going to place your cache; then you sit somewhere nearby and check the
traffic in the area. Pedestrian and motorized.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If everything looks
good, place your cache and walk away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For about the first six
months walk past it about once a month, making sure that it’s still there,
you’ll usually want to do this for your own peace of mind, but don’t go near it
and don’t go poking at it, just do a quick visual check then walk off. If it
stays in place during that time, the chances are pretty good that no one is
going to find it and you can relax.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sound involved?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tell me, what level of
involvement is too much to see to you and your family’s safety?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Too much like work?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Quit reading then and
take up needlepoint …..</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So ….. feeling big and
bad? Think you’re a full fledged professional now?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ummmm …. not a chance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Your next step is to
set up a series of caches to evacuate and care for your family along your
planned route of escape. There are two styles of caching you can choose from
for this one but the one I’m going to deal with here is a larger version of the
one you just got practical experience creating. The nomenclature I was taught
for these two are:</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 77.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Drop
Cache</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 77.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Semi-permanent
Cache</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Semi-permanent
Cache </b>is fairly involved and team effort is required to get it completed in
any credible amount of time. This kind of cache would be the cache of choice if
you were setting up for a covert action in hostile territory but it wouldn’t be
your first choice as a civilian attempting to safely evacuate your family from
the danger zone. So we’re going to leave this one by the wayside, just be aware
that it does exist.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Drop
Cache </b>is, as the name implies, a drop point of supplies; is meant to be
unmanned and unwatched. The protection for this cache is largely misdirection
and camouflage. Once again I would advise you to assign the supplies you plan
on storing inside the cache before you even begin purchasing the materials
you’ll need. A good guideline is to make certain that everything you store in
the cache can be carried comfortably in one or two backpacks. If it takes more
than that to carry your material out I would strongly advise you to reconsider
what you plan on storing there. The general rule of thumb for loading your
backpack is that the total weight for your equipment shouldn’t exceed about
twenty five to thirty three percent of your body weight, and that is if you’re
in fairly good physical condition. Depending on your health, adjust the weight
of your load up or down as needed. If you have any doubts about whether the
weight limit you’re choosing is the right one, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reasonable </i>one; then strap that much weight onto your back and
carry it for about five miles.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> If
you can’t do it now, don’t plan on trying it later.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Your
next step at this point is to figure out how many and what type of containers
you’ll need to store your equipment. Everything will begin with two main premises
and those are that you need to minimize the electromagnetic signature of your
cache (no, I haven’t forgotten what I wrote earlier, but why make it easy for
people to find?) and you’ll need to protect your cache from damage by humidity
or moisture. You’ll also have to keep the five goals; which I mentioned
earlier, of building a cache in mind. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Most
caches I’ve built, over the years, have worked pretty well using either five
gallon paint buckets, with the handles removed, or sections of PVC piping.
Storing a firearm once meant using heavy layers of cosmoline, which meant that you
also had to store some sort of solvent to remove the crud nearby. It was never
a pretty sight even though it mostly worked out OK if you were very thorough in
your application of the cosmoline. Thankfully, the technology for storing your
firearm has changed enough that it simplifies the whole ordeal. These days you
can get by pretty well by simply buying a storage bag which has been specially
treated to minimize humidity, placing two over sized desiccant packs in with the
firearm and sealing the whole affair inside a PVC pipe that’s been well sealed;
then buried in a good location.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For using the five gallon buckets there are lids
now, made by Gamma Seal Lids, which by all accounts make the bucket air and
water tight. How they might hold up under the stress of being buried for
extended periods, I honestly don’t know, but they’ve done well when I used them
to set up a bear proof food cache for my canoe camps. They didn’t have the
option when I still had regular need of my caches so I can’t relate personal
experience with regard to that. For the PVC piping you’ll need a section of
pipe with the appropriate diameter and length, a threaded end cap and a blind
end cap. Assemble the whole thing using PVC adhesive liberally (best to do this
part outdoors) and then give the joints a coat of RTV silicone sealant. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> I
don’t believe in taking chances if they can be avoided or minimized.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The first thing you want to put inside the container
is some sort of grid or mesh across the bottom. This is to make certain that if
the amount of moisture your desiccant packs can absorb is exceeded, you have a
buffer. The amount of space you give with this grid is subject to your
discretion because you should know what could happen in your own area better
than I ever could imagine. Next in are the external desiccant packs; after that
you put your supplies in, all of which should be packed in separate watertight
bags. You won’t need or want a wax seal on these types of cache but you may
want to give the threads on each type of container a good coat of food grade
silicone grease to keep the lid from sealing itself into a friction lock. This
will also help with the container’s ability to minimize moisture accumulation.
After your caches are ready to go comes the hard part, burying them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
will be another article on choosing your route of escape and selecting the
actual caching sites so we’ll limit what is said about locating your caches to
this, you should be able to reach the caches whether you’re on your vehicular
or pedestrian escape route. It should make absolutely no difference which mode
of transport you choose as long as you follow your planned route as closely as
possible. The main thing we’ll concern ourselves with in this article are the
actual mechanics of burying the cache. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> To
bury the cache you shouldn’t need more than an E-tool to dig with; the one with
the built in pick is good but the WWII shovel and pick that were issued to jeep
drivers is even better. You’re also going to need a tarp of some sort to store
the dirt that gets removed from the hole. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When digging the hole you need to keep going until
the hole is far enough to put the top of your cache <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">below </b>three feet. This is the minimum distance needed to protect
your cache from frost heave and possible freeze damage. The hole also needs to
be about four to six inches wider and deeper than the container, this is to
allow enough space for bedding material; a fine grade of gravel is best. That
way you’ve allowed some space for drainage around your cache and eliminated a
possible source of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">pressure damage</b>.
Pressure damage is caused by the soil compacting around the cache and generally
causes either the casing to crack or the lid to be shifted off the top of your
container. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While digging the hole
you also need to carefully watch the sides and bottom for any sign that you’ve
dug below the level of the water table; this will likely be water seeping in
from the sides or accumulating in the bottom of the hole. If your cache is
placed below the water table it can eventually be forced to the surface by
hydraulic pressure and/or soil liquification caused by the saturation of the
ground over top of the cache. If the ground gets sufficiently saturated it gets
soft, and when the ground gets soft enough an air filled object can make its
way to the surface.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So now, you have your
hole and it looks pretty dry, now what?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You begin by putting about four inches of that fine
gravel (yep, you’ll likely have to buy some and bring it in with you) into the
bottom of the hole. Then you put the cache into the hole giving it a few twists
to help bed it down into the gravel. As you fill in the area around the cache
give it a few more twists from time to time to make certain you haven’t forced
it too far up inside the hole. As soon as you get the area around the sides
filled to the level of the top of the container you need to stop and measure
the depth. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It is critical that the top
of the container be kept more than three feet under the ground. </b>After
you’ve checked that it’s time to put that final layer of gravel on top of your
cache. Next you put a layer of broken branches over that and last, you put the
dirt in that you’ve stored off to the side as you dug the hole. The branches
serve two purposes, they occupy some of the air space that was created
naturally when the dirt settled into the place that it had formerly filled, and
it tends to discourage animals from digging down to your cache. If there’s a
scent of food there (you; your packaging and your cache should have been as
clean as possible during the assembly process) a bear might be tempted to keep
at it; especially during the spring, but most other animals will give it up
when they encounter the branches.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> The
last thing you’ll do and this will depend on the time of year, is to finalize
your camouflage of your cache. Pile some stones from the local area on top of
the cache. Transplant some of the plants around the area to the top of your
cache but you’ll need to make sure they’re plants that will actually grow where
you put them. The idea is to have the cache site blend in with the rest of the
area while still making it slightly different enough to help you pick it out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Why
will you have to pick it out?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Why
can’t you just use a GPS and mark it as a waypoint?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Let
me tell you about the GPS unit that a lot of people like to depend on, it’s
electronic, and it’s built to utilize a GEOLOCATION SYSTEM USED AND OPERATED BY
THE UNITED STATES MILITARY. If it’s electronic it can eventually be compromised
and the contents known. If it depends on ANY system operated by the USG, it
will have a tag and the tag can be backtracked to a particular unit with the
network probably still holding the last hundred or so (at least) waypoints that
the unit checked in on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Still
have your doubts?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Still
think your GPS unit is untrackable?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here’s a couple of little morsels from the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Multiservice Procedures for Survival,
Evasion, and Recovery … U.S. Army FM 21-76-1 … June 1999</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Page ii/Section 5/Line (c) – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Use of communications and signaling devices may compromise position.”</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Page II-7/Section (1)/Line (b) – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Use GPS to confirm your position ONLY.”</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Page III-1/Chapter 3/Section (f)/Line (5) – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Keep transmissions short (3-5 seconds
maximum). Use data burst if available.</b> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">THESE ARE INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE MILITARY, TO THEIR
TROOPS WHO ARE ATTEMPTING TO ESCAPE NOTICE SO THAT THEY CAN RETURN TO THEIR
UNITS, PREFERABLY ALIVE. AT ANY POINT IN HERE DOES IT SOUND LIKE THEY THINK
IT’S A REALLY GOOD IDEA TO USE/DEPEND ON SOME ELECTRONIC WHOZIS TO GET FROM
POINT ‘A’ TO POINT ‘B’?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
didn’t think so either</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Signals
and electronics can be compromised and tracked, period, end of subject.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
move on …</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What you’ll need to do is to learn the fine art of
following a terrain map, acquiring your position by pace counting and LOP (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Line of Position approximation) </b>and
flat out horse sense. There are any number of places where you can learn
orienteering (no, it isn’t some sissy sport for yuppies … it’s actually a
pretty hard corps set of military skills) such as local colleges, park services
and orienteering clubs. Give it a go; it’s really not as difficult as some
people like to make it sound. For those people who enjoy the self taught route
I’d recommend that you try <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Be Expert
with Map and Compass: The Complete Orienteering Handbook </b>by <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bjorn Kjellstrom</b>. This book is
considered by many to be one of the best orienteering books out there and Mr. Kjellstrom
has updated it a couple of times; I believe the most recent was 2009.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So … once you have the position of your cache you’ll
mark it on your topographic map and keep any ancillary notes about the cache in
a 3x5 notebook. I mention a specific size because that’s the size that most map
cases have a pocket for, and you’ll want a mapcase to keep the map and notebook
in good condition. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Do not make any more
copies of the map and your notes than there are people whom you trust with the
information. Remember, it’s not just your supplies you’re trusting the person
with, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">it’s the lives of your family</i>.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Looking back
over this article one last time, I don’t believe I’ve left anything out but
feel free to message me if you think I have, I’ll be happy to look over any
constructive criticism and add it if I feel it’s necessary, or slam it if I
think you’re just another troll.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b> </b>So,
until my next posting, keep your steel sharp and your powder dry ….. Storm</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15573233903308693414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4574112506667130336.post-34738592333210601472013-01-07T17:06:00.001-08:002013-01-07T17:14:39.233-08:00Pharmaceutical LongevityHere's the article for this week. What had originally been in the works was to let you read an article, from the <b>Wall Street Journal</b>, about how long most prescriptions can be safely stored, which also has notations about what can't be or high risk items which can only be stored in a very narrow temperature range. My original plan was to then locate somewhere I could connect you with the original document and allow you to peruse it at your leisure.<br />
<br />
As always, the responsibility lay entirely with you if you should decide to put the information to use. Along with independence, you have also have it's flip side, personal responsibility, if you should decide to take a course of action, you are also responsible for the fallout from that action.<br />
<br />
Good, or bad<br />
<br />
But when I attempted to locate the original document I was roadblocked. The document had apparently been posted at the "<b>Medical Research and Material Command, U.S. Army Medical Material Agency</b>" website; where I saw the following warning ;<br />
<br />
"... <i>all testing and extension data provided to the <b>Shelf Life Extension Program (SLEP)</b> by the Food and Drug Administration is considered For Official Use Only and cannot be shared with anyone outside the user's organization. SLEP Administrators have fielded several calls recently from individuals wanting to share this information with local, civilian counterparts. That is not permissible</i> ..."<br />
<br />
Apparently, somehow, probably because <b>Big Brother</b> doesn't want the finances of <b>Big Pharma</b> put at risk, this has become a classified document, never mind that it was paid for by our tax dollars. You can see this yourself at ... http://www.usamma.amedd.army.mil/dod_slep.cfm .<br />
<br />
So, without further ado, here's the article by <b>LAURIE P. COHEN</b>, a Staff Reporter of <b>THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</b> .<br />
<br />
<b>Do drugs really stop working after the date stamped on the bottle?</b><br />
Fifteen years ago, the U. S. military decided to find out. Sitting on a $1 billion stockpile of drugs and facing the daunting process of destroying and replacing its supply every two to three years, the military began a testing program to see if it could extend the life of its inventory.<br />
<br />
The testing, conducted by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration, ultimately covered more than 100 drugs, prescription and over-the-counter. The results, never before reported, show that about 90% of them were safe and effective far past their original expiration date, at least one for 15 years past it.<br />
<br />
In light of these results, a former director of the testing program, Francis Flaherty, says he has concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer.<br />
<br />
Mr. Flaherty notes that a drug maker is required to prove only that a drug is still good on whatever expiration date the company chooses to set. The expiration date doesn't mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful.<br />
Marketing Issue<br />
<br />
"Manufacturers put expiration dates on for marketing, rather than scientific, reasons," says Mr. Flaherty, a pharmacist at the FDA until his retirement last year. "It's not profitable for them to have products on a shelf for 10 years. They want turnover."<br />
<br />
The FDA cautions that there isn't enough evidence from the program, which is weighted toward drugs needed during combat and which tests only individual manufacturing batches, to conclude that most drugs in people's medicine cabinets are potent beyond the expiration date. Still, Joel Davis, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, says that with a handful of exceptions -- notably nitroglycerin, insulin and some liquid antibiotics -- most drugs are probably as durable as those the agency has tested for the military. "Most drugs degrade very slowly," he says. "In all likelihood, you can take a product you have at home and keep it for many years, especially if it's in the refrigerator."<br />
<br />
<b>Manufacturers' View</b><br />
<br />
Drug-industry officials don't dispute the results of the FDA's testing, within what is called the <b>Shelf Life Extension Program</b>. And they acknowledge that expiration dates have a commercial dimension. But they say relatively short shelf lives make sense from a public-safety standpoint, as well.<br />
<br />
New, more-beneficial drugs can be brought on the market more easily if the old ones are discarded within a couple of years, they say. Label redesigns work better when consumers don't have earlier versions on hand to create confusion. From the companies' perspective, any liability or safety risk is diminished by limiting the period during which a consumer might misuse or improperly store a drug.<br />
<br />
"Two to three years is a very comfortable point of commercial convenience," says Mark van Arandonk, senior director for pharmaceutical development at Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc. "It gives us enough time to put the inventory in warehouses, ship it and ensure it will stay on shelves long enough to get used." But companies uniformly deny any effort to spur sales through planned obsolescence.<br />
<br />
<b>Why Not Longer?</b><br />
<br />
Now that the FDA has found that many drugs are still good long after they have supposedly expired, why doesn't it advocate later expiration dates for consumer drugs? One reason is that the consumer market lacks the military's logistical reasons to keep drugs around longer.<br />
<br />
Frank Holcombe, associate director of the FDA's office of generic drugs, says that in many cases a manufacturer could extend expiration periods again and again, but to support those extensions, it would have to keep doing stability studies, and keep more in storage than it would like.<br />
<br />
Mr. Davis adds: "<i>It's not the job of the FDA to be concerned about a consumer's economic interest.</i>" <b>(the emphasis is my own) </b>It would be up to Congress to impose changes, he says.<br />
<br />
As things stand now, expiration dates get a lot of emphasis. For instance, there is a campaign, co-sponsored by some drug retailers, that urges people to discard pills when they reach the date on the label.<br />
<br />
And that date often is even earlier than the one the maker set. That's because when pharmacists dispense a drug in any container other than what it came to them in, they routinely cut the expiration date to just one year after dispensing. Some states even require pharmacists to do this.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, poor countries -- under urging from the World Health Organization -- often reject drug-company donations of much-needed medicines if they are within a year of their expiration dates.<br />
It isn't known how much of the $120 billion-plus spent annually in the U. S. on prescription and over-the-counter medicines goes to replace expired ones. But in a poll done for The Wall Street Journal by NPD Group Inc. of Port Washington, N. Y., 70% of 1,000 respondents said they probably wouldn't take a prescription drug after its expiration date; 72% said the same of an over-the-counter remedy.<br />
<br />
"People think that, upon expiration, drugs suddenly turn toxic or lose all their potency," says Philip Alper, professor of medicine at University of California at San Francisco. In his own practice, Dr. Alper says, "I frequently hear -- from patients who can't afford medicine -- that they have thrown away expired drugs." He says companies should be required to test drugs for longer periods and set later expiration dates when results warrant.<br />
<br />
Some manufacturers first began putting expiration dates on drugs in the 1960s, although they didn't have to. When the FDA began requiring such dating in 1979, the main effect was to set uniform testing and reporting guidelines. As now required by the FDA, so-called stability testing analyzes the capacity of a drug to maintain its identity, strength, quality and purity for whatever period the manufacturer picks. If the company picks a two-year expiration date, it needn't test beyond that.<br />
<br />
Testing for a two-year expiration doesn't initially entail holding a drug for two years. Rather, the drug is tested by subjecting it to extreme heat and humidity for several months, then chemically analyzing each ingredient's identity and strength. (After the date is set and the drug is marketed, testing continues for the full two years.)<br />
<br />
The FDA also uses chemical analysis in testing for possible shelf-life extension; it doesn't test on human subjects. Testing conditions are such that any medicine that meets, say, the standards for a two-year expiration date probably lasts longer, the FDA and drug companies agree.<br />
<br />
<b>Still Good</b><br />
<br />
Consider aspirin. Bayer AG puts two-year or three-year dates on aspirin and says that it should be discarded after that. Chris Allen, a vice president at the Bayer unit that makes aspirin, says the dating is "pretty conservative"; when Bayer has tested four-year-old aspirin, it remained 100% effective, he says.<br />
<br />
So why doesn't Bayer set a four-year expiration date? Because the company often changes packaging, and it undertakes "continuous improvement programs," Mr. Allen says. Each change triggers a need for more expiration-date testing, he says, and testing each time for a four-year life would be impractical.<br />
<br />
Bayer has never tested aspirin beyond four years, Mr. Allen says. But Jens Carstensen has. Dr. Carstensen, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin's pharmacy school, who wrote what is considered the main text on drug stability, says, "I did a study of different aspirins, and after five years, Bayer was still excellent. Aspirin, if made correctly, is very stable."<br />
<br />
Only one report known to the medical community linked an old drug to human toxicity. A 1963 Journal of the American Medical Association article said degraded tetracycline caused kidney damage. Even this study, though, has been challenged by other scientists. Mr. Flaherty says the Shelf Life program encountered no toxicity with tetracycline and typically found batches effective for more than two years beyond their expiration dates.<br />
<br />
<b>Plea From the Air Force</b><br />
<br />
The program dates to a U. S. effort begun in 1981 to increase military readiness by buying large quantities of drugs and medical devices for the armed forces. Four years later, more than $1 billion of supplies had been stockpiled. The General Accounting Office audited Air Force troop hospitals in Europe and found many supplies at or near expiration. It warned that by the 1990s, more than $100 million would have to be spent yearly on replacements.<br />
<br />
The Air Force Surgeon General's office asked the FDA if it could possibly extend the shelf life of these drugs. The FDA had the equipment for stability testing. And because it had approved the drugs' sale in the first place, it also had manufacturers' data on the testing protocols.<br />
<br />
Testing for the Air Force began in late 1985. In the first year, 58 medicines from 137 different manufacturing lots were shipped to the FDA from overseas storage, among them penicillin, lidocaine and Lactated Ringers, an intravenous solution for dehydration. After testing, the FDA extended more than 80% of the expired lots, by an average of 33 months.<br />
<br />
In 1992, according to the FDA, more than half of the expired drugs that had been retested in 1985 were still fine. Even now, at least one still is.<br />
<br />
Such results came as a revelation for Army Col. George Crawford when he took over military oversight of the program in 1997. He is a pharmacist, but "nobody tells you in pharmacy school that shelf life is about marketing, turnover and profits," he says. (The drug makers don't agree that it is, however.)<br />
<br />
<b>How It Works</b><br />
<br />
The military's base for the program is a dingy barracks room in Fort Detrick, Md. There, a group headed by Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Russie, who recently took over from Col. Crawford, tracks drugs that are near expiration at defense facilities all over the world, selecting many for retesting. They are shipped to the FDA, which sends them to its laboratories.<br />
<br />
The FDA's lab in Philadelphia recently tested five automatic injectors containing an antidote to chemical poisoning, which were purposely held for three months in conditions even hotter and more humid than the FDA requires in consumer testing of drugs. The FDA tested the drug contained in the injectors, pralidoxime chloride, by separating its ingredients and measuring the strength and quality of each, then applying a computer model to determine whether a shelf-life extension was warranted.<br />
<br />
The injectors' original expiration date was November 1985. The FDA had retested them periodically ever since, each time approving their continued use. The batch, made by Ayerst Laboratories, now part of American Home Products Corp.'s Wyeth-Ayerst unit, is 18 years old. It is 15 years beyond the expiration date applied by Ayerst. The FDA found it is still good.<br />
<br />
A spokesman for Wyeth-Ayerst says it "uses scientific data to establish expiration dates" and "tries to have the longest possible dating on products that scientific data supports." The company is aware of the FDA retesting program. It says it can't comment specifically on the injectors tested by the FDA.<br />
<br />
<b>A Few Fail</b><br />
<br />
Shelf-life extensions are "intentionally conservative," the FDA's Mr. Flaherty told military brass in a 1992 speech. He says that if the agency extended an expiration date by 36 months, it had concluded the lot would retain all of its safety and efficacy for at least 72 months.<br />
<br />
<br />
A very few drugs aren't retested. The military has found that water-purification tablets and mefloquine hydrochloride, for malaria, routinely fail stability testing beyond their expiration dates, so it has removed them from the program.<br />
<br />
Also excluded are large-volume intravenous solutions, such as saline. "We don't like to test those," says Col. Crawford. "Not because we can't, but because it would be politically sensitive if G. I. Joe was lying in bed and saw it had originally expired three years ago."<br />
<br />
Mr. Flaherty has said that while he tested a handful of drug batches that didn't even make it to their expiration dates, most drugs were "surprisingly durable." In one instance, he says, drugs labeled for room-temperature storage had been kept for two years in a warehouse in Oman that averaged 135 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime. Upon expiration, the drugs, which included the local anesthetic lidocaine and atropine, a nerve-gas antidote also used by eye doctors to dilate pupils, "were well within the standards for potency and other quality characteristics," he says.<br />
<br />
<b>Stable Molecule</b><br />
<br />
One medicine the FDA has endorsed for extensions is ciprofloxacin hydrochloride tablets, an antibiotic marketed by Bayer as Cipro. One batch had an expiration date of March 1989. More than 9 1/2 years later, the FDA found the tablets still good; it then extended some of them for 18 more months and others for 24 more months.<br />
<br />
Albert Poirier, quality-assurance director for Bayer's pharmaceutical division, says he isn't surprised because Cipro "is a stable drug molecule" in tablet form. "We go for a shelf life that will be safest for patients," he says. "We want the drug to be used up within three years. We wouldn't want a patient to have it for 10 years because they'd have an old package insert" that might omit new information or contra-indications and because "we'd have no control over how they'd store the drug during this time."<br />
<br />
Another extended drug is Thorazine, a tranquilizer chemically known as chlorpromazine tablets. Batches bearing December 1996 expiration dates -- unused and unopened, as is the case with all drugs evaluated in the Shelf Life program -- were tested in July 1998 and extended for two years. A spokesman for the maker, SmithKline Beecham PLC, says it applies an expiration date 24 months after manufacture. "We think that is the appropriate expiration date," he says. "We don't benefit from short expiration dates."<br />
<br />
Some other drugs the FDA has extended at least two years beyond their expiration dates are diazepam, sold as Valium; cimetidine, sold as Tagamet; phenytoin, sold as Dilantin; and the antibiotics tetracycline and penicillin.<br />
<br />
<b>Big Savings</b><br />
<br />
On a cost-benefit basis, the program's returns have been huge. The first year, the Air Force paid the FDA $78,000 for testing and saved 59 times that sum by not needing to replace the drugs. After other services joined, the military from 1993 through 1998 spent about $3.9 million on testing and saved $263.4 million on drug expense, according to Lt. Col. Russie.<br />
<br />
Says Mr. Flaherty: "We've cost the pharmaceutical companies hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of new stuff to the Department of Defense."<br />
<br />
More than 12 years ago, Messrs. Flaherty and Davis explained the program to drug-company chemists at a meeting of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists in Woodbridge, N. J., going into detail about how the FDA decided whether to extend a given expiration date. Mr. Davis concluded by noting how much the U. S. had saved by extending shelf lives instead of "destroying large quantities of still-useful medical products... ."<br />
<br />
Mr. Flaherty says the FDA was keenly aware that if its methodology was flawed, or its results incorrect even once, its credibility would be attacked. Yet FDA officials say that during the program's 15 years, drug makers have never objected to any of its procedures or findings. "They may not have liked what we were doing, but they weren't able to challenge it," he says.<br />
<br />
<b>The Message to Civilians</b><br />
<br />
<i><b>While the military is finding it can keep most drugs longer, civilians hear quite a different message.</b></i> <b>(again, the emphasis is my own) </b>For instance, a campaign called the National Expired and Unused Medication Drive has collected and destroyed 36 tons of drugs since 1991, says its founder, Kathilee Champlin. Ms. Champlin, of Colorado Springs, Colo., says her interest derives from experience working with the elderly and seeing how hard it was for them to keep track of all their medications. She says she wasn't aware of any FDA program to extend drugs' shelf lives.<br />
<br />
Her group has gained sponsorship from the some big drug retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. It sponsors the campaign to be "a good corporate citizen," says Frank Seagrave, vice president of pharmacy merchandising. "We believe that people should dispose of unused prescription medicines a year after they get them," he says, adding that Wal-Mart sometimes gives people a free bottle of vitamins if they bring in expired drugs.<br />
<br />
Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceutica unit, a drug maker, also sponsors Ms. Champlin's campaign. "We think it's important to educate the public about the risk of taking drugs that are expired and to raise public awareness," says a spokesman for Janssen. Both Wal-Mart and J&J say that supporting the campaign to discard expired drugs has nothing to do with their sales efforts.<br />
<br />
Many pharmacists also play a role in shelf lives. The U. S. Pharmacopeia, a not-for-profit scientific group that develops standards for the drug industry, urged in 1985 that pharmacists set expiration dates at no more than one year if they were dispensing drugs in a bottle other than the manufacturer's original packaging. "New containers may let in more moisture and heat than the container the manufacturer used for the stability study," accelerating the drug's degradation, says the USP General Counsel Joseph Valentino.<br />
<br />
The recommendation became a USP requirement in 1997. As a result, "the majority of pharmacists shorten the manufacturers' expiration dates" on prescription drugs to one year or less, says Susan Winckler, an official of the American Pharmaceutical Association. In fact, in 17 states, pharmacists now are legally required to do so. Ms. Winckler says shortening the dates makes sense because many people store drugs in moist bathrooms. She says the one-year rule is "motivated by product integrity and not by profit."<br />
<br />
Even the FDA has sometimes pushed for throwing out drugs at their expiration date. Last October it co-sponsored, with the National Association of Chain Drugstores and others, a campaign that urged women not to use medications beyond the expiration dates because, as the brochure put it, "they may not work." Mr. Davis says this shows just how obscure the military Shelf Life Extension Program is. "Many people at the FDA have absolutely no idea this program exists," he says.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Until next time, keep your steel sharp and your
powder dry …… Storm <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span> <br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15573233903308693414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4574112506667130336.post-13199421674852222442012-12-31T05:53:00.001-08:002013-01-07T17:08:12.420-08:00A Review of the KaBar Acheron<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The ‘Zombie’ knife
series from KaBar is intended to address the needs of a niche market, that of
the Zombie Apocalypse/Post Apocalypse planner. According to sources the
designation ‘Zombie’ came from a production meeting where they were trying to
decide on a name for the new series of knives they’d produced which were
intended to be seen as the last resort in a ‘world gone mad’ scenario.
Somewhere along the line someone mentioned zombie apocalypse movies and
although everyone initially stared, the idea caught on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Whether there’s any
truth to that, I don’t know, but I will be getting back to the subject as I
find out more.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">According to the
description at KaBar’s website their Zombie series is intended to function, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: .25pt;">Whether setting up camp or securing
your perimeter, the Original Zombie knives are designed to perform under the
most rigorous, unexpected and apocalyptic situations.</span>”</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">KaBar named this knife
the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Acheron; </b>the name has its roots
in Greek mythology being both the first river a ghost, or spectre, came to in
Hades and the name of a minor god, “</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">… </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">and it is called Akheron since
within the bosom of the earth it goes forward pouring forth pains …” </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(<span class="quotegr1">from Stobaeus, Anthology, trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric V,
Greek lyric C5th B.C.). </span><span class="quotegr1"><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This is a smallish neck knife so I don’t
know how much pain it could “pour forth” but let’s take a look at it and see
how things go.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> First,
let’s take a look at the knife’s spec’s and see what we’re looking at … the
Acheron is a fixed blade knife crafted from 5CR13 stainless steel that measures
out at an overall length of 6 1/4 inches with a blade length of 3 1/8 inches and
is 0.131 inches thick. The weight is a very nice 0.05 pounds and it comes in a
plastic sheath that works well with either a beaded chain or a neck cord. For
usage as a neck knife I usually recommend that people choose a synthetic cord
because most synthetics have better resistance to abrasion than does organic
cordage, also, many people have issues with beaded chains, e.g. dog tag chains,
the chains sometimes irritate the neck. Which is definitely not a good thing
when you want to be able to wear the knife for days on end.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> The
knife is of the ‘skeletonized’ style which is good for a neck knife as it
eliminates some of the weight without reducing the strength of the blade. The
blade is hollow ground but I think I would have preferred a straight grind for
this one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Straight
out of the box, I purchased this one from KennesawCutlery.com, the knife wasn’t as
sharp as I would have liked. The first thing I did was to remove it from the
bubble pack it came in and attempt to shave my arm (Jackie hates it when I do
this) and it didn’t do anything. In all honesty with the blade factory set at
15 degrees and the blade being hollow ground I would have expected for my
problem to be more along the lines of not laying my arm open by trying to do
this, but to have nothing happen is very disappointing. I would almost have
preferred to be able to say “… it took sixteen stitches to patch me up after
testing the knife …” My brothers have been on hand when I’ve actually managed
to do this (we’re all very good at first aid now, and I’ve gotten better at not
doing anything THAT stupid) and came to regret when I started one of my knife
trials.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So,
straight out of the box I found that it isn’t shaving sharp, there was a
suspicion in my mind that this was going to be the case because the machining
marks were still visible on the edge of the blade. However, it can be said that
it was at least serviceably sharp. My second test for blade sharpness is to
hold a sheet of paper by one corner and see how cleanly it cuts the paper. This
test was passed quite nicely. So saying, I took my ceramic pocket sharpener to
it until the blade was as sharp as I’m accustomed to having. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Since
that time I’ve been using the blade as a daily carry blade, trying it on every
task that comes along, including a few where I would normally use one of my
larger blades. For only being a lightweight utility knife I must say that it
fulfills most functions very well. I haven’t had much time outside lately but
when I have, the Acheron is doing what is required with no problem. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Now,
for me the knife had one big negative, and I know there are people out there
who will have this same problem, the handle. The handle is about 3 inches long
and when you wear an XL sized glove … well … it makes the knife just a bit
awkward to handle. For my wife and our children, it’s probably a good fit but I
haven’t turned it over to them yet to see what they think of it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Overall,
so far, I’d have to give this one good marks. As a knife for a smaller person
this one would be a good pick. Lightweight, easy to conceal, and holds a decent
edge for extended periods with only a minor bit of honing. You could spend a
lot more money and do worse than this.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> If
you decide to give this one a try, drop me a line and let me know what you
think of it. Who knows, I may even decide to publish it here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Until next time, keep your steel sharp and your
powder dry …… Storm <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15573233903308693414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4574112506667130336.post-66194821338984986272012-12-28T05:08:00.001-08:002013-01-30T17:36:42.530-08:00The Most Important Survival Tool<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Well,
I did say that my post was going to be about the most important tool you
would carry with you in a survival situation. So here it is … this post is
about your mind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That’s
right, your mind</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Your
mind is probably the single most important item you’ll carry with you if you
find yourself in a survival situation. More than anything else, what is in your
head, the knowledge, the attitude and the experience you might have will have a
definite effect on the outcome if you should find yourself in a possibly
negative situation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> That’s
a five dollar way of saying that your ass is in the wind and you might have
problems getting out alive, let alone in one piece.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> So
where do we start with this?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
the past I’ve told my students (yes, I’ve had a few of those) that the
preparation for an emergency event will begin years, if you’re sufficiently
lucky, before you get anywhere near a risky situation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
first thing you need to do is to go to a library and begin with something so
old fashioned I’m quite certain that some of you aren’t going to have any idea
what I’m talking about. You’ll need to look for a few books. That’s right, I
said BOOKS. Paper, cardboard, linen, stitching and glue covered things with
print all over the inside. Think of them as a crash proof tablet if it helps.
There are five books I’d recommend to begin with …. listed, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in no particular order …..</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“98.6
degrees, The Art of Keeping your Ass Alive” by Cody Lundin</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Tom
Brown’s Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking” by Tom Brown Jr.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Hawke’s
Special Forces Survival Handbook” by Mykel Hawke</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“How
to Shit in the Woods” by Kathleen Meyer</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Survive!
Essential Skills and Tactics to get You out of Anywhere – Alive” by Les Stroud</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Between
these five books, you’ll get a fair grasp of what kinds of skills are essential
to survive an emergency situation and a feel for the broad spectrum of
viewpoints in the field of survival. Read each one of them through once, just
read, don’t try to do anything else. The second time you read them, take notes
… notes on what you agree with, what you disagree with and, most importantly,
the places where you have questions. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One small thing to keep in mind, as tempting as it
may be, DON’T TAKE NOTES IN THE BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY. They tend to get really
upset when you do that …… if you search around on the net, you can find these
books on the web for a minimal price.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Once
you get a pretty good feel for what they tell you about in the books, it’s time
to take the next step, begin to practice the skills you’ve been reading about.
Now, to do this you’ll need a couple of items, the first one is a good knife.
If you look around you’ll find thousands upon thousands of arguments about what
kind of knife, how long the blade should be and what it should be made from, what
the handle should be made of, who designs the best knife, who makes the best
knife and on and on and on ad nauseum. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> A
friendly bit of advice …. First, don’t buy a knife you wouldn’t use if you
decided to chuck the whole thing tomorrow. Lots of people do after they try the
skills for the first time, don’t be embarrassed, a lot of them also change
their minds later and take it up again. No big deal, but you don’t want to
saddle yourself with a knife that’s going to haunt you because you can’t/won’t
use it for anything else. Get a knife you’re comfortable with, from a reliable,
well known knife manufacturer. Here are a few I’ve recommended to people in the
past, based on personal experience.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> “Charge
AL” by Leatherman … has a good selection of tools</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Handyman”
by Wenger Swiss Army Knives … also has a nice selection of tools appropriate
for survival or home use</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Bushcraft
Black” by Mora of Sweden</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Every one of these knives can be as easily used at
home as they can in the field and the most expensive of them is about eighty
dollars; that would be the Leatherman. With that one, you’ll have a fistful of
tools fit for use on your car, around the house or in the middle of nowhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
know people who’ll take this as heresy, but there is no reason on God’s green earth
for you to spend a few hundred dollars on a knife that you probably won’t ever
use to it’s fullest possible extant. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even want
you to spend over a hundred dollars on a knife. I use a T1 Tracker, from TOPS
Knives and designed by Tom Brown Jr. … yes, it set me back a pretty good amount
but you know what? I’m still trying to find the fail point of the knife. So
far, it’s done everything I’ve demanded of it and has come back, laughing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pretty
damn good knife in my view, and fun to play with.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> So
you have the knife now, the next thing you’ll want is either cotton or hemp
cordage. This will give you the two things you need to perform most of the
basic skills that will keep you alive. Take the knife, learn to sharpen it
yourself. A medium grit diamond hone with a leather case will do most of the
work. Don’t worry about just exactly how to do it as there are a number of
manufacturers who will happily show you the way they endorse on their website.
Be careful while you’re getting the hang of it though, you may want to keep all
your fingers where they presently are ….</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
between practice sessions with sharpening your knife, take some of your cord
and disassemble it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Untwist
it</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> See
how it’s put together</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Then try to put it back together … not so easy, eh?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> After
you get the hang of caring for your knife, and you start to realize just how
impossible it is to reassemble the string, now comes the fun part. Go back to
the books again and, in the comfort of your garage, or basement, begin to learn
to do the things you see in the books. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Having
problems with it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Getting
angry about it? Frustrated?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Put
it down, walk away, and wait until you calm down enough, to pick it up again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Right
now time is a luxury you have, use it, enjoy it … this all should be fun, if it
isn’t, you won’t learn anything except how to be angry.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Do
you really need lessons in how to be angry? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Didn’t think so ….</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> This is one of those sneaky lessons that coyote
teachers like to embed in other lessons, but since I’m not a coyote teacher
I’ll pass the secret along to you so that if you should decide to teach your
children stuff like this, which I fervently hope you do, you’ll know what
you’re teaching them by having them do it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What you’ll be doing is teaching them, drum roll
please …..</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> A
POSITIVE COPING MECHANISM</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> ooooooooo … now isn’t that just the DIRTIEST trick
to play on someone?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> So … to continue … you’ve been told that your mind
is your primary survival tool, and that knowledge is one of the blades of that
fabulous Swiss Army knife that we all carry with us every minute, every hour
and every day of our lives, right? Now you’ve been given a clue of one of the
many skills you’ll need to employ that tool effectively.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are others, to be quite certain, but that’s one
of the more important skills you can have. Practice it often and you’ll
eventually be a master of it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> What’s
that you say? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> How
can you practice it often?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Do you work on your car? Go ahead and try to tell me
there aren’t times when you want to beat whoever designed the thing to death,
slowly, with a dull hammer. Here’s what you do, take whatever tool is in your
hand, wipe it clean …</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Put
it down, walk away, and wait until you calm down enough, to pick it up again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You’re having a bad day at the office? Copier won’t
work? Terminal is locked up, again? Just take that cup of coffee you’ve been
contemplating with evil intent ….</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Put
it down, walk away, and wait until you calm down enough, to pick it up again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Are you seeing the pattern yet? Getting the drift?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> OK,
onwards again … so, you’ve been practicing your skills in some sheltered area
where you won’t have your spouse looking at you with evil intent (this is not
the time to bring up Positive Coping Mechanisms, it could lead to either injury
or death) and you’re getting pretty good. As a matter of fact, you’ve MASTERED
the skills. Now you know how to build a fire without matches, you can hit a
pigeon with a rabbit stick from forty feet away and your shelter isn’t just up
in record time, you can make it with less available material than anyone else
in your survival club.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Yes,
survival club, every one of you will gain from seeing the mistakes other people
make and eventually come to the realization that everybody wins when survival
involves a community. You’ll also see that your weaknesses will be compensated
for by someone else’s strengths and vice versa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> So
you’re beginning to feel like Jeremiah Johnson wasn’t such a big deal after
all, because you can do everything he did with less material and help than he
ever had … you’re the big kahuna of survival, right?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Time
to take the next step junior, take your act on the road …</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> It
may be scary but now is when you take that first baby step towards nearly
complete independence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Go
to a nearby park, it doesn’t matter what kind of park it is as long as it has a
fairly good variety of trees and maybe even a pond or river.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Now,
making certain you do this only when the weather is safe, you begin practicing
your skills again. You may also want to look through those books again (you
should be perusing through them every time you get a few minutes) and find out
how many ways there are to perform any single skill. Learn every skill you can,
even the ones you suck at, ESPECIALLY the ones you suck at.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> I
still can’t make decent cordage …. and it’s been years …..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Are
you beginning to see a pattern here?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Every
time you perfect your skills in a particular setting or set of conditions,
you’re going to step it up a notch but preferably without putting yourself in
harm’s way. If you eventually do get to the point where you’re contemplating
going into the wilderness with your skills to do a ‘naked survival’ exercise, I
would strongly urge that you don’t do that without taking care to insure you
can be quickly located and evacuated if it should become necessary. There isn’t
a lawyer looking over my shoulder to make certain I tell you that, it’s just
the professional rescuer in me poking his head out and saying, “WAAAAAIIIIT a
MINUTE!!!! The idea of this article and these instructions is to keep people
from becoming statistics, not lead them into becoming one themselves!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> This
is only the first article on getting yourself ready, mentally, for ANY
emergency situation. So I’m going to close this by advocating for you to take
the initiative and find someone who can teach you first aid and CPR, these are
two more skill sets you’ll need … if not now, then sometime in the future.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Knowledge
is Power</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Fortune
favors the prepared mind</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Don’t forget these two bon mots …. ever</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, until the next article comes screaming out of
this keyboard ….</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Keep your steel sharp and your powder dry …. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b>Storm.</b></span></div>
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