"All hell will break loose": 'Prepper' families planning for Doomsday
The survivalism movement has been around since the 60s when Cold War fears prompted thousands into stockpiling food and weapons
Tim Ralston with his guns
Once a week Tim Ralston and his wife Marie take their three teenage kids to a secluded cabin in the Northern Arizona desert. Surrounded by wildlife and the cows, sheep and chickens they raise it looks like a perfect eco-friendly family retreat. But the Ralstons are not there for an American version of The Good Life. On arrival Marie heads straight to the pantry to check the 15 years worth of tinned and freeze-dried food they’ve stockpiled, the kids test out their survival gear, first aid kits and water purifying tablets and Tim gets in some self-defence practice with his Crovel. It’s a 13-tools-in-one weapon he has designed himself and, as he is more than happy to demonstrate, it can slice a pig in half with two blows. “It’s the Swiss army knife of shovels,” explains Tim proudly. “The spike at one end, a pry bar, a hammer... and the blade itself is so strong it’s used as an axe. It’s very hardcore.” It’s also selling like hot cakes and has been voted the No 1 Zombie Killing Tool in the World by the more extreme members of the growing community who, like Tim, are getting ready for Doomsday.
Planning: Tim teaching his family to use guns
For Tim and his family are Preppers, some of the tens of thousands of people worldwide preparing for Teotwawki – or The End Of The World As We Know It in their language. The survivalism movement has been around since the 60s when Cold War fears of atomic attacks prompted hundreds of thousands of Americans into stockpiling food and weapons. In 1999, fears of the Y2K computer bug triggered another surge in prepping, while the 9/11 attacks and terrorism alerts drove it to new highs. Survivalists used to be dismissed as wild-bearded weirdos living in caves. But this week the Prepper phenomenon was thrown into the spotlight by the Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut. Across the US, and in Europe and even the UK, apparently ordinary people are also preparing for WTSHF – prepping jargon for disaster, or when the s*** hits the fan. They have their own organisation, the American Preppers Network, their own TV series Doomsday Preppers and Preppers UK on the National Geographic cable channel and scores of “how to prep” shows on local radio.
The supplies: Stockpiles of food
Then there are the websites and blogs, magazines and books like Preppers’ Home Defence, a snip at £8.35 in Walmart. And a huge industry is cashing in on their fears with companies selling special food and equipment – such as the air-purifying SCape Mask – as well as purpose-built shelters. In North Salt Lake, Utah, builder Paul Seyfried is doing a roaring trade in bespoke bunkers which cost from £32,000 to £40,000. Some Preppers will have woken up this morning feeling pretty confused as, according to one doomsday prophecy based on the ancient Mayan calendar, the world should have ended yesterday. Tim, 49, a former IT consultant, did not believe that was how the end would come, nor does he think it will be a zombie apocalypse, plague, or bio-chemical attack, as other Preppers do. He fears an electromagnetic pulse attack, triggered by man-made sources such as a missile or small nuclear bomb, or through the sun having a solar flare. It would cause all electrical systems to blow up rendering everyday life impossible.
But Tim, Marie, their 15-year-old daughter and sons aged 16 and 13, insist they could survive for up to a year “off the grid” in a post-apocalypse world by “bugging-out” from their home in Scottsdale to their secret cabin. Their food store has hundreds of tins of chicken, beef and tuna neatly lined up. And then there’s the stockpile of weapons – from an AK-47 assault rifle to hunting rifles – giving Tim enough firepower to keep a mini army at bay. Tim, who runs a store specialising in outdoor and survival gear, adds: “My whole family knows how to shoot and use weapons responsibly. "Why would they not want to know how to use a gun? I bring a gun to work with me every day.
Gas mask: Purifier air kit for Preppers
"If someone comes into my store and threatens me with a weapon I am not going to tell them to go away simply with good intentions. “That is what my gun is for. People will not argue with a gun.” With other Preppers living nearby, he said their community has all the skills needed to stay alive “The whole point of being a Prepper is that you are prepared for the worst,” he says. “It’s a kind of insurance – like health insurance or life insurance. “Prepping is different than survivalism. Survivalists used to be those lone guys sitting up the mountains counting beans and rice. “The Preppers build communities with networks of people that have like minds and goals, mainly to protect themselves.” His views are echoed by Jeff Nice, 46, who lives on a 13 acre farm in North Carolina with wife Jeannie and their stockpile of food and weapons.
Bunker mentality: Hideout full of supplies
They also have a 200 yard rifle range and teach other Preppers “hunter education”. The Nices’ big fear is nuclear apocalypse. “When there is an attack all hell will break loose,” says Jeff. “People will be looking for ways to survive. “No one thought there would be a 9/11. You only have to see how unstable the world is and then people will realise what we are doing is not crazy.” Jay Blevins, 35, from Berryville, Virginia is a former deputy sheriff and Swat team officer who now teaches self-defence. He has been prepping for more than a decade and estimates he’s spent £9,000 on supplies. His family is part of a network of 20 Prepper families who have three “strongholds”— houses with additional supplies — as well as a “bug-out” location in a wooded area away from cities.
The bunker: Paul builds bespoke shelters
They also have a contingency plan to leave there and Jay believes, because of the network members’ skills, they could survive indefinitely. He says: “You might laugh – but there’s millions of people that suffer in large types of emergencies, just because they didn’t do a little bit of preparation beforehand.” "Preppers seek to prepare, save, and defend life. Preppers are like Victoria Soto, the teacher who sacrificed her life for her students.”
Top 10 survival items
1. Water and water filter 2. Food – easy to prepare such as military style rations or dehydrated 3. Bag packed with essential supplies for spending 72 hours without any outside help 4. Shelter such as tent or tarpaulin 5. First aid supplies and medication 6. Back up communication – CB, ham radio, am/fm radio 7. Generator 8. Escape vehicle 9. Security devices – pepper spray, Taser, baton, knife 10. Stored fuel for escape vehicle and power generator
Hurricane Sandy and the Disaster-Preparedness Economy
BUSINESS NEWS The New York Times Nov 2012
Folks here don't wish disaster on their fellow Americans. They didn't pray for Hurricane Sandy to come grinding up the East Coast, tearing lives apart and plunging millions into darkness.
But the fact is, disasters are good business in Waukesha. And, lately, there have been a lot of disasters.
This Milwaukee suburb, once known for its curative spring waters and, more recently, for being a Republican stronghold in a state that President Obama won on Election Day, happens to be the home of one of the largest makers of residential generators in the country. So when the lights go out in New York — or on the storm-savaged Jersey Shore or in tornado-hit Missouri or wherever — the orders come pouring in like a tidal surge.
It's all part of what you might call the Mad Max Economy, a multibillion-dollar-a-year collection of industries that thrive when things get really, really bad. Weather radios, kerosene heaters, D batteries, candles, industrial fans for drying soggy homes — all are scarce and coveted in the gloomy aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and her ilk.
It didn't start with the last few hurricanes, either. Modern Mad Max capitalism has been around a while, decades even, growing out of something like old-fashioned self-reliance, political beliefs and post-Apocalyptic visions. The cold war may have been the start, when schoolchildren dove under desks and ordinary citizens dug bomb shelters out back. But economic fears, as well as worries about climate change and an unreliable electronic grid have all fed it.
Driven of late by freakish storms, this industry is growing fast, well beyond the fringe groups that first embraced it. And by some measures, it's bigger than ever.
Businesses like Generac Power Systems, one of three companies in Wisconsin turning out generators, are just the start.
The market for gasoline cans, for example, was flat for years. No longer. "Demand for gas cans is phenomenal, to the point where we can't keep up with demand," says Phil Monckton, vice president for sales and marketing at Scepter, a manufacturer based in Scarborough, Ontario. "There was inventory built up, but it is long gone."
Even now, nearly two weeks after the superstorm made landfall in New Jersey, batteries are a hot commodity in the New York area. Win Sakdinan, a spokesman for Duracell, says that when the company gave away D batteries in the Rockaways, a particularly hard-hit area, people "held them in their hands like they were gold."
Sales of Eton emergency radios and flashlights rose 15 percent in the week before Hurricane Sandy — and 220 percent the week of the storm, says Kiersten Moffatt, a company spokeswoman. "It's important to note that we not only see lifts in the specific regions affected, we see a lift nationwide," she wrote in an e-mail. "We've seen that mindfulness motivates consumers all over the country to be prepared in the case of a similar event."
Garo Arabian, director of operations at B-Air, a manufacturer based in Azusa, Calif., says he has sold thousands of industrial fans since the storm. "Our marketing and graphic designer is from Syria, and he says: 'I don't understand. In Syria, we open the windows.' "
But Mr. Arabian says contractors and many insurers know that mold spores won't grow if carpeting or drywall can be dried out within 72 hours. "The industry has grown," he says, "because there is more awareness about this kind of thing."
Retailers that managed to stay open benefited, too. Steve Rinker, who oversees 11 Lowe's home-improvement stores in New York and New Jersey, says his stores were sometimes among the few open in a sea of retail businesses.
Predictably, emergency supplies like flashlights, lanterns, batteries and sump pumps sold out quickly, even when they were replenished. The one sought-after item that surprised him the most? Holiday candles. "If anyone is looking for holiday candles, they are sold out," he says. "People bought every holiday candle we have during the storm."
If the hurricane was a windfall for Lowe's, its customers didn't seem to mind. Rather, most appeared exceedingly grateful when Mr. Rinker, working at a store in Paterson, N.J., pointed them toward a space heater, or a gasoline can, that could lessen the misery of another day without power.
While sales of emergency supplies spike during storms, several retailers and manufacturers — including Generac — say their baseline of sales has grown in recent years, too, perhaps driven by economic uncertainty and the frequency of wild weather and power failures in an overtaxed electrical grid.
"Anytime you see as much devastation as what happened in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and in Joplin, Mo., it brings it to everybody's minds," says Mike Vaughn, president of the National Storm Shelter Association, referring to devastating tornadoes that swept through both cities last year. He added, "$5,000 isn't much to save your family's life," a reference to the approximate cost of a storm shelter.
Mr. Vaughn owns a company, too, which makes concrete storm shelters for protection against tornadoes, and he says business has grown about 30 percent in recent years. Talk to him and it's clear that he isn't a doommonger. Yet the members of his association market their products aggressively, warning about the dangers from tornadoes and hurricanes and telling how their products can save lives.
"Nature is strong," says the Web site for Vaughn Concrete Products, Mr. Vaughn's company. "Our shelters are stronger."
That sort of disaster marketing is all over the place, in the hope that the memory of a nasty storm will persuade consumers to plan ahead and, of course, spend some money.
It's hard to define the overall market for disaster supplies. For one thing, many products that are useful in emergencies — flashlights, batteries, duct tape and extension cords, to name a few — are also handy for everyday chores. And other products, like "bugout bags," packs holding enough gear to survive a disaster for a few days, continue to be marketed to a small, but apparently growing, niche of survivalists.
But there's little question that the market is in the multiple billions of dollars. The size of the generator market in the United States, including residential, commercial and industrial models, is roughly $3 billion. Trying to nail down a figure for survival supplies is a much more dicey exercise, given the fuzzy parameters of the market.
Jonathan Dick, director of sales and marketing for the Ready Store, whose slogan is "where America goes to get ready," estimates that the market for disaster supplies like freeze-dried food, flashlights and radios was $500 million for consumers, but several billion dollars when sales to businesses and government agencies are folded in.
"The industry is very event-driven," he says. "When there is a hurricane like this, or the stock market crashes, we'll see crazy increases in demand."
Mr. Dick says the core customer for his company, which is based in Draper, Utah, and includes retail and online sales, remains "conservative, gun-toting Republicans." But he says the industry is steadily attracting a broader audience. And major retailers have taken note.
Both Walmart and Costco now sell a year's supply of food, much of it freeze-dried. Costco's offering is 120 gallon-size cans of food for $1,499.99. Sears offers emergency/survival rations for dogs. And the National Geographic Channel has a reality series called "Doomsday Preppers," which "explores the lives of otherwise ordinary Americans who are preparing for the end of the world as we know it."
David Lyle, the chief executive of the National Geographic Channel, said the program was a breakout hit in its first season. The second season will begin on Tuesday.
"You start by thinking, 'Wow, these people are odd.' Then there is this creeping realization: Who is crazy now?" says Mr. Lyle, who notes that other shows like "The Walking Dead" and "Revolution" deal with similar themes, like living off the grid (albeit with zombies). "How interesting that some of them believe that the oil supply will run out and that will result in civil unrest. And now with Sandy, you see people having brawls in gas lines."
If there were a headquarters for the emergency preparedness market, one candidate would be Wisconsin, the center of residential generator manufacturing. Generac's two biggest competitors, Briggs & Stratton and Kohler, are also in the Badger State.
That may be no coincidence. The German immigrants who flocked to the state were particularly skilled in manufacturing engines, in addition to beer and bratwurst.
The founder of Generac, however, was an Iowa transplant and an engineer, Robert Kern, who found a way to make generators so they were more affordable for home use. The time was 1959, during the cold war, when Waukesha had its own missile silo, on the east side of town.
People scarcely seem to remember all of that — and the missile silo is now a park. But that period may have been the beginning of a survivalist economy, the early shoots of Mad Max capitalism.
It has grown ever since, through recessions and wars, Y2K and 9/11, tornadoes and hurricanes.
So has Generac, with a 15 percent compound annual growth rate since 2000. In 2012, with a big boost from Sandy, the company expects shipments of residential products, which account for 60 percent of its business, to increase nearly 40 percent.
At the company's plant in Whitewater, Wis., about 30 miles southwest of Waukesha, employees have worked three shifts, six days a week, since Hurricane Sandy increased demand. The plant makes residential generators and power washers. Inside, wires and cranes dangle above a bustling factory floor where workers, many in Green Bay Packers garb, assemble the parts. Air hoses hiss, drills drone and carts beep to alert unhurried visitors and keep them from being run over. At a 200,000-square foot distribution warehouse across a parking lot, oversize boxes of generators are stacked high, awaiting shipment.
"Everything in this building, except for the power washers, is sold and then some," says Russ Minick, Generac's executive vice president for residential products. "The metrics on this storm have been nothing like we have ever seen. Compared to Hurricane Isaac, this is five times bigger."
At the company's newly rehabilitated headquarters in Waukesha, Aaron P. Jagdfeld, the youthful and enthusiastic chief executive, says major storms typically create an immediate demand for portable generators — and the demand from Sandy was unprecedented.
But while his company has sold tens of thousands of portable generators in recent weeks, Mr. Jagdfeld gets more excited talking about the longer-term possibilities: the sale of more permanent, and more expensive, "standby" generators that can be hooked into a house's natural gas line and that turn on immediately when the power goes off.
He explains that standby generators for homes were once considered appropriate for only the largest estates. But the worries of Y2K — the idea that computers would stop functioning in the new millennium — made the company realize that it could sell standby computers to a broader market if it could bring down the price, he says.
He now envisions a day when standby generators, which start around $4,500, fully installed, are as common as central air-conditioning, a goal that is a long way off but one helped immeasurably by Hurricane Sandy. Standby generators are in roughly 2.5 percent of stand-alone single-family homes, he said.
"No one knows about it," Mr. Jagdfeld says, but he adds, "It is the next must-have appliance."
He later tempers his enthusiasm. "We don't want to appear we are profit-mongering," he says. "This is a horrible situation. It's really, really tough, the marketing around that."
For now, at least, with tens of thousands still without power and millions of others harboring grim memories, a chimpanzee could sell generators by the truckload. Like Generac, Briggs & Stratton and Kohler say they, too, are swamped by demand.
"People are really starting to understand the impact of what a power outage means to them, and it is changing their behavior," says Melanie Tydrich, a senior manager at Kohler, which sells kitchen and bath appliances and standby generators, among other things. "It's just not something they want to live through again."
Laura Giangeruso, the mother of two girls, 4 weeks old and 7 years old, certainly fits that description.
In the wake of the storm, Ms. Giangeruso, who is 42 and lives in Glen Ridge, N.J., spent nine of 10 nights living with relatives because her house had no power. With a newborn, she says, she had little choice but to leave. But she says the solution became obvious during a visit with her sister, who lives nearby.
"It was like a miracle," she says. "The power went out, and then in like 30 seconds, I heard this hum." She lifts her hands from her hips upward, along her sides. "And then the power came on."
So now she is leading an electrical contractor through her home's cold and dark basement, pointing out the electric box and meter, all so she can get an estimate on a standby generator of her own. A neighbor, Chris Nehrbauer, tags along, partly to be neighborly but partly because he is getting an estimate next.
Jack Lamb, the contractor, who works for Bloomfield Cooling, Heating and Electric, says he has been working nonstop since the storm, providing estimates. When he shows up for an estimate, often four or five neighbors are waiting, he says, adding that he is booked through Jan. 8.
Ms. Giangeruso, who notes that last year, after the "Snowtober storm" on Halloween, her house was powerless for six days. "If we are talking in the neighborhood of $6,000, it is worth every dollar. If I could get it right now, I'd write a check," she says. "The wives in this area don't want jewelry for Christmas. They want generators."
FEMA Builds 'Hurricane domes' as shelters -- and gyms
By Juan Lozano, NBCNews.com
David J. Phillip / AP Work continues on the construction of a hurricane dome at Edna High School in Edna, Texas, on Dec. 6.
Most of the time, the windowless building with the dome-shaped roof will be a typical high school gymnasium filled with cheering fans watching basketball and volleyball games.
But come hurricane season, the structure that resembles a miniature version of the famed Astrodome will double as a hurricane shelter, part of an ambitious storm-defense system that is taking shape along hundreds of miles of the Texas Gulf Coast.
Its brawny design — including double-layer cinder-block walls reinforced by heavy duty steel bars and cement piers that plunge 30 feet into the ground — should allow it to withstand winds up to 200 mph.
"There is nothing standard" about the building, said Bob Wells, superintendent of the Edna school district, as he stood inside the $2.5 million gym, which is set to be completed by March. "The only standard stuff is going to be the stuff we do inside."
The Edna dome is one of 28 such buildings planned to protect sick, elderly and special-needs residents who might be unable to evacuate ahead of a hurricane. First-responders and local leaders will also be able to take refuge in the domes, allowing them to begin recovery efforts faster after a storm has passed.
Storm-defense structures are getting increased attention in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which inflicted heavy damage on the East Coast in October. The city of New York, for instance, is considering a multi-billion-dollar system of sea barriers.
For Texas, a state always in danger during hurricane season, the domes offer the extra benefit of serving as recreation or community centers when not needed as shelters. They are being erected with help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
David J. Phillip / AP Bob Wells, superintendent of the Edna Independent School District, shows the new domed gym under construction in Edna, Texas.
"I think it's good for FEMA, and I think it's good for us. And I think it's good for the taxpayers," Wells said.
The gym in Edna, a town of 5,500 people about 100 miles southwest of Houston, is the second hurricane dome in Texas. The first was built in 2011 in Woodsboro, near Corpus Christi. Most of the domes will be around 20,000 square feet.
The plan calls for structures in 11 counties in the Rio Grande Valley, around Corpus Christi and along the coast from Victoria to Newton counties, said Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
So far, $34.5 million has been awarded. This month, FEMA approved funds for a hurricane dome that will serve as a community center in Brownsville, one that will serve as a wellness center and physical rehabilitation facility in Bay City and two that will serve as multi-purpose training centers in Kingsville.
Inside the gym in Edna, Wells' voice echoed as he pointed to the ceiling, which has layers of sprayed-on concrete, insulation and rebar, all of which are under a heavy duty fabric that gives the structure its distinctive wind-resistant shape.
The doorways are covered by awnings of heavy gauge metal and supported by concrete girders that go 15 feet into the ground.
FEMA is paying for 75 percent of the dome structures, with local communities picking up the remaining cost.
The funding is part of the agency's initiative to help homeowners and communities build hardened shelters that provide protection from extreme weather.
Nationwide, more than $683 million has been awarded in 18 states, including Texas, Alabama, Michigan and South Carolina.
Walking around the gym, Wells said it reminded him of when, as a teenager, he first walked into the Astrodome after it opened in 1965 in Houston.
"It was like, 'Oh, wow, this is so cool,'" he said. "I'm still kind of in the 'Oh, wow' stage with this."
South Korea charges North building missile that could reach US
South Korean officials say they have evidence that North Korea is working on an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach as far as the United States.
By Donald Kirk, December 23, 2012 The Christian Science Monitor
A piece of wreckage of a North Korean rocket that the South Korean Defense Ministry estimates could be a combustion chamber of the rocket. South Korean officials say this piece shows North Korea has the capability to fire a warhead more than 6,200 miles putting the U.S. West Coast in range.
South Korean defense officials say they have evidence showing a recent North Korean missile launch was to test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
South Korean navy divers have recovered more than three tons of debris from the first stage of a missile Korean analysts say was fueled by a type of nitric acid developed in the former Soviet Union over 40 years ago for firing missiles with warheads more than 6,000 miles. The rocket, fired from a pad in northwestern North Korea on December 12, managed to put a small satellite into orbit, but officials offer the discovery of nitric acid as evidence of the real reason why North Korea was anxious to test it....
Batman movie reference to Sandy Hook
Wednesday, December 19, 2012 Before It's News As most of you probably know, there’s a very strange link between the latest Batman movie and the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre. At about 1hr 50 minutes into the movie a map is shown on a table with the words ‘Sandy Hook’ written in pencil on an area of the map. One of the actors even puts his fingers over the words. Here’s the relevant video segment and a screen grab of the map. The words ‘Sandy Hook’ has no relevance to that scene or any other part of the movie, so it is rather strange that those words would appear at all. The words are pointed to by the actor as the ‘target’, but even then from a plot point of view, it’s difficult to justify having any words written on the map, a simple gesture to a point on the map itself would have sufficed. So in case you haven’t grasped the idea fully yet, what we are confronted with here is: a movie was released six months ago and played in movie theaters across the US. While the movie was being shown in one of those theaters, a person (possibly with accomplices) walked into the theater and opened fire on the audience killing 12 people and injuring 58 others. In the movie in question, there is an, as yet, inexplicable reference to the name of the school that would, six months later, experience a very similar type of gun attack where 28 people were shot dead, 20 of them children. Other than the Sandy Hook village in the town of Newtown, Connecticut, I was only able to find two other places in the US named ‘Sandy Hook’. One is a beach in New Jersey, and the other is a small town in Kentucky. It would be useful if someone from the production of the Batman movie could come forward and offer some explanation for what, right now, seems like a very bizarre coincidence. As regards the alleged gunman at the Sandy Hook school; according to media reports, about 3 years ago, after his parents’ divorce, he “fell off the map” and there is extremely little known about what he had been doing and with whom he had been doing it, during those 3 years.
Above his hand where he is pointing to is "Sandy Hook"
Blown up image
‘Dark Knight Rises’ Scene Eerily Shows “Sandy Hook” Written on Map
Infowars.com December 2012
Bizarre evidence that the Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut may have been staged has surfaced in the form of YouTube videos which point out the words “Sandy Hook” were written on a map that appeared in the most recent Dark Knight movie, a startling revelation given the deluge of mysterious coincidences already plaguing the movie.
According to numerous YouTube videos, a scene appears in which Commissioner Gordon points at a Gotham City map and confusingly, directly to the words “Sandy Hook.” At least one user who tried to upload a similar video pointing out this curious coincidence had it strangely removed.
Another YouTube video asserts that the word “Aurora” also appeared in the movie, further fanning the flames of conspiracy swirling about the movie.
In July, following the Aurora “Dark Knight” massacre, we wrote how the audience in the theater the night of the fateful shooting was made to watch a trailer in which gangsters in the upcoming Gangster Squad movie shot through a screen at audience members. The controversial scene was later scrubbed from the trailer altogether. Warner Brothers alleged that, up until the night of the shooting, they had “forgotten” that the trailer contained the scene.
Another shocking coincidence came in the form of a Lil Wayne music video that absurdly featured skeletons in a movie theater. The video was released just days before the Aurora massacre took place.
As more of these “strange coincidences” continue to pop up, it would take a fool not to question the motive behind it all: Is this all part of an evil pre-conditioning program?
This definitely begins to tread into Satanic and occult territory, the purpose of which is known to only a select few in tight-knit circles at the very top branches of various secret societies.
In a June 2012 article, Jurriaan Maessen described predictive programming, stating, “Classic predictive programming is usually set in motion to desensitize a target audience to a concept, a possibility, or an event- so when an idea is finally introduced into society, or when an event actually occurs, they have been carefully foreshadowed, pre-programmed you might say, in the minds of people.”
As we have seen continually in the past, pre-conditioning and predictive programming go hand-in-hand in preparing, subconsciously, the minds of the masses for an event of ritual sacrifice.
Take, for instance, what some have called a “mega ritual” event: 9/11.
If 9/11 was set to be one of the largest mass rituals in history, it would require some of the grandest predictive programming that could be conjured, beginning as early as 1993 with various questionable insertions into the popular Simpsons TV show.
In 2001, the FOX series The Lone Gunmen aired a pilot episode that eerily predicted the events of 9/11.
In the episode, a scenario is played out in which the U.S. government remotely hi-jacks an airliner and attempts to fly it into the World Trade Center, justifying the launch of perpetual wars that would keep the military industrial complex busy for years to come.
In December 2005, actor, comedian and Lone Gunmen star Dean Haglund appeared on Infowars Live and spoke about the series’ pilot episode, saying, “Part of the plot, as it said in the script was that this event would be used to start an international war on terror.” Sound familiar?
He also spoke candidly about the funding for movies containing blatant Pentagon propaganda, saying, “These movies cost twenty, sixty million dollars to make, that money doesn’t come from some guy down the street out of his check book, these come from huge venture capitalists that have huge corporate interests.” He also “confirmed that government officials would regularly attend Hollywood parties and submit ideas to be planted in film and TV scripts,” we wrote in 2005.
These subliminal messages go a long way in charging and absorbing energies needed for different occult rituals, but they’re also a coding to other mafias designating territory and inciting fear, much like the ace cards American soldiers would leave on dead Vietnamese soldiers in attempts to psyche out the Viet Cong and forgo a firefight.
In this fashion, a subliminal trick is performed on the uninformed; a lesser magic spell that, as Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, describes in the Satanic Bible, can be suited to one of three types of satanic ritual: sexual, compassion, or destructive.
In the book, LaVey says that, “One of the greatest of all fallacies about the practice of ritual magic is the notion that one must believe in the powers of magic before one can be harmed or destroyed by them. Nothing could be farther from the truth, as the most receptive victims of curses have always been the greatest scoffers.”
There can be no question that occult magic is in practice in the upper-most tiers of secret societies and that it is continuously being researched and experimented with using us, the unwitting public, as disposable guinea pigs.
While the public follows a God of light and good, secret occult circles conduct depraved sexual acts (many times involving small children), along with blood sacrifices, and also ritual demonic summoning, possession and worship.
DigiSensory cameras predict crime before it happens
By homelandsecuritynewswire.com With DigiSensory Technologies’ sophisticated cameras and sensor systems, law enforcement agencies and transportation departments across the United States are now able to proactively monitor and respond to crimes or accidents as they unfold; the company’s Avista sensors process the images that its 3.2 megapixel high-resolution camera records in real time and can automatically detect when a crime is occurring; when it senses something it will alert law enforcement officials instantly; the sensors can also assist transportation departments in analyzing traffic patterns in real time; the system could allow officials to change one way streets, design real time traffic signals, and multiple speed limits to make traffic flow more smoothly.
In 2009 the East Orange, New Jersey police department was the first U.S. agency to install DigiSensory’s Avista Smart Imaging Sensor system as part of its broader network of security cameras around the city.
The Avista sensors process the images that its 3.2 megapixel high-resolution camera records in real time and can automatically detect when a crime is occurring. When it senses something it will alert law enforcement officials instantly.
Jose Cordero, the East Orange police director, says that the cameras have helped reduce response times from minutes to seconds.
“It’s no different from what we do on the street, but now we have a system in place that can look at our data and turn information into intelligence in real time,” Cordero said.
This is particularly critical as East Orange’s streets are riddled with gang and drug related violence.
When Cordero joined the force in 2004, he says East Orange had a crime rate fourteen times the national average. Since then, however, violent crime has dropped by two thirds, largely as a result of the department’s $1.4 million camera system.
In 2009 East Orange installed ten Avista Smart Cameras. These cameras have sensors that can identify behavioral patterns and actually predict when a crime is going to occur. This information is then stored in a database tied to geographic location so that it will be able to forecast where a crime is most likely to occur next.
“The system will predict when the next likely event will occur at these locations during these particular times during this particular day,” Cordero says.
According to their Web site, Avista sensors are “programmed to analyze the environment, recognize specific user defined patterns or profiles, classify profile as a threat category and warn or alert of common and specific elements of street crime and help solve crime by providing video footage of completed or potential crimes.”
Craig Primiani, vice president of sales of DigiSensory’s North America division, says the technology takes a “proactive approach to law enforcement, so that officers are alerted as an event occurs, rather than after.”
He explains that unlike existing video systems which simply record events and store them in an archive to be reviewed only after a crime occurs, Avista sensors analyze events as they occur.
Primiani says that DigiSensory’s technology is applicable beyond just law enforcement and can greatly assist transportation departments in analyzing traffic patterns.
DigiSensory is in the final stages of installing a traffic camera and sensor system for Washington D.C.’s Department of Transportation (DCDOT). The system will provide DCDOT with real time analysis of traffic patterns to predict commute times.
Primiani believes that the system has vast future potential.
“There’s so much information we can gather about traffic patterns. If D.C. had 1,000 of these they could do predictive analysis. They could make decisions on one way streets that change from one way in the morning to the other way at night, design real time traffic signals, and multiple speed limits,” he said.
In short, smart sensors can provide cities with “information to make real time traffic decision to make the city’s existing roads more effective.”
In addition, these traffic systems could be integrated with existing law enforcement security cameras and vice versa. So if someone is hit in an accident, the cameras could automatically alert emergency responders.
To allay critics who charge that the camera systems are too invasive or violate privacy laws, the company has built in privacy safeguards.
Primiani explains that, “We have the ability with a flick of a switch to black out the objects we are tracking.”
The sensors can outline an object and make its specific characteristics indistinguishable.
“For instance, if a car is going down the road, with existing systems we can see that it is a 1984 Chevy Nova, but we can block it so that we do not know what type of car it is. We’ll just know it’s a car and the same thing applies to humans,” he said.
David Young, a spokesman for the company, says that the technology has a broad appeal and can be used in many different situations.
“The technology has wide application in law enforcement, school safety, government institutional safety, crowd management, transportation departments, prisons and more. With bullying being one of the biggest problems occurring in American schools today, imagine if principals would be automatically notified of a potential incident moments after students began to loiter,” Young said.
Government agencies and business around the world have already taken notice of DigiSensory Avista predictive sensors.
Louis Vuitton stores in China have already installed these cameras, while the U.K. Olympic Organizing committee is considering implementing these systems for the London 2012 games.
East Orange installs surveillance cameras with computer chips that sense criminal activities, alerts police - March 18, 2010 (East Orange unveiled its revolutionary crime-fighting technology. Police Officers closely monitor the cameras and sensors.) N.J. -- First there were gunshot detectors, then surveillance cameras — both of which police credit with dramatic decreases in crime. Now East Orange has installed a state-of-the-art tracking system that may be able to snitch on bad behavior without human eyes. Today, the city’s police department unveiled the new system that includes programmed sensors capable of identifying criminal behavior as it is happening. Police Director Jose Cordero showed off the technology today at a press conference, at which over 200 public officials and international law enforcement agents were in attendance. "We want to change the criminal mindset about wanting to commit the crime," Cordero said. "This is about real-time deterrence." Cordero said the new system’s cameras, which have been installed throughout the city, have computer chips that automatically sense hundreds of suspicious scenarios and alert police. For example, Cordero said, if two people approach an individual on the street, and the individual becomes evasive or tries to run away, the camera will alert operators of a possible robbery. The operators can view the area on their computers and dispatch the nearest officers within one second. Cordero said the sensors do not recognize race, age or other factors that may lead to discrimination. The cameras were developed by Australian company DigiSensory, which used the sensors in Sydney in 2008 when the pope came to visit, said the company’s chief executive officer Tarik Hammadou. The sensors are unique to the United States, and Cordero said they have mainly been used experimentally and have not been fully integrated into police tracking systems until now. Hammadou contacted East Orange last year when he learned Cordero had installed gunshot detectors and surveillance cameras to reduce crime in 2004. The city has credited the technology, costing $1.8 million, with a more than 70 percent drop in crime between 2003 and 2008. Police officials from around the world have taken an interest in East Orange. Last week, Brazilian government officials who are preparing for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics visited the city to learn how they could heighten security, Cordero said. Police director Ahmet Kirkpinak from Ankara, Turkey, came to the conference today, saying cities in his country were starting to develop surveillance technology. "This is exactly what we want to do," Kirkpinak said. "This was a good opportunity to learn how this is done. (East Orange) is spending millions. They are doing it right." But Dennis Kenney, a criminal justice professor at John Jay College, said using the technology as a law enforcement tool is a pipe dream. "To argue that somehow it’s going to be able to distinguish the guy who’s going to the ATM and the robber at the ATM is a fantasy. The technology is just not sophisticated enough," Kenney said in a phone interview. "Basically, the citizens have to decide whether they feel comfortable being watched all the time."
Iran warns against Patriot deployment on Syria frontier
By Dominic Evans Dec 15 2012
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iran's army chief of staff warned NATO on Saturday that stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey's border with Syria was setting the stage for world war. General Hassan Firouzabadi, whose country has been a staunch supporter of President Bashar al-Assad throughout the 21-month uprising against his rule, called on the Western military alliance to reverse its decision to deploy the defence system. "Each one of these Patriots is a black mark on the world map, and is meant to cause a world war," Firouzabadi said, according to the Iranian Students' News Agency. "They are making plans for a world war and this is very dangerous for the future of humanity and for the future of Europe itself." Despite the warning, Firouzabadi did not threaten any action against Turkey in his speech to senior commanders at the National Defence University in Tehran. "We are Turkey's friend and we want security for Turkey," he said. NATO's U.S. commander said on Friday the alliance was deploying the anti-missile system along Syria's northern frontier because Assad's forces had fired Scud missiles that landed near Turkish territory. Damascus denies firing the long-range, Soviet-built rockets. But, forced on the defensive by mainly Sunni Muslim rebels, Syria's 47-year-old Alawite president has resorted increasingly to air strikes and artillery to stem their advances. Warplanes bombed insurgents on the airport road in southeast Damascus on Saturday and government forces pounded a town to the southwest, activists said, in a month-long and so far fruitless campaign to dislodge rebels around the capital. Activists also reported heavy fighting in the Palestinian district of Yarmouk in southern Damascus between rebels and fighters from a pro-Assad Palestinian faction. In the north, rebels said they had seized control of an infantry college in the northern Aleppo province, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there was still fierce fighting around the site by nightfall on Saturday, when it estimated at least 70 people had been killed across the country. Desperate food shortages are growing in parts of Syria and residents of Aleppo say fist fights and dashes across the civil war front lines have become part of the daily struggle to secure a loaf of bread. SYRIA "CHAOTIC AND DANGEROUS" NATO military commander Admiral James Stavridis said a handful of Scud missiles were launched inside Syria in recent days towards opposition targets and "several landed fairly close to the Turkish border, which is very worrisome". It was not clear how close they came. Turkey, a NATO member once friendly toward Assad but now among the main allies of the rebels, has complained for months of artillery and gunfire across the border, some of which has caused deaths. It sought the installation of missile defences some weeks ago. "Syria is clearly a chaotic and dangerous situation, but we have an absolute obligation to defend the borders of the alliance from any threat emanating from that troubled state," Stavridis wrote in a blog on Friday. Batteries of U.S.-made Patriot missiles, designed to shoot down the likes of the Scuds popularly associated with Iraq's 1991 Gulf War under Saddam Hussein, are about to be deployed by the U.S., German and Dutch armies, each of which is sending up to 400 troops to operate and protect the rocket systems. Damascus has accused Western powers of backing what it portrays as a Sunni Islamist "terrorist" campaign against it and says Washington and Europe have publicly voiced concerns of late that Assad's forces might resort to chemical weapons solely as a pretext for preparing a possible military intervention. In contrast to NATO's air campaign in support of Libya's successful revolt last year against Muammar Gaddafi, Western powers have shied away from intervention in Syria. They have cited the greater size and ethnic and religious complexity of a major Arab state at the heart of the Middle East - but have also lacked U.N. approval due to Russia's support for Assad. ASSAD WARNED Forty thousand people have now been killed in what has become the most protracted and destructive of the Arab revolts. As well as the growing rebel challenge, Syria faces an alliance of Arab and Western powers who stepped up diplomatic support for Assad's political foes at a meeting in Morocco on Wednesday and warned him he could not win Syria's civil war. Assad's opponents have consistently underestimated his tenacity throughout the uprising, but their warnings appeared to be echoed by even his staunch ally Moscow when the Kremlin's Middle East envoy Mikhail Bogdanov conceded he might be ousted. Russia said on Friday Bogdanov's comments did not reflect a change in policy. France, one of the first countries to grant formal recognition to Syria's political opposition, said Moscow's continued support for Assad was perplexing. "They risk really being on the wrong side of history. We don't see their objective reasoning that justifies them keeping this position because even the credible arguments they had don't stand up anymore," a French diplomatic source said, arguing that by remaining in power, Assad was prolonging chaos and fuelling the radicalisation of Sunni Islamist rebels. European Union leaders who met in Brussels on Friday said all options were on the table to support the Syrian opposition, raising the possibility that non-lethal military equipment or even arms could eventually be supplied. In their strongest statement of support for the Syrian opposition since the uprising began, EU leaders instructed their foreign ministers to assess all possibilities to increase the pressure on Assad. With rebels edging into the capital, a senior NATO official said Assad was likely to fall and the Western military alliance should make plans to protect against the threat of his chemical arsenal falling into the wrong hands. HUNGER SPREADS Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos on Saturday that U.S. and EU sanctions on Syria were to blame for hardship in his country and urged the United Nations to call for them to be lifted. Moualem also called on the United Nations to expand its relief efforts in Syria to include reconstruction "of what has been destroyed by the armed terrorist groups", state news agency SANA said, referring to the rebels. The World Food Programme (WFP) says as many as a million Syrians may go hungry this winter, as worsening security conditions make it harder to reach conflict zones. The conflict has also driven a flood of Syrians to seek shelter in neighbouring countries, which already host half a million registered refugees and perhaps hundreds of thousands more who have not declared themselves. Two and a half million people have been displaced inside Syria, leading to fears of widespread suffering this winter. "The international community needs to be prepared to step up its efforts," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told Reuters Television during a visit to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on Saturday. "This is not a conflict like many others. It's a very brutal conflict with a humanitarian tragedy associated," he said, calling for greater assistance to Syria's refugees and their host countries - Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq.
Close your eyes and imagine a world without electricity and modern conveniences: no Fox News, no Facebook, no email, no Blackberry, no cold drinks, no heat in the winter, no automobiles, no food and no way to cook it even if you had it.
It’s just become the end of the world as we know it. Are you and your family going to survive?
Ours is a world of steaming hot lattes on demand, ice-cold beer in the twinkling of an eye, and internet and phone connections in a nanosecond. We are the ultimate immediate gratification society.
And what would happen if ….
The dollar bought nothing
A virus could not be cured
Terrorists exploded nuclear bombs across the country
Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanic activity all became more prevalent
There would be no more lattes on demand (not even coffee grounds)
No more ice-cold beer (not even a warm one)
The internet, television, radio, phone system, all dead as a door nail
Suddenly, America (And The World) goes back to the year 1794, only worse.
Why do I say it would be worse? Simply because people no longer have the skill sets needed to survive in a world without electricity and modern conveniences. If there was a societal and economic breakdown, there would be no way to communicate, no way to ship, buy or to sell food, goods and services. It would simply be “Law of the Jungle” and “Survival of the Fittest”.
Only one type of person will be able to deal with this: Those with the skill sets needed to survive and are emotionally and spirituality prepared.
In today’s culture, these skill sets are rare, almost lost from modern knowledge. Skills like:
Gardening
Food preparation
Food preserving
Basic self defense skills
Finding potable water
Heating your home
I’ve been actively preparing for the end of the word as we know it for several years now. I’ve been buying supplies left and right, collecting all the essentials people think of in a task like that: canned goods, 50-pound bags of wheat, rice, medical supplies, garden tools, canning supplies, food smokers, dehydrating equipment, hand tools…and the list goes on and on and on.
Fall is a busy time for me. Just in the past month I’ve prepared dried vegetables, canned vegetables, frozen vegetables, (same with fruit), smoked salami, jerky and meat sticks, cut and stacked enough wood for the winter.
I used to feel like Noah, building an ark in the dessert, being jeered and laughed at by family and friends, but those times have come and gone. A growing number of people see the handwriting on the wall, and they scurry to make last-minute preparations. Because, deep down inside, in their heart of hearts, they know the stuff is about to hit the fan. And it won’t be pretty.
I would recommended that one read two books by James Wesley Rawles: A nonfiction book titled “How to Survive the End of the World as we Know it” and a novel titled “Patriots; Surviving the Coming Collapse”.
Both are excellent resources and will serve you well.
In retrospect, I have been preparing for societal collapse since my childhood and I didn’t even know it. I was raised in the country, in a poor family who worked very hard to scratch out a meager living. Back then I hated my father for making me cut, haul and stack wood, plow, plant, weed and harvest the garden, milk the cow, feed the chickens, and can the fruits and vegetables.
You see, my parents had grown up during the “First” Great Depression, so they always believed that hard times would come again and they lived their lives accordingly. I always thought they were crazy, but I was wrong and they were right. Hard times have come again and it’s going to get worse.
We need to develop a mental toughness, physical toughness, and a return to traditional values and hard work. Even a relationship with God couldn't hurt.
So I hope you’ll join me as we travel back in time to 1794 and begin to learn how to survive in a fierce new world that would have you dead. Relax, it’s not as bad as you think. In fact, once you get used to the idea, you might even enjoy yourself.
A condensed summary of an article by Skip Coryell. His website is www.skipcoryell.com
The world of 2030: U.S. declines; food, water may be scarce
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News Dec 10, 2012
Sorry, everyone, but flying cars don't appear in the "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds" report that the director of national intelligence's office made public on Monday.
Instead, the National Intelligence Council paints the picture of a world in which the U.S. is no longer the unquestionably dominant global player; individuals and small groups may carry out devastating cyber or bioterror attacks; oh, and food and water may be running short in some places.
The 160-page report is a great read for anyone in the business of crafting the script for the next James Bond movie, a treasure trove of potential scenarios for international intrigue, not to mention super-villainy. But the council took pains to say that what it foresees is not set in stone. The goal is to provide policymakers with some idea of what the future holds in order to help them steer the right economic and military courses.
"We do not seek to predict the future—which would be an impossible feat—but instead provide a framework for thinking about possible futures and their implications," the report cautioned.
Other ideas the futurists reported: Global population will reach "somewhere close to 8.3 billion people," and food and water may be running scarce in some areas, especially regions like Africa and the Middle East.
"Climate change will worsen the outlook for the availability of these critical resources," the report said. "Climate change analysis suggests that the severity of existing weather patterns will intensify, with wet areas getting wetter, and dry and arid areas becoming more so."We are not necessarily headed into a world of scarcities, but policymakers and their private sector partners will need to be proactive to avoid such a future."
What about America in 2030? The report predicts that the U.S. "most likely will remain 'first among equals' among the other great powers." But "with the rapid rise of other countries, the 'unipolar moment' is over and Pax Americana—the era of American ascendancy in international politics that began in 1945—is fast winding down."
Also, "Asia will have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power, based upon GDP [Gross Domestic Product], population size, military spending and technological investment," the report said.
It also suggests that Islamist extremism may be a thing of the past in 2030. But that doesn't mean small groups won't try to wreak havoc.
"With more widespread access to lethal and disruptive technologies, individuals who are experts in such niche areas as cyber systems might sell their services to the highest bidder, including terrorists who would focus less on causing mass casualties and more on creating widespread economic and financial disruptions," said the report.
Four "megatrends" shaping the world were cited: growing individual empowerment; diffusion of power; major shifts in demographics; and rising demand for food, water and energy.
The report also sees the potential for "black swan" shocks to the system. These include: a severe pandemic; faster-than-forecast climate change; the collapse of the European Union; the collapse of China (or its embrace of democracy); and a reformed Iran that abandons its suspected nuclear weapons program. They also include a conflict using nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, or a large-scale cyber-attack; solar geomagnetic storms that may knock out satellites and the electric grid; or a sudden retreat of the U.S. from global affairs.
So what about the flying cars, a staple of science fiction? The report is mum on that front, but it does raise the intriguing possibility that "self-driving cars could begin to address the worsening congestion in urban areas, reduce roadway accidents, and improve individuals' productivity (by allowing drivers the freedom to work through their commutes)."
And the cool cats over at Wired magazine's "Danger Room" national security blog have underlined how the report sees the growth of other technologies, including "superhumans" potentially roaming the landscape.
TSA Seeks Permission to Conduct “Security Assessments” on Highways
Paul Joseph WatsonDecember 4, 2012
The TSA is seeking permission from the Office of Management and Budget to conduct “security assessments” on highways as well as at 140 other public transportation hubs, including bus depots and train stations.
If approved, it would allow the TSA to to “conduct transportation security-related assessments during site visits with security and operating officials of surface transportation entities.”
“Similarly, TSA wants to conduct on-site assessments with public agencies that run buses, rail transit, long-distance rail and less common types of service, such as cable cars, inclined planes, funiculars and automated guide way systems,” reports Government Security News .
On the face of it, the “security assessments” involve TSA officials telling transportation organizations what security measures they should adopt as part of the Highway Baseline Assessment for Security Enhancement (BASE) Program. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what measures the TSA is likely to recommend – more “security assessments” that require more TSA agents and more funding for the federal agency.
“TSA’s Highway BASE program seeks to establish the current state of security gaps and implemented countermeasures throughout the highway mode of transportation by posing questions to major transportation asset owners and operators. Data and results collected through the Highway BASE program will inform TSA’s policy and program initiatives and allow TSA to provide focused resources and tools to enhance the overall security posture within the surface transportation community,” states the federal filing.
In other words, get ready for TSA agents to be groping Grandma on the interstate.
Critics of the TSA will undoubtedly see this as another example of the federal agency extending its tentacles into forms of transportation other than airports and greasing the skids for airport-style security at highway checkpoints. Such measures have already been put in place at numerous train and bus stations across the country.
The TSA has already conducted checkpoint-style programs on highways before, notably in Tennessee last year where Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams checked trucks at at five weigh stations and two bus stations in the state, as well as making trucks pass through x-ray scanners. TSA officials also used the checkpoint to try and recruit truck drivers to become citizen snitches under the First Observer Highway Security Program.
Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons justified the highway checkpoints by stating, “Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate.”
After the presence of TSA screeners on the highway made the news, the TSA responded by claiming concerns were overblown, and that TSA workers were only, “supporting state and local personnel as they inspected vehicles to identify potential security threats.”
Now it seems the TSA is looking to run its own “security-related assessments” on highways without the involvement of law enforcement.
Last year, the TSA was responsible for over 9,000 checkpoints across the United States, a number set to increase thanks to the agency’s bloated budget and its expansion beyond anything vaguely related to transportation. Since its inception in the US after 9/11, the TSA has grown in size exponentially. The agency was slammed in a recent congressional report for wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on security theater.
As Infowars has repeatedly stressed, any attempt to protest against the practices of the TSA by simply refusing to fly is largely pointless given the fact that the federal agency is expanding to cover virtually all forms of transport, as well as events that have nothing to do with transportation such as political functions , music concerts , and even high school prom nights.
