Emergency Lifehacks:Plan Ahead

I am all for people making any level of preparation for emergencies.
This is kind of a brief, novice level kind of disaster kit. The problem is that the thinking is kind of shallow.

As an example CPR is good training if you can get the person to medical attention. The people that are 'saved' by CPR don't jump to their feet and live long happy lives, they are carried by ambulance to the ER. There isn't much value in have a giant first aid kit that you don't know how to use.

It would be better to have a number of first aid kits full of stuff that you can actually operate.

This is kind of a clever idea, but I am not sure that it is really that much better than having your data on a thumb drive. I can't see needing to look at my birthcertificate on my iphone.

Link

Having more "options" is not always a good thing, especially if those options lead to irrelevant courses of action. A case in point is private citizens with handcuffs - there is no need to 'citizens arrest' assailants and home invaders. It is an example of taking a set outside the scope of operations and buying more risk and liability for no practical benefit.

From the Consumerist: TSA Brings All The Signage Of Skiing To Security Lines, None Of The Fun

Just what I needed, another layer of stupid on top of all of the TSA's idiotic security measures. I fly more than 100,000 miles a year, so I suppose that makes me a "black diamond" expert traveller.

From the TSA website this scheme boils down to six identical lanes. Who in their right mind self-selects being in a slower line? I can already predict the argument with some TSA flunky about which line I am supposed to be in, as if I didn't have enough problems arguing with the airline about their own policies.

Paris is burning again. Over 30 police officers have been shot. It doesn't look like the French response has changed since two years ago, or has become any more effective.

On the political side, I have been to several former French colonies and there is a uniform hatred of the French by their inhabitants. Since the end of colonialism most of these nations have been iterating through new governments and unrest, so the local solution is generally some kind of fight against the government. They are not immigrating to France to become French.

Glenn Reynolds sparked some thoughts with his good but poorly named
We're All Soldiers of Fortune Now piece about survivalism. I understand the reference, it's just that while 'Soldier of Fortune' was 80's slang for survivalists, this year it means mercenary again.

I am less interested in the politics of the new survivalists than some of the other factors surrounding this new trend. I applaud any level of return to valuing self-reliance, and if it is the environmentalist movement that is pushing it so much the better.