The LifeHammer as purchased does not come with any mounting hardware, a puzzle they leave you to figure out. After several bad experiences with all manner of adhesives on other equipment, I strongly suggest you disregard the manufacturers claim that any sort of adhesive tape will do. For going into plastic interior panels, I’ve found wood screws self-tap easily and hold well. A 5/8-ths inch #6 screw works well in most cases, and is short enough it won’t damage anything the auto maker might have hidden under the panel.

For those of us with a Discovery, the factory-installed overhead shelf/console has a large void in the center rear. This area is too far back to be a useful location for a display or gauge cluster, has no available OEM accessories to fill it, and is an awkward place for auxiliary switches. Ultimately it is empty, sturdy mounting space, easily accessible from by both driver and passenger, serving little other purpose. Once the LifeHammer is installed, all of the original access panels, switches, and lighting remain unaffected.

Once installed, this location is easily accessible while strapped into either the driver or front passenger seats. The bracket itself is tight enough the hammer isn’t going anywhere (the roof is actually a suggested location by the manufacturer), and the entire assembly sits high enough it does not block access to the sunroof controls.

Down the road, the LifeHammer bracket will help shield the glare of some custom-fabricated map lights I will be installing (for some reason, the Discovery does not come with any from the factory).

That much is pretty obvious to anyone that has spent any length of time with me (including e-time). Being born in 1980, well after any stability had been ripped out from under our currency, I don’t think I have ever trusted the dollar. Even growing up I never could maintain a piggy-bank or a savings account, I just never could understand how a measly 1-percent per year (or even the 5-percent it once was) could ever amount to anything on the pocket change the average person is able to put away monthly. That commercial where the dollar is a bored and brainless slinky-wielding goofball summed up my feelings on the matter pretty well – what good is a dollar unspent? I’d find myself buying things I knew I would need down the road and storing them instead of money.

I don’t trust “precious” either.

With the economy and currency markets going wacko like they have been the last couple years (dare I say decade?), it isn’t surprising that so many people have invested in gold and silver. While such investments may protect against the decline of a currency (or the collapse of an IRA), they do not offer any sanctuary against a world gone mad. What happens when food or water are simply unavailable due to disaster, famine, war or simply poor management? If you have to evacuate, how do you move all that heavy metal? If the governments start a mandatory and discounted “buy back” of the precious metals (hey, it has happened before), then what? What is it that makes these so-called “precious” metals precious anyhow? They aren’t useful in any practical manner, what do you do when no one cares about shiny yellow bars?

In a pinch, you can always eat food.

So aside from continuing the (good) habit of buying things you know you’re going to need and storing them until you do need them, what else can be done as an alternative to a traditional savings/investment that is stable, has longevity, and will still be useful when disaster strikes and you are left with nothing but your “investment”, some water and a fire?

About a year ago I stocked up on some #10 cans of Mountain House freeze-dried food. Dani and I have become partial to the stuff as our main hiking and camping food because of it’s light weight, small size and great taste. Since I placed that order a year ago, the price of the cans has nearly doubled and they are continuing to become less and less available. If I needed money right now I could sell them on eBay for about 70% profit, and they are advertised to last for 15 years unopened (though they have been proven to last upwards of 30 years). If things get really bad I can just eat them and won’t have to worry about turning gold into money to buy groceries, or whether or not the store would actually have any food left.

If you’ve paid any attention to non-mainstream news lately you’ve no doubt noticed many other items like this with long life spans, good returns, and practical emergency purposes. Things like firearms and ammunition likely come to mind (they have only become more scarce, gone up in value, and can be used to acquire food or provide defense). Even with things somewhat calm there are previously common calibers that you cannot get anywhere at any price.

If you’re alive, it isn’t too late.

Many folks I converse with on a regular basis feel it is too late to save, stockpile or do anything to prepare for hard times. I just can’t subscribe to that train of thought. If you are still able to draw breath, it is never to late to get started. None of these things are prohibitively expensive either. For example, when you break down the per-meal cost of Mountain House (in a #10 can, not pouches) it comes down to an average of $2.00 per person, per meal. You can knock that down even further if you buy the basics like rice, wheat, oats, legumes and spices and are willing to do a little cooking. Such foods can even be purchased pre-packaged in long-term storage buckets, and I dare say they taste a hell of a lot better in a home cooked meal.

As you may know a bunch of redneck traitors are planning a protest on April 15th involving waving around a few tea bags and demonstrating mild irritation at Prez. Obama for making them pay taxes. Here is your chance to do your duty for your president and country and send these fools an unmistakable message.

First of all you can sign up at Huffington Post to become a tea party reporter. It would be a good idea to meet some people to take names and also pictures if possible which should also be forwarded to Janet Napolitano at the DHS.

Next you can join with our comrades at ACORN who have plans afoot to disperse these traitors.

Basically the plan works like this – ACORN has infiltrated the redneck groups that are planning all this. On the 15th at the proper moment a van pulls up with 5 young black women with pro Obama signs. They will be peaceful and respectful. Our infiltrators will verbally attack them with profanity and racial slurs and physically push them around while our camera crew films. In a minute they take off and it is all over.

Doesn’t seem like much till that night when the video gets put on the news and all you see are crazy hillbilly conservatives attacking innocent black counter protesters, shouting racial slurs and pushing them around.

You too can be a part of the glorious moment in history and help keep these traitors in check.

They have an entire sub-forum dedicated to it at the grass-roots The Obama Forum, and they aren’t planning to stop there. Freedom of thought, religion, speech, press, privacy and many others are considered “evil” that must be “purged” from American soil. With open-minded and loving posts like “Homeless people are disgusting and have no right to self-defense”, “Music that must be banned!!”, “List enemy license plates here”, and “Would you kill for Obama?” it is no wonder hate groups like the NRA and the Christian church are their targets…

If you are still in the dark, or still believe that Obama supporters are, for the most part, just naive youth following the next shiny object I suggest you stop by this “Forum for Supporters of Obama.” At the very least check out who their sponsors are, what sub-forums they have, and what they are all about – that should be enough to wake anyone up…

“Most users ever online was 4,790, Today at 02:54 AM.”

– Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867

While absolutely possible, let us assume for a moment that the right-wing extremists pronouncing the likelihood of Mr. Obama being the Antichrist have overestimated his intelligence and exaggerated his ambitions. After all, the man’s single biggest accomplishment aside from somehow managing to get elected is the number of times he has voted “present” in the Senate. Here is a man that has by means of influence over the media convinced an alarming majority of the populous to join his “cause” even though they know he has little or no record of actually getting anything done and he clearly holds to so many anti-American ideals. The people have decided that they have no problem at all with this as long as he keeps his promises to give handouts to everyone. They are even willing to turn the other eye as he ushers in mandatory civil service and outlaws religion, as long as they can believe they will be well cared for under his social programs. His cult-like following has grown so far as to turn his followers to ignorance when he goes back on his word, high praise for things he hasn’t even done, and at times even violence in his name. Yes, to the masses lord Obama can do no wrong.

This speaks volumes to the state of our Union and it’s citizens. Yes, it has been said and it is true that we lost most of our population to anti-American values long ago, but there has always been enough patriots around to keep our great nation free. That one man with this sort of past could rally so many behind such a vague and open-ended mission on the promise of a free ride is downright terrifying. We are already seeing things like self-sufficiency, free speech and freedom of religion being categorized as criminal in nature. Clearly the time of personal responsibility, patriotism and quite possibly even the Constitution is coming to an end as such things are slowly made verboten in the very land created to protect them.

We’ve known full well that the rest of the world is ready for the Antichrist to take over. Europe and Asia have completely surrendered to communist and socialist control mechanisms over the last few decades (communism never failed, they just got a new marketing director). Africa is too busy killing itself off to get in anyone’s way, and the South American nations change governments (most of them socialist) as often as their people change underwear. North America, and more specifically these United States were the last hurdle global domination had to overcome, and it appears to have succeeded (with the help of most Americans).

In a mostly successful attempt to keep the few of us who would think to stand against such things subdued, our lives have been made so busy and distracted by things we “need” to have and do that we often don’t even realize such things are happening, and almost never spend the time to think about it. In a week it will be a new year, traditionally a time for making new resolutions to one’s self. This year, I suggest your resolution be to look inward and figure out where you really stand on the issues afflicting us all today, get yourself right with God and loved ones, and devote whatever resources necessary to preparing for whatever stand that may be.

At 4:55 a.m., just five minutes before the doors were set to open, a crowd of 2,000 anxious shoppers started pushing, shoving and piling against the locked sliding glass doors of the Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, New York, Nassau County police said. The shoppers broke the doors off their hinges and surged in, toppling a 34-year-old temporary employee who had been waiting with other workers in the store’s entryway.

…

The employee, who was not identified, was taken from the Wal-Mart to nearby Franklin Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:03 a.m., the police said. His exact cause of death has not been determined. The police said that three other shoppers were injured and a 28-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant was taken to the hospital for observation.

Wal-Mart worker dies in apparent shopping stampede

If we have so brainwashed the “lower levels” of our society to disregard human life for a gain likely measured in double perhaps triple digits it is foolish to believe that those higher up the food chain would turn down an unjust order to control crowds or eliminate patriot-dissidents with their paycheck on the line.

America has chosen it’s fate.

…

I have read a lot of loathing, fear and anger today over the results of yesterday. But let us face this truth: America wants Socialism. America no longer reveres liberty and responsibility, America wants a free hand out because they have been led to envy and hate those that have succeeded. America has succumbed to the delusion to worship a mere man as a messiah, and grant him the power to control their lives and take from those they envy, and have it redistributed to themselves by the power of government.

Would I feel the same way if McCain had won? Just about, I didn’t like either “choice” we were given this time around. Either one would have led us to the same destination, by different paths. No, race is not a factor for me either (not that it should be relevant as Obama is just as “white” as he is “black”). Much as mentioned by John Galt, this comes down to policy, abandonment of morality and the tearing down of the Constitution. Am I a weirdo for holding on to that paper of old? As little as 10 years ago the answer would be “no”, but today I am a part of a small minority shunned at every opportunity. “We the people” no longer refers to the likes of us, but to the new America yearning to trade their freedoms in for the “helping hand” of socialism and a comfortable life.

Many of my arguments in the past have been based on the theory that there still exists a musterable majority in America that still believes in THESE United States. Many of my statements of disappointment have been based on ignorance to that persistent nagging feeling in the back of my head that has been there for perhaps months. The fact of the matter is that Americans are no longer the majority in America. They have been replaced by Marxists and socialists under the guise of liberalism. The times we have been warned about for millennia but chose to ignore are now upon us. As much as I can appreciate the Civil War era call to arms of Phillip Sheridan spoken of at E3, it is far too late for that now. The America that we knew is over, and the only thing left to do is save as many as we can.