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Erik Prince, former Blackwater CEO and retired Navy SEAL, joins Donald Trump in advising that we can work with Putin to defeat a common enemy, Islamic fascism.
Putin is large and in charge in Russia. He is enormously popular with the Russian people, because the country had drifted, post-Soviet communism, kind of off into the abyss,” Prince pointed out. “He’s at least tried to direct the country and keep it together.”
“Do we want a leader exactly like Putin in America?” he asked. “No. Do we want their political system? No way. But Trump is right, in at least that we can work with Putin, because we have a common enemy, and that is Islamic fascism.”
“Believe me, if we could work with Josef Stalin, we could definitely work with Vladimir Putin,” Prince contended. “The Russians, the Soviet Union then, was certainly not our friends during World War II, or during the Cold War, and during World War II they were our allies, and they did most of the heavy lifting that defeated German Nazism.”
“Having Islamic fascism creep out of the Middle East and up into those countries directly affects Russia, and that’s why it matters to Putin,”
Read more here.
Obama punishes Putin, while Trump praises him
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According to Jason L. Riley, Thomas Sowell, who is retiring his syndicated column, once described Milton Friedman as “one of the very few intellectuals with both genius and common sense… ” He (Friedman) “could express himself at the highest analytical levels to his fellow economists in academic publications and still write popular books . . . that could be understood by people who knew nothing about economics.”
The description is an apt one for Mr. Sowell, as well, notes Mr. Riley in the WSJ. While an undergrad student in the early 1990s, Jason Riley discovered Mr. Sowell during a discussion on racial preferences. Sowell’s Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality was recommended to Mr. Riley, who writes, “I retrieved it from the school library that afternoon and read it that same evening. I returned to the library the following day, checked out the remainder of its Sowell collection, and spent the next couple of weeks immersed in his writings.”
Mr. Sowell writes in “plain English,” as he likes to put it, which in and of itself distinguishes him from most intellectuals, who seem allergic to accessible prose. He wants you to understand what he’s saying, not to be impressed with his vocabulary. He trained in economics at the University of Chicago, where professors stressed empiricism and measurement through statistics, so data carry weight with him. The numbers don’t lie, and Mr. Sowell is a numbers guy. He goes where the data lead him, and he accepts the findings, however discomfiting or politically incorrect. His readers appreciate the intellectual honesty and integrity. If you don’t have the data to back up what you’re saying, or if you’re trying to massage the evidence to get a result you prefer, better to avoid arguing with Mr. Sowell.
At 86, Thomas Sowell would like to spend “less time following politics and more time” on his hobbies. “But what it means in practice,” continues Mr. Riley, “is that many readers are losing perhaps the best professor they’ve ever had, even if they never went to college.”
Read more here.
Find Sowell’s latest book, Wealth Poverty and Politics here.
Thomas Sowell to Discuss His Book Wealth, Poverty, and Politics
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 Over the Christmas break we were up in Bartlett, NH skiing where, in between time on the slopes, I read the book Tracking the Wild Coomba by Robert Cocuzzo about the life of the late “frontier” skier Doug Coombs. I say “frontier” because Coombs hated the word “extreme.” To him, that meant risk, and he spent his career teaching his ski clients how to reduce risk in their craft.
Coombs first experienced big mountain skiing at Mt. Washington’s Tuckerman Ravine, not far from our cabin. He would spend weekends camping at the base, working his craft each day. From there he went to Montana State University for the skiing, became a legend at Jackson Hole, turned Alaska’s Chugachs into a ski destination, and finally arrived in the French Alps where he lost his life at the age of 48.
Doug Coombs hated risk. He felt risk was something that could be managed. And he helped his clients manage risk beyond what they believed possible. I related to that while reading his incredible life story, told by Cocuzzo who spent fours years retracing Coombs’ steps.
Imagine skiing down a shower curtain and you can get an idea of what Coombs was skiing. He would bring his most capable clients atop descents he’d refer to as “NBA,” meaning the steepness, like a basketball, is such that you can’t see the bottom as you stand at the top. There were times, Cocuzzo writes, that clients would just freeze with fear and it was at these times when Coombs would come alive coaching them through the turns he expected them to take and believing in them when they did not believe in themselves.
Coombs, when asked who was the best skier in the world, would respond that that’s a stupid question. He said the best skier is the one who is having the most fun. And I would add, the best coach is the one that makes it possible.
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The dangers of inactivity are widely recognized by health professionals. Physical inactivity, best exemplified by prolonged sitting, encourages many chronic diseases–even if you are fit. “In fact, sitting for too long, too often, is an independent risk factor for ill health and reduced longevity,” writes Dr. Mercola.
(P)hysical inactivity raises your risk of general ill health by 114 percent, your risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 82 percent and your risk of depression by 150 percent.
Overall, chronic sitting has a mortality rate similar to smoking.5 It even increases your chances of lung cancer by more than 50 percent. Your risk for uterine and colon cancer also increases by 66 and 30 percent respectively.
 What’s a body to do? Simple. Move. Avoid sitting and get more movement into your life. One book Dr. Mercola recommends is Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World by Kelly Starrett.
It’s filled with helpful guidance that can improve your health and well-being, covering both tips to naturally increase your daily movement and proper body mechanics. It is one of the best books I read this year and I believe it’s an important resource for anyone that has a sitting job.
Dr. Kelly Starrett is a physical therapist who teaches movement and mobility courses to Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard forces and athletes from the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB, as well as to Olympic teams and universities.
As Dr. Mercola notes, most adult Americans spend over 10 hours a day sitting. And 10 hours of stillness, unfortunately, cannot be offset with one hour of exercise. “You ideally require near-continuous movement throughout the day, even if it’s just standing rather than sitting. So, strive to sit for less than three hours a day, and make it a point to walk more.”
From strength training to a stand-up desk to mobility training with a foam roller, read how you can stand up to physical inactivity and improve your neurological health.
Read more here.
Dr. Mercola and Kelly Starrett on New book, Deskbound
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Dr. Mercola explains how “weight training cut men’s risk of dying of cancer by 40 percent and that exercise may be a key in reducing the chances of liver cancer.”
Many studies have also highlighted the role of physical activity in both the prevention and treatment of cancer. Again, one of the primary mechanisms responsible for driving down your cancer risk is the fact that exercise decreases your insulin resistance. By creating a low sugar environment in your body, the growth and spread of cancer cells are significantly discouraged.
Movement also improves circulation, driving more oxygen into your tissues and circulating immune cells in your blood. According to a 2003 paper,12 more than 100 epidemiologic studies looking at the impact of physical activity on cancer prevention reveal that:
“[P]physically active men and women have about a 30 to 40 percent reduction in the risk of developing colon cancer, compared with inactive persons … With regard to breast cancer, there is reasonably clear evidence that physically active women have about a 20 to 30 percent reduction in risk, compared with inactive women.”
This pattern of a 20 to 40 percent risk reduction appears again and again in studies looking at the effects of exercise on cancer, although some show even higher rates of protection. A small sampling of such studies includes the following:
- A recent Danish study, which followed more than 5,130 middle-aged men for 44 years, found that the better a man’s respiratory fitness, the less likely he is to die from cancer. More specifically, for every 10 mL/kg/min increase in VO2 Max at baseline (around the age of 49), the risk of dying from cancer was reduced by 17 percent, and the risk of dying from any cause in the next 40+ years was reduced by 11 percent.13,14
- Being fit in middle age also cut men’s risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer by 55 percent and bowel cancer by 44 percent, and reduced the risk of dying from lung-, bowel- and prostate cancer (if they did get it) by 32 percent.15,16
- Animal research suggests regular exercise may be the key to significantly reduce your chances of developing liver cancer, which is among the most common types of cancer.17,18
- Breast- and colon cancer patients who exercise regularly have half the recurrence rate as non-exercisers.19
- Weight training cut men’s risk of dying from cancer by 40 percent, and similar findings have been reported in other studies involving both men and women.
Read more here.
Dr. Mercola Discusses Super Slow Workout
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One of the “benefits” of being “Your Survival Guy,” is I hear about your survival prep. Take this email I received from my father-in-law Dick Young for example:
E.J., “The Survival Guy”. True story! A couple of days ago I was making my security update rounds and all three of the downstairs flashlights I keep handy were DEAD, not two, but all three. To add injury to insult all three take those not easy to buy at CVS Lithium 123 batteries. I stupidly had zero on hand. To wrap up a foul prep day I bought out the hardware store which did not have enough 123s to allow me to fill my 8 battery Surefire light. I got an “F” for the day in prep. Conclusion: (a) It is counter intuitive to prep properly. (b) Brutal to get your wife to buy into prep. You can imagine the howling when I suck up room in our smallish rear deck of the truck with our jumbo navy seal survival pack. (c) Expensive. Loading up on dozens of Lithium 123 batteries ain’t cheap! (d) Time consuming and inconvenient. In short, very few folk really have the disposition to be 100% properly prepared! It takes a fair amount of time weekly. By example when I get back to Key West I need to empty and re-fill my whole wall of water, a horde of 5 gallon water bottles. And on and on and on we go.
The email reminded me of earlier in the year when I experienced a survival challenge of my own. During a storm, a transformer had come down and caught fire in my backyard. Luckily no one was hurt, but it was a live-fire test of my response skills. Read more on that here.
Electrical fires from transformers are a huge risk to neighborhoods. Take it from me. If there are some near your house have plenty of fire extinguishers at the ready. Walk your neighborhood to locate transformers. Are there any clear risks to you and your family such as low hanging or dead trees? If there are keep an eye on them or call the electric company to look at them.
Keep your cars full of gas. A few Labor Day’s ago a hurricane hit Newport. It wasn’t bad. But our guests had to stay another night. Keep those gas tanks full.
I’ve told you about my Yeti cooler. Becky and I moved all of our frozen, grass-fed, meats to the Yeti and they were still frozen when I unpacked them this morning.
There is no downside to having plenty of cash on hand. Cash works even without power, unlike ATMs.
One thing Becky and I talked about as a dozen or so firemen, police officers, and utility workers descended upon our property was: “This is no longer our property.” It happens that fast. They were in charge and to put it nicely “we were in the way”. Imagine if this was a city-wide event? First, there’s no way a crew of that size would help us as quickly as they did and second, you better be prepared to lock-up your property. An emergency can quickly turn your property into a public place. There is a fine line between who should be there, on your property, and who should not. When the smoke cleared and the firemen were gone I went to the back fence, climbed up to check the damage and there was a guy standing there. I asked him if he was a friend of my neighbor’s and he said “No” he wasn’t. He said he wanted to check out what happened. He had no right being there. He was trespassing. But the cops were gone. He knew that.
Make sure your weapons are easily accessible. I am partial to my Sig Sauer P226 to help me, as they say, fight my way to my shotguns. Here’s our review of our favorite shotguns.
Make sure you have light. I love my Streamlight 88030 ProTac 1L. It uses a CR123A lithium battery. It’s small and it’s powerful. Put it in your pocket and you’re good to go in the dark. And it won’t break the bank.
I also love my SureFire Minimus variable-output LED headlamp because two hands are better than one. I pack this on our boating trips and ski trips. It’s great for when a transformer catches fire in your backyard, cuts the power to your house, and you want to read in bed to calm your nerves so you can sleep.
Have a go kit. Check out our Navy Seal Kit here.
Buy a handful of Henry Survival Rifles for your family and keep one in your car. For the car, store the loaded clip in a separate place from the rifle.
Have plenty of water in your car. Dick Young has all of the above for his frequent north/south trips between Key West and Newport.
Don’t forget, night comes fast when there’s no power. And, as is often the case, this stuff happens at night. Be ready.
Have a prep story to share with me? Email me at: [email protected]
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The American Conservative publisher and my Cato Institute-associated friend John Basil Utley looks at the prospects for avoiding accidental nuclear war.
Our wasteful military budget is overloaded with incredibly expensive aircraft carriers, F-35 fighters, and now another bomber.
Surprisingly, U.S. ICBMs, the Minuteman III, are still kept on two-minute hair-trigger alert still seemingly run by old computers with floppy disks.
Think too of all the new enemies American wars have created in the Muslim World. For some hackers the ultimate dream would be setting off Russia and America to destroy each other!
I dwell on these subjects because I once saw a great city, East Berlin in 1952, flat as far as the eye could see. I know that such destruction can happen again, and that is why I have written in support of civil-defense programs.
It is fitting to hear the howling of the Israeli lobby on Fox News defending its peace-busting settlements. Let’s remember that 30 percent of the aggressive settlers in Gaza were Americans with an American passport in their back pocket. The Lobby, as I have written, is much more related to the military-industrial complex than to the interests of most Jews.
In hours and hours of coverage on Fox and CNN, it was almost impossible to learn that most American Jews oppose the settlements and many supported the (recent) US vote abstention.
Not only J Street, a Jewish group promoting a two-state solution, supported the UN vote. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote on Twitter that most of the world and Israel agreed with Secretary of State John Kerry. As the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman wrote, “what a true friend of Israel would do today is just what Obama and Kerry tried … tell our dear ally that it is driving drunk and needs to stop the settlements.”
Read more here.
INSIDE VIEW !!! US Air Force Minuteman Strategic Missile Silo Mini Documentary
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Writing at The American Conservative Pat Buchanan tells readers: Though every Republican in Congress voted against the Iran nuclear deal, “Tearing it up … is not going to happen,” says Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Hopefully, the chairman speaks for the president-elect.
During the campaign, Donald Trump indicated as much, saying that, though the U.S. got jobbed in the negotiations — “We have a horrible contract, but we do have a contract” — he might not walk away.
To Trump, a deal’s a deal, even a bad one. And we did get taken.
In 2007 and 2011, all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies assured us, “with high confidence,” that Iran did not have an atomic bomb program.
Under the deal, Iran has put two-thirds of the 19,000 centrifuges at Natanz in storage, ceased enriching uranium to 20 percent at Fordow, poured concrete into the core of its heavy water reactor at Arak, and shipped 97 percent of its enriched uranium out of the country. Cameras and United Nations inspectors are all over the place.
Even should Iran decide on a crash program to create enough fissile material for a single A-bomb test, this would take a year, and we would know about it.
Read more here.
Iran vows not to let Trump destroy nuclear deal
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