Into The Grey Zone The future is always a grey zone, never black and white.

Ham radio operators were fired upon when they tried to reach Port Au Prince to assist in setting up communications. They were fired upon by escaped convicts. Gangs return to Haiti slum after quake prison break. The gangs also went to the Justice Ministry and burned everything that still stood in order to destroy all criminal records forever in Haiti. They are armed with automatic weapons. They are killers. And now they are back in the population, en masse.

There are reasons why I tell people that they need to be prepared to defend themselves. Those of you who think you are safe in some gun control country like Canada or Britain and who live out in the countryside might want to ask some of the Serb rural folk how that turned out for them. Or maybe even how the wealthy fared in the former USSR as it crumbled.

Those bent on evil towards their fellow man will always find a way to arm themselves. Britain has a larger firearms problem now than any time in the last 120 years and what is the British response? To propose more gun control laws. Gee, the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Some of you don't like this. Some of you will rail against it. Too bad. Homo sapiens is the red toothed ape. He is a murderer and a thief, by evolutionary selection. Wishing won't change that. Wishing didn't help the people in Haiti either as the machinegun and machete armed gangs descended on their neighborhoods, did it?

As civilization continues the slow slide into the abyss, you need several things, among them are remoteness from most people and a way to defend yourself. If you don't have those, I don't care how much food you can grow or how many PV cells you have or how good your insulation is. No, I am not talking of living like a hermit in a cabin. Find a small rural town at least 4 hours from any city over 100,000 population, preferably from any over 50,000 population. Find that town, become a member, become part of the community, and be prepared to defend it, even while you plant your garden, tend your goats, and repair your house.

At its peak, Rome was a million people. Not long after it was 30,000. No, those people didn't just all migrate to the countryside to become peasants. Most of them died. A large number of them were deliberately killed. Past is prologue. Serbia, Haiti, Somalia, Iraq - As Matt Savinar occasionally says, "The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."

You still have some time, people. Use it.

And those of you who think things can still be fixed... good luck to you. You'll need that and an entire Santa Claus sleigh of miracles. Everyone else should be getting very practical already.