40 Hard Questions That The American People Should Be Asking Right Now

If you spend much time watching the mainstream news, then you know how incredibly vapid it can be.  It is amazing how they can spend so much time saying next to nothing.  There seems to be a huge reluctance to tackle the tough issues and the hard questions.  Perhaps I should be thankful for this, because if the mainstream media was doing their job properly, there would not be a need for the alternative media.  Once upon a time, the mainstream media had a virtual monopoly on the dissemination of news in the United States, but that has changed.  Thankfully, the Internet in the United States is free and open (at least for now) and people that are hungry for the truth can go searching for it.  Today, an increasing number of Americans want to understand why our economy is dying and why our national debt is skyrocketing.  An increasing number of Americans are deeply frustrated with what is going on in Washington D.C. and they are alarmed that we seem to get closer to becoming a totalitarian police state with each passing year.  People want real answers about our foreign policy, about our corrupt politicians, about our corrupt financial system, about our shocking moral decline and about the increasing instability that we are seeing all over the world, and they are not getting those answers from the mainstream media.
If the mainstream media will not do it, then those of us in the alternative media will be glad to tackle the tough issues.  The following are 40 hard questions that the American people should be asking right now....
#1 If Iran tries to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, what will that do to the price of oil and what will that do to the global economy?
#2 If Iran tries to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, will the United States respond by launching a military strike on Iran?
#3 Why is the Federal Reserve bailing out Europe?  And why are so few members of Congress objecting to this?
#4 The U.S. dollar has lost well over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created,  the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has a track record of incompetence that is absolutely mind blowing.  So what possible justification is there for allowing the Federal Reserve to continue to issue our currency and run our economy?
#5 Why does the euro keep dropping like a rock?  Is this a sign that Europe is heading for a major recession?
#6 Why are European banks parking record-setting amounts of cash at the European Central Bank?  Is this evidence that banks don't want to lend to one another and that we are on the verge of a massive credit crunch?
#7 If the European financial system is going to be just fine, then why is the UK government preparing feverishly for the collapse of the euro?
#8 What did the head of the IMF mean when she recently said that we could soon see conditions "reminiscent of the 1930s depression"?
#9 How in the world can Mitt Romney say with a straight face that the individual health insurance mandate that he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts was based on "conservative principles"?  Wouldn't that make the individual mandate in Obamacare "conservative" as well?
#10 If the one thing that almost everyone in the Republican Party seems to agree on is that Obamacare is bad, then why is the candidate that created the plan that much of Obamacare was based upon leading in so many of the polls?
#11 What did Mitt Romney mean when he stated that he wants “to eliminate some of the differences, repeal the bad, and keep the good” in Obamacare?
#12 If no Republican candidate is able to accumulate at least 50 percent of the delegates by the time the Republican convention rolls around, will that mean that the Republicans will have a brokered convention that will enable the Republican establishment to pick whoever they want as the nominee?
#13 Why are middle class families being taxed into oblivion while the big oil companies receive about $4.4 billion in specialized tax breaks a year from the federal government?
#14 Why have we allowed the "too big to fail" banks to become even larger?
#15 Why has the United States had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976?
#16 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of all jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.  How in the world could we allow that to happen?
#17 If the United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, then why don't our politicians do something about it?
#18 If you can believe it, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have permanently closed down since 2001.  So exactly what does that say about our economy?
#19 Why was the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall made in China?  Wasn't there anyone in America that could make it?
#20 If low income jobs now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States, then how are we going to continue to have a vibrant middle class?
#21 Why do the poor just keep getting poorer in the United States today?
#22 How can the Obama administration be talking about an "economic recovery" when 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty?
#23 Why has the number of new cars sold in the U.S. declined by about 50 percent since 1985?
#24 How can we say that we have a successful national energy policy when the average American household will spend a whopping $4,155 on gasoline by the end of this year?
#25 Why does it take gigantic mountains of money to get a college education in America today?  According to the Student Loan Debt Clock, total student loan debt in the United States will surpass the 1 trillion dollar mark in early 2012.  Isn't there something very wrong about that?
#26 Why do about a third of all U.S. states allow borrowers who don’t pay their bills to be put in jail?
#27 If it costs tens of billions of dollars to take care of all of the illegal immigrants that are already in this country, why did the Obama administration go around Congress and grant "backdoor amnesty" to the vast majority of them?  Won't that just encourage millions more to come in illegally?
#28 Why are gun sales setting new all-time records in America right now?
#29 Why are very elderly women being strip-searched by TSA agents at U.S. airports?  Does that really keep us any safer?
#30 The last words of Steve Jobs were "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."  What did he mean by that?
#31 How in the world did scientists in Europe decide that it was a good idea for them to create a new "killer bird flu" that is very easy to pass from human to human?
#32 If our founding fathers intended to set up a limited central government, then why does the federal government just continue to get bigger and bigger?
#33 Are we on the verge of an absolutely devastating retirement crisis?  On January 1st, 2011 the very first of the Baby Boomers started to reach the age of 65.  Now more than 10,000 Baby Boomers will be turning 65 every single day for the next two decades.  So where in the world are we going to get all the money we need to pay them the retirement benefits that we have promised them?
#34 If the federal government stopped all borrowing today and began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the U.S. national debt.  So does anyone out there actually still believe that the U.S. national debt will be paid off someday?
#35 If the U.S. economy is getting better, then why are an all-time record 46 million Americans now on food stamps?
#36 How can we say that we have the greatest economy on earth when we have a child poverty rate that is more than twice as high as France and one out of every four American children is on food stamps?
#37 Since 1964, the reelection rate for members of the U.S. House of Representatives has never fallen below 85 percent.  So are the American people really that stupid that they would keep sending the exact same Congress critters back to Washington D.C. over and over and over?
#38 What does it say about our society that nearly one-third of all Americans are arrested by the time they reach the age of 23?
#39 Why do so many of our politicians think that it is a good idea to allow the U.S. military to arrest American citizens on American soil and indefinitely detain them without a trial?
#40 A new bill being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives would give the U.S. government power to shut down any website that is determined to "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement.  Many believe that the language of the new law is so vague that it would allow the government to permanently shut down any website that even links very briefly to "infringing material".  Prominent websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube would be constantly in danger of being given a "death penalty".  The American people need to ask their members of Congress this question: Do you plan to vote for SOPA (The Stop Online Piracy Act)?  If the answer is yes, that is a clear indication that you should never cast a single vote for that member of Congress ever again.
So do you have answers to some of the questions posted above?

Edible Plants and Their Preparation

TEMPERATE ZONE FOOD PLANTSTemperate Zone 

• Amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus and other species)
• Arrowroot (Sagittaria species)
• Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis)
• Beechnut (Fagus species)
• Blackberries (Rubus species)
• Blueberries (Vaccinium species)
• Burdock (Arctium lappa)
• Cattail (Typha species)
• Chestnut (Castanea species)
• Chicory (Cichorium intybus)
• Chufa (Cyperus esculentus)
• Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
• Daylily (Hemerocallis fulva)
• Nettle (Urtica species)
• Oaks (Quercus species)
• Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana)
• Plantain (Plantago species)
• Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)
• Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia species)
• Purslane (Portulaca oleracea)
• Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)
• Sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella)
• Strawberries (Fragaria species)
• Thistle (Cirsium species)
• Water lily and lotus (Nuphar, Nelumbo, and other species)
• Wild onion and garlic (Allium species)
• Wild rose (Rosa species)
• Wood sorrel (Oxalis species)

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TROPICAL ZONE FOOD PLANTS

• Bamboo (Bambusa and other species)
• Bananas (Musa species)
• Breadfruit (Artocarpus incisa)
• Cashew nut (Anacardium occidental)
• Coconut (Cocos nucifera)
• Mango (Mangifera indica)
• Palms (various species)
• Papaya (Carica species)
• Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum)
• Taro (Colocasia species)

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DESERT ZONE FOOD PLANTS

• Acacia (Acacia farnesiana)
• Agave (Agave species)
• Cactus (various species)
• Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera)
• Desert amaranth (Amaranths palmeri)

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Seaweeds

One plant you should never overlook is seaweed. It is a form of marine algae found on or near ocean shores. There are also some edible freshwater varieties. Seaweed is a valuable source of iodine, other minerals, and vitamin C. Large quantities of seaweed in an unaccustomed stomach can produce a severe laxative effect.
When gathering seaweeds for food, find living plants attached to rocks or floating free. Seaweed washed onshore any length of time may be spoiled or decayed. You can dry freshly harvested seaweeds for later use.
Its preparation for eating depends on the type of seaweed. You can dry thin and tender varieties in the sun or over a fire until crisp. Crush and add these to soups or broths. Boil thick, leathery seaweeds for a short time to soften them. Eat them as a vegetable or with other foods. You can eat some varieties raw after testing for edibility.

SEAWEEDS

• Dulse (Rhodymenia palmata)
• Green seaweed (Ulva lactuca)
• Irish moss (Chondrus crispus)
• Kelp (Alaria esculenta)
• Laver (Porphyra species)
• Mojaban (Sargassum fulvellum)
• Sugar wrack (Laminaria saccharina)

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Preparation of Plant Food

Although some plants or plant parts are edible raw, you must cook others to be edible or palatable. Edible means that a plant or food will provide you with necessary nutrients, while palatable means that it actually is pleasing to eat. Many wild plants are edible but barely palatable. It is a good idea to learn to identify, prepare, and eat wild foods.


Methods used to improve the taste of plant food include soaking, boiling, cooking, or leaching. Leaching is done by crushing the food (for example, acorns), placing it in a strainer, and pouring boiling water through it or immersing it in running water.

Boil leaves, stems, and buds until tender, changing the water, if necessary, to remove any bitterness.

Boil, bake, or roast tubers and roots. Drying helps to remove caustic oxalates from some roots like those in the Arum family.Leach acorns in water, if necessary, to remove the bitterness. Some nuts, such as chestnuts, are good raw, but taste better roasted.

You can eat many grains and seeds raw until they mature. When hard or dry, you may have to boil or grind them into meal or flour.

The sap from many trees, such as maples, birches, walnuts, and sycamores, contains sugar. You may boil these saps down to a syrup for sweetening. It takes about 35 liters of maple sap to make one liter of maple syrup!

Edible Plant Tests

Universal Edibility Test

There are many plants throughout the world. Tasting or swallowing even a small portion of some can cause severe discomfort, extreme internal disorders, and even death. Therefore, if you have the slightest doubt about a plant's edibility, apply the Universal Edibility Test below before eating any portion of it.

Before testing a plant for edibility, make sure there are enough plants to make the testing worth your time and effort. Each part of a plant (roots, leaves, flowers, and so on) requires more than 24 hours to test. Do not waste time testing a plant that is not relatively abundant in the area.
Remember, eating large portions of plant food on an empty stomach may cause diarrhea, nausea, or cramps. Two good examples of this are such familiar foods as green apples and wild onions. Even after testing plant food and finding it safe, eat it in moderation.
You can see from the steps and time involved in testing for edibility just how important it is to be able to identify edible plants.
To avoid potentially poisonous plants, stay away from any wild or unknown plants that have--

• Milky or discolored sap.
• Beans, bulbs, or seeds inside pods.
• Bitter or soapy taste.
• Spines, fine hairs, or thorns.
• Dill, carrot, parsnip, or parsleylike foliage.
• "Almond" scent in woody parts and leaves.
• Grain heads with pink, purplish, or black spurs.
• Three-leaved growth pattern.

Using the above criteria as eliminators when choosing plants for the Universal Edibility Test will cause you to avoid some edible plants. More important, these criteria will often help you avoid plants that are potentially toxic to eat or touch.

Making Yogurt

Making Yogurt By Patrice Lewis

When you get to the point where you're milking your own cow, you'll need to figure out what to do with the excess milk. One of the easiest and tastiest options is to make homemade yogurt.
Yogurt is nothing more than the bacterial fermentation of milk using specific cultures. As far as I know, any milk can be used (cow, goat, yak, water buffalo, whatever). Yogurt in one form or another has been around for literally thousands of years. Curdled milk, after all, is nothing new. Because the fermentation process changes lactose into lactic acid, people who are moderately lactose-intolerant are often able to eat yogurt without a problem.

Heat milk on the lowest setting to no more than 180° F. Stirring in half a cup of nonfat dry milk gives the finished yogurt a creamier texture. Let the milk cool to 105°- 110° F. Don't stir. Scrape off & discard the skin that forms on top. When you are sure the milk has cooled to at least 110° F, add the yogurt culture. The hot cultured milk must incubate for a minimum of 5-6 hours.

Making yogurt requires two main ingredients: culture and heat. Both must be controlled in order to produce a successful batch of yogurt.
Theoretically, any commercial yogurt (bought at a grocery store) that contains live cultures can be used to culture your milk. However, I've had little success following this option and prefer to purchase a yogurt culture in powder form from a supply company.
While there are a number of yogurt cultures available from suppliers, I wanted something I could re-culture myself so I wouldn't have to keep purchasing new culture. After a bit of research, I found a Bulgarian Yogurt culture through the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (www.cheesemaking.com). It can be re-cultured indefinitely without the need for fresh culture powder.
So...ready to make some yogurt? Let's start from the beginning. I'll pause for a while so you can go milk your cow...
...Now that you're back, strain and chill the milk and let's get started.
Start with about two quarts of milk. You can use skim or whole, fresh or store-bought. I prefer fresh skim. Put it in a pot on the lowest heat setting on the stove. You don't want to heat it too quickly or it will have a burned taste. Keep a thermometer in the milk to watch the temperature. Do not use a microwave.
I like to add half a cup of nonfat dry milk when I get started. This gives the yogurt a creamier texture. Stir the dry milk into the fresh milk until dissolved.
Heat the milk to no more than 180° F. Don't go any higher than this or the milk will taste burned. This temperature is high enough to kill off any undesirable bacteria and to denature the milk protein so it won't form curds (as with cheesemaking).
When the milk reaches 180° F, turn off the heat and let the milk cool to between 105° and 110° F. Don't stir the milk while it is cooling. It will form a thick nasty layer of skin on top. After the milk has cooled, scoop off and discard the skin (don't try to mix the skin back into the milk; it will only result in strings of skin in the yogurt). Don't let the milk cool to less than 105°F or it will be too cool to culture the milk. Re-warm if necessary.
Add the yogurt culture. Do not add the culture before the milk has cooled to at least 110° F. Trust me on this; you will kill your culture if you add it to the milk when it's too warm. Stir the culture in thoroughly.
Now the milk has to be incubated for a minimum of 5 to 6 hours. The longer it incubates, the tarter the yogurt. (I usually incubate mine about 12 hours because I like a tarter yogurt.) Anything can be used as long as the milk stays warm. Several years ago I bit the bullet and bought a Yogotherm Yogurt Maker because it's non-electric and simple to clean (it's literally just a plastic bucket that nests inside a Styrofoam sleeve and cover). You could probably put the milk behind the woodstove in order to stay warm, or inside a gas oven with a pilot light, or wrapped in towels and tucked inside a small ice chest. Use your creativity to come up with some way to keep the milk warm. But low-grade heat is necessary for the milk to culture and thicken properly.
After the yogurt has incubated for several hours, chill the yogurt for about 12 hours.
Before flavoring the yogurt, scoop out a few ounces and put it in a small container. Cover and keep this in the fridge. This is your starter for the next batch. The starter is best used within a couple of weeks — the older it is, the less effective it is. If you don't make yogurt very often, you may have to purchase some more starter culture for your next batch. However, the starter can be frozen and then thawed at room-temperature (not in the microwave!) to store it for longer periods of time.
The yogurt can be sweetened and flavored to your preference. You can use honey, sugar, Splenda, or eat it unsweetened. You can add vanilla flavoring or puréed fruit. My favorite combination is one cup Splenda plus two cups peach purée.
Fresh yogurt will store in the refrigerator far longer than fresh milk. I've eaten yogurt that is two or three weeks old and the only problem is it needs a little stirring and has a tarter flavor than fresh-made yogurt.
Making yogurt is such an easy task that it will become a routine way to use up some of the excess milk from your dairy animals.

Types of Candle Wicks

By Dawn R. Levesque, eHow Contributor

1. • A wick's function is to draw the wax up to the flame.

     A wick influences a candle's burning performance. According to the National Candle Association over 100 types of wicks currently exist on the market, making it essential to select the right one. A candle that has a consistent flame size, a wax pool with no dripping and an afterglow makes a well-designed candle. Factors that impact wick choice include the wax type, candle's size, shape, color and fragrance.

   Flat

   • Composed of three braided strands, flat wicks have many plies per strand, cites Betty Oppenheimer, the author of "Making Hand-Dipped Candles." The number of plies in a flat braided wick determines its size. Sizes range from 15 ply (extra small) to 60 ply (extra large.) When lit, these wicks burn slightly off center, imparting a curl in the flame. Flat braided wicks break off as they burn called self-trimming. Select flat braided wicks for pillar and taper candles.

   Square

   • Originally designed for beeswax candles, plaited square wicks have rounded corners making them more robust than flat ones. Manufactures have devised a numbering system (differs between manufactures) to determine a square wick's size. Square wicks give a curl when burned to minimize carbon buildup or mushrooming. According to "The Candlemaker's Companion," square braided wicks maintain a centered flame in the candle. Find squared wicks in pillar, block and novelty candles.

   Cored

   • Braided with round cross sections, cored wicks stay upright while burning, according to the International Guild of Candle Artisans. Materials used for the interior core include cotton, paper, hemp, and zinc as the most popular. Zinc-cored wicks burns the coolest while paper core wicks do not burn as hot making them effective in paraffin-based wax candles. Cotton-cored wicks burn the hottest, making them more effectual for natural waxes. Find cored wicks in jar candles, pillars, votives and devotional lights.

   Precut

   • Cut to the candle maker's specifications, a precut, or tabbed, wick improves the beginner candle maker's craft by leaving out the guesswork. They also cut down the process time when producing in quantity. Make use of precut or tabbed wicks for votive, tea light and novelty candle-making.

   Special

   • CD series wicks have interwoven paper filament that offer increased rigidity, improving the burn of the wax. Generally used with paraffin and natural waxes, HTP series wicks have a rigidity often found in core wicks. As a self-trimming wick, it produces less mushrooming than other types.

The Timing of an EMP Strike

By Kellene Bishop

Author’s Note: Before reading this article, I want to be perfectly clear that my objective is not to “freak you out.” Mental Preparedness comes more readily when we allow ourselves to mentally picture scenarios and then allow our brain to strategically work on solving the anticipated problems. I hope this article does that for you today.

If I were a terrorist, I would plan an EMP attack on a day like this.

There’s no such thing as an opportune time for a trial, right? As such, it’s a bit naïve of us to think that if an EMP strike does hit, it will conveniently do so while we are gathered all comfy and cozy in our homes. If I was a nefarious terrorist, I would plan an EMP strike for a freezing snowy winter day affecting most of the country AND during a late time of day that would most affect rush hour. To add to that timing, I would plan it to occur while Congress was out of session for the Christmas break. That would be a true formula for chaos.

Our autos and other modes of transportation will be the most noticeable initial casualty as the result of an EMP strike. Just think what would happen if you were commuting home on the freeway and all of the sudden your vehicle, as well as all of the other cars around you, had all of their electronics stop functioning. The power steering would go out. The power brakes would go out. And like a synchronized swimming team, all of the autos that were made after 1970 would simple stop operating. Sure they might travel another few feet—until they slammed into another car that suddenly stopped operating. Imagine this scene on your jam packed freeway on the way home from work or while running errands. Now picture that scene duplicated throughout thousands upon thousands of bustling cities throughout the country.

In an EMP attack, planes would fall from the sky.

Keeping in line with the disruption of transportation, planes will fall from the sky as their electronics completely fail them. At any given time there are well over 5,000 non-military airplanes over the air space of the U.S. Boeing estimates that one of their 737’s take off or land every 4.9 seconds, although that’s for the world, not just the U.S. Boeing states that they have over 1.5 million planes in the air at all times of the day. Even without that, picture being one of the casualties stranded in the O’Hare or JFK Airport with no lights, no food, and no way to get out of town to your family.

The second part of this impact will be painfully felt in our modes of communication. Your cell phone will be completely useless for anything other than a paper weight. Your car radio will not function or provide you with any information to figure out what went wrong. Regardless of the abundance of injuries that will take place all over the nation, no ambulance, tow truck or life flight will be available to heed your call for help.

The third largest impact that you will notice is in the availability, or rather LACK of available medical care. If you can hobble your way to a hospital from the site of the freeway catastrophe, you will inevitably find the facilities in chaos, overflowing with panicked patients and medical personnel. Their backup generators will be useless in most cases as they typically operate with some electronics. The medical supplies such as bandages and medicine will be exhausted within a couple of hours, not to mention the medical staff. Can you imagine being in the middle of a life-saving surgery and suddenly have the power go off without even so much as a warning beep?

So, what do you do to be prepared? First of all, have your auto supplied with preparedness tools: first aid, water, coat, some food, etc. Be sure that you have a reliable pair of shoes—especially you ladies. Heels are great for partying in, but they make it pretty darn hard to hike in the snow 15 miles should a survival scenario come up. In addition to the obvious tools in your car, you MUST be prepared to defend yourself as well. Violence and desperation will reign supreme in such an environment. There’s no need to be a sitting duck, folks. Act quickly and decisively. When you’ve lost access to communication or news and your cars have suddenly stopped, you will KNOW it’s an EMP folks. Don’t wait around to deliberate with fellow travelers. Get to where you need to be ASAP.

Have a prearranged plan with your loved ones of where to meet in the event of trouble. At least this way your spouse or family and friends will have some peace of mind knowing that you will try to get to that location. Panic is not your friend in an emergency. Peace of mind is, even if it’s challenged by some “what if” scenarios.

Maintaining physical strength isn’t about being able to run a marathon for most people. But everyone’s physical strength will be tested in an EMP scenario. The simple act of getting a glass of water will require work. Flour for a loaf of bread will require arm muscles. Going to the bathroom will require full consciousness. :) That may not daunt some of you, but keep in mind that you may need to cover longer distances than between your house and the outhouse. Thus having working bikes and wagons you can tow on them may be a lifesaver.

Familiarizing yourself with basic medical care such as breaks, sprains, deep cuts, rashes, colds, and flu will also be important. While an EMP won’t send us back to the 19th century in all regards, it certainly would in terms of medical care. We need to take some of the responsibility for self-reliance in this area.

Again, I hope I’ve given you just a few things to think about today. I also really liked how the books “Alas, Babylon” by Pat Frank, and “One Second After” by William Fortschen helped me through some mental preparedness in this exact type of scenario. If you allow your mind to think about and mentally participate in such scenarios, you’ll have a more sound Mental Preparedness to solve the problems in comfort now, rather than in chaos later.

Rice Milk

When people decide to learn how to make rice milk, they often expect that a lot of special equipment and supplies are required. The reality, however, is very different and rice milk can be made at home using store cupboard ingredients and normal kitchen appliances. The principle for making rice milk at home is the same whether you use white or brown rice. This involves extracting the liquid or milk from cooked rice. There are many ways of doing this and people soon develop their own preferred system.
Ingredients

1 cup of brown rice
4 cups of water
Flavorings as required.

Note: The proportions of rice to water may vary depending on the type of rice used and your own preference for thick or thin rice milk.
Method

Rinse the rice well before cooking
Add the water and rice to a pan and cook the rice gently until the rice is thoroughly cooked and very soft - do not drain the rice
Use a food processor to liquidize the rice and water mix
Strain the liquid through a piece of cheesecloth or muslin if required (this will create a smooth rice milk)
Add flavorings as required

Variations

There are many ways that the basic method of making rice milk can be varied.

Flavorings such as syrup, honey (not for a vegan diet), sweetener or even cocoa powder can be used to give added taste to the milk.
White rice can be substituted for the brown rice. This gives a thinner milk.
Less or more water can be added to create milks of different consistencies.

Herbal Home Remedies: Herbal Vinegars – Part 2

October 20, 2011 Susun S. Weed Wild Food Foraging

Aromatic Delights from your Garden

Part One of this article explained herbal vinegars’ many potent qualities as herbal home remedies, and reviewed the basic tools and simple process of making herbal vinegars. A journey into the author’s garden illustrated how we can reap nature’s rewards and harvest numerous herbs for herbal vinegars. Now, we get to the root of making herbal vinegars: roots! We’ll also review some helpful tips for making vinegars, and review a list of plants that make for tasty vinegars and for herbal calcium supplements.

The main work of this frosty fall morning is to harvest roots: dandelion, burdock, yellow dock, and chicory roots. I’ve been waiting for the frost to bite deep before harvesting the nourishing, medicinal roots of these weeds. With my spading fork (not a shovel, please) I carefully unearth their tender roots, leaving a few to mature and shed seeds so I have a constant supply of young roots. I love the feel of the root sliding free of the soil and into my hands, offering me such gifts of health.

Burdock I admire especially, for its strength of character and its healing qualities. I settle down to do some serious digging to unearth their long roots. For peak benefit, I harvest at the end of the first year of growth, when the roots are most tenacious and least willing to leave the ground. Patience is rewarded when I dig burdock. Eaten cooked or turned into a vinegar (and the pickled pieces of the root consumed with the vinegar), burdock root attracts heavy metals and radioactive isotopes and removes them quickly from the body. For several hundred years at least, and in numerous cases that I have witnessed, burdock root is known to reverse pre-cancerous changes in cells.

Dandelion and chicory are my allies for long life. They support and nourish my liver and improve the production of hydrochloric acid in my stomach, thus ensuring that I will be better nourished by any food I eat. I make separate vinegars of each plant, but like to put both their roots and their leaves together in my vinegar. A spoonful of either of these in a glass of water in the morning or before meals can be used to replace coffee. Note that roasted roots used in coffee substitutes do not have the medicinal value of fresh roots eaten cooked or preserved in vinegar.

Yellow dock is the herbalist’s classic remedy for building iron in the blood. Like calcium, iron is absorbed better when eaten with an acid, such as vinegar, making yellow dock vinegar an especially good way to utilize the iron-enhancing properties of this weed. (It nourishes the iron in the soil, too, and is said to improve the yield of apple trees it grows under.)

And at that thought, I awaken from my reverie and return to spring’s sunshine with a smile. The white cat twines my legs and offers to help me carry the basket back inside to the warmth of the fire. The circle has come around again, like the moon in her courses. Autumn memories yield spring richness. The weeds of fall offer tender green magic in the spring. What I harvested last November has been eaten with joy and I return to be gifted yet again by the wild that lives here with me in my garden.
NOTES ON MAKING HERBAL VINEGAR

It is vital to really fill the jar. This will take more herb or root than you would think.
A good selection of jars of different sizes will enable you to fit your jar to the amount of plant you’ve collected. I especially like baby food jars, mustard jars, olive jars, peanut butter jars and juice jars. Plastic is fine, though I prefer glass.
Always fill jar to the top with plant material; never fill a jar only part way.
Pack the jar full of herb. How much~ How tight~ Tight enough to make a comfortable mattress for a fairy. Not too tight and not too loose. With roots, fill jar to within a thumb’s width of the top.
For maximum strength herbal vinegar, snip or chop herbs and roots.
For maximum visual delight, leave plants whole.
Regular pasteurized apple cider vinegar from the supermarket is what I use when I make my herbal vinegar. Unpasteurized apple cider vinegar can also be used. Note that unpasteurized vinegar forms vinegar “mothers.” Vinegar mothers are harmless. (Actually, they’re of value. I’ve seen vinegar mothers for sale for fancy prices in specialty food shops.) In a jar filled with herb and vinegar, the vinegar mother usually grows across the top of the jar, clinging to the herb, and looking rather like a damp, thin pancake.
Rice vinegar, malt vinegar, wine vinegar, or any other natural vinegar can be used, but they are much more expensive than apple cider vinegar and many have a taste which overpowers or clashes with the taste of the herbs.
I don’t use white vinegar, nor do I use umeboshi vinegar (a Japanese condiment).
The reason that most recipes for herbal vinegar tell you to boil the vinegar is to pasteurize it! I do not find it necessary to heat the vinegar as it is already pasteurized and the final vinegar tastes better if the herbs are not doused with boiling vinegar.

PLANTS THAT MAKE EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD-TASTING HERBAL VINEGARS

Apple mint leaves, stalks
Bee balm (Monarda didyma) flowers, leaves, stalks
Bergamot (Monarda sp.) flowers, leaves, stalks
Burdock (Arctium lappa) roots
Catnip (Nepeta cataria) leaves, stalks
Chicory (Cichorium intybus) leaves, roots
Chives and especially chive blossoms
Dandelion (Traxacum off.) flower buds, leaves, roots
Dill (Anethum graveolens) herb, seeds
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) herb, seeds
Garlic (Allium sativum)
Garlic mustard (Alliaria officinalis)
Goldenrod (Solidago sp.) flowers
Ginger (Zingiber off.) and Wild ginger (Asarum canadensis) roots
Lavender (Lavendula sp.) flowers, leaves
Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) new growth leaves and roots
Orange mint leaves, stalks
Orange peel, organic only
Peppermint (Mentha piperata and etc.) leaves, stalks
Perilla (Shiso) leaves, stalks
Rosemary (Rosmarinus off.) leaves, stalks
Spearmint (Mentha spicata) leaves, stalks
Thyme (Thymus sp.) leaves, stalks
White pine (Pinus strobus) needles
Yarrow (Achilllea millifolium) flowers and leaves

PLANTS TO USE WHEN MAKING AN HERBAL CALCIUM SUPPLEMENT

Amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus) leaves
Cabbage leaves
Chickweed (Stellaria media) whole herb
Comfrey (Symphytum officinalis) leaves
Dandelion leaves and root
Kale leaves
Lambsquarter (Chenopodium album) leaves
Mallow (Malva neglecta) leaves
All mints, including sage, motherwort, lemon balm, lavender, peppermint, etc.
Mugwort (cronewort) (Artemisia vulgaris)
Nettle (Urtica dioica) leaves
Parsley (Petroselinum sativum) leaves
Plantain (Plantago majus) leaves
Raspberry (Rubus species) leaves
Red clover (Trifolium pratense) blossoms
Violet (Viola ordorata) leaves
Yellow dock (Rumex crispus and other species) roots

HERBAL VINEGARS WHERE YOU EAT THE PICKLED PLANTS, TOO

Burdock
Chicory
Dandelion
Purslane
Yellow Dock

Herbal Home Remedies: Herbal Vinegars – Part 1

September 8, 2011 Susun S. Weed Wild Food Foraging
Aromatic Delights from your Garden

A pantry full of herbal vinegars is a constant delight. Preserving fresh herbs and roots in vinegar is an easy way to capture their nourishing goodness. It’s easy too. You don’t even have to have an herb garden.
BASIC HERBAL VINEGAR

Takes 5 minutes plus 6 weeks to prepare. You will need the following:

glass or plastic jar of any size up to one quart/liter
plastic lid for jar or
waxed paper and a rubber band
fresh herbs, roots, weeds
one quart/liter apple cider vinegar


1. Fill any size jar with fresh-cut aromatic herbs. (See accompanying list for suggestions of herbs that extract particularly well in vinegar.) For best results and highest mineral content, be sure the jar is well filled with your chosen herb, not just a few sprigs, and be sure to cut the herbs or roots up into small pieces.

2. Pour room-temperature apple cider vinegar into the jar until it is full. Cover jar with a plastic screw-on lid, several layers of plastic or wax paper held on with a rubber band, or a cork. Vinegar disintegrates metal lids.

3. Label the jar with the name of the herb and the date. Put it in some place away from direct sunlight, though it doesn’t have to be in the dark, and some place that isn’t too hot, but not too cold either. A kitchen cupboard is fine, but choose one that you open a lot so you remember to use your vinegar, which will be ready in six weeks.

Apple cider vinegar has been used as a health-giving agent for centuries. Hippocrates, father of medicine, is said to have used only two remedies: honey and vinegar. A small book on Vermont folk remedies—primary among them being apple cider vinegar—has sold over 5 million copies since its publication in the ‘50s. A current ad in a national health magazine states that vinegar can give me a longer, healthier, happier life.

Vinegar has many powers: it lowers cholesterol, improves skin tone, moderates high blood pressure, prevents/counters osteoporosis, and improves metabolic functioning. Herbal vinegars are an unstoppable combination: the healing and nutritional properties of vinegar married to the aromatic and health-protective effects of green herbs (and a few wild roots).

Herbal vinegars don’t taste like medicine. In fact, they taste so good I use them frequently. I pour a spoonful or more on beans and grains at dinner; I use them in salad dressings; I season stir-fry and soups with them. This regular use boosts the nutrient-level of my diet with very little effort and virtually no expense. Sometimes I drink my herbal vinegar in a glass of water in the morning, remembering the many older women who’ve told me that apple cider vinegar prevents and eases their arthritic pains.

I aim to ingest a tablespoon or more of mineral-rich herbal vinegar daily. Not just because herbal vinegars taste great (they do!), but because they offer an easy way to keep my calcium levels high (and that’s a real concern for a menopausal woman of fifty). Herbal vinegars are so rich in nutrients that I never need to take vitamin or mineral pills.

Why vinegar? Water does a poor job of extracting calcium from plants, but calcium and all minerals dissolve into vinegar very easily. You can see this for yourself. Submerge a bone in vinegar for six weeks. What happens? The bone becomes pliable and rubbery. Why? The vinegar extracted the minerals from the bone. (And now the vinegar is loaded with calcium and other bone-building minerals!)

After observing this trick it’s not unusual to fear that if you consume vinegar your bones will dissolve. But you’d have to take off your skin and sit in vinegar for weeks in order for that to happen! Adding vinegar to your food actually helps build bones because it frees up minerals from the vegetables you eat. Adding a splash of vinegar to cooked greens is a classic trick of old ladies who want to be spry and flexible when they’re ancient old ladies. (Maybe your granny already taught you this.) In fact, a spoonful of vinegar on your broccoli or kale or dandelion greens increases the calcium you get by one-third.

All by itself, vinegar helps build bones; and when it’s combined with mineral-rich herbs, vinegar is better than calcium pills. Some people worry that eating vinegar will contribute to an overgrowth of candida yeast in the intestines. My experience has led me to believe that herbal vinegars do just the opposite, perhaps because they’re so mineral rich. Herbal vinegars are especially useful for anyone who can’t (or doesn’t want to) drink milk. A tablespoon of infused herbal vinegar has the same amount of calcium as a glass of milk.

So out the door I go, taking a basket and a pair of scissors, my warm vest and my gloves, to see what I can harvest for my bone-building vinegars.

The first greens to greet me are the slender spires of garlic grass, or wild chives, common in any soil that hasn’t been disturbed too frequently, such as the lawn, the part of the garden where the tiller doesn’t go, the rhubarb patch, the asparagus bed, the coven of comfrey plants. This morning they’re all offering me patches of oniony greens. Snip, snip, snip. The vinegar I’ll make from these tender tops will contain not only minerals, but also allyls, special cancer-preventative compounds found in raw onions, garlic, and the like.

Here where tulips will push up soon, in a sunny corner, is a patch of catnip intermingled with motherwort, two plants especially beloved by women. I use catnip to ease menstrual cramps, relieve colic, and bring on sleep. Motherwort is my favorite remedy for moderating hot flashes and emotional swings. They are both members of the mint family, and like all mints, are exceptionally good sources of calcium and make great-tasting vinegars. Individual mint flavors are magically captured by the vinegar. From now until snow cover next fall, I’ll gather the mints of each season—peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, bee balm, oregano, shiso, wild bergamot, thyme, hyssop, sage, rosemary, lavender—and activate their unique tastes and their tonic, nourishing properties by steeping them in vinegar. What a tasty way to build strong bones, a healthy heart, emotional stability, and energetic vitality.

Down here, under the wild rose hedge, is a plant familiar to anyone who has walked the woods and roadsides of the east: garlic mustard. I’ll enjoy the leaves in my salad tonight, as I do all winter and spring, but I’ll have to wait a bit longer before I can harvest the roots, which produce a vibrant, horseradishy vinegar that’s just the thing to brighten a winter salad and keep the sinuses clear at the same time.

And what’s this? A patch of chickweed! It’s a good addition to my vinegars and my salads, boosting their calcium content, though adding scant flavor. In protected spots, she offers year-round greens.

Look down. The mugwort is sprouting, all fuzzy and grey. I call it cronewort to honor the wisdom of grey-haired women. The culinary value of this very wild herb is oft overlooked. I was thrilled to find it for sale in Germany right next to the dried caraway and rosemary, in a little jar, in the supermarket. Cronewort vinegar is one of the tastiest and most beneficial of all the vinegars I make. It is renowned as a general nourishing tonic to circulatory, nervous, urinary, and mental functioning, as well as being a specific aid to those wanting sound sleep and strong bones. Cronewort vinegar is free for the making in most cities if you know where this invasive weed grows.

To mellow cronewort’s slightly bitter taste and accent her fragrant, flavorful aspects, I pick her small (under three inches) and add a few of her roots to the jar along with the leaves. I cut the tall flowering stalks of this aromatic plant in the late summer or early autumn, when they’re in full bloom, and dry them. The leaves, stripped carefully from the stalks, provided stuffing (and magic) for our winter dream pillows; they are said to carry one into vivid dreams and visions.

The sun is bright and strong and warm. I turn my face toward it and close my eyes, breathing in. I feel the vibrating life force here. Everything is aquiver. I smile, knowing that that energy will be available to me when I consume the vinegars I’ll make from these herbs and weeds. As I relax against the big oak, I breathe out and envision the garden growing and blooming, fruiting and dying, as the seasons slip through my mind’s eye….

The air grows chillier at night. The leaves fall more quickly with each breeze. The first mild frosts take the basil, the tomatoes and the squash, freeing me to pay attention once again to the perennial herbs and weeds, and urging me to make haste before even the hardy herbs drop their leaves and retreat to winter dormancy.

The day dawns sunny. Yes, now is the time to harvest the last of the garden’s bounty, the rewards of my work, the gifts of the earth. I dress warmly (remembering to wear red; hunting season’s open), stash my red-handled clippers in my back pocket, and take a basket in one hand and a plastic tub in the other.

Then I’m out the door, into autumn’s slanting sunshine and my quiet garden. My black cat bounds over to help me harvest and, after a while, the white cat emerges from under the house to purr and signal her satisfaction with my presence in her domain this morning.

My gardening friends say the harvest is over for the year, but I know my weeds will keep me at work harvesting until well into the winter. In no time at all my deep basket is full and I’m wishing I’d brought another. Violet leaves push against stalks of lamb’s quarter. Hollyhock, wild malva, and plantain leaves jostle for their own spaces against the last of the comfrey and dandelion leaves. (I think dandelion leaves are much better eating in the fall than in the spring, much less bitter to my taste after they’ve been frosted a few nights.) The last of the red clover blossoms snuggle in the middle. Though not aromatic or intensely flavored, a vinegar of these greens will be my super-rich calcium supplement for the dark months of winter.

My baskets are overflowing and I haven’t gotten to the nettles and the raspberry leaves yet. They’re superb sources of calcium, too. Ah! The gracious abundance of weeds, or should I say “volunteer herbs” – I actually respect them more than the cultivated herbs; respect their strident life force, and their powerful nutritional punch, and their added medicinal values that help me stay healthy and filled with energy.

Vinegars, as we’ve read, can be our allies by (among other things) lowering cholesterol, improving skin tone, and metabolic functioning. With a few simple tools, we easily can harvest herbs right in or around our yard to make some yummy, healthy vinegars.

Part two of this article reviews the importance of harvesting the right roots, offers some helpful pointers for making vinegars, and provides an indispensable list of plants that make for tasty vinegars and a list of plants for herbal calcium supplements.

Pemmican: The Indigenous Sausage

Recipe: Pemmican


The Native People of the temperate and northern regions of America developed a high-energy fast food that is easily transportable and long-storing. We know it as pemmican, or pimikan in the Algonquin languages. The term is derived from pimii, the Cree-Chippewa word for fat. This is quite appropriate labeling, because fat, a concentrated energy source, is the most important ingredient. The second part of this article contains a pemmican recipe.

We are all generally familiar with pemmican already, as it is basically sausage. It is a mixture of dried shredded or pounded meat, usually ungulate (Bison, Elk, Deer), and lard (solid rendered fat), usually ungulate also, which is combined and compressed into cakes.

Pemmican is made by first separating the fat and meat from each other so that they can be processed individually. Meat is best preserved by drying, and fat by rendering. If there is fat in the meat, or vice versa, either could spoil. However, once each is prepared they can be mixed together and the resulting product will have good keeping quality. For travel it is tightly packed in sealed containers (similar to stuffing sausage in casing) so that it will not rancidify.

The popular understanding is that pemmican contains fruit. This is a misconception. Historically, a small amount of dried fruit (such as juneberries) was on occasion added, more for flavor than for its nutritional contribution. Indications are that it was probably no more popular than is sweet sausage in the Euro-American tradition. The practice of adding fruit to pemmican became commonplace with nonnatives, who in my estimation were probably accommodating their acculturated taste for flavor additives in their sausages.

Fat is the primary ingredient in a pemmican recipe because fat has nearly 2 1⁄2 times the energy of complex carbohydrates (which are starch, as found in grains and tubers), sugars or meat. This is important in travel and cold weather because a lot of energy is needed without overloading the system with bulky foods. Another benefit of fat is that it digests slowly, providing steady energy over a long period of time. Sugars break down rapidly, giving a quick energy peak, then a valley. Carbohydrates fare a bit better, yet nowhere near fat. Meat in excess of what is needed to rebuild muscle is broken down and converted to energy, however it requires more water than other energy foods and may carry health risks (see bottom of page).

Fat is more necessary than meat in northern diet. As a traditional North Country travel and winter ration, pemmican needed to sustain life and provide energy, sometimes on its own. Northern greenhorn explorers have died trying to live on lean meat. Some Inuit Peoples’ winter diets consist of almost half fat. Recently a woman crossed the continent of Antarctica on foot, consuming pure olive oil (a liquid fat) for energy.
Make Your Own

In this pemmican recipe, we are basically disassembling and reassembling the meat. Fresh meat rots quickly; once the flesh and fat are separated and processed, each in the way that works best for it, they can be reassembled and will remain preserved for an extended period.

Pemmican is quite easy to make and a variety of ingredients can be used. Following is my step-by-step preferred method; feel free to substitute meats and fat sources. In doing so the most important guidelines to keep in mind are to be sure your meat is lean and completely dry, and to use rendered fat that will not melt (such as the fat of ungulates) while the pemmican is being stored and used.

Dry the meat.

Choose a warm, dry, sunny period and start early in the day to take full advantage of available drying time. I prefer large chunks (like thigh and shoulder) of meat that are already quite lean, like summer venison.

If such is not available, clean all visible fat and connective tissue from the meat, then slice as thinly as possible, preferably across the grain (dries faster that way) and place on a drying rack in full sunlight. If yours is a warm dry climate, you may be able to keep your slices 1/4 inch thick and get them dry in a day. If your area is humid, slice as thinly as possible.

It’s best to get the meat dry in one day, to lessen the chance of spoilage. Test for dryness by bending each piece, particularly where thick. Those needing more drying time will be rubbery; those dry enough will be brittle and crack. Take them indoors so they do not reabsorb moisture overnight. They are best kept refrigerated.

If conditions are not ideal for drying, use a supplemental fire. What you are creating here is jerky, which can be stored and consumed as-is, but it is not a complete food because it does not contain fat. Do not try to live on it! Natives will either use jerky as an ingredient in a complete meal, or will use it to make pemmican.

Grind the meat. Use a commercial grinder, or pulverize, as Natives would.

Render the fat.

Combine meat and fat, in a ratio of about two parts meat to one part fat.
Pack in airtight containers Cleaned intestine, bark, glass or plastic containers can be used.

Store in a cool, dry, dark place.

This is the end of the pemmican recipe!

A word of caution: Pemmican is a concentrated food that is best consumed sparingly, when you are active, and not for an extended period of time. Consumption of hard fat can be unhealthy for sedentary people, and protein over consumption can overload the body with uric acid (which may lead to gout) and calcium oxalate (the mineral which forms kidney stones). Ketones may also build up in the system, causing kidney damage. (A sign of protein over consumption is ketone breath, which smells like nail polish or overripe pineapple.)

Tamarack Song has been a student and teacher of the traditional outdoor skills his whole life. He is an author and director of the celebrated Teaching Drum Outdoor School.

[DWB states: If rendering fat for the first time, take it in baby steps. You will need to render one pound of fat more than you will need ..... That means that if you need six pounds of lard, you will need about seven pounds of fat.

As the fat heats and becomes liquid, the solids will sink to the bottom of the pot. Slowly pour the liquid into a clean pot and throw away the solids. Allow the fat to cool to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Then add an equal amount of lukewarm water.

Bring the fat and water to a gentle simmer and cook, covered, for 15 minutes. Set it outside overnight to chill, or put it in your refrigerator. In the morning, the fat will have risen to the top. The remaining unwanted solids will be in the bottom of the pot.

Using a spatula, remove the top layer of fat. If there is a jellylike substance on the bottom of your fat, scrape that substance off and throw it away. You only want the pure, hardened fat.

Cook It Again
Then break up the hardened fat into chunks and put it into another pot. Add an equal amount of water and one large potato cut in half. Cover the pot and simmer for 15 minutes.

Allow it to cool overnight. Then lift the fat out of the water and scrape the bottom clean. Congratulations! You now have rendered fat.... Either use it right away or store it in the freezer for future use.]

S.1867: The hunting of America expands

S.1867: The hunting of America expands

November 27, 2011 by ppjg

Marti Oakley (c)copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved

______________________________________________

Many of us have wondered if directed to; would our own military turn on us? It appears that this is the plan and has been all along, yet the question remains……would they actually do it if ordered to?

S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill. Senators Carl Levin (D) MI and John McCain (R) AZ, are bringing this bill to the Senate floor on S.1867 [DWB states: It has now passed 97 yea 3 nay in the Senate.]

The end of Liberty

Monday after having held secret committee meetings while never holding even one hearing on this bill which authorizes military action against US citizens, right here in the United States.

While the bill appears on the surface to be about authorizing defense funding for the illegal wars, the ongoing unwarranted surveillance of the US population and the continuing violations of the 4th Amendment as applied to US citizens, many of the provisions of the bill do not pertain to unidentifiable terrorists or any other villain carefully crafted to terrorize the country. The fact is, as a result of the false flag attacks on 9/11, we have massive numbers of police state “laws” on the books which created “terrorists” or redefined “terrorist activity” to include everything from political dissent and free speech, even including targeting of US citizens for mentioning or referencing the Constitution or supporting third party, non-approved candidates for public office.

When this bill passes with these police state provisions included (I believe it will) you can expect your senator who voted “yes” on the bill to maintain that they only did so because otherwise the funding for the wars would have ceased (we could only hope) and they have to continue to fight the terrorists, terrorism, or what ever lame excuse pops into their heads to explain why they voted to pass what is clearly a police state bill.

The bill itself was drafted in secret and I believe it would be to our benefit to know who actually drafted that bill.

Who were the “stakeholders” who actually wrote the bill introduced by these two traitorous senators. We know they didn’t write it, they never do. All bills are written by stakeholders who blow through the doors of congress carry bags of cash to buy the support of politicians who make their living selling off our rights along with anything else that isn’t nailed down.

S.1867 includes these provisions highlighted by the ACLU:

If enacted, sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA would:

1) Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up inside and outside theUnited States;

(2) Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including civilians picked up within the United States itself; and

(3) Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.

The Washington Post of course did its part to make sure it appeared this bill was about “terrorists”, who could be held indefinitely, who could be subject to extraordinary rendition (transferred to countries like Egypt for extensive torture) and glossed over or totally avoided mentioning the fact that the provisions of this bill could be applied, and are actually intended to be applied to US citizens on US soil.

The language of the bill is intentionally very broadly written to allow later interpretations that will be used to redefine yet again, our rights, our protections, striking each one down under the false flag use of “the war of terror”.

In the last several years we have seen the militarization of our local law enforcement under the direction of Homeland Security. We now have major US cities armed with military tanks, drones, and outfitted like star wars storm troopers; all for use against US citizens in their own communities. Local law enforcement has been remade into extended military units to enable them to become a working military unit in tandem with military control. These law enforcement units have ceased operating as “protect and serve” civil service operations and instead have become direct threats to the communities which are forced to endure them. The escalating violence against the citizens, the abrogation of rights, the violation of standing laws and the protection provided to these units by the courts should have us all demanding an end to Homeland Security interference in local law enforcement activities and reverting law enforcement back to one of community protection and service.

We have seen the creation of the White House Rural Council along with other newly created agencies that all include the military as part of their structure. This is no accident. There is no plausible reason the military would be included in any Council making preparations to unlawfully enter into the states, unless military action against the citizenry was anticipated.

S.1867 is a catch all bill. Its intention is to make legal (not lawful) the crime of unlawful detention without due process. By extension, the bill would condone the practice of extraordinary rendition for the purpose of torture of US citizens who could be kidnapped from our streets without being charged with a crime, having access to the courts for redress (the bill condones the military holding tribunals outside of the US court system at its discretion) and holding US citizens indefinitely without charging them with any crime.

This bill is one of the final steps necessary in striking down any remaining Constitutional protections or rights, all under the phony war of terror being perpetrated by our own government against its own citizens. This is not a right or left, Democrat or Republican plan……they are all in it together. They will all vote for it together knowing full well that it is an assault on the people of the US.

In my opinion, it is an open declaration of war against the people by our own government.

This brings us back to the initial question:

If ordered to do so, would our own military turn on us?

It appears they would.

The Coming Global Collapse

17 Quotes About The Coming Global Financial Collapse That Will Make Your Hair Stand Up
November 22, 2011
Print Version

By Michael Snyder
BlacklistedNews.com

Is the world on the verge of another massive global financial collapse? Yes. The western world is drowning in an ocean of debt unlike anything the world has ever seen before, and our financial markets are gigantic casinos that are dependent on huge mountains of risk and leverage remaining very stable. In the end, this house of cards that has been built on a foundation of sand is going to come crashing down in a horrifying manner. Usually in this column I go on and on about why things will soon get much worse. But today I am going to take a bit of a break. Today, I am going to let some of the top financial professionals in the world tell you why things will soon get much worse. Many of the quotes that you are about to read just might make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Most people out there have no idea what is about to happen. Most people out there are working hard and are busy preparing for the holidays and they are hopeful that the economy will turn around soon. But that is not going to happen. We are heading for another major global financial collapse, and when it happens the U.S. economy is going to get even worse.

The epicenter for the coming global financial collapse is almost certainly going to be in Europe. As you will see below, financial professionals all over the world are sounding the alarm about Europe. It is a disaster that everyone can see coming but that nobody seems to be able to prevent.

Of course the failure of the “supercommittee” in the United States certainly is not helping matters. There is already talk that we may soon see another downgrade for U.S. debt. It is hard to even describe how incompetent the U.S. Congress is.

There is a tremendous lack of leadership both in the United States and in Europe right now. The financial world is more interconnected than ever before, and when the financial dominoes start to fall it is going to take a miracle to keep a complete and total disaster from unfolding.

So when the time comes, who is going to step forward and provide that leadership?

That is a really, really good question.

Right now, panic and fear are spreading like wildfire in the financial world and nobody knows for sure what is going to happen next.

But one thing is for certain. Pessimism is growing stronger by the day.

The following are 17 quotes about the coming global financial collapse that will make your hair stand up….

#1 Credit Suisse’s Fixed Income Research unit: “We seem to have entered the last days of the euro as we currently know it. That doesn’t make a break-up very likely, but it does mean some extraordinary things will almost certainly need to happen – probably by mid-January – to prevent the progressive closure of all the euro zone sovereign bond markets, potentially accompanied by escalating runs on even the strongest banks.”

#2 Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup: “Time is running out fast. I think we have maybe a few months — it could be weeks, it could be days — before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it.”

#3 Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank: “If you don’t think Merkel’s tone will change then our investment advice is to dig a hole in the ground and hide.”

#4 David Rosenberg, a senior economist at Gluskin Sheff in Toronto: “Lenders are finding it difficult to finance their day-to-day operations with short-term funding. This is a lot like 2008 but with more twists.”

#5 Christian Stracke, the head of credit research for Pimco: “This is just a repeat of what we saw in 2008, when everyone wanted to see toxic assets off the banks’ balance sheets”

#6 Paul Krugman of the New York Times: “At this point I’d guess soaring rates on Italian debt leading to a gigantic bank run, both because of solvency fears about Italian banks given a default and because of fear that Italy will end up leaving the euro. This then leads to emergency bank closing, and once that happens, a decision to drop the euro and install the new lira. Next stop, France.”

#7 Paul Hickey of Bespoke Investment Group: “More and more, we are hearing anecdotal comments from individual and professionals that this is the most difficult environment they have ever experienced as the market is like a fish flopping around after being taken out of the water.”

#8 Bob Janjuah of Nomura International: “Germany appears to be adamant that full political and fiscal integration over the next decade (nothing substantive will happen over the short term, in my view) is the only option, and ECB monetisation is no longer possible. I really think it is that clear and simple. And if I am wrong, and the ECB does a U-turn and agrees to unlimited monetisation, I will simply wait for the inevitable knee-jerk rally to fade before reloading my short risk positions. Even if Germany and the ECB somehow agree to unlimited monetisation I believe it will do nothing to fix the insolvency and lack of growth in the eurozone. It will just result in a major destruction of the ECB‟s balance sheet which will force an ECB recap. At that point, I think Germany and its northern partners would walk away. Markets always want short, sharp, simple solutions.”

#9 Dan Akerson, CEO of General Motors: “The ’08 recession, which was a credit bubble that manifested itself through primarily the real estate market, that was a serious stress….This is much more serious.”

#10 Francesco Garzarelli of Goldman Sachs: “Pressures on Euro area sovereign bond markets have progressively intensified and spread like a wildfire.”

#11 Jim Rogers: “In 2002 it was bad, in 2008 it was worse and 2012 or 2013 is going to be worse still – be careful”

#12 Dr. Pippa Malmgren, the President and founder of Principalis Asset Management who once worked in the White House as an adviser to President Bush: “Market forces are increasingly determining what the options are and foreclosing on options policymakers thought they had. One option which is now under discussion involves permitting a country to temporarily leave the Euro, return to its native currency, devalue, commit to returning to the Euro at a better debt to GDP ratio, a better exchange rate and a better growth trajectory and yet not sacrifice its EU membership. I would like to say for the record that this is precisely the thought process that I expected to evolve,but when I proposed this possibility back in 2009, and again in September 2010, I had a 100% response from clients and others that this was “impossible” and many felt it was “ridiculous”. They may be right but this is the current state of the discussion. The Handelsblatt in Germany has reported this conversation, but wrongly assumes that the country that will exit is Germany. I think that Germany will have to exit if the Southern European states do not. Germany’s preference is to stay in the Euro and have the others drop out. The problem has been the Germans could not convince the others to walk away. But, now, market pressures are forcing someone to leave. Germany is pushing for that someone to be Italy. They hope that this would be a one off exception, not to be repeated by any other country. Obviously, though, if Italy leaves the Euro and reverts to Lira then the markets will immediately and forcefully attack Spain, Portugal and even whatever is left of the already savaged Greeks. These countries will not be able to compete against a devalued Greece or Italy when it come to tourism or even infrastructure. But, the principal target will be France. The three largest French banks have roughly 450 billion Euros of exposure to Italian debt. So, further sovereign defaults are certainly inevitable, but that is true under any scenario. Growth and austerity will not do the trick, as ZeroHedge rightly points out. Ultimately, I will not be at all surprised to see Europe’s banking system shut for days while the losses and payments issues are worked out. People forget that the term “bank holiday” was invented in the 1930’s when the banks were shut for exactly the same reason.”

#13 Daniel Clifton, a policy strategist with Strategas Research Partners on the potential for more downgrades of U.S. debt: “We would expect further downgrades, a first downgrade from Moody’s and Fitch and possibly a second downgrade from S&P.”

#14 Warren Buffett on the problems in the eurozone: “The system as presently designed has revealed a major flaw. And that flaw won’t be corrected just by words. Europe will either have to come closer together or there will have to be some other rearrangement because this system is not working”

#15 David Kostin, equity strategist for Goldman Sachs: “The wide range of possible outcomes on both the super committee process and the unstable political economy in Europe drives our view that investors should assume the worst while hoping for the best.”

#16 Mark Mobius, the head of the emerging markets desk at Templeton Asset Management: “There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner”

#17 Gerald Celente, founder of The Trends Research Institute: “The whole system is going down. Pull your money out your Fidelity account, your Scwhab accout, and your ETFs.”

Are you starting to get the picture?

When so many top financial professionals are freaking out like this, perhaps the rest of us should start paying attention.

They are telling us that “time is running out”.

They are telling us that “there is definitely going to be another financial crisis”.

They are telling us that this “is going to be worse” than 2008.

They are telling us that “the whole system is going down”.

Yes, a devastating financial collapse really is coming. Just like in 2008, it will seem like the “end of the world” while it is happening, but it won’t be. It will severely damage our financial system and our economy, but it will not finish us off.

Think of it this way. When you build a sand castle at the beach, it doesn’t get totally wiped out by the first wave or the second wave that hits it. Each wave does significant damage, but the destruction of your sand castle is a process.

It is the same thing with the U.S. economy. We once had the most incredible economic machine that the world has ever seen. It is constantly being guttedand the financial crisis of 2008 hit us really hard, but we are still doing okay.

After this next financial crisis we will be in even worse shape. But we will still be breathing.

More “waves” will come after this next financial crisis. If we continue on the road that we are on, our economy will progressively get worse and worse.

Not everyone will agree with this analysis, and that is okay. In the end, time will reveal the truth to all of us.

Right now, we all need to get ready for the next wave that is about to hit us. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs over the next few years. Hopefully you are prepared for that.

Ham Radio Resurgence

The newest trend in American communication isn't another smartphone from Apple or Google but one of the elder statesmen of communication: Ham radio licenses are at an all time high, with over 700,000 licenses in the United States, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

Ham radio first took the nation by storm nearly a hundred years ago. Last month the FCC logged 700,314 licenses, with nearly 40,000 new ones in the last five years. Compare that with 2005 when only 662,600 people hammed it up and you'll see why the American Radio Relay League -- the authority on all things ham -- is calling it a "golden age."

ham radio operator Joe Carcia

Nov. 16, 2011: Joe Carcia mans the mic at W1AW at the American Radio Relay League Headquarters in Newington, CT.

"Over the last five years we've had 20-25,000 new hams a year," Allen Pitts, a spokesman for the group, told FoxNews.com.

The unusual slang term -- a "ham" is more properly known as an amateur radio operator -- described a poor operator when the first wireless operators started out in the early 1900s. At that time, government and coastal ships would have to compete with amateurs for signal time, because stations all battled for the same radio wavelength. Frustrated commercial operators called the amateurs “hams” and complained that they jammed up the signal.

People like John Pritchett have used the slang term ever since.

“It takes an inquisitive mind that wants the challenge to speak with the rest of the world,” Pritchett told FoxNews.com. “I meet a lot of people as a result amateur radio. It’s a fascinating experience to meet somebody who you’ve talked to for years -- when you finally meet them and go, wow, that’s you.”

Pritchett has been a ham for over 35 years. He sits in his ham shack slowly turning the dial on his amateur radio and listening attentively for a voice through the high radio frequency. But he’s not looking for aliens: Pritchett is dialing in to make contact with someone around the world.

“W6JWK, This is John in Fresno, California,” he says.

Pritchett can communicate with people around the globe or even astronauts in space by talking through his microphone or using Morse code.

With more people joining the hobby, local ham radio businesses are growing as well. Amateur Electronics Supply in Las Vegas sells everything to do with ham radios, from transceivers, amplifiers and antennas to handhelds.

“We have clientele from all walks of life," manager Luke Rohn told FoxNews.com. "We have church groups who are interested in ham radio for a viable source of communication in times of natural disaster. We have young kids that find ham radio interesting. Maybe they’ve heard about it through their father and grandfather and it’s a lot of fun for them.”

According to the American Radio Relay League, retirees and emergency groups are among the main reasons for the nearly 30,000 new hams that pick up the hobby each year.

Ham is a boon for safety as well as a fun pastime: When normal communications methods fail and cellphone towers are jammed, ham radios will still work and can help out in disaster situations, because they don’t require towers to relay the signal.

“Amateur radio came into play very much during the major earthquake in the Bay Area in 1989. The only thing I had was a little handheld radio. Nothing else worked, telephones didn’t work, cellphones didn’t work, amateur radio just kept right on working,” Pritchett said.

Looking to ham it up a bit with some friends? Try a fox hunt -- the radio equivalent of ham-to-ham combat. In a fox hunt, local amateur radio clubs search for a transmitter (called the fox) using their homemade antennas.

“The fox hunting is really fun -- the thrill of the chase, the competition of being the first to find the transmitter,” said Rob Mavis, president of the Clovis Amateur Radio Pioneers club in Clovis, Calif.

Ham radio is inexpensive fun, as well: All you need is a couple hundred bucks to get started and a FCC license -- which is free, but requires a $10 to $12 fee to cover expenses.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/11/17/radio-days-are-back-ham-radio-licenses-at-all-time-high/?test=faces#ixzz1eXsPQBB5

Super Efficient Fireplace cont.....

Graphics are located in the attached link

Start-Up Conditioning (after construction):
Allow at least four weeks of 50 degree Fahrenheit (or greater) natural air drying, by opening the air tubes and the firebox door. Use of forced air or controlled low temperature heat will speed up the drying.

CAUTION:
rapid drying before burning may lead to cracking.

After air drying, the first fire should be light wood kindling with about five pounds of wood and enough paper for starting. Increase the fire size by two pounds of wood per day until twenty-five pounds of wood is fired on the tenth day. Then 50 pounds burned slowly on the 11th day will usually complete the conditioning time. This conditioning time is important. All of the construction moisture must be driven from the brick prior to high temperature f~ntgo a void surface cracking from trapped steam. Excessive cracking can allow some smoke to leak through the firewall into the house.

Loading the Wood in the Arebox:

Put a small amount of paper and kindling near the rear of the firebox, then larger kindling, then small logs, and then larger logs. Use a long stick or other device to light the paper at the rear of the firebox. This allows a very hot fire and bums from the rear to the front without burning all of the wood at once. Rear to front
burning will not overload the chimney and air ducts. A masonry stove works best when fired hot, if the chimney draft and air intake continue to provide a clean burning of the fuel. Generally, new wood added to the firebox will burn readily, without kindling wood, even if bnly a few hot coals are visible from the previous charge of fuel.

Operating (Controlling the fire):

The greatest probability for smoke to leak into the room is from 5 to 45 minutes after the fire is started. Do not open the door in this time period. Use the driest wood when starting a fire and do not overload the firebox.

Be certain that the flue and the outside air vents are open. In very tightly constructed houses, a window or I door may need to be opened for a few minutes at start-up when using the air damper on the fire door for start-up combustion air. I Avoid running an oil or a gas furnace when starting the masonry stove. This prevents a reverse flow of gases through the masonry stove to feed the flame on an oil or gas furnace. Anytime the masonry stove door or door damper is open, reverse air flow can occur because a greater negative force is created by the combustion air
demand of a furnace.

A combustion draft fan in an oil furnace creates an even greater negative force.
From a comfort point of view, it is very easy to overfire these masonry stoves. For example, 20 pounds of air dry wood will supply enough energy to heat a well insulated 1000 square foot home for 12-15 hours, even with a zero degree outside temperature. Since a masonry stove produces radiant heat, a person is more comfortable at a lower temperature when one is in the vicinity of the unit. The unit holds heat for a long time, therefore, overfiring should be avoided. Opening a window to cool the house after overheating, is not an efficient use of fuel. After the fire has died down, close any open windows, close the bell damper on the door, and regulate the outside air flow in the outside air intake tubes.

Because the firebox temperature has been measured at 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, even fairly high moisture fuel will normally burn without a serious creosote buildup. However, high moisture content fuel will reduce the heating value of the fuel and therefore should be avoided. Repeated burning of overly wet fuels could possibly I
lead to creosote build up even in these normally creosote free masonry stoves.
The question has arisen about burning coal in a masonry stove, even though they are considered wood burning nits. There is a lack of information regarding the use of coal as a masonry stove fuel, but in one known situation, roof shingles and building felt paper were burned without black smoke emissions or creosote.

On the subject of buming coal, the following advice is offered; use a grate inside the firebox, because coal must have undergrate draft to burn properly. Coal also bums hotter than wood, therefore, use a very small fire to avoid structural damage to the walls of the unit. Do not try to burn coal under any circumstances if the firebox is not made of high quality firebrick and high temperature air setting mortar.

Caution: Portland cement mortar will not stand high temperature and is not to be used with firebrick in the firebox or the first flue run. When buming any fuel besides dry cordwood, burn the fuels only in small quantities and only after the firebox has reached an operating temperature which requires one to two hours of rapid buming.

When the firebox is at full operating temperature and properly supplied with air, all biomass is completely converted to carbon dioxide and water vapor. Both of these gases pass harmlessly through the flue runs. If the firebox is overloaded with high moisture or high energy fuel (tar, glue, etc.), there is a very great chance for overfiring and for creosote deposits in the flue runs and chimney liner, especially at start-up. Incomplete combustion from lack of sufficient air will waste fuel and create carbon monoxide gas.

Overfiring will result in heavy smoke pouring out of the chimney. The fire (as seen through the door damper) will not be a good clear color, but will appear as a dull yellow to orange color. Ideal combustion usually results in blue and bright
yellow flame. DO NOT burn CCA treated, Creosote treated, Penta treated, or painted lumber. Each of these wood preservative treating compounds can create long term health hazards because of toxic gas produced and/or heavy metal deposits from fly ash or flue gases. CCA contains arsenic, paints often contain lead, chrome,
titanium and other undesirable compounds which become a greater hazard when gasified by burning.

Heat Distribution:

The use of a small (3 or 4 inch diameter blade) slow speed fan, placed high on the wall in the same room as the masonry stove, aimed at the floor down a short hallway or through a doorway is a very economical way to distribute heat. Slow speed fans can usually be obtained at specialty stove dealer shops, hardware stores and/or
some electrical supply houses. Non-ducted fan driven air may feel cool, even at 90 degrees Fahrenheit, but it will still warm an adjoining room. It is the evaporation of moisture from your body that makes the warm air feel cool. A forced air furnace usually blows air at temperatures higher than 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

In some residences, a furnace duct system can be utilized to move hot air, if there is a "fan-only" operation in the furnace cycle, however, masonry stoves are best utilized for zone heating (one or two rooms). A masonry stove located in a well insulated basement (preferably insulated on the outside of the walls) is a reasonable way to distribute heat. However, a heating unit located in a non-insulated basement is a very poor way to distribute heat.

Safety:
It is suggested that a minimum clearance of twelve inches from the exterior side wall of the masonry stove (27 x 36 inch exterior size firebox) and a minimum of 18 inches from the rear of the exterior wall to the nearest combustible material be maintained. Larger masonry stoves may require more clearance. Dry wall, or a four
inch brick against a wood stud, is not fireproof construction. If, for any reason this clearance cannot be maintained from the wall surface, it is suggested that a 26 or 28 gauge (light colored) sheet metal heat barrier between the house wall and the exterior masonry stove wall be installed. This heat barrier must have a minimum
one inch opening at the top, bottom, and sides for free air flow. It must be spaced one inch out from the combustible surface, installed with non-flammable spacers, such as metal tubes or ceramic insulators. This should be a sufficient safety factor to allow a six inch distance between the heat shield and the exterior masonry
stove side wall. Do not place the exterior rear wall of the stove closer than nine inches to the properly spaced heat shield. The heat shield should always extend six inches higher than the stove wall, or to within one inch of the ceiling, whichever gives the greatest protection and allows unimpeded air flow. In a horizontal flue run design, the top of the masonry stove is that coolest part of the unit.

Even with this design, maintain at least one inch of air flow space to a combustible ceiling surface. If the unit is not too tall, one extra brick, on top
of the stove overlapping the previous mortar joints will greatly reduce any fire hazard. Temperatures at the top rear of a vertical flue run design masonry stove, are hotter than the same location with a horizontal design flue run. If it is anticipated that the masonry stove top will be very close to the ceiling, install a heat shield with the proper 1 inch spacing for air flow and sufficient spacers to avoid sagging. The fire door should be twenty-four inches from a combustible surface. If installed in an alcove, add 50 percent to all minimum distances as noted
above.

Do not open the door when the fire is within 45 minutes of start up time. Do not open the cleanouts until after all coals and ashes have been removed from the firebox. Always place coals and ashes, even if they feel cool, in a metal container with a metal lid. Remove the ash container from the living quarters and place the metal container on a noncombustible surface. Fires have started as long as seven days later from supposedly cool ashes. Embedded coals within "cool ashes" often give off poisonous carbon monoxide when allowed to remain in the house.

In the event of a chimney fire, have a 25 pound, dry type, fire extinguisher nearby. Call the fire department immediately, evacuate all non-fire fighters from the house. Open the fire door and direct several short bursts from the extinguisher at the base of the fire. Close off all air possible. Do not use water on the firebox walls. Always have a knowledgeable person inspect the chimney after a flue fire. Smoke alarms are excellent low cost insurance; use them for the family's protection.

Installation of Gas Port for Safety:

(On vertical flue stoves, it is a good safety measure to allow a 1 inch by 2 inch gas escape port at the top of the hanging flue run.) To avoid any explosive gas build-up that may arise because of improper stove operation, such as burning the fire too slow, or closing down the stove too soon or improper damper operation.
For placement of gas port see drawings below.

SAWED SINGLE BRICK
GAS PORT
LOCATION

It is best to have the 2 inch line lying on the horizontal. The gas port should be
at the highest point in the hanging flue run.

Builder/Crafter's Confidence:

There is a great deal of information to absorb from the previous pages. The volume of material may discourage some from attempting to construct a masonry stove. Once the materials are located, the greatest obstacle has been removed. Bricklaying is not complicated, just different and slower than carpentry work. Masonry stoves
have been built at many locations around the country by do-it-yourselfers without previous bricklaying experience.

However, it is a feasible idea to have help by setting up your own workshop group, or attend a workshop if one can be located. As in most unfamiliar situations, nothing is accomplished, unless something is started. If you are unsure of your skills, consult a brickmason or other competent crafts person. Locating materials may be difficult, but there are many sources of technical help for design and construction details.

References:
"The Practical Handbook of Concrete and Masonry" by Richard Day from Arco Publishing Company, Inc.; 219
Park Avenue South; New York, New York 10003,

and also

"The Art of Bricklaying by J. Edgar Ray; Charles
A. Bennett Company Publishing, Peoria, Illinois. Your public library often has books on this subject matter.
Materials List:
Sand
gravel
reinforcing rods
tie wire
8 x 8 hardware cloth
Type A-1 portland cement, lime for anti-set compound, fly ash
angle iron or other lintels
clean-out doors, fire door, oven door
fire brick, standard and specialty brick, skew brick
air setting high temperature mortar (approximately 100 pounds)
fire brick grout (for filling and leveling by mixing with firebrick mortar) (grout is finely chipped firebrick)
face brick
anchor bolts
gaskets
flue tile liner
air ducts
air valves
sand screen-home made with 8 x 8 hardware cloth
flue damper (if needed)
2" x 6" forming boards for hearth pad form
12 or 16 penny common nails
roof flashing, roof cement and zinc nails
clean water for mixing cement
ornamental tile and mastic (if desired)
1 x 2 or 1 x 3 lumber (to build sand screen) plus wire for insect screen
reinforcing rods
welded wire fence mesh 2" x 4" and tie wire
doors and cleanouts
air ducts and valve materials
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