10 lessons on prepping from around the world

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Prepping is a human condition practiced across the globe for thousands of years. Customs are influenced by geography, culture, politics, and threat. Here are ten applicable observations on preparedness from around the world.

1. Argentina: Get hard.

Fernando “Ferfal” Aguirre’s The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse is required reading for preppers, and it’s chock-full of real-life lessons from his experiences during Argentina's 2001 economic crisis. But the very first thing he starts with is preparing your body and your mind so you’re not a soft target. Stop being soft. Do difficult things to develop your body and your mind. Go camping. Hit the gym. Get in shape! It’ll do wonders for your health, survivability, and confidence.

Take home point: here’sa simple weightlifting plan that most able-bodied adults can perform. Learn to stand up straight and act confident. Get your dental and health problems fixed while you can—don’t put it off for after stuff hits the fan.

2. Netherlands: Involve the kids!

The motto of the Boy Scouts of America is “Be Prepared” and the organization has taught boys wilderness and practical skills for over 100 years. The Dutch have their own version of inculcating confidence in their children via a cultural tradition known as Dutch Dropping. Kids, starting around the age of 11-12, are dropped off in the forest alone or in small groups at night with minimal gear and instructed to find their way home or to the campsite with ZERO adult assistance. Some nights are tough and miserable, but overall, the practice instills independence, decision-making skills, and is widely practiced.

Take home point: instill grit and self-confidence in your children early.

3. Israel: Always be prepared.

Entire books could be dedicated to the 10/7 attack, but the key takeaway is this: no one saw it coming. The folks attending the Supernova music festival expected a fun party, and what they got instead was hell. Israel is a bit of a special case, but the reality is you never know when a mass shooter or other disaster will strike. Never get too intoxicated, never let your guard down too much, because you never know when your life will change forever.

Take home point: you don’t have to live on hyper-alert (that is grossly unhealthy) but keep your wits about you and have a plan if things go south.

4.Taiwan: Grassroots communities are the best.

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Post-COVID and especially after the start of the Russia-Ukraine War, prepping has exploded in Taiwan. Fearing an imminent blockade and invasion, the Taiwanese have recognized their precarious position. Prepper groups have sprung up across the island and vary in their focus from all-hazards to gear geeks to weaponized resistance forces training with airsoft guns. Skills taught are varied; examples include building an emergency kit, learning first aid, and basic survival proficiencies.

However, some groups go much further and provide instruction on military simulations. Participants run the political gamut and are highly varied in their professions, reflecting a massive cross-section of the island. One common theme that appears across these groups is the adage that disaster can happen at any moment and can consist of assorted hazards. The April 2024 severe earthquake is proof positive of this understanding.

Take home point: community resilience is vital!

5. Bosnia: Get your ham radio license.

During the Bosnian War of the early 1990s, ham radio operators like Himzo Devedzija helped separated families stay in touch via radio. These days, the ubiquity of the internet and smartphones has made ham radio seem obsolete, but radio has a key advantage over more modern and user-friendly tech: it requires practically no infrastructure. Hook a radio up to a battery connected to a solar panel, throw a wire over a tree, and you’re in business. Master digital modes like Winlink and you can even send email over the air. The downside is the equipment is expensive, and you need to take tests with the FCC to obtain the necessary licenses. Your best bet is to contact yournearest ham radio club, who can help prepare you for the tests and recommend the best equipment for your area. But you can do a lot of interesting things even without a license, like listen to worldwide HF transmissions and learn how to track down radio transmitters through foxhunting.

Take home point: pick up a hobby, even if it’s not ham and make it FUN!

6. Russia: Plant a garden.

While the leadership of Russia is commonly maligned, the Russian people are damn tough. They’ve survived Genghis Khan, famines, a communist revolution, and total government collapse. One secret to Russian resiliency? Dacha gardens, which the Russian people have maintained for over 1,000 years. These small backyard gardens account for 3% of Russia’s land but provide over 50% of the country’s food, including 92% of potatoes, 77% of vegetables, 87% of fruit, 59% of meat, and 49% of milk. You don’t have to grow everything overnight, but simply starting with a single raised bed of lettuce and maybe a handful of chickens will give you invaluable real-world experience you can scale when the chips are down.

Take home point: build your resilience in bite-sized (pun intended) chunks.

7. Cyprus: Diversification saves.

During the 2013 financial crisis in Cyprus, Germany agreed to bail out the island, but with some characteristic German austerity: a tax of 6.75 percent from insured deposits up to €100,000 and a 9.9 percent from uninsured amounts over €100,000. People panicked, and Cyprus had to shut down banks for two weeks to avoid a run. Ultimately, depositors lost nearlyhalf of their savings. The crisis in Cyprussparked Bitcoin’s meteoric rise from obscure nerd money to a financial titan as the savvy rich realized that they couldn’t trust the banks. Of course, there are alternative places to store wealth other than a bank, but as for your liquid capital, it pays to diversify. Keep some in cash, Bitcoin, and precious metals.

Take home point: your mother was right, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

8.Japan: Government CAN be helpful.

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Japan overall, and Tokyo specifically, take disaster preparedness quite seriously. The 2024 New Years Day earthquake hammered that point home, yet again. At the national level, the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force is habitually prepared to respond to calamity; everything from earthquakes to typhoons to tsunamis.

As a country, September 1st is nationally designated as Disaster Prevention Day, commemorating the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake which claimed 140,000 lives. School children, businesses, theme parks, and members of the national government participate annually. At the municipal level, Tokyo publishes a very thorough and thoughtful pamphlet on preparedness for its residents (English link here:https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/english/guide/bosai/index.html). Tokyo also boasts the massive Rinkai Disaster Prevention Park, near downtown, that is used both as a tourist attraction and an actual disaster response site.

Take home point: remembrance, codified in national action and tribute, contributes to a culture of preparedness.

9. Finland, Switzerland, Israel: Bunkers aren't mainstream, but the concept is widespread.

You would really have to be a tinfoil hat wearing loon to invest in a bunker, right? Wrong. Switzerland mandates either a personal bunker or a tax for a space in a public bunker. In 2023, Finland ascertained it had over 50,000 bunkers, enough to shelter nearly 90% of its population. For these countries, the shelters are due to nuclear fears. Israeli law stipulates residential homes should possess a Merkhav Mugan (translation: protected space) to protect from conventional rocket and mortar attacks. Some countries and some areas are at higher risk for conventional or nuclear attack. It is folly to ignore this.

Take home point: the need for a nuclear bunker at home should not be a top prepping priority, but many areas of the US could greatly benefit from a reinforced room (e.g. panic room, tornado, or hurricane shelter) to mitigate threats.

10. United Kingdom, Canada, Australia: International preparedness is growing.

Although the tide is turning (slowly), one negative export from America on prepping, especially to the Western World, is that prepping is fringe and even anti-social, if not downright dangerous. Fortunately, things are changing for the better. The United Kingdom is, at least anecdotally, seeing an uptick in interest. The reality series Alone Australia, a spin-off of the American show where survivalists test their wits in nature, is a hit. A December 2023 survey of Canadians found 7% considered themselves preppers with British Columbia reporting the highest levels. Given wildfires, home prices, and general angst regarding a host of potential crises, it’s not hard to see why many are changing their views regarding preparedness.

Take home point: prepping has been a human staple for millennia; the world is rediscovering this and taking action.

About the authors:

Josh Centers has no masters degrees, but he does own four chickens along with some meat rabbits on his Tennessee compound. He runs unprepared.life, the best-selling Substack newsletter on preparedness, where he discusses subjects like food storage, nuclear war preparations, homeschooling, and the importance of cleaning your dryer vents. His views absolutely do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the Army.

Dr. Chris Ellis has four masters degrees and earned his PhD at Cornell University. He is a Colonel in the Army who specializes in a variety of disaster and homeland defense initiatives. His views are from his studies and experience and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense, the Army, or his current command. Sadly, Chris does not own any chickens.

Trump branded a tyrant, but did Obama outdo him on deportations?

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MSNBC and CNN want you to think the president is a new Hitler launching another Holocaust. But the actual deportation numbers are nowhere near what they claim.

Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews, in an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta, compared Trump’s immigration policies to Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust. He claimed that Hitler didn’t bother with German law — he just hauled people off to death camps in Poland and Hungary. Apparently, that’s what Trump is doing now by deporting MS-13 gang members to El Salvador.

Symone Sanders took it a step further. The MSNBC host suggested that deporting gang-affiliated noncitizens is simply the first step toward deporting black Americans. I’ll wait while you try to do that math.

The debate is about control — weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent.

Media mouthpieces like Sanders and Matthews are just the latest examples of the left’s Pavlovian tribalism when it comes to Trump and immigration. Just say the word “Trump,” and people froth at the mouth before they even hear the sentence. While the media cries “Hitler,” the numbers say otherwise. And numbers don’t lie — the narrative does.

Numbers don’t lie

The real “deporter in chief” isn’t Trump. It was President Bill Clinton, who sent back 12.3 million people during his presidency — 11.4 million returns and nearly 900,000 formal removals. President George W. Bush, likewise, presided over 10.3 million deportations — 8.3 million returns and two million removals. Even President Barack Obama, the progressive darling, oversaw 5.5 million deportations, including more than three million formal removals.

So how does Donald Trump stack up? Between 2017 and 2021, Trump deported somewhere between 1.5 million and two million people — dramatically fewer than Obama, Bush, or Clinton. In his current term so far, Trump has deported between 100,000 and 138,000 people. Yes, that’s assertive for a first term — but it's still fewer than Biden was deporting toward the end of his presidency.

The numbers simply don’t support the hysteria.

Who's the “dictator” here? Trump is deporting fewer people, with more legal oversight, and still being compared to history’s most reviled tyrant. Apparently, sending MS-13 gang members — violent criminals — back to their country of origin is now equivalent to genocide.

It’s not about immigration

This debate stopped being about immigration a long time ago. It’s now about control — about weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent. It’s about turning Donald Trump into the villain of every story, facts be damned.

If the numbers mattered, we’d be having a very different national conversation. We’d be asking why Bill Clinton deported six times as many people as Trump and never got labeled a fascist. We’d be questioning why Barack Obama’s record-setting removals didn’t spark cries of ethnic cleansing. And we’d be wondering why Trump, whose enforcement was relatively modest by comparison, triggered lawsuits, media hysteria, and endless Nazi analogies.

But facts don’t drive this narrative. The villain does. And in this script, Trump plays the villain — even when he does far less than the so-called heroes who came before him.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Can Trump stop the blackouts that threaten America's future?

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If America wants to remain a global leader in the coming decades, we need more energy fast.

It's no secret that Glenn is an advocate for the safe and ethical use of AI, not because he wants it, but because he knows it’s coming whether we like it or not. Our only option is to shape AI on our terms, not those of our adversaries. America has to win the AI Race if we want to maintain our stability and security, and to do that, we need more energy.

AI demands dozens—if not hundreds—of new server farms, each requiring vast amounts of electricity. The problem is, America lacks the power plants to generate the required electricity, nor do we have a power grid capable of handling the added load. We must overcome these hurdles quickly to outpace China and other foreign competitors.

Outdated Power Grid

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Our power grid is ancient, slowly buckling under the stress of our modern machines. AAI’s energy demands could collapse it without a major upgrade. The last significant overhaul occurred under FDR nearly a century ago, when he connected rural America to electricity. Since then, we’ve patched the system piecemeal, but it’s still the same grid from the 1930s. Over 70 percent of the powerlines are 30 years old or older, and circuit breakers and other vital components are in similar condition. Most people wouldn't trust a dishwasher that was 30 years old, and yet much of our grid relies on technology from the era of VHS tapes.

Upgrading the grid would prevent cascading failures, rolling blackouts, and even EMP attacks. It would also enable new AI server farms while ensuring reliable power for all.

A Need for Energy

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Earlier this month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt appeared before Congress as part of an AI panel and claimed that by 2030, the U.S. will need to add 96 gigawatts to our national power production to meet AI-driven demand. While some experts question this figure, the message is clear: We must rapidly expand power production. But where will this energy come from?

As much as eco nuts would love to power the world with sunshine and rainbows, we need a much more reliable and significantly more efficient power source if we want to meet our electricity goals. Nuclear power—efficient, powerful, and clean—is the answer. It’s time to shed outdated fears of atomic energy and embrace the superior electricity source. Building and maintaining new nuclear plants, along with upgraded infrastructure, would create thousands of high-paying American jobs. Nuclear energy will fuel AI, boost the economy, and modernize America’s decaying infrastructure.

A Bold Step into the Future

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This is President Trump’s chance to leave a historic mark on America, restoring our role as global leaders and innovators. Just as FDR’s power grid and plants made America the dominant force of the 20th century, Trump could upgrade our infrastructure to secure dominance in the 21st century. Visionary leadership must cut red tape and spark excitement in the industry. This is how Trump can make America great again.

POLL: Is K2-18b proof of alien LIFE in the cosmos?

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Are we alone in the universe?

It's no secret that Glenn keeps one eye on the cosmos, searching for any signs of ET. Late last week, a team of astronomers at the University of Cambridge made an exciting discovery that could change how we view the universe. The astronomers were monitoring a distant planet, K2-18b, when the James Webb Space Telescope detected dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide, two atmospheric gases believed only to be generated by living organisms. The planet, which is just over two and a half times larger than Earth, orbits within the "habitable zone" of its star, meaning the presence of liquid water on its surface is possible, further supporting the possibility that life exists on this distant world.

Unfortunately, humans won't be able to visit K2-18b to see for ourselves anytime soon, as the planet is about 124 light-years from Earth. This means that even if we had rockets that could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 124 years to reach the potentially verdant planet. Even if humans made the long trek to K2-18b, they would be faced with an even more intense challenge upon arrival: Gravity. Assuming K2-18b has a similar density to Earth, its increased size would also mean it would have increased gravity, two and a half times as much gravity, to be exact. This would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for humans to live or explore the surface without serious technological support. But who knows, give Elon Musk and SpaceX a few years, and we might be ready to seek out new life (and maybe even new civilizations).

But Glenn wants to know what you think. Could K2-18b harbor life on its distant surface? Could alien astronomers be peering back at us from across the cosmos? Would you be willing to boldly go where no man has gone before? Let us know in the poll below:

Could there be life on K2-18b?

Could there be an alien civilization thriving on K2-18b?

Will humans develop the technology to one day explore distant worlds?

Would you sign up for a trip to an alien world?

Is K2-18b just another cold rock in space?

Our children are sick, and Big Pharma claims to be the cure, but is RFK Jr. closer to proving they are the disease?

For years, neurological disorders in our children have been on the rise. One in nine children in the U.S. has been diagnosed with ADHD, and between 2016 and 2022, more than one million kids were told they suffer from the disorder. Similarly, autism diagnoses have increased by 175 percent over the past decade. RFK Jr. pledged to investigate the rising rates of neurological disorders as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and this week, he announced a major initiative.

Earlier this week, RFK Jr. announced that the HHS has embarked on a massive testing and research effort to uncover the root causes of autism and the sharp spike in recent diagnoses. The HHS Secretary vowed that the results will be available by September of this year, leaving many skeptical about the study's rigor. Conversely, some speculate that the HHS may have unpublished studies revealing critical insights into these disorders, just waiting to see the light of day.

Glenn brought up a recent article by the Daily Wire referencing a New York Times piece in which experts questioned the legitimacy of ADHD diagnoses. Glenn agreed and suggested that people are just wired differently; they learn, work, and study differently, and the cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all school system simply fails to accommodate everyone.

New York Times' ADHD Admission

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Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article that made a shocking admission: there are no concrete biological markers for ADHD. The clinical definition of ADHD is no longer supported by the evidence, and there are no physical, genetic, or chemical identifiers for the disorder, nor is there any real way to test for it. The paper also admitted that people diagnosed with ADHD would suddenly find that they no longer had any symptoms after a change of environment, profession, or field of study. This suggests that "ADHD" might simply be a matter of interests and skills, not a chronic brain sickness.

The most horrifying implication of this admission is that millions of people, including children, have been prescribed heavy mind-altering drugs for years for a disorder that lacks real evidence of its very existence. These drugs are serious business and include products such as Adderall, Ritalin, and Desoxyn. All of these drugs are considered "Schedule II," which is a drug classification that puts them on the same level as cocaine, PCP, and fentanyl. Notably, Desoxyn is chemically identical to methamphetamine, differing only in its production in regulated laboratories rather than illegal settings.

Worse yet, studies show that these medications, like Desoxyn, often provide no long-term benefits. Testing demonstrated that in the short term, there were some positive effects, but after 36 months, there was no discernible difference in symptoms between people who were medicated and those who were not. For decades, we have been giving our children hardcore drugs with no evidence of them working or even that the disorder exists.

RFK Jr's Autism Study

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Autism rates are on the rise, and RFK Jr. is going to get to the bottom of it. In the year 2000, approximately one in 150 children was diagnosed with autism, but only 20 years later, the rate had increased to one in 36. While some claim that this is simply due to more accurate testing, RFK Jr. doesn't buy it and is determined to discover what is the underlying cause. He is an outspoken critic of vaccines, asserting that the true scope of their side effects has been buried by greed and corruption to sell more vaccines.

RFK Jr. doesn't plan on stopping at vaccines. Similar to ADHD, RFK Jr. suspects other environmental factors could increase of autism or exacerbate symptoms. Factors like diet, water quality, air pollution, and parenting approaches are all under investigation. It's time to bring clarity to the neurological disorders that plague our nation, cut through the corruption, and reveal the healing truth.

Neurological Intervention

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Big Pharma has been all too happy to sit back and watch as the rate of neurological disorders climbs, adding to the ever-growing list of permanent patients who are led to believe that their only choice is to shell out endless money for treatments, prescriptions, and doctor visits. Rather than encouraging lifestyle changes to improve our well-being, they push ongoing medication and costly treatments.

All RFK Jr. is doing is asking questions, and yet the backlash from the "experts" is so immense that one can't help but wonder what they could be hiding. Both Glenn and RFK Jr. have their suspicions of Big Pharma, and the upcoming HHS study might be one of the most important steps to making America healthy again.