What is your ideal survival tool(s)?

What are your ideal survival tools for camping, the car/truck, the bug out bag, the fishing hole, a day hike? Share your insights with the rest of us.

- My choice for daily carry as a money clip is the Gerber mini-covert .
- I keep a swiss army knife and a Fenix TK20 tied together in my jacket pocket.
- A Fisher space pen in my pocket.  My salesman brother sold me on this one so you never miss sighing a deal!
- Travel first aid kit and Gerber sport utility pack in every vehicle.
- Last but not least a ParaCord survival bracelet on my wrist.

A plea to Congress

Senator/Representative,
The current health care bill before the Senate is a prime example of why our legislative process is corrupted and broken.  It appears that Sen. Mary Landrieu did not support the bill until extorting $300M from the Democratic leadership.  Every Senator, regardless of party, has a moral obligation to reject this bill solely based upon this blatant selling of votes.  This is a perfect example of the root cause of the problems in our legislative process.  Sen. Landrieu may have secured a few dollars for her state but at price of our nation?  Individual legislators earmark bills with pet projects with utter disregard of the impact upon our nation as a whole.  Our bankrupt nation is on the verge of economic collapse and the spending continues with no concern beyond state borders or the next election cycle.  The average citizen is willing to do their part but Congress has do do theirs by cutting spending to reduce our deficit.

Concerned Citizen

Brain Food 11/23/09

Thought of the Day (If only congress would listen)-
Rather go to bed with out dinner than to rise in debt.
Benjamin Franklin 

This Day in History -  

November 23, 1903

Colorado governor sends militia to Cripple Creek

Determined to crush the union of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), Colorado Governor James Peabody sends the state militia into the mining town of Cripple Creek.
The strike in the gold mines of Cripple Creek began that summer. William "Big Bill" Haywood's Western Federation of Miners called for a sympathy strike among the underground miners to support a smelter workers' strike for an eight-hour day. The WFM, which was founded in 1893 in Montana, had already been involved in several violent strikes in Colorado and Idaho. By the end of October, the call for action at Cripple Creek had worked, and a majority of mine and smelter workers were idle; Cripple Creek operations ground to a halt. Eager to resume mining and break the union, the mine owners turned to Governor Peabody, who agreed to provide state militia protection for replacement workers.
Outraged, the miners barricaded roads and railways, but by the end of September more than a thousand armed men were in Cripple Creek to undermine the strike. Soldiers began to round up union members and their sympathizers-including the entire staff of a pro-union newspaper-and imprison them without any charges or evidence of wrongdoing. When miners complained that the imprisonment was a violation of their constitutional rights, one anti-union judge replied, "To hell with the Constitution; we're not following the Constitution!"
Such tyrannical tactics swung control of the strike to the more radical elements in the WFM, and in June 1904, Harry Orchard, a professional terrorist employed by the union, blew up a railroad station, which killed 13 strikebreakers. This recourse to terrorism proved a serious tactical mistake. The bombing turned public opinion against the union, and the mine owners were able to freely arrest and deport the majority of the WFM leaders. By midsummer, the strike was over and the WFM never again regained the power it had previously enjoyed in the Colorado mining districts.

Brain Food 11/20/09

Quote of the day - 

Never confuse movement with action.
Ernest Hemingway 

This day in history - 

November 20, 1789

New Jersey ratifies the Bill of Rights

On this day in 1789, New Jersey ratifies the Bill of Rights, becoming the first state to do so. New Jersey’s action was a first step toward making the first 10 amendments to the Constitution law and completing the revolutionary reforms begun by the Declaration of Independence.

The Anti-Federalist critics of the U.S. Constitution were afraid that a too-strong federal government would become just another sort of the monarchical regime from which they had recently been freed. They believed that the Constitution gave too much power to the federal government by outlining its rights but failing to delineate the rights of the individuals living under it. Before the Massachusetts ratifying convention would accept the Constitution, then, which they finally did in February 1788, the document’s Federalist supporters had to promise to create a Bill of Rights to be amended to the Constitution immediately upon the creation of a new government under the document. This helped to assuage the Anti-Federalists’ concerns.

As promised, the newly elected Congress drafted the Bill of Rights on December 25, 1789. Drafted by James Madison and loosely based on Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, the first 10 amendments give the following rights to all United States citizens:

1. Freedom of religion, speech and assembly
2. Right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of a well-regulated militia
3. No forcible quartering of soldiers during peacetime
4. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure
5. Right to a grand jury for capital crimes and due process. Protection from double jeopardy, self-incrimination and public confiscation of private property without "just compensation"
6. Right to "speedy and public" trial by jury and a competent defense
7. Right to trial by jury for monetary cases above $20
8. Protection against "excessive" bail or fines and "cruel and unusual" punishments
9. Rights not enumerated are "retained by the people"
10. Rights not given to the federal government or prohibited the state governments by the Constitution, "are reserved to the States... or to the people"

Brian Food for 11/13/09

Thought of the day - 

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't.
Anatole France 

This day in history - 

November 13, 1789

First presidential tour concludes

George Washington, inaugurated as the first president of the United States in April, returns to Washington at the end of his first presidential tour.
For four weeks, Washington traveled by stagecoach through New England, visiting all the northern states that had ratified the U.S. Constitution. Washington, the great Revolutionary War hero and first leader of the new republic, was greeted by enthusiastic crowds wherever he went. Major William Jackson, who was Washington's aide-de-camp during the Revolutionary War, accompanied the president, along with a private secretary and nine servants, including several slaves. The group traveled as far north as Kittery, Maine, which was still a part of Massachusetts at the time.
Two years later, President Washington embarked on his first presidential visit to the southern states, making a 1,887-mile round-trip journey from his estate at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Brain Food 11/8/09

Thought of the Day -

The mistakes made by Congress wouldn't be so bad if the next Congress didn't keep trying to correct them.
Cullen Hightower

Brain Food 11/7/09

Thought of the day -

I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it.
Alexander Woollcott

Brain Food for 11/6/09

Thought of the Day - 

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
Henry Ford 

Brain Food for 11/6/09

Thoughts of the Day - 

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
Gore Vidal 

 

The Meaning Of Our Flag

Henry Ward Beecher If one asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him: It means just what Concord and Lexington meant, what Bunker Hill meant. It means the whole glorious Revolutionary War. It means all that the Declaration of Independence meant. It means all that the Constitution of our people, organizing for justice, for liberty and for happiness, meant.
Under this banner rode Washington and his armies. Before it Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on the highlands at West Point. When Arnold would have surrendered these valuable fortresses and precious legacies, his night was turned into day and his treachery was driven away by beams of light from this starry banner.
It cheered our army, driven out from around New York, and in their painful pilgrimages through New Jersey. This banner streamed in light over the soldiers' heads at Valley Forge and at Morristown. It crossed the waters rolling with ice at Trenton, and when its stars gleamed in the morning with a victory, a new day of hope dawned on the despondency of this nation.
Our Flag carries American ideas, American history and American feelings. Beginning with the Colonies, and coming down to our time, in its sacred heraldry, in its glorious insignia, it has gathered and stored chiefly this supreme idea: divine right of liberty in man. Every color means liberty; every thread means liberty; every form of star and beam or stripe of light means liberty - not lawlessness, but organized, institutional liberty - liberty through law, and laws for liberty!
This American Flag was the safeguard of liberty. Not an atom of crown was allowed to go into its insignia. Not a symbol of authority in the ruler was permitted to go into it. It was an ordinance of liberty by the people, for the people. That it meant, that it means, and, by the blessing of God, that it shall mean to the end of time!

November Free Giveaway!

Register at SunflowerAmmo.com to be eligible for the November free drawing.  The lucky winner for November will receive a paracord survival bracelet.