The Rescue Tool by Victorinox of Switzerland comes with a matching nylon holster that, like the tool itself, can be found in low light.

Our Elegant Victorinox Swiss Army Rescue Tool

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

http://www.infowars.com/senators-demand-military-lock-up-americans-in-battlefield-defined-as-outside-your-window/

As  of today, basic liberties may be out the window...READ THIS ARTICLE!

• Toasty Feet Insoles are made of material developed by NASA. They are thin, lightweight and will keep your feet warm in the winter under the coldest conditions. Please visit Nolan and his son  at The Perfect Present.
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• Spare Spike Ice-Grips--a Lifesaver! Available at The Perfect Present

An Oscar-nominated film made beautifully with a low budget in eastern Europe, Zelary portrays the dangers of living under an oppressive regime. Nazis and then communists figure large in this touching, gripping movie from 2003. Subtitled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reader

The Reader is a film about the banality of evil, of a nation that stood by mutely intimidated by an oppressive, murderous regime--one that scapegoated certain participants many years later, and let the rest go unchallenged.

~~M-J

Frying Eggs Neatly in the Revolutionary Green Pan

The foods that I have cooked in my Green Pan slide right out; resultant residue is easily rinsed off, making clean-up easy and water-efficient. ©M-J de Mesterton

Click Here to Read M-J's Latest Elegant Survivalist Posts

Article on Bedbug Plague in Sweden

THE KITE RUNNER

A beautiful, horrifying, true story by  Khaled Hosseini.

OSAMA

(No, it is not about the late saboteur of the same name)

"But oh, oh, oh, who's got the last laugh now?"--the old standard song asks. The listeria outbreak generated by poorly-washed cantaloupe melons reminds me of something egregious that I brought to the attention of the Health Department at Princeton in the late 1990s, which they flippantly laughed-off and ridiculed. Yet, people are now dying from that very sort of carelessness and ignorance. I wrote about the experience in 2007 on this website's Elegant Cuisine page:

Don't buy prepared foods at the supermarket. Instead of spending a lot on dubiously produced dishes, you are better off spending twenty minutes cooking, and will be in control of what goes into your dishes, as well as of its quality and cleanliness. Many expensive restaurants get demerits from their respective municipal health departments. Some of them are shut down for infractions. Cooks at restaurants are often carriers of hepatitis and other ills. Roaches, mice, rats and flies get into the food supply in restaurants, and carry disease. Imagine, then, the food-preparation area in the back room of a supermarket, with various non-professional employees having a hand (perhaps dirty hands) in making your food. I once bought half a watermelon from a fancy supermarket in Princeton, New Jersey. When I got it home, I noticed that they had carelessly cut it in half while it had a coating of dirt and no doubt manure on its outside--their knife must have gone right through that hazardous material, causing the interior of the melon to be contaminated. I had to return the offending item to that store, and talk to a callous store manager. His lack of proper response brought me to the health department at Princeton Borough Hall, where I was met with more complacency. No one cares what goes into your food like you do. Think of how infrequently supermarkets are inspected. Protect yourself and save money by buying your own ingredients, preferably from factories with standards.

The officials are recommending care in washing produce to prevent listeria and other food-borne infections. To prevent catching a disease (or two) from fresh fruits and vegetables, do not buy them pre-cut or halved at the market. Take them home whole, and scrub them with vinegar or anti-bacterial soap until you see no vestige of dirt on their outsides before cutting into them. 

©M-J de Mesterton

September 10, 2009 at 7:08 am, by M-J de Mesterton

Save Our Corn

To produce one gallon of ethanol, fifty gallons of water must be used. How exactly is this “helping the planet”, especially since auto-emissions from ethanol are equal to those of regular gasoline (petrol)? And the ethanol craze has caused the price of corn (maize) to go sky-high. Derivatives of corn permeate the food-supply, thus its high price trickles over to innumerable food products. Corn is the food staple of poor nations in the western hemisphere. Eschewing gas and oil in favor of ethanol has devastating consequences for nations dependent on corn, not to mention those addicted to Cheetos!~~M-J, January 2009

Do Environmentalists Hate Poor People?

Corn (maize), traditionally a popular foodstuff in the Americas, is now used to produce a motor fuel called ethanol. Ethanol is created by converting corn’s starches into a combustible liquid that can be mixed with gasoline, or burned straight, if the vehicle in question has had the modifications needed to do so.The environmentalists’ propaganda claims that ethanol is good for the earth because it will reduce American dependence on foreign oil. However, there are mixed data about perceived energy gains, and evidence of detrimental environmental impact from the use of ethanol. In 2006, University of Minnesota researchers found that ethanol returns only 25 percent more energy than it takes to produce it. Detractors emphasise that the study did not calculate all the variables that go into the ethanol-making process–to wit, the power it takes to run irrigation equipment used to water the corn crops, the power consumed in making the necessary fertilizers, the cost of farm equipment used to harvest it, and of the fuel required to power those machines. Scientific studies have found that burning ethanol will produce smog–namely, ozone pollution. Everyone wants to get into the ethanol act: auto-makers, who want their colossal S.U.V.s and trucks to seem like they consume less fuel (they don’t), and the oil industry (it sells oil to producers of ethanol). Ethanol production in the United States rose from 1.6 billion gallons in 2000 to 5 billion gallons in 2006. This new endeavour is diverting at least 20 percent of the U.S. corn crop away from the food industry. Thus, a tortilla crisis burgeons in Mexico, where masa and corn-flour prices have gone up at least 25 percent in price, in a country with a large population of very poor citizens.

The proposed “tortilla tax” in southwestern states presents an ironic dilemma: how is it more socially and environmentally responsible to starve the poor to run one’s S.U.V? Soybean prices are expected to hit their second-highest ever, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports, thanks to the diversion of soybean oil to use as an alternative, “bio-diesel” fuel. The amount of soybeans used for processing biofuel rather than for food has jumped from 2 percent to 12 percent, and is expected to go much higher. So far, Americans have not seemed to notice what is happening to the price of soybean and corn-based comestibles. Just wait till they see the price of beer bubbling up because of the agricultural focus on corn and soybeans, which results in farming fewer barley and hops. The environmentalism cult has already ruined the abundant farming tradition in California’s Central Valley, because of their deference to a minnow that no one had previously heard of–they are “protecting” the miniature, non-food fish while forcing farms to go fallow. These false philanthropists pressured and threatened California leaders to prohibit use of river-water for crops. They don’t want America’s farms to be fertile enough to produce food, but still believe that their “cause” makes the morally superior. Well, how benevolent are they, really, when they cause people to starve because of the lack of produce from western America’s best farming region, not to mention making hundreds of farming families go out of business? How is that good for either people or the economy? A large portion of the enviro-cult is composed of trust-fund babies who couldn’t care less about the realities of average people’s lives; they are a new class of oppressors, just like the ones they claim to abhor. They need to look in the mirror and analyse just how devoid of brotherly love they are, when they sacrifice their fellow human-beings for the sake of “Gaia”. The prices of food will be astronomical as a result of their thug-like behaviour, as I have been saying for many months since learning of the California travesty. Coupled with the new focus on “bio-fuels’, which are a waste of water, oil and other types of energy, the misanthropic environmental cult is going to be controlling your food costs to a degree that even a superpower cannot support. This wouldn’t have happened if certain American leaders hadn’t given into the demands of environmental thugs. Will the U.S. continue to shoot itself in the foot until they are dependent on foreign oil and foreign food as well? Caving in to domestic terrorists will turn freedom’s paradise into a deprived, depraved Hell. ~~Copyright M-J de Mesterton, 2009

"The American Nostradamus" Gerald Celente, who appears on George Noory show often, made these predictions for 2010. Note his mention of affordable elegance and sophistication, which has been the theme here at Elegant Survival since 2006, and numerous other things relevant to this website:

Following are Gerald Celente's Forecasts for 2010: · The Crash of 2010: The Bailout Bubble is about to burst. Be prepared for the onset of the Greatest Depression. · Depression Uplift: The pursuit of elegance and affordable sophistication will raise spirits and profits. · Terrorism 2010: Years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq ­ and now Pakistan ­ have intensified anti-American sentiment. 2010 will be the year of the lone-wolf, self-radicalized gunman. · Neo-Survivalism: A new breed of survivalist is devising ingenious stratagems to beat the crumbling system. And, they're not all heading for the hills with AK-47's and pork & beans. · Not Welcome Here: Fueled by fear and resentment, a global anti-immigration trend will gather force and serve as a major plank in building a new political party in the US. · TB or Not TB: With two-thirds of Americans Too Big (TB) for their own good (and everyone else's), 2010 will mark the outbreak of a "War on Fat," providing a ton of business opportunities. · Mothers of Invention: Taking off with the speed of the Internet revolution, "Technology for the Poor" will be a major trend in 2010, providing products and services for newly downscaled Western consumers and impoverished consumers everywhere. · Not Made In China: A "Buy Local," "My Country First" protectionist backlash will deliver a big "No" to unrestrained globalism and open solid niches for local and domestic manufacturers. · The Next Big Thing: Just as the traditional print media (newspapers/magazines) were scooped by Internet competition, so too will new communication technologies herald the end of the TV networks as we know them.

Spare Spike Ice Grips fit any shoes or boots, and will keep you from dangerous falls in various environments.

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