This article is the first in a series where I will be looking at possible nutritional dangers related to the kind of slow-boiling economic SHTF that we all find ourselves in. For inspiration, I need look no further than Daisy’s recent comments in her Survival Sunday post: “Maybe our epic disaster isn’t going to be an EMP or a war or a supervolcano. Maybe it’s just going to be prices climbing ever upward until normal folks can’t afford to eat or have utilities. Maybe that is the major disaster of our lifetime.” With double-income families with children now using food banks in my county, folks, we’re already there! Embarrassing as this is, I am going to share my own story in this article of how cutting back and cutting back on my food budget recently caused a major health problem. Y’all know how I love this community, so I am going to share, despite the embarrassment! My hope is that I might help one person avoid what I have just been through. The Background: How it Happened Let’s face it: meat has gotten to be outrageously expensive. I used to have a budget where I was buying high-quality meat from a local abattoir. Food prices went up, gas prices went up, and suddenly, I was looking for space in my food budget. It didn’t happen consciously: I just went to the abbatoir less and less. I filled up on beans and lentils, drawing on some of my pantry preps. I cut back on eating out, where I had always ordered a meat treat. As I normally eat less meat than the average person, this cutting back meant that I was eating almost NO meat. I would say perhaps I was eating only one or two servings of meat per week or less, which is substantially down from when I could afford to eat out every week. Then, I made a crucial error. I was already aware that reducing my consumption of red meat was affecting my energy levels. I learned that lesson a few years ago. I had been taking a high-quality supplement a couple of times a week that my sister had recommended. However, it was also expensive. When the last bottle was getting low, I remember being reluctant to reorder it, remembering the cost of getting the two bottles. Now, I didn’t consciously do this: my mind just let it slip to order more, and I fell out of the habit of taking it. At some point, I remember thinking, “Maybe I’ll be OK without it.” What I did not know at the time was that these choices were setting the stage for a B12 deficiency that would seriously affect my health. B12 Deficiency: What is it? In short, B12 is a vitamin that our bodies cannot produce. It can only be found in animal products. According to the Mayo Clinic, B12 has some pretty important jobs in our body, including to “make and support healthy nerve cells and red blood cells, and the DNA inside cells.” While most people eating a varied and healthy diet in America should be getting enough B12, there are certain groups who should be aware of the risk of deficiency: “vegetarians or vegans [or reluctant vegetarians, in my case!], older people, people who had gastric surgery, and people with certain digestive conditions such as celiac disease and Crohn’s disease” [L There are a dizzying array of symptoms that can come along with a B12 deficiency. Yes, being dizzy is one of them! My own symptoms came up on me so slowly that I didn’t realize it until I was almost completely incapacitated: bone-crushing exhaustion, headaches, dizziness and weakness, memory problems, and severe brain fog. You will see that I ticked most of the boxes on the Mayo Clinic list: “fatigue, muscle weakness, stomach problems, nerve damage, vision problems and mood changes.”  However, these are only the most common and typical symptoms. If you are concerned, you can check out this much more detailed information on the B12 Society website. If you are medically minded, this website also has quite a bit of detailed information on tests, testing and treatment. In my own case, getting diagnosed was not so simple. I was convinced that I was IRON-deficient, and yet I knew that I was consuming an appropriate amount of plant-based iron each day. A conversation with a local pharmacist over my interest in purchasing some high-iron tablets quickly changed my mind. “You’re self-treating,” he said. “You don’t actually know what’s wrong with you. I strongly recommend that you get to your doctor and get tested before you do anything more.” That supplement that my sister had recommended? When I checked the bottle, I was shocked to see that it also contained B12. I really didn’t know how it had been helping me. I went to my doctor and had my iron, hemoglobin, and B12 levels checked. Only the B12 came back as deficient. The pharmacist had been right. A Simple Solution on a Budget I got a call from my doctor when they got the results. I was to start taking a 1200 microgram supplement immediately. I will be retested in two months. To be honest, I’ve been taking them for about a week and, hmmmm, I don’t know….maybe I’m feeling a tiny bit better? It is going to take some time. I feel embarrassed that I compromised my health so seriously because my budget was tight. As readers who know my posts are aware, I make a lot of effort to maintain my health as best I can. However, I’m glad to have learned a valuable lesson. What I Learned and How I’m Preparing I have learned to be much more aware about my nutritional health and how I cut my food budget. In terms of preparedness, you bet I am adding some B12 supplements to my emergency pantry. The B12 supplement I bought this weekend costs less than $14 per bottle, and the expiry date is way out in 2028. You better believe I will be stocking up on these and putting a whole bunch in my pantry and bug out bag! So, now I have a tool to improve my health that costs less than 20 cents a day. I feel lucky that I learned this lesson before things got more serious. The OP recommends this supplement or this one if your budget is tight. B Aware of B12 I recently allowed a shortage of funds to unknowingly but seriously compromise my health. How are you dealing with the grocery budget crunch we are all feeling? Do you have any tips you can share with us on how you are maintaining nutrition during these difficult times? Please tell us in the comments section. The post Slow SHTF Food Budget Crunch: A Hidden Danger appeared first on The Organic Prepper.

After a series of failures and partial successes, launch 10 is Starship’s most successful flight, but in at least one aspect that was achieved by setting less ambitious goals.

And funnily enough, it’s a potter wasp.

It pays to be weird in the fish-eat-fish world of the sea.

It certainly was a bad trip (to the hospital).

Dark Forest vs Zoo: Two Answers to the Fermi Paradox Dark Forest vs Zoo hypothesis is a clean way to ask a hard question: if the galaxy is crowded, why is it quiet? Either everyone hides to survive (Dark Forest)—or we’re in a hands-off reserve (Zoo). TL;DR Dark Forest: Don’t broadcast. Any signal could bring a threat. Zoo: Advanced civilisations avoid contact. We’re being observed, not engaged. Both try to answer the Fermi paradox—lots of stars, no clear signals. What is the Dark Forest idea? It treats space like a dangerous forest. You stay quiet because you can’t know others’ motives, tech levels, or timelines. In game-theory terms: silence or pre-empt. What is the Zoo Hypothesis? Proposed by astronomer John A. Ball (1973), it suggests a “look, don’t touch” rule. We’re left alone until we mature—or ask the right way. Strengths vs. weaknesses Dark Forest pros: Simple survival logic; explains the silence fast. Dark Forest cons: Projects human fears; assumes worst-case motives. Zoo pros: Fits a coordinated, ethical galaxy; explains lack of open contact. Zoo cons: Requires long-term restraint and cooperation we haven’t observed. Could we ever test these ideas? Listen smarter: Hunt technosignatures—waste heat, narrowband beacons, odd infrared glows from mega-engineering. Speak carefully: Limited, well-aimed METI (messaging) to nearby stars or the Solar gravitational focus could act as a “ping.” Bottom line We can be cautious and curious. Keep listening. Debate targeted outreach. Even one confirmed technosignature would rewrite our place in the universe. FAQ Is the Dark Forest vs Zoo hypothesis proven? No. These are framing ideas, not established science. They help guide what to search for next. Does staying silent protect us? Maybe, but silence has a cost: we also miss allies. Many researchers argue for listening first, speaking second. What’s the best current evidence? So far, surveys haven’t found galaxy-scale empires. That nudges expectations toward “rare, quiet, or well-hidden”—not toward certainty. Further reading SETI Institute: Fermi Paradox SETI: The Zoo Hypothesis Universe Today: The Dark Forest hypothesis The post Dark Forest vs Zoo: Two Answers to the Fermi Paradox appeared first on Anomalien.com.

What’s going on with Cracker Barrel?The restaurant chain just rolled out a full rebrand, courtesy of CEO and president Julie Felss Masino. It’s so ambitious that the rebrand itself even has a name: “All the More,” a perfectly vague and nauseating brand for a perfectly vague and nauseating rebrand.Every decision must be backed up by consultants, data firms, and PR agencies so that when things flop, no one at the top can be blamed.Here's the old logo: Gregory Walton/Getty ImagesAll those little details — the barrel, the old white guy, the dark-yellow pinto-bean-shaped background, the phrase "Old Country Store" — have been thrown out in favor of something with all the charm of a fintech logo: SOPA Images/Getty ImagesAnd it's not just the logo. The company has redesigned the inside of the restaurants, too, from their trademark cluttered, homey feel, with tchotchkes and old pictures and fishing reels ... ... to something "cleaner" with white walls and minimal decor. All the little quirks and nuances that endeared the brand to consumers in the first place — gone. What used to have an idiosyncratic, country-store feel now resembles a generic $14-per-taco shop in Austin.Refinement racketThere's nothing groundbreaking about this makeover, of course. It's a prime example of what wriiter Paul Skallas (better known online as LindyMan) calls “refinement culture:” the endless corporate drive to shave away quirks, details, and character until everything looks the same — flat, safe, and soulless.There's also nothing surprising about the backlash. People don't like refinement culture. Burberry learned this back in 2018, when the company went from this ... Bloomberg/Getty Images... to this: SOPA Images/Getty ImagesNot only did it swap the pleasantly ornate logo for something in a blandly utilitarian, sans serif font, the company completely jettisoned the image of the knight — a reference to the brand's beginning as a purveyor of equestrian apparel.This "new look" lasted all of five years before Burberry came to its senses and returned to what was already working.Tone-deaf functionariesWhy didn't Felss Masino learn from Burberry? Or, for that matter, from Bud Light's more recent Dylan Mulvaney fiasco?As for Bud Light, it's likely that Felss Masino didn't think she was making the same mistake as her counterpart at Anheuser-Busch; obviously she hasn't done anything as egregiously misguided as pushing "trans" on an audience with no interest whatsoever in seeing a narcissistic gay man pretend he's a girl.But at bottom, Felss Masino exhibits the same tone-deafness — a clear inability or unwillingness to understand her customers and the direction of mainstream culture in general.So what did Cracker Barrel think it was doing? To answer that, you need to understand the function of people like Felss Masino.She doesn't create anything. Never hath she shifted a zero into a one. She is a managerial bureaucrat who just goes from one company to the next.Not only is she a managerial bureaucrat, she's not a particularly good one. Cracker Barrel is not the kind of "sexy" brand that people like Felss Masino aspire to run. And you can see her disdain for Cracker Barrel and its customers in her indifference to what makes the brand work.Deleting the detailsObviously she didn't set out to tank the brand. Cracker Barrel hasn't been doing great financially, so most likely she brought in a consultant — consultants being the main drivers of refinement culture — who pointed out how inefficient it was to maintain this complicated logo and interior design.I imagine the pitch was something like: "Here's your line-item budget. If you can cut down your design costs by 10%, you'll save the company $25 million a year."That's what consultants do, while at the same time justifying their own existence. They want to get you to take money that could go to building your business and spend it on their endless little pare-downs. Until you’re left with no details. And culture is details.Which is why leaders with an actual vision don't use consultants. Apple founder Steve Jobs famously disdained them.RELATED: Cracker Barrel’s $700 million recipe for disaster Trifonenko via iStock/Getty ImagesBrand flakesBut very few leaders have vision. A while back I went to dinner with the CEO of a famous consumer packaged goods brand. She had all the right credentials: Ivy League education, high-profile experience in the industry.It's what she didn't have that was notable: even the remotest interest in the product she oversaw. There was not one thing in her home — let alone in her conversation — to indicate her role.And I realized it was because she is excelling at her job. Which is essentially to act as a bureaucrat maintaining the status quo. These aren't companies — they're bureaus. What's Cracker Barrel to them but the Bureau of Cheap White People Highway Rest-Stop Slop?Look at Felss Masino's resume. She's been at Cracker Barrel for a little over two years. Before that, a five-year stint at Taco Bell, a couple of months at Mattel, three years at Sprinkles Cupcakes. Her longest job was one of her earliest: She spent 12 years rising in the ranks at Starbucks until she became a top marketing executive.Camel by committee It's at this point that the job changes become much more frequent, and that's no accident. Felss Masino no doubt had to live and breathe Starbucks during her long ascent there, but now that she's "made it," she can enjoy life as one of the many interchangeable female CEOs whose only job is take whatever brand she's in charge of, refine it down to its most efficient version, and maximize its value for the corporate regime.Yes, sometimes that means pushing through "woke," LGBT nonsense, but ultimately that's just a means to an end. The most important qualification of kommissars like Felss Masino is their mastery of CYA.CYA, short for cover your a**, is a time-honored philosophy of dysfunctional organizations, often associated with its corollary, s**t flows downhill. And marketing today is dominated by CYA culture. Every decision must be backed up by consultants, data firms, and PR agencies so that when things flop, no one at the top can be blamed. Or even in the middle, if you’re good enough at CYA.That’s why Cracker Barrel didn’t hire one visionary agency. It hired three mediocre ones — Blue Engine, Prophet, and Viral Nation — each surely providing slides, jargon, and “proof” that the rebrand was genius. The result is exactly what you’d expect: a camel built by committee.New and improvedIt doesn't have to be this way. Back in the 1990s, when I grew up, brands took big marketing risks. They were willing to commit to a strong point of view.It didn't always work, but when it did, it made everyday life a little more pleasant. Unless you want to live somewhere completely off the grid, you will be regularly exposed to advertising; it's indispensable to the innovation and consumer choice we all enjoy. What people in the ad business used to understand is that advertising doesn't have to be ugly or lowest-common-denominator. Look at old ads by Nike, or Apple, or even McDonald's — ads that dared to strive for beauty and inspiration.What changed is the kind of people who go into advertising. What used to be a scrappy, male-dominated field, as in "Mad Men," is now dominated by overeducated women.Women's workLet me make the standard, tiresome disclaimer: I've worked with many talented and funny women marketers. The problem is how the inverted sex ratio changes the business as a whole. Women, generally speaking, just don't have the same competitive, ego-driven, risk-taking nature as men. And when you've spent $250,000 on your education, you're not about to jeopardize your investment by taking big swings.This new ecosystem rewards traits that are more traditionally female: presentability, agreeableness, and keeping things tidy and organized. It requires leaders who are fluent in inoffensive, trying-to-please-everybody marketing gobbledygook. Like this quote from Cracker Barrel Chief Marketing Officer Sarah Moore:We believe in the goodness of country hospitality, a spirit that has always defined us. Our story hasn't changed. Our values haven't changed. With "All the More," we're honoring our legacy while bringing fresh energy, thoughtful craftsmanship, and heartfelt hospitality to our guests this fall. Country star Jordan Davis, bard of "heartfelt hospitality." BG048/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/Getty ImagesAs someone with more than a decade of ad industry experience, I've been neck-deep in this kind of soul-killing gibberish for years. But there is a bright side.You gotta believeIf you have the drive and the ambition, the CYA-ification of marketing represents a huge opportunity. Small, upstart brands are better positioned than ever to cut through the noise — provided they're not afraid to defy business as usual.That's exactly why I founded my agency, WILL.I suppose this is the point at which I'm supposed to issue some faux-humble disclaimer like "shameless self-promotion!" But screw that. Why would I feel any shame? I believe in WILL, and that's why I work so relentlessly to build it. And I believe just as wholeheartedly in the brands we help.This says less about my virtue than it does about my sheer pragmatism. For anyone wanting to escape the system-wide managed decline afflicting Cracker Barrel and countless other organizations, sincere, deeply held belief in your mission isn't optional — it's the only way out.Here's our recent ad for Michigan Enjoyer, a newsletter with an unapologetic bias for the specific people, places, and history that make the state unique: — (@)

Can Trump fire her? The question does not admit of an easy answer.

If colleges and universities want the American taxpayer’s support, they should be forced to focus on merit alone.

A soap opera skeleton key to black Democrat fealty.