Month: September 2022

In a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Acting Director, Tae D. Johnson, Senators Ed Markey and Ron Wyden “urge[d] [ICE] to end its use of technologies and surveillance tactics that threaten the privacy rights of individuals all across the United States.” The Senators called out ICE’s “dragnet surveillance system” created using facial recognition and the agency’s purchasing of information from data brokers. “These practices,” the Senators state, “raise serious concerns and questions about how ICE surveils the public and avoids key accountability systems.”

EPIC recently published the report, DHS’s Data Reservoir, which analyzes the ways that the Department of Homeland Security, in particular CBP and ICE, collects and circulates location data. In an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, EPIC has obtained thousands of pages related to ICE’s use of facial recognition services. The documents EPIC obtained reveal that ICE, at minimal, considered using facial recognition to track people who threaten their agents.

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TEENAGERS DESERVE TO grow, develop, and experiment, says Caitriona Fitzgerald, deputy director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a nonprofit advocacy group. They should be able to test or abandon ideas “while being free from the chilling effects of being watched or having information from their youth used against them later when they apply to college or apply for a job.” She called for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to make rules to protect the digital privacy of teens.

Read the full article here.

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Happy National Preparedness Month!

September is National Preparedness Month and we’re going to make the most of it by offering amazing, mindblowing, unbelievable deals every single day of the month. Each deal lasts ONE DAY ONLY so get them while the price is at an all-time low!

You asked and we answered!

Feed Your Family No Matter What has been one of our most popular PDF anthologies ever published and we got a barrage of emails asking us to make the document available in physical format. So that’s just what we’ve done!

Today only, as part of our 30 Days of Preparedness SuperSale, you can get it just over printing cost for only $17.95. That number WILL go up but today you can get nearly 500 pages of food-related information at an introductory price!

Order your copy here: https://amzn.to/3B9mHtl

Having something to eat isn’t guaranteed.

We’re facing threats to our food supply from many different angles: supply chain breakdowns, drought, food facilities being ravaged by fires, skyrocketing inflation, and outright shortages. No longer can we live in the comfort of unthreatened abundance. We’re learning exactly how delicate the system really is.

Prepping and putting back supplies is incredibly important but what we’re seeing now goes beyond that. You have to be able to produce and acquire more food. You have to be able to put back your harvests to eat during the winter. You have to be able to prepare items that once were as convenient as popping open a can or little plastic container.

You need our Organic Prepper anthology with ALL of our content about food. You’ll get more than 500 pages of content that are all about food when you can’t just go to the store and buy whatever you want.

Here’s what the PDF book includes:

Producing Food:

This section of the book contains content on gardening, hydroponics, keeping chickens and quail, and producing your own food in a variety of settings.

Acquiring food:

This section is a look at methods of food acquisition including foraging, hunting, fishing, and more.

Preserving food:

If food is difficult to come by, preserving it will be more important than ever. This section contains a variety of methods that have been covered on the website, including canning, drying, and curing.

Preparing food

This section contains instructions for self-reliant prepper foods, off-grid cooking strategies, and other tasty things.

Get prepared to feed your family no matter what the future brings!

Order it here: https://amzn.to/3B9mHtl

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A Dutch Oven is a must-have for a prepper because providing it’s a plain cast iron one versus the enameled version, you can cook over campfires, on gas stoves, and even in electric ovens.

The range of meals you can make, ranging from sweet to savory, is endless. This is what preppers, hunters, and campers place over the campfire to have soup or stew steaming hot, ready when people get back from their hunting/fishing/foraging trips.

Dutch ovens are often handed down through the generations if taken care of. Even if they have been abused, it is possible to ‘revive’ them to see many more years of service.

If you are not already familiar with a Dutch oven then read this article for a bit of background and on how to obtain the right temperature for cooking in your Dutch oven.

We have chosen recipes to use everyday meat like chicken and beef but also recipes to enable you to use what you have hunted – ranging from squirrel to moose. We haven’t forgotten the fishermen and have some real treats.

Then we have a variety of bread recipes to accompany soups and stews or simply to enjoy on their own with homemade jams.

Items like apple tart, Dutch oven cinnamon rolls, and peach cobbler provide a sweet ending to a meal.

1. Navajo Lamb Stew with Cornmeal Dumplings

If you need something hearty and warm for a family dinner, then this is it. The recipe calls for celery, carrots, onions, garlic, and potatoes, most of which you should have in your survival garden. Here’s the recipe.

2. Venison Stew – Dutch oven recipe

This recipe uses deer meat, or you can substitute beef. Green peppers and potatoes add to the flavor. Here’s the recipe.

3. Cheesy Venison Steak and Potatoes

Venison and bacon go together, but when you add cheese and potatoes to the mix then you’re taking it to the next level. Here’s the recipe.

4. Dutch Oven Moose Roast

Red wine, bacon, celery, and garlic join the usual ingredients in this moose roast suited to a large family. Here’s the recipe.

5. Venison Stew

When the hunt has been successful and there’s venison on the menu try this recipe suitable for deer, elk, or moose.

The addition of juniper berries, maple syrup, and sage, all foraged, make this a great prepper meal that will feed between 8 and 10 people. You will need some red wine – hope you have some stockpiled! Here’s the recipe.

6. Beef Stew

This classic beef stew using chuck benefits from the addition of red wine to bring out the flavor of the meat. Here’s the recipe.

7. Cowboy Stew

Ground beef, canned or fresh tomatoes, canned beans and potatoes, and onion with the addition of some chili make for a great Western favorite. Here’s the recipe.

8. Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Pot Roast

With onions, carrots, and capsicums this pot roast includes produce from your vegetable garden with beef chuck. Here’s the recipe.

9. Ptarmigan and…

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Introduction

With my talk, I would like to accomplish three goals:

First, I want to explain some sound and time-tested basics of monetary theory.

Second, I would like to point out why it is important to have a free market in money; that the battlefront of our time is not between, say, bitcoin, stable coins, gold, and silver, but between government-monopolized fiat monies and a free market in money.

And third, I hope to strengthen your conviction that we need a free market in money! Unless we succeed in ending governments’ money monopolies, I fear we might end up in the most sinister tyranny the world has ever seen.

On the Subject of Money

Let me ask you: What is money? The answer is: Money is the universally accepted means of exchange.

As such, money is a good like any other.

What makes it really special is that money is the most marketable, the most liquid of all goods in the economy.

Money is no consumer good and no producer good. It is the exchange good; it is a good sui generis.

What functions does money have? According to most economics textbooks, the answer is that money has three functions: it is means of exchange, unit of account, and store of value.

Upon closer examination, however, we realize that money has just one function, and that is as a means of exchange.

The unit of account function and the store of value function are merely subfunctions of the means of exchange function of money.

This is easy to understand: The unit of account function expresses the exchange ratios of goods and services in money; for example, 1 apple costs 1 euro.

The store of value function (which can also be termed as the means of deferred payment function) indicates that people hold money to exchange in the future rather than today.

Money is an indispensable tool in an advanced economy characterized by the division of labor and trade.

It serves as a common denominator, a numeraire for all goods prices. It thus allows for the calculation of the returns on the various alternatives of economic activity.

In a complex economy, only monetary calculation can allocate resources to their most productive uses—that is, uses that satisfy consumer demand best.

Today’s modern, advanced economies could not exist without using money for economic calculation.

The Value of Money

An economy becomes richer if more producer and consumer goods are available. However, this does not apply to money. Why?

Money, which has only use value, derived from its purchasing power, is a good, and as such, determining its value falls under the law of diminishing marginal utility.

What does this law say? It says (1) a large supply of goods is preferable to a smaller supply of goods, and (2) the marginal utility of any additional unit of a good decreases.

So an increase in the money supply in the economy reduces the marginal utility of the money unit compared to other goods. As…

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Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

Food is one of those things that is at the very center of culture. When trying to understand a people group and their lifestyle, food is a key ingredient in that study.

Here in the United States, we eat foods from a wide variety of cultures, much more so than what you can find in other countries around the world. At the same time, we have “americanized” those foods, adding out own twist to them. 

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Pizza for example, an American favorite, is much different here than it is in Italy. If you order pizza there, you’ll get a round piece of bread, with some herbs on it. That’s about it.

Even our mozzarella cheese is different than theirs, as they make mozzarella cheese daily, using it while it is still soft. I imagine an Italian immigrant, seeing our version of mozzarella cheese in the grocery store would think that they were selling “old” cheese. 

Many of the foods people have eaten throughout history are based upon availability. Truffles, which are extremely rare and expensive today, were once something eaten by the poor people of Europe, as they could gather them themselves.

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Through time, the availability of those truffles has dwindled, to the point where they are now only used in very small quantities, in gourmet foods. People living near the equator don’t eat seals, because there aren’t any, while people living in the Arctic Circle consume them as part of their regular diet. 

As we have become more “civilized” (at least in our own minds), our ideas of what is acceptable cuisine has changed as well. Most women living in the 1800s thought nothing of having to butcher and defeather a chicken, duck, goose, or turkey, while the average housewife today would be appalled at the idea of having to do that.

To many people, fish (as a food, rather than something pretty to look at) comes in rectangular pieces that are breaded. Were we to put a whole cooked fish on their plate, they would probably scream and run away. 

Yet many of the foods that our ancestors ate were healthy and nutritious, providing them with the energy needed for hard physical work. So, while those foods may not seem like the first things that we would put on our own menus, they are foods that can help us stay healthy, especially in times of hardship.

1. Beaver Tail

One of the more unusual sounding foods from the frontier was beaver tails. Beaver was hunted for their pelts, which were highly valued for making top hats, before the style changed and silk was the preferred material.

But the beaver tail, which was not used in the making of those…

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EPIC is urging the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program to center privacy and human rights in its revised plan for federal research on AI-powered image analysis. Originally published in 2020, the Video and Image Analytics Research and Development Action Plan lays out strategic objectives for federal research involving video and image analytics, including AI-based computer vision.

As EPIC explained in its comments, the original Action Plan did not even discuss the need for privacy and human rights safeguards on image analytics, despite the clear risks such systems can pose to the public. Dangerous government applications of video and image analytics are well documented, from facial recognition algorithms to autonomous or AI-powered weapons systems.

“EPIC supports the continuing development of a coordinated federal strategy for [image analytics] R&D, but the uniformity imposed across agencies must include a robust privacy and human rights framework,” EPIC wrote. EPIC also advocated for increased transparency of federal research on image analytics and for the establishment of binding human rights safeguards on such technologies.

EPIC has called for a moratorium on facial recognition technology and has long advocated for human rights-centered AI policy.

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EPIC Deputy Director Caitriona Fitzgerald warned that the U.S. is “facing a data privacy crisis” and urged the Federal Trade Commission to adopt a data minimization rule at this week’s FTC public forum on commercial surveillance (video here). The event was part of the FTC’s recently announced rulemaking on commercial surveillance and data security.

“The best way the FTC can rein in commercial surveillance under current law is to use the Commission’s section 5 authority to issue an unfairness rule that limits wide scale tracking and profiling of consumers,” EPIC’s Fitzgerald said, speaking on a panel of privacy and civil rights advocates. “Data should only be collected, used, and transferred as reasonably necessary to provide the service requested by the individual. That is what people expect when they use the Internet.”

Later in the event, EPIC Director of Litigation John Davisson underscored that today’s commercial surveillance practices are exactly the type of threat to the public that Congress intended the FTC to address through rulemaking. Calli Schroeder, EPIC Global Privacy Council and U.S. Co-Chair of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, emphasized the importance of pairing the FTC’s forthcoming rules with robust enforcement.

EPIC has long called on the FTC to exercise its rulemaking authority to saefguard privacy and civil rights. A recent EPIC white paper urged the Commission to establish a data minimization rule using its section 5 unfairness authority. In 2020, EPIC petitioned the FTC to conduct a rulemaking on commercial uses of AI and personal data. EPIC has also joined numerous coalition letters to the Commission calling for a privacy and civil rights rulemaking.

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(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)

So where to start? Food is one of the main things preppers stockpile. In the case of trying to prepare for a war economy a stockpile of food isn’t a bad idea. However, some of the item that will be hard to get are those that require shipping from far away and/or will be needed to support the troops. Going back to World War Two for an example, it was some basic staples that were in short supply including sugar, gasoline, rubber items, and even shoes. I can grow vegetables and fruit, as well as preserve them. I can do the same with meat from our pigs, chickens and cows. But what most of us can’t or don’t do (and yes there are exceptions) is make our own salt, sugar, and baking soda. These basic ingredients are important when preserving food and/or baking. If you really wanted to hedge your bets, just storing salt, sugar, and baking soda will be of tremendous value when war comes.

Butter was another kitchen staple that was rationed. Personally, I don’t want a milk cow, and besides I’m surrounded by dairy farms so I’m sure a little traded labor will get the fresh milk we need. For those not near farmland there are a few options for stocking up on butter. First, you can freeze it, you can either make your own ghee or buy it and the other option is to buy dehydrated butter. Personally, I have some of all of these options. Again being surrounded by Dairies we can get fresh milk and make our own but with our butter churn.

Although they are not necessities, coffee and tea will surely be rationed and in short supply. What is available will also go to the military to keep up morale and to help keep soldiers warm and awake. During past wars when coffee was scarce acorns, chicory and dandelions have been used as a non-caffeine replacement. Stocking up on unroasted green coffee beans and/or freeze-dried coffee may keep you stocked through the next war. The current food supply issues and inflation just shows that having stored food is not a bad idea. When actual government rationing starts in a wartime environment it will be an even better idea.

Ever watch the black and white war movies where the female characters are after a new pair of silk stockings? A wartime economy will mean some changes for what we wear and what materials are available. In World War Two the pistol belts, canteen covers, rucksacks, suspenders and other field gear was made of a very heavy cotton “duck” canvas. I believe that the interruption in supply chains will require our military to revert from the current nylon/synthetic materials back to cotton and wool since we grow and produce both. As in World War Two, cotton will be in high demand and short supply and will not be available on the civilian market. I suspect wool…

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