I went to an InfraGard meeting today, which included a very interesting presentation from Prof. Jarret Brachman about al-Qaeda (he spells it differently, but since it's a transliteration, any number of possible spellings are equally valid). Much interesting material including a list of six ways Abu Yahya al-Libi said we could defeat them:

1. ( Read more... )

Click to view

This video (link included in case I can't get this "embed" thing to work, or if you want to look at the original that doesn't have some other organization's URL plastered across it) shows how a room can become lethal to human life in a few seconds. While the video itself is about dry Yule trees, it's also a general reminder to keep your smoke ( Read more... )

I signed up for the local Community Emergency Response Team, and finished my training last Saturday. It's moderately intensive: two Friday evenings and two Saturdays, with a lot of information and some practical work too.

On the first Saturday, we had an exercise using the Minneapolis Fire Department's training tower, doing search & rescue ( ( Read more... )