Starvin Larry

The calculator uses some items I do not store,as I’m sure will happen with anyone who uses it.
The calculator will give a good idea of how much food it really takes to feed a family for a year.

All you have to do is type in number of family members over 7 years old,and number less than 6 years old.

You then get the total amounts you need to have for each category of food.

It ain’t perfect,but it will give you a close approximation of what you need as far as food storage.

http://www.thefoodguys.com/foodcalc.html

Scores of protesters at the helm of the ongoing nationwide movement against police violence stormed the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Wednesday, aiming to “evict” officers they accused of “perpetrating police brutality on our citizenry.”

Five of the roughly 25 demonstrators who linked arms in the lobby of the police department were arrested in the headquarters, the St. Louis Police Department told Al Jazeera. Police pepper-sprayed and forced other protesters off the premises.

The detainees — four women and one man — were charged with “trespassing and peace disturbance,” said Leah K. Freeman, the department’s spokeswoman.  The man was charged with “assault 3rd [degree] for assaulting a City Marshall inside the lobby of police headquarters.”

Among the protesters was a white couple who pretended to open an account at the St. Louis Police Credit Union, located inside the building. The arrested included a white college student, a young Mexican-American man, one black woman and a Palestinian-American mother in her 50s. Organizers said the detained activists — like the rest of the demonstrators who stormed police headquarters — were peaceful and did not conduct themselves differently from their fellow activists.

“We got a lot of people in there because we didn’t look like what they think protesters look like,” said Elizabeth Vega, 48, one of the organizers, explaining that the police were likely expecting more black demonstrators. Originally from Mexico, Vega has lived in the St. Louis area for 14 years.

Protesters who were driven outside erected a makeshift “barricade” at the headquarters’ main entrance, organizers said. By mid-afternoon, that barrier separated a small line of police from the demonstrators, whose ranks swelled to 75 from the original 25. Another 18,  including 12 females and 6 males, “were arrested for impeding the flow of traffic” outside the station, Freeman said. One was charged with “interfering with an officer” after allegedly hurling a projectile at the police.”

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/31/st-louis-police.html

This pretty much sums it up for OPFOR…

“Hafter blamed the killing of Berghardt on “overly aggressive police with very little experience and very little training taking matters into their own hands.”

Overly aggressive,with little experience,very little training-pay close attention to that part…

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A mother has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and two unidentified rangers who shot and killed her 20-year-old son during a chaotic confrontation on a state highway outside Las Vegas.

Attorney Jacob Hafter said his client, Tracy Meadows, filed the suit after getting no answers from the government about the death of D’Andre Berghardt Jr.

“We’ve been patient and we haven’t rushed the way others have in other places,” Hafter said Tuesday, referring to high-profile police slayings in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York.

The slaying of Berghardt on State Route 159 near Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area drew wide attention after witness cellphone video was posted online showing two officers physically preventing Berghardt from entering two vehicles stopped in traffic. It appeared that about 10 gunshots were fired after Berghardt climbed into an idling Nevada Highway Patrol vehicle.

The BLM released a statement several days later saying Berghardt had threatened to shoot the officers, and they reacted when he tried to reach for a rifle in a rack in the Highway Patrol car.

The rangers were not identified by name, although one was described as having 17 years of law enforcement experience and the other more than nine years.

Hafter blamed the killing of Berghardt on “overly aggressive police with very little experience and very little training taking matters into their own hands.”

“We think, at the end of the day, they’ll be held accountable for their actions,” Hafter said.

Bureau of Land Management spokesman Christopher Rose declined comment about the lawsuit and didn’t identify the BLM agents involved. Rose said the incident was still being investigated.

http://news.yahoo.com/mother-sues-feds-agents-kill-son-nevada-180802418.html

Wishing everyone a happy new year,hope all have a happy and prosperous new year !

The top 20 bloviations, lies, and just plain dumb lines from U.S. government officials and politicians this year.

What a year it’s been. In 2014, we discovered new purported threats (Ebola/Islamic State), militarily intervened in yet another country (Syria), and got reacquainted with old interventions (extending combat operations in Afghanistan and redeploying troops to Iraq). In thousands of press conferences, congressional hearings, speeches, and news reports, officials and policymakers offered some especially hypocritical, factually wrong, puzzling, depressing, or revealing statements about U.S. foreign-policy conduct.

In chronological order, here are the top 20 notable foreign-policy comments from U.S. government officials and politicians in 2014. Each comes with some editorial context and elucidation — or a punch line. (Oh, and if you’re looking to fact-check the historical record or see just how inaccurate officials routinely are, check out the top quotes from 2011, 2012, and 2013.)

1. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): “The world is literally about to blow up.” (“Graham Says World ‘Literally About to Blow Up’,” Roll Call, January 28, 2014.)

“Literally.”

2. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.): “I’m obviously not very happy with what’s happening in Iraq, and I’ve been very clear that I thought the withdrawal from Iraq was one of the biggest mistakes, I think, historically that’ll be shown that the United States has made in modern foreign policy.” (“Al-Qaeda’s Resurgence in Iraq: A Threat to U.S. Interests,” House Foreign Affairs Committee, February 5, 2014.)

The representative from Illinois is partially correct, in that one of the biggest mistakes in foreign-policy history did involve Iraq, an estimated 140,000 Iraqi and 4,425 U.S. troops’ lives lost, and $815 billion in direct taxpayer costs (and counting).

3. Anne Patterson, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs: “But let me stress that Iran’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapon is an existential threat to us and it’s an existential threat to, critically, Iran’s neighbors.” (“United States Security Policy and Defense Posture in the Middle East,” House Armed Services Committee, February 11, 2014.)

For God’s sake, let’s be clear what “existential” means: the ability to survive as a country. This conventional wisdom must be countered every time a senior official makes it: While a nuclear Iran could pose an existential threat to Israel, it simply is not to the United States — which is 6,500 miles away, and has an estimated 4,650 nuclear warheads.

4. Secretary of State John Kerry: “You just don’t, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text.” (“Face the Nation,” CBS, March 2, 2014.)

Hear, hear. And surely any country that behaved in such a fashion, in the 21st century (let’s say, starting on March 21, 2003) would have the self-awareness to acknowledge that it violated precisely the same norm that it now demands others adhere to. Right?

5. CIA Director John Brennan: “As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth.” (“CIA Director Brennan Denies Hacking Allegations,” Council on Foreign Relations, March 11, 2014.)

Ahem. An investigation by the CIA’s inspector general found that five agency officers had, in fact, hacked into a computer network used by Senate Select Committee on Intelligence staffers while they were researching and writing the study of the agency’s detention and interrogation program — the so-called Torture Report. However, a review panel — appointed by Brennan and composed of three CIA officers and two external members — recommended that the officers responsible not be punished, claiming that their actions were lawful and at the request of Brennan in some cases.

6. President Barack Obama: “When a typhoon hits the Philippines or school girls are kidnapped in Nigeria or masked men occupy a building in Ukraine, it is America that the world looks to for help. The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. It has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come.” (Remarks by the President at the United States Military Academy Commencement Ceremony, White House, May 28, 2014.)

This was the year that Obama wholeheartedly adopted this rhetoric, despite all evidence to the contrary. Let’s be clear: America is the world’s indispensable nation only when it is in America’s narrow national interests to act as such, which is extremely selectively and rarely, making the concept meaningless. By December, he would even claim, “Even our critics, when they get into trouble they’re calling us.”

7. Marie Harf, State Department spokeswoman: “We don’t keep people detained in this country for years on end without trial or release. That’s just not how we do things.” (Daily Press Briefing, U.S. Department of State, June 9, 2014.)

Actually, that is precisely how we do things. As of December 23, 2014, there are 127 detainees at Guantanamo, some of whom have been there for as long as 13 years.

8. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): “We are now facing an existential threat [in Iraq and Syria] to the security of the United States of America…. This has turned into one of the most serious threats to American security in recent history.” (“Morning Joe,” MSNBC, June 13, 2014.)

Yes, the Islamic State are some bad dudes, but they are, of course, not an existential threat to the United States. Rather, to quote former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates from a May interview: “The greatest national security threat to this country is the two square miles that encompasses the Capitol and the White House.”

9. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.): “People from Yemen, Iran, Iraq and other terrorist nations are making their way up through America’s southern border because they see that it’s a green light…. Not only people with potentially terrorist activities, but also very dangerous weapons are going to cross our border in addition to very dangerous drugs, and also life-threatening diseases, potentially including Ebola and other diseases like that.” (“Michele Bachmann on the Direction of the Nation and Andrew McCarthy on Why the President Should Be Impeached,” Ohio Christian University’s School of Business and Government and Dave Garrison, “The Faith and Liberty Talk Show,” July 23, 2014.)

We will all miss Rep. Bachmann. Among other things, she once claimed that “there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” Now, she will have time to read them. When asked about this purported cross-border threat during a Sept. 10 congressional hearing, Francis X. Taylor, undersecretary for intelligence and analysis in the Department of Homeland Security, stated that he was “unaware of any specific credible threat to the U.S. homeland.”

10. President Barack Obama: “We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks.” (Press Conference by the President, White House, August 1, 2014.)

During a Dec. 9 interview, Obama stated, “Some of the tactics that were written about in the Senate Intelligence Report were brutal and, as I’ve said before, constituted torture in my mind.” The following day, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest responded to a question about whether Obama accepts the Department of Justice’s finding that no prosecutable crimes had been committed by the CIA, by stating: “That is the way that our criminal justice system works.” So, in sum: Yeah, we did illegal things, but no one is going to jail for it.

The Best Worst Quotes of 2014