Jeff Cassman

The Incredible Journey of Natural Farming Pioneer: Pat Coleby

Pat Coleby was born in England in 1920. Early on in her life Pat became interested in alternative health solutions after suffering chronic asthma as a child. This kickstarted a lifelong mission to find natural disease remedies without manufactured medicines. Her curiosity led her to constantly research and experiment with vitamins, minerals, and plants for healing properties.

Over the years, Pat’s knowledge reached people all over the world. She received countless calls from individuals seeking advice, a remarkable feat considering this was in a pre-internet era. She was among the first to provide guidance to those who wanted to support animals and grow crops without conventional treatments or synthetic fertilizers. Pat emphasized the use of seaweed and naturally occurring minerals to address common ailments, a recommendation that has gained worldwide recognition.

Helen and Hugo of Farming Secrets had the privilege of meeting Pat in 1991 when they discovered her books “Farming Naturally” and “Organic Animal Care.” They were inspired by her belief that animals should have access to natural minerals. Pat recognized the importance of self-selecting natural minerals for animals’ health. Her books became vital resources for farmers and animal enthusiasts worldwide and many still refer to them when a problem occurs. Her experience and advice saved many animals. Pat ended up writing comprehensive books on cattle, sheep, alpacas and goats, horses, and pets as well as a general one called “Natural Farming”.

Pat wrote to support her readers in their pursuit of a better farming system and a healthier environment. She hoped her books would aid them in this important endeavor.

Pat passed away at the age of 87 on June 1st, 2015. Throughout her life, she dedicated herself to the well-being of farm animals and shared her invaluable insights through her books.

Her passing was a significant loss to the natural care community for both land and animals. For all who knew and valued Pat and her teachings, we express our gratitude. At Farming Secrets, we still get people making contact needing her help or wanting one of her books. Pat’s legacy lives on through her books, which continue to inspire and educate those who share her passion for natural farming and holistic animal care.

Now her remarkable journey inspires a new generation of farmers to nourish farm life without chemicals.

Pat quoted Dr. Stuart Hill, who said, “A clever person solves problems – A wise one prevents them.” She believed that this quote encapsulated her approach to agriculture and animal care.

White House Publishes Wide-Ranging AI Executive Order

The Biden-Harris Administration issued an Executive Order entitled “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence” that emphasizes the need for regulation of high-risk AI and critically recognizes the link between privacy and AI.

“EPIC commends the Biden-Harris Administration for this landmark executive action, which calls on agencies throughout the federal government to combat algorithmic discrimination and establish human rights safeguards around AI,” said EPIC Executive Director Alan Butler. “EPIC looks forward to working with federal agencies to carry out the Executive Order and ensure that artificial intelligence systems reflect our fundamental values and serve the public interest.”

Notably, the order requires the developers of the most powerful AI systems to share their safety test results with the government, promises federal support for development and agencies use of privacy-preserving techniques, requires an evaluation of how agencies collect and use commercially available data (including from data brokers), and requires increased training on how to investigate and prosecute civil rights violations related to AI.

The order tasks agencies with a number of responsibilities that will lead to standards from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to layout responsible AI testing frameworks and guidance for content authentication and watermarking.

For government use of AI, the EO requires the development of guidance for agency use of AI and a faster and more efficient process for agencies to procure AI products and services. The directive also calls for the rapid hiring of AI professionals and the training of employees at all levels. The content of a forthcoming Office of Management and Budget memo will dictate the details of how government AI use will change.

EPIC has long advocated for comprehensive privacy protections, rigorous testing protocols, expanded resources for evaluation of AI systems, and a government-whole effort to fighting algorithmic discrimination.

Carleigh Fairchild: Discusses Her Time on the TV Show Alone

There’s something primal that stirs within us at the thought of being isolated in a remote place. As social creatures, many of us instinctively shy away from situations that separate us from our fellow humans. Others are drawn to solitude, so that they may more clearly hear their inner voice — a voice that’s often drowned out by the modern-day electronic hum that permeates our lives. The latter individuals typically remain secluded only for a short period of time, before having to return to the social tasks their lives demand. However, there are an elite few who have grappled with not only the physical dangers of the remote wilderness, but also with their own inner demons for months at a time without another human soul to lean on for support. Carleigh Fairchild is one such person.

Since the age of 13, her life has been immersed in wilderness survival and survival skills training. After turning 18, she moved to Washington state to learn primitive skills, and tested herself by successfully solo backpacking 500 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail. Having traveled the country honing her skills, she took on one of popular culture’s most difficult survival challenges by becoming a contestant on History Channel’s Alone — not once, but twice.

First, she went to the foothills of the Andes mountains in Patagonia, Argentina, on Season 3. She returned to the show on Season 5, which took place in Mongolia. Today, Carleigh uses her vast experience by teaching others how to reconnect with their surroundings and themselves, much like our not-so-distant ancestors did on a daily basis. We were able to attend a wild edibles class she was teaching at the Georgia Bushcraft Campground near Watkinsville, Georgia, and had the opportunity to sit down with her to learn more about her survival experience and what it was like to survive for 86 days in Patagonia, alone.

Carleigh Fairchild Interview

RECOIL OFFGRID: You started learning wilderness survival skills as a child, what do you feel drew you to that endeavor?

Carleigh Fairchild: My mom started me on the path of learning survival skills when she went to the Tracker School run by Tom Brown Jr. in New Jersey. They have a wide variety of classes. They start with their Standard Course which covers pretty much all of the basics of survival skills, and then there’s more advanced survival skills and tracking classes.

She came home from that and showed me the bow drill kit she had made. It was my first look at making a fire without matches or a lighter. I was fascinated that you could truly rub two sticks together and make a coal. I wanted to learn more. Luckily, I was able to attend a teen summer camp the next year when I was 13 to learn earth skills. I loved the connection the skills brought to me — connection with the earth, connection with my own abilities, and connection with others also passionate about those…

Know Who’s Running the Show

If the key to survival planning is about awareness, then start with becoming aware of the government of your own community.

I don’t know about your town. But in my town, being a team player in local government means ignoring and promoting incompetence and tolerating abusive toxic behavior. If you’re a moron, then this is an easy task. If you are a moron who hates working and just wants to fill a seat and get paid for it and be told how wonderful you are for doing nothing, then this is the place for you. If you cry and complain when told you’re not doing your job and you find sympathy with colleagues and your boss, well then you’ve found the dream job in my county. If your health insurance is furnished through a council member’s company and your health savings account is with another council member’s bank, then it matters not that it’s not a beneficial health plan for you but more about whether these elected officials can benefit from their positions. But you don’t mind, then you get paid for not working and get to enjoy being told how great you are at it. This is the nature of modern local government in many towns, large and small. Replicate this at the national level and it all makes sense. Is this a brutal assessment? You bet it is. But nonetheless, it is pretty accurate.

The Local Club (or Show) is not about competence but rather more about whether or not someone gave a friend or family member a job. If you don’t think the government is rife with nepotism, then you are naïve. Are they capable of doing a good job? That’s not as important as you might think or hope. Are there good people? Of course, just like in every other occupation. Are there too many government positions now? Of course, families grow you know. And they will protect themselves at your expense if you have the audacity to point out any of these things. Maybe they made their money because at some point their parents were intelligent, but as time went on their offspring did not have to work so hard for it and learned to retain the wealth by any means necessary and to the point of obvious stupidity. Maybe some of the local leaders really wanted to make a difference but they were outnumbered. This is where we are now, in America: Suppression of common sense and the promotion of incompetence to protect their own. Like comedian George Carlin said: “It’s a big club and you’re not in it.” And the club is growing.

Why do we allow this? Why isn’t it called out? It’s an old club, even in small towns. You literally must have nothing to lose to be able to call it out, if you’re going to do so, alone. Understand that you could be harassed by law enforcement — a group that is often married to The Club. You may…

EPIC, Consumer Reports Urge National Cyber Director to Consider Consumer Privacy and Promote Prevalent Cybersecurity Practices

On October 31, EPIC and Consumer Reports urged the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) to consider privacy alongside cybersecurity as part of ONCD’s Request for Information on harmonization of cybersecurity regulations, promoting principles such as data minimization. Earlier this year, the White House’s National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan tasked ONCD with reducing contradictions in cybersecurity regulations. In addition to recommending that ONCD incorporate privacy concepts into its process, the consumer advocacy organizations urged ONCD to immediately begin advancing bare minimum cybersecurity practices that appear in nearly all cybersecurity requirements and best practice standards (rather than wait until the long task of harmonization for multiple regulations and frameworks is fully completed before promoting such fundamental and commonly-accepted information).

EPIC’s and Consumer Reports’ additional recommendations included emphasizing to agencies that companies subject to multiple sets of cybersecurity requirements should comply with the most rigorous requirements and not be permitted to claim compliance with the most rigorous by satisfying the requirements of the least rigorous, that regulated entities are responsible for unregulated third parties whom they give access to their data and systems (e.g. Target is responsible for its HVAC vendor), that permitting companies to self-certify compliance requires enforcement to ensure the certifications are accurate, and that audits should be independent and thorough.

EPIC continues to call on lawmakers across the country to take up the cause of establishing comprehensive privacy protections and to limit harmful data practices and impose data minimization standards. This includes urging regulators to incentivize stronger industry data security practices and to mandate transparency for consumers when breaches do occur.

Introduction to Bodgery. Tools: axe, chisel, bushcraft knife, and handsaw.

Greenwood crafts are essential to the preparedness community. It allows us to create what we need on the move or on homesteads, the things we need to keep going. This is why I have written this article on the practice of bodgery, a sect of greenwood crafts.

Bodger. Though the word is synonymous in the United Kingdom with doing only half a job, it is also known in greenwood crafts circles as someone with great skills in the handling of unseasoned timbers (greenwood), with minimal tools and within the woodland masters of their craft bring forth fabrications of assumed unattainability. Quite simply, a bodger, named after their favourite tool, is someone who crafts using the greenest of timbers while working in a symbiotic relationship with the woodland in which they dabble. That might include the production of chairs and other furniture, gardening tools like dippers or digging sticks, shingles for roof tiles, draw horses as work vises, tables, turned goods using a pole lathe — like cups, bowls, chair legs, and candlestick holders or perhaps even wicker baskets weaved of the thinner twiglings. But that is not the discussion here. We’re talking about the fundamentals of bodgery, and how to start off before embarking on more intricate projects.

The primary distinction between bodgery and bushcraft is rather subtle. Personally, I consider them one in the same. See bodgery involves the study and practice of greenwood crafts, just like bushcraft is. Bushcraft however, is centred around meeting the basic needs of the woodsman, such as crafting tools and shelters to enhance your comfort during your short stay in the woodlands. However, it’s important to note that bushcraft should not be confused with the military’s application of fieldcraft, which focuses on the manipulation and manoeuvrability of the landscape for the easing of military exercises. Whereas bodgery focuses on the longterm production and use of greenwoods crafts, for trade or personal use. Both bushcraft and bodgery producing the ability to create your needs and desires using the materials available in abundance in the outdoors. It should be said that all of the skills discussed in this paper pertain to both the bushcraft and bodgery crowd, as they focus on long-term woodland management for maintaining the woodlands for the following years to come.

Now we have a brief understanding of what bodgery is, we should discuss the primary function. The bodger produces no more product than what the bodger can reproduce. Through a process of woodland management. This means to maintain a woodland to keep a constant supply of workable greenwoods, fire woods and construction timbers. Bring only what you can carry on your back in the woodland and take only what you need. Abundancy is the catalyst for complacency. It is not enough to allow a woodland to re-gain its own supply of usable greenwoods for your crafts projects. Mother nature is an all powerful master, but does not take your needs into consideration. This is why you must actively manage it through…

My dad rescued this shotgun from a pile of captured Nazi weapons destined for destruction – Survival Common Sense Blog

My dad’s shotgun was a handmade drilling he brought home from World War II in Germany.

It’s my personal connection with the last days of WWII.

by Leon Pantenburg

My shotgun generally gets a few looks. The gun was originally my dad’s, and it is a pre-World War II 16-gauge side-by-side drilling, with an 8×57 rifle barrel underneath. It is ornately engraved with hunting scenes, and signed by gunmaker Franz Kettner. (Here is more information about Franz Kettner.) The stock is Circassian walnut burl (I think). The gun shows some honest use and wear.

This pre-World War II drilling was my Iowa pheasant gun.

When I was a kid, the drilling was nothing special. It was my upland gun, and I shot the hell out of it. Iowa farmers, like my dad, use tools, and most considered a gun to be a tool. They were used for putting down injured farm animals, eliminating gophers in the garden, crows that were harassing chickens or the occasional varmint that needed eliminating. Every farmer had a shotgun, and a .22 rifle.

But Iowans are also avid hunters, and shotguns are used for hunting everything from quail to deer. When Dad quit hunting, I used the 16 for hunting pheasants in standing corn. It has tight chokes, and patterns Number 6 shot really well.

Dad never talked about his service, except a story about a Louisiana chicken dinner. But even as a kid, I knew the veterans’ stories were important, and I gathered bits and pieces as I could. Later, as a trained journalist (Iowa State University, class of 1976) and a newspaper editor in Washington D.C., I discovered the national archives, and researched individual unit records.

I also got the letters Dad sent to his sister, Edna. Dad’s letters were, of necessity, devoid of any military specifics. I read them all, and they were mostly about life at Camp Shelby. Once he got to Europe, there weren’t many letters.

He did wryly comment in one letter, that “I captured eight Germans all by myself.” During the last days of the war, many German soldiers, desperate to escape being captured by the Russians, surrendered to the first Americans they came across. But other than that, most letters were folksy tales of training and questions about how folks were doing back home

Dad, at home on leave,before shipping overseas in 1944.

Tracking dad’s service was challenging. He enlisted in the Army in 1941, and trained troops at Camp Shelby, MS. He was sent to Europe shortly after D Day as a Military Policeman. He was in Patton’s Third Army that went to the relief of the besieged city Bastogne, Belguim.

Then he got transferred to a motor transportation group, where he escorted supply convoys, and was finally promoted to Captain and company commander of a…

Read the rest here

FCC Advances Net Neutrality Rulemaking, Raising Prospect of Stricter Privacy Rules for ISPs

The Federal Communications Commissions voted yesterday to move forward with its open internet protections rulemaking, a measure similar to the net neutrality rule adopted by the FCC in 2015 but later repealed during the Trump administration. In the rulemaking, the FCC seeks to classify broadband internet as a telecommunications service, which among other things would enable the Commission to apply its more robust privacy and cybersecurity authorities under Title II of the Communications Act to internet service providers (ISPs).

Whether a technology is classified as a “telecommunications service” determines which agency has authority over the corresponding industry and what authorities that agency can use to regulate that industry. Currently consumer protection authority over ISPs is shared between the FCC and the FTC, with state and federal agencies needing to sometimes overcome jurisdictional challenges when they attempt to regulate ISPs. Notably, the FCC has strongly implied that it would put an end to the sale of location data without consumer consent if it gains Title II authority over ISPs. The rulemaking also proposes treating SMS as a telecommunications service, which would enhance the Commission’s ability to fight unwanted robotexts under its more robust Title II authority.

“We applaud the FCC for taking this important step to solidify their jurisdiction to rein in harmful practices by broadband providers,” said EPIC Executive Director Alan Butler. “The Commission plays a key role in privacy enforcement in the absence of a comprehensive federal privacy law, and we look forward to seeing the FCC Privacy and Data Protection Task Force taking meaningful enforcement action to rein in data abuses.”

EPIC has long-supported a robust role for the FCC in protecting online privacy, especially as it relates to location data and preventing unwanted calls and texts.

7 Assumptions About the SHTF

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Assumptions.

We make them all the time. Mostly unconscious, like the grocery store will be open, fully stocked of bread, milk, toilet paper, and our favorite ice cream. The gas station will be up and running to gas up our vehicles and maybe get a hot cup of coffee or a fat pill (doughnut).

Then there are other conscious assumptions we make about things, like our retirement accounts doing well, plenty of money available for presents under the Christmas tree, or not having to resort to using a credit card to make the monthly bills.

Some of our assumptions are made based on historical facts. Others from more recent events or experiences. Then, we also have unconscious bias assumptions.

When it comes to the SHTF, I think we have some that are quite logical or common sense based. Others – well, I’ve read a few that are really out there – such as Army-grown lab attack dogs trained to eat our children.

Yeah. Really.

Based on several of Selco’s articles and some other books on various topics, historical and recent events are some assumptions I have made. Your mileage may vary. This is not a complete list, as I am sure I am forgetting more than a few.

One thing I want to mention is that OP commenter Backwoods Squirrel wrote “Just understand that what works in one area won’t necessarily work in another.”

He was referencing the differences between the Balkan War Selco went through to what SHTF could look like here in the US. There could be similarities, and there could be differences between states, regions, or even towns.

From Taylor to Tina. Or, From Rule of Law to Thunderdome.

How fast we go from Shake It Off to Thunderdome is an interesting assumption.

I have read some who think it will be nearly instantaneous or overnight. Others say several days to weeks or somewhere in between.

There are some more recent events we can look to as examples. Hurricane Katrina. The lawlessness some major cities are currently experiencing.

Selco noted more than a few times in his writings how by the time they realized that SHTF, it was too late. Where they were is where they were. From panic-buying at the grocery store to outright looting. From civil normalcy to stabbings with no EMS or LEOs responding.

It happened slowly.

Then suddenly.

Rule of Law (ROL) broke down. As a society, we are only as good as the laws written and those who follow those laws. Once ROL is gone, chaos and anarchy rule.

It is only…

Continue reading here

Tech Policy Press: Evaluating the Argument Over the California Age Appropriate Design Code Act

Hyperfixation on the Act’s First Amendment implications could also obscure the harmful privacy practices that platforms regularly use, such as profiling kids by default or the use of dark patterns to manipulate their choices. In a digital press briefing by a group of civil society organizations calling itself The Kids’ Code Coalition shortly after the CAADCA was blocked, Megan Iorio, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), argued that Judge Freeman didn’t take seriously the list of widely-recognized harms often baked into a platform’s design. “The First Amendment doesn’t let a judge strike down laws simply because they disagree with the policy goals,” Iorio said.