What kind of ZS items would you be interested in?

Would you rather see shot glasses of pint beer glasses with the ZS logo as give away items? How about a 1/2 gallon growler to carry your draught home in? Tell me what you think in the comment box below.

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Organized Crime, Gangs, and Surviving After TEOTWAWKI

 I pulled this directly from SHTFblog.com. All credit goes to Jarhead Survivor.

 

Organized Crime, Gangs, and Surviving After TEOTWAWKI

by Jarhead Survivor

Over the last week I’ve been reading various stories in the news about gangs.  This story talks about gang members who dropped off thirty-five dead bodies in the middle of a busy street in Mexico City in front of a bunch of commuters.  Police suspect that it was a war between rival gang factions and the losers were the ones dumped on the highway.

Gangs are everywhere these days.  Mexico, which some now consider a failed state, is rife with them.  It is believed by many that the police and government are either in their pockets or so intimidated by them that they won’t take action against them.  If you Google “gangs” you’ll come back with a pile of hits.  Here’s one I found that I’m sharing with you because it tells how gangs are present in many places today – not just in L.A.

I did some research and one of the things that struck me about gangs is that if you’re a poor man or woman with nothing going for you it makes sense to join one.  Stay with me for a minute before you tell me how immoral and wrong they are because I agree with you, but let’s look at it from the point of view of a young man who has nothing.  I don’t care if he’s black, white, Native American, Asian, Spanish, what have you.

This young man grows up in a poor neighborhood and all he knows is that the people with the cool stuff are the gang members who hang tight and aren’t afraid to fight or kill when they need to.  The gang members are never hungry and they get respect from the “civilians” because they’ve got guns and aren’t afraid to use them.  The young man might be constantly hungry or scared of others and when he’s old enough he finally joins the gang for protection.

Even as a junior member he doesn’t have to worry about eating or friendship.  He has to put in work for the gang, but at least he’s got security. He’s got a family and friends who are willing to look out for him as long as he’s willing to look out for them.  It doesn’t matter to him that they sell drugs or kill others, that’s just the way things are and he’s willing to do it because he’s doing it for his family.

After TEOTWAWKI I’d be willing to bet that the crime rate is going to skyrocket.  Organized crime, whether it be a mafia type family business or a gangland organization, will be one of the few ways people will be able to get security.  Would you be willing to be part of a gang if it meant security and food for you and your family?

This should be a much larger post as I’ve only begun to touch on the smallest part of gang information and psychology, such as the different types of gangs out there:   street gangs like the Crips and Bloods; prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood; and Motorcycle gangs like the Hells Angels.  Don’t take them lightly or you could wind up dead.

In the event of TEOTWAWKI they’re already organized to a certain extent and more used to anarchy than your average citizen, so when the lights go out and you’re busy getting your generator out and solar panels working they’re going to be looking for a way to get on top by whatever means necessary and stay there.  Are you ready for that?

-Jarhead Survivor

Here is an article i copied and pasted. I'm not taking credit, just sharing. You can find the link to the actual article HERE. I have written posts in the past on mind controlling parasites. You can see them in the blog archives.

Article:

Mind Control by Parasites

Bill Christensen

Date: 10 February 2006 Time: 01:41 AM ET

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Mind Control by Parasites

Half of the world's human population is infected with Toxoplasma, parasites in the body—and the brain. Remember that.
Toxoplasma gondii is a common parasite found in the guts of cats; it sheds eggs that are picked up by rats and other animals that are eaten by cats. Toxoplasma forms cysts in the bodies of the intermediate rat hosts, including in the brain.
Since cats don't want to eat dead, decaying prey, Toxoplasma takes the evolutionarily sound course of being a "good" parasite, leaving the rats perfectly healthy. Or are they?
Oxford scientists discovered that the minds of the infected rats have been subtly altered. In a series of experiments, they demonstrated that healthy rats will prudently avoid areas that have been doused with cat urine. In fact, when scientists test anti-anxiety drugs on rats, they use a whiff of cat urine to induce neurochemical panic.
However, it turns out that Toxoplasma-ridden rats show no such reaction. In fact, some of the infected rats actually seek out the cat urine-marked areas again and again. The parasite alters the mind (and thus the behavior) of the rat for its own benefit.
If the parasite can alter rat behavior, does it have any effect on humans?
Dr. E. Fuller Torrey (Associate Director for Laboratory Research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute) noticed links between Toxoplasma and schizophrenia in human beings, approximately three billion of whom are infected with T. gondii:

• Toxoplasma infection is associated with damage to astrocytes, glial cells which surround and support neurons. Schizophrenia is also associated with damage to astrocytes.
• Pregnant women with high levels of antibodies to Toxoplasma are more likely to give birth to children who will develop schizophrenia.
• Human cells raised in petri dishes, and infected with Toxoplasma, will respond to drugs like haloperidol; the growth of the parasite stops. Haloperidol is an antipsychotic, used to treat schizophrenia.

Dr. Torrey got together with the Oxford scientists, to see if anything could be done about those parasite-controlled rats that were driven to hang around cat urine-soaked corners (waiting for cats). According to a recent press release, haloperidol restores the rat's healthy fear of cat urine. In fact, antipsychotic drugs were as effective as pyrimethamine, a drug that specifically eliminates Toxoplasma. Are parasites like Toxoplasma subtly altering human behavior? As it turns out, science fiction writers have been thinking about whether or not parasites could alter a human being's behavior, or even take control of a person. In his 1951 novel The Puppet Masters, Robert Heinlein wrote about alien parasites the size of dinner plates that took control of the minds of their hosts, flooding their brains with neurochemicals. In this excerpt, a volunteer strapped to a chair allows a parasite to be introduced; the parasite rides him, taking over his mind. Under these conditions, it is possible to interview the parasite; however, it refuses to answer until zapped with a cattle prod.

He reached past my shoulders with a rod. I felt a shocking, unbearable pain. The room blacked out as if a switch had been thrown.. I was split apart by it; for the moment I was masterless. The pain left, leaving only its searing memory behind. Before I could speak, or even think coherently for myself, the splitting away had ended and I was again safe in the arms of my master...
The panic that possessed me washed away; I was again filled with an unworried sense of well being...
"What are you?"
"We are the people... We have studied you and we know your ways... We come," I went on, "to bring you peace.. and contentment-and the joy of-of surrender." I hesitated again; "surrender" was not the right word. I struggled with it the way one struggles with a poorly grasped foreign language.
"The joy," I repeated, "-the joy of . . .nirvana." That was it; the word fitted. I felt like a dog being patted for fetching a stick; I wriggled with pleasure.

Still not sure that parasites can manipulate the behavior of host organisms? Consider these other cases:

• The lancet fluke Dicrocoelium dendriticum forces its ant host to attach to the tips of grass blades, the easier to be eaten. The fluke needs to get into the gut of a grazing animal to complete its life cycle.
• The fluke Euhaplorchis californiensis causes fish to shimmy and jump so wading birds will grab them and eat them, for the same reason.
• Hairworms, which live inside grasshoppers, sabotage the grasshopper's central nervous system, forcing them to jump into pools of water, drowning themselves. Hairworms then swim away from their hapless hosts to continue their life cycle.

Not all science-fictional parasites are harmful; read about the Crosswell tapeworm from Brian Aldiss' 1969 story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (the basis for the Kubrick/Spielberg film AI), which keeps people who overeat from becoming obese. Not to mention robots based on parasites. Read press release on evidence for link between Toxoplasma and schizophrenia, Suicidal grasshoppers. Story via blogger Carl Zimmer and his readers.
(This Science Fiction in the News story used with permission from Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction.)

• Fine Line Revealed Between Creativity and Insanity
• Brain Breakthrough: Scientists Know What You'll Do

Prepping For College Students, Apartment Dwellers, And People In Tight Spaces

School in back in and the world is getting more chaotic by the day. Living on campus certainly presents some challenges for those of us who are of the prepper state of mind. I spent a few years in the dorms myself. There are lots of regulations and then there is the issues that arise from having a very limited amount of space. It is impossible to be as prepared as a man with 10 acres in the sticks if you are living in a dorm room but there are steps you can take to increase your survivability. This information can be useful for apartment dwellers as well. In the event of a disaster the biggest problem will be your fellow students. Let's face it, college students are generally idiots. They are generally less than half as smart as they think they are and have the skill level of a gnat when it comes to skills that increase survivability. These are the type of people that panic. It is best to keep our dorm room preps quite.

Here is a list of things that you can do to help with your preps while on campus. Keep in mind that this kit is only the essential. It is designed around limited storage space like a dorm room tends to have.

• Hide $50-$100 in your room. Make sure half of it is in $1 bills.
• Keep at least a half of a tank of gas in your vehicle. A campus is generally somewhere that you will want to bug out of if something happens.
• Keep some hand sanitizer handy. A face mask would be a good idea too. Dorms are notorious for viral outbreaks. A serious pathogen can spread like wild fire in dorms.
• No matter how sick you are of ramen noodles you need to have a small stock pile of them. 3600 Calorie ER Bars are great too.
• As I always say, stash some Bic lighters
• Make sure you have flashlights and batteries.
• If your institution has a mass text service sign up for it.
• Get a first aid kit
• Make sure you have a couple of changes of clothes in you bug out bag.
• Have three gallons of water on stand-by.
• Make sure you have a knife. Just be sure that you are not breaking the rules. Most universities have a limit of an 8" blade length allowed on campus.
• Very few colleges allow guns on campus. You can still be close to yours. Join a gym and lock your gun up in your gym locker.
• Make sure you have your emergency documentation in your car and in your room. Don't forget to have your three routes to three different locations in there. Use printed maps. Your handy-dandy GPS might not work when you need it to.
• Put all of these items in a bug out bag. You are basically creating a mini bug out kit.

The next thing a student needs to consider is when it is time to bug out or when bugging in is a better option. If riots break out in your college town it is probably time to get the hell out of town. If an ice storm hits it is time to bug in.  Just make sure you stay informed on the given situation and  stay ahead of the curve. If an infection is spreading throughout the cities and zombies are running rampant you need to bug out and do it before the infection hits your town. Information is key. Your goal is to hit the road before any one else in a bug out situation. People tend to panic a that they become the most dangerous threat of all. If you are at a campus that is far away from home you may want to find some fellow preppers that can help you with the area you are in. It is hard to bug out if you don't know where to go. I like to have three bug out location. One of them is 2 hours away from home, another is four hours away from home, and the third location is six hours away. I also have some local places to go in case a am hit by a very localized disaster that only affects my neighborhood.

How can I learn to increase my survivability?

• Read Zombie Splatter on a regular basis. It is free and your can subscribe via RSS by clicking HERE. Or you can follow ZS by email with the box at the bottom of this page. Be sure to connect with us on facebook and twitter.
• Start listening to The Survival Podcast. The listener feedback shows cover a lot of very important content
• Make sure you have your emergency documentation. Click HERE for a template so you can make you documentation package.
• Check out the ZS Bug Out Bag page to get a better understanding of what a full-sized bug out bag has in it.

I am very interested in your input on this post. If your a living in dorms what kind of input do you have. You can comment using the comment box just below. It is powered by facebook so just login in and leave your comment.

We are still here

It has been little while since the last post. We are still going strong and will be back to regular posting very soon.