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March 2014

Regulator control of Banks weakens sharply

The financial system is at even greater risk of crashing now that it was in the lead-up to the collapse of Lehman’s bank in 2008.

That is the conclusion of TWO separate reports issued in the past 24 hours, one from the Bank of England and the other from the US Federal Reserve.

The crisis is looming because Western banks have quietly expanded their lending in the less regulated Asian markets. And regulatory changes brought in amidst intense lobbying by the banks themselves, have made matters WORSE, by blurring the lines of oversight.

Six years after the crash, the financial system is no nearer to a transparent system whereby every transaction between banks can be traced and tracked, so that a dollar which goes into Citibank in New York, and then re-emerges out of the Caymans into UBS Zurich can be identified.

Scandalous but hardly surprising.

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Community

Dollar stores for preps

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It’s been a while since I have written about cooking, food and recipes, if you follow me any at all, you know that food is very important to me. Perhaps it’s because I’m old enough to have had parents who grew up during the Great Depression. Perhaps it’s because growing up, we were on the poor side of the financial scale, while we never actually went hungry, there were times when food was scarce, my mother had to be very frugal and creative with what we had, I learned a lot from her.

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Community

Air pruning?

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Ever heard of air pruning? Neither have I… I just watched this video and I’m blown away, I think of all the people who do container gardening for many reasons, some don’t have the space, some rent and aren’t allowed to till up the grass/lawn, others have poor or no soil.

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App uses social media data to make avoiding people easier

A new iPhone app allows users to harness the power of social media to become as anti-social as possible.

Cloak lets users view a map with location data taken from their friends’ Foursquare and Instagram posts in order to avoid contact.

Users can flag specific friends — or all of them — and will receive an alert if they’re nearby. The warning distance ranges between within one block and 2 miles.

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Prepping for an Emergency – Home Disaster Guide

Thanks to Jessica Merritt for this comprehensive guide to surviving natural disasters. This is Part 1 -part 2 tomorrow.

Natural disasters affect every area of America, and no home is immune to the threat of emergencies. These disasters can threaten your property, even your life. And there are simple steps you can take to protect your home and family in the event of an emergency. We’ll share expert tips for preparing your home to survive tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and floods. Being prepared for natural disasters and emergencies can protect your property — and it just might save your life. Be ready by following our guide to natural disaster preparedness.

Emergency Preparedness Basics

For any emergency, you’ll need the basics: a plan and an emergency kit. Be ready for natural disasters with these tips that apply for any emergency.

Home emergency plan:

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Community

Pioneer couple

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I grew up watching Texas Country Reporter, back in the day it was called 4 Country Reporter, that’s when there were only a few TV stations to choose from, channel 4 was a Dallas TV station thus the name was born. This show began back in the early 70s and showcased Texans living simple yet interesting lives, TCR gave us a glimpse into the window of those wonderful people.

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Battery life easily exceeds manufacturers estimates

Recent research just released from Zaragoza University, Spain, by VerticalNews show that battery life, crucial to the economics of off-grid energy – can easily exceed or heavily undershoot the manufacturers estimates.
It all depends on how well you maintain your batteries. IF you baby them along, never falling below 50% power and charnging the regularly, then you can double the life expectancy.

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People

Survivalist shaves her armpits, shocker

Actress Shailene Woodley has been all over the media in recent days with stories of her deep green beliefs and survivalist lifestyle. The 23-year-old actress even gave up her cell phone, according to one report, due to a ‘lack of camaraderie and community’; Shailene studies survival skills in her spare time, including creating fires and shelters in the wilderness; she is very concerned about the environment and for years she had been studying American Indian survival techniques.

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Community

Update on being sick…

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With my latest brush with a pretty major upper respiratory infection (URI), I made the decision to work on my stash of meds and educate myself as much as possible about what to take, how much and when to take it. One really REALLY good source of info is the ThePatriotNurse on YouTube. Chances are you already know about her, but if you don’t, or you haven’t visited her YouTube channel in a while, well you need to go there and check her out.

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Community

7 days without utilities

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I continually talk about being prepared, and I mean for as many things as possible, while it’s not possible to be ready 100% for every possible scenario, it is possible to be ready for as many probabilities as you can. This guy LDSPrepper decided to test his preparation, he turned off his utilities for a week, water, electricity and gas, he video taped his experiences for that week.

The really cool thing about this was he didn’t get everything perfect before he started, he shut everything off as if it happened without warning, he had dirty dishes, his solar system wasn’t fully set up, he needed to water his garden…. After watching all the videos, it’s clear he has some work to do, but this was a really good run for him and I believe we can all learn something from this, I know he did.

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Wenatchee Treehouse in danger of demolition by local council
Urban

“$1m” Tree House under threat

A family in Wenatchee, WA have been told they can only keep their tree house if they takes out a $1M insurance policy in case it falls down

Zeb Postelwait built a tree house for his young sons in the front yard but the council say it is a threat to public safety.
Postelwait disagrees, says it is secure and does not obstruct the sidewalk. The council says that if Postelwait does not remove it, they will have an engineer appraise it, obtain an order to remove it and tear it down – and send him the bill for all costs.

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