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8 Foolproof Ways To Heat Your Home When The Power’s Out

November 18, 2018 by chris

heat your home

It’s wintertime and the power goes out. If you’re like most of us, you’re not all that worried – you trust that the power will come back on soon. But when 12 hours goes by and you still don’t have any electricity, you start getting concerned. It might be days before the power comes back on.

For many of us, the quick solution is to turn to wood. Heating with wood is historically the most common means of keeping your home warm. Throughout the centuries, people used wood to warm everything from tents to palaces. It has withstood the test of time quite effectively, providing warmth for millions of people. That makes it a survivalist’s number one choice for a back up way to heat your home.

But it takes a lot of wood to keep your home warm. In a long-term crisis situation, you might run out of wood before the power comes back on. Or, perhaps your wood-burning stove is unusable. Whatever the case, you’re going to need another alternate way to heat your home. Here’s a few to consider:

1. Propane

Many people living in rural areas already heat with propane. Unfortunately, their forced-air propane heater won’t work any better without electricity than anyone else’s does. However, there also are ceramic heaters, commonly referred to as “catalytic heaters,” that can be tied into the home’s propane. These allow you to burn the propane for heat without having any need for electricity. They are extremely safe for use indoors.

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These catalytic heaters also are available for connection to a portable propane tank, such as the type used for a barbecue grill. I actually heated a motorhome through a couple of winters with these, as they were much more efficient than the furnace that the motorhome was equipped with.Kerosene

2. Kerosene

heat your home

Kerosene heaters provide a considerable amount of heat, without needing electricity. I used to heat my office with a kerosene heater, back when my office was an uninsulated attic in upstate New York. If you live in a part of the country where people use kerosene for heating, then the price is quite reasonable. But if not, avoid this one, as buying kerosene at the paint store is just too expensive.

3. Passive solar

Anyone who builds a home without giving it at least some passive solar capability is missing out on a great opportunity for free heat. Even if passive solar can’t heat your home, you will still save money on heating costs. Passive solar is reliable, cheap and plentiful, especially if your home is designed for it.

If your home isn’t designed for passive solar heating, you can still take advantage of it. Open the curtains on all your south-facing windows during the day and put something dark colored on the floor to absorb the sunlight and convert it to heat. While not a perfect solution, it will help.

The big problem for most people is having a thermal mass. This is a mass of rock or concrete that becomes warmed by the sunlight striking its surface. The surface, which must be dark, is called the absorber because it absorbs light and converts it to heat. If your home has concrete floors and you cover them with dark-colored floor covering, then you’ve got a basic passive solar system, even if the concrete isn’t thick enough to absorb much heat.

4. Solar convection

Another way you can take advantage of solar energy is to build a solar convection heater to heat your home. The easiest and cheapest way to make one of these is to cut the tops and bottoms out of a bunch of aluminum soda or beer cans. Glue them together, forming tubes out of the cans that are the height of your windows and leave an opening at the top and bottom. Connect several of these together, side to side, to fill your window opening and paint the whole thing black.

Since warm air rises and cool air drops, the cooler air at the bottom of the window will enter into the bottom of the solar convection heater and exit out the top, warming as it passes through.

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5. Coal

There are still many homes in the northeast which have coal bins and coal chutes into the basements, even though they are no longer heated with coal furnaces. Coal burns hotter than charcoal and will burn a long time. Essentially, coal is petroleum-filled porous rock. So what is burning is the petroleum, leaving behind the rock, which is referred to as coke. The biggest problem with burning coal is keeping it lit. It needs a lot of oxygen to burn, so you’ll have to have good airflow to the fire. It burns slowly, making it perfect to heat your home, but does produce a lot of soot.

In order to use coal, you’re going to have to use it in a fireplace or a wood-burning stove that is lined with fire brick. Please note that this is only an emergency measure, as the coal will damage the fireplace or wood-burning stove. A coal insert in the fireplace is better and will allow the coal to burn more efficiently. Don’t use coal in a metal, wood-burning stove without fire brick since it can get hot enough to soften the metal, distorting it. You absolutely have to have some ventilation, or your home will fill with the coal smoke.

6. Animal dung

Dried animal dung has been used by a variety of cultures throughout history for heating and cooking. While not anyone’s favorite, it works well. If you have livestock, you have a regular source of this heating fuel. Just allow them to dry naturally in the field and collect them. Surprisingly, dried animal dung burns without stinking up your home.

7. Burning flammable fuels

Gasoline, diesel, oil and other liquid fuels can be burned for heat if you are careful. The problem is controlling the burn rate. This is fairly easily accomplished by pouring the fuel into a sand-filled container, such as a number 10 can. The sand will act as a wick, controlling the burn rate.

There are also oil heaters that can be used to heat your home. Some of the simpler ones control the burn rate by dipping the oil from a tank into the burner. The Army used to use heaters of this sort, with gasoline, to provide hot water for field kitchens. So you might be able to find one of those heaters at your local army surplus store.

The big problem with this is that you’ll go through a lot of fuel quickly, so this should be considered only if no other option exists. Ventilation is essential.

8. Compost

The natural act of composting produces quite a bit of heat as the millions of bacteria eat the organic material, breaking it down into its basic elements. You can tap into this heat source by burying pipes in your compost pile. Those pipes can carry water to be heated or you can push air through them to heat your hpme. As long as the compost pile has a continuous source of organic material and is kept moist, it will continue to produce heat.

What tips would you add to this list? Share your advice in the section below:

Are You Prepared For Blackouts This Winter? Read More Here.

The post 8 Foolproof Ways To Heat Your Home When The Power’s Out appeared first on Off The Grid News.

This article first appeared on offthegridnews.com See it here

The Space-Saving, ‘Upside-Down Way’ To Grow Indoor Tomatoes This Winter

November 17, 2018 by chris

Hanging Garden – Space Saving Way To Grow Indoor Tomatoes This Winter | Image source: Pixabay.com

Indoor gardening can be a great way to have fresh vegetables year-round and satisfy your green thumb during the winter, but if you live in a small home or apartment, it can be challenging to find enough room for your plants. One solution is to turn your indoor garden on its head – literally.

Many vegetable plants that do well indoors – including cherry tomatoes — can be grown upside down. This not only saves you space, but it can give you a visually appealing container garden, too.

Hanging gardens have been around for centuries and are ideal for those without a lot of space. While we typically think of them as being outdoors – on an apartment balcony, for example – the method works just as well indoors.

Starting Your Indoor Hanging Garden

Since you won’t want to move your plants around too much once you get them started, your first step is to find the location in your home where you’d like to grow your vegetables. Ideally, it should be an area that gets plenty of sun, such as a south-facing window. Natural lighting is best for this type of growing, as setting up grow lights can get rather awkward for a hanging garden. (Although, with the right arrangement, grow lights can work.) Also, for an upside-down hanging garden, you must use a plant that has been started; planting from seed in an upside-down pot is extremely difficult.

You will need a place where you can hang your containers, so you’ll either want to install sturdy hooks into the ceiling or have some kind of rack system. Whatever you choose, you will want to make sure that it can support the weight of the containers and potting soil, along with mature plants. Since some soil and water will come through the bottom of the container via watering, it is also a good idea to prepare a tray or mat underneath your hanging garden to prevent making a mess.

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The next step is choosing containers suitable for the types of plants that you will be growing. Drill holes in the bottom of the containers (about 2 inches in diameter for larger containers and slightly less for smaller ones). To make the work a little easier, find a place to hang the containers while you are planting so you won’t have to flip containers around.

Choose a good potting soil that has been amended with compost. You also will need something to anchor the plant in place in the bottom of the container, such as fabric, cardboard or foam. Add a slit to this material and work the plant’s roots through the material into the container and then fill in soil around it. If you wish to optimize your space even more, you can use the top of the container to grow things such as salad greens, herbs or even radishes. Just be sure that whatever you plant in the same container has similar growing requirements (sunlight and watering needs etc.). The initial planting tends to be a bit more labor intensive than it would be with an upright garden. But many indoor gardeners find the space-saving benefits to be well worth the extra effort at the beginning.

The video below shows how to accomplish this with a kit, although most homesteaders already have the supplies they need.

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Now that you have your indoor hanging garden, simply care for it the same way that you would for any of your upright plants. Enjoy the unique appearance and tasty, fresh vegetables all year round!

What Can You Grow?

There are many vegetables that may be grown upside down, but here are some of the most common:

Tomatoes – you can grow any size tomato upside down; however, cherry tomatoes are the easiest to manage since they won’t get as heavy.
Peppers – whether you like them hot or sweet, you can grow just about any type of pepper in an upside-down garden.
Cucumbers – again, by choosing a smaller variety such as pickling cucumbers, it will be much easier. Bush cucumbers should be avoided when using an upside-down growing method.
Eggplants – eggplants have similar needs as tomatoes, and you can have success growing them in a hanging garden. Choose a slender Asian variety or miniatures.
Beans – both pole and bush beans can do well in a hanging garden.
Strawberries – want to add something a little sweeter to your inverted garden? Strawberries can be easily grown upside down.

If you have ever decided that indoor gardening wasn’t for your because you didn’t have enough space, then perhaps the idea of having a hanging garden might be enough to make you reconsider. You can grow a variety of produce or just start with something simple like some cherry tomatoes!

Have you ever grown an indoor hanging garden? What advice would you add?

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This article first appeared on offthegridnews.com See it here

Hillary Clinton: White House Or Jailhouse?

November 17, 2018 by chris

Apparently, Hillary Clinton is thinking that she can beat Trump in 2020 despite her failure to do so in 2016.

Hillary Clinton just doesn’t seem to go away, no matter how much many of us would like her to. The 71-year-old, two-time presidential candidate failure doesn’t seem to get the idea that it’s time to retire and fade into obscurity. Like her one-time boss, Barack Obama, she’s still trying to steal the limelight and push leftist ideology down our throats.

Are Americans Sick Of Hillary Clinton?

Hillary apparently isn’t getting the message that most Americans don’t like her. She doesn’t yet understand that they don’t trust her and don’t want her. Listening to her as she gives speeches and interviews, she seems to think she’s America’s darling. We’re getting this from the woman who had to rig her own party’s primaries to steal the nomination from socialist Bernie Sanders.

But then again, the Clintons have long made the following point clear. As far as they are concerned, they are above the law and the media has let them get away with it. Who else has had so many people die conveniently that could expose the dirt on them? Did anyone else start a semi-fake foundation so that they could skim off it to fund their own personal staff and provide them with a lavish lifestyle? Who else can break federal law as a federal employee and have the FBI publically exonerate them, which is something the FBI just doesn’t do?

Hillary Clinton Plans To Run For President Again In 2020

In spite of everything, this two-time presidential candidate ostensibly hasn’t finished yet. Mark Penn, a former aide, has told reporters to expect a 2020 presidential run from Hillary. He cites that she feels that she has “an unfinished mission to be the first female president.” As before, she still thinks that it’s “her turn” to hold the highest office in the land.

Clinton was humiliated by her loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential elections. This happened in spite of the fact that it was supposedly an election rigged in her favor. She likely still holds a personal grievance against Trump. After all, he vowed to imprison her if he won the presidency.

Andrew Stein, another Democrat politician, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “She will not allow this humiliating loss at the hands of an amateur to end the story of her career.” That’s the key to understanding her position, right there. Despite many public declarations to the contrary, Hillary is still saying in effect, “I’d like to be president.”

Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama made the same sort of declarations. They basically said they wouldn’t run for president before announcing their presidential runs. So, this is apparently not uncommon in the Democratic world. It’s a world where truth is self-serving and more based upon opinion rather than objective reality.

Hillary Clinton May Change Her Strategy To Beat Donald Trump

Apparently, Clinton is thinking that she can beat Trump in 2020 despite her failure to do so in 2016. Moreover, she thinks she can do it better than anyone else that the Democratic Party has on tap. She is planning on rebranding herself as a liberal firebrand who can capture the Democratic nomination and defeat President Trump. She will base her platform upon the #MeToo movement, universal health care, and gun control. These are three of the primary progressive-liberal hot topics.

Nevertheless, Hillary still hasn’t figured out how she lost the last presidential election. From all reports, she’s still blaming everyone else and not taking responsibility for her own part in that failure. How in the world can she hope to win the next election with Trump riding high in public favor? How can she win with people abandoning the Democratic Party right and left?

Contrary to Democratic thinking, liberals are not the majority in this country. In fact, conservatives outnumber them. They merely think they are the majority because they spend all their time in their progressive-liberal echo chamber. They tell themselves that they represent this country and what it stands for, they are better than us, and that they are the majority. Those mistaken ideas lost them the 2016 presidential election and will continue to lose them more elections as long as they believe them.

Will Investigations Disrupt Hillary Clinton’s Bid For The 2020 Presidency?

Of course, Hillary’s unlikely third run for the presidency will depend on one major thing: being a free woman. Significantly, there’s just as much a chance that she will end up behind bars before election day 2020. This predicament would make any preparations for her next run for office null and void.

According to two different sources who are close to ongoing investigations of the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton e-mail case, both of those investigations have a larger scope than they had previously assumed. With more than a year of work invested, the FBI is still gathering evidence of “pay to play” schemes involving the Clinton Foundation and Secretary Clinton when she was in office as Obama’s Secretary of State.

Likewise, they are still collecting evidence on the e-mail scandal. The immunity deal that Hillary aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson cut with the Justice Department included an agreement that their laptops would be destroyed after a superficial review for classified information. Even so, no one has destroyed them yet. Rather, they are in the FBI’s Washington field office and still under review.

This may seem like the FBI is treating these two women unfairly by breaking their agreement with them. However, if they lied to the FBI in any way, those deals are null and void anyway. Any immunity deal requires that the person receiving the deal be totally honest with the FBI.

Can The Evidence That The FBI Finds Lead To Jail Time For Hillary Clinton?

In addition, the FBI is still investigating Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Notably, they found more e-mails which do not appear to be duplicates of others that they have. No one knows whether those e-mails are classified or not as officials haven’t explored that avenue yet.

At this point, we know that at least five foreign governments have successfully hacked Clinton’s private server. Even without any other evidence, that should be enough to bring charges against her for treason, which is most correctly defined as “aiding and abetting the enemy.” That charge, the only criminal charge you can find in the Constitution, is enough to put her away for the rest of her life.

What Will Likely Happen If Hillary Clinton Runs In 2020

So, if Hillary is planning on a 2020 presidential campaign, she might just be doing it from behind bars. There are a lot of people who would like to see that, and a few of us that think she just might try to pull it off. Should she win, I guess that would allow her to give herself a presidential pardon and fulfill the office. Notwithstanding, we simply will have to see if there is an adequate amount of people foolish enough to believe her and vote in her favor.

Regardless, what’s most likely to happen is that President Trump will clean her clock in the 2020 elections. He will probably beat her by an even bigger margin than he did in 2016. Perhaps they should wait until after that to arrest her so she can work on making her excuses from prison.

You may also enjoy reading an additional Off The Grid News article: How Nancy Pelosi Plans To Get President Trump Through His Tax Returns

What do you think about the Hillary Clinton investigations? Does she deserve the white house or a jailhouse? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Hillary Clinton: White House Or Jailhouse? appeared first on Off The Grid News.

This article first appeared on offthegridnews.com See it here

Giving The Gift Of Food: Making Your Own Gift Baskets

November 16, 2018 by chris

gift basket

Chances are that if you are already living off the grid, you have a respectable stockpile of baking ingredients on hand at all times. This makes it easy to put together the ultimate gift for the food lovers in your life. A gift basket full of baked goods can help add a special touch to nearly any occasion. You can customize your goods to correspond to any birthday or even major holidays such as Christmas. A baked gift basket can even make a great anniversary gift if you love to bake together. This type of gift is affordable, thoughtful, and sure to thrill anyone who receives it.

Personalizing Cookies For A Homemade Snack

Set aside a few hours to decorate and package your homemade baked gifts. Try a giant cookie or two in your recipient’s favorite flavors. If you are baking for someone who loves variety, try baking a few different kinds of cookies. Make sure you add your own special touch when decorating, on both the cookies themselves and on the wrapping that you use to package them. A great idea is to use inexpensive CD sleeves from a craft or tech store and decorate the blank side, holding down the sleeve opening with a personalized sticker. To save time, get started on decorating the sleeve packages while the cookies are in the oven.

Add Cake To Your Gift Basket

You can also add cake to your gift basket, either baked in small squares as petite fours or cut into slices and repackaged. Add any sprinkles, coconut, chocolate shavings, nuts, or other textured toppings for an extra-special touch. Place slices in an inexpensive box that you make from scratch. Templates for cake boxes can be found on the Internet and are easy enough to make with materials lying around the house. Dress your boxes up with colorful yarn or twine and add tiny baking charms to the outside. You can also wrap your cakes in foil paper and add colorful scrapbook stickers in any theme.

Other Options For Gifted Goodies

You should never feel obliged to stop with cakes and cookies. There are dozens of other delicious baked goods and even candies that you can make from scratch for your gift basket. Some people just enjoy receiving baked goods and candies. Whoopie pies are a hit with anyone who loves the soft texture of cake and the hands-on excitement of a cookie. The best part is that whoopie pies can come in varieties to match any occasion, from a colorful strawberry milk pie to a warm Christmas pumpkin spice flavor. Reserve some of the filling and thin it out into an icing. Use it to stick nonpareils and rainbow sprinkles to the top for some colorful flair, or decorate with sugar and crushed almonds as a gift to a crunchy granola lover.

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If you prefer to add candies to sweeten up your gift basket, go ahead with some classic favorites and wrap them in cellophane, then decorate with hand-cut paper tags that you design yourself. Candy apples are wonderfully simple to make and go wonderfully in a fall gift basket with some homemade popcorn balls. You can decorate both of them simply with a warm mix of cinnamon and sugar before the candy coating dries. The best part is that both candy apples and popcorn balls require the same basic ingredients: just corn syrup, sugar, and some patience. You can add a decadent texture to your popcorn balls easily by substituting melted marshmallows for the sweeter ingredients. Another great choice is caramels, which you can leave basic or add flavors such as maple or spiced apple cider.

Adding Your Own Baking Kits

To build the perfect basket for the happy baker in your life, add a baking kit complete with instructions. This can be much simpler than it sounds if you just use a glass mason jar that is both tasteful and functional. The glass sides make it possible to see the ingredients through it. This can look especially attractive if you take the time to layer the ingredients. If you prefer not to layer, you can gather ingredients, measure them out as the recipe specifies, and place them in plastic baggies. Next, place the baggies into a jar on top of each other. Attach the recipe card to the jar lid and wrap it in a pretty bow or some simple twine. For an extra touch, add your favorite toppings for cookies, cake, or any other recipe you use.

Giving Personal Favorites As Recipe Cards

Giving the gift of special recipes, family recipes, and just plain old favorites can be both personal and unique. You can even kick it up a notch by decorating your recipe index cards with sketches or stickers. Scrapbook kits are a great idea to add a special touch. You can print or write out the recipes you wish to share. Also, add photos, decorations, stickers or other components from the scrap-booking kit to create a theme for your recipient. When you have all the cards done, hole-punch them at one corner and tie them together with some decorative ribbon so that they stay in one place. Place them front-and-center in your basket, showing your recipient that you are excited to share every part of your baking adventures with them, not just the finished product.

The post Giving The Gift Of Food: Making Your Own Gift Baskets appeared first on Off The Grid News.

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How Nancy Pelosi Plans To Get President Trump Through His Tax Returns

November 16, 2018 by chris

Once they have them, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats can easily make Trump’s tax returns public. Particularly, Pelosi can submit the returns to the full House.

U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-California) plans to get President Donald J. Trump (R-New York) by making his tax returns public. In fact, requesting Trump’s tax returns is the first item on the Democrats’ agenda.

Requesting the President’s tax returns “is one of the first things we’d do,” Nancy Pelosi tells The San Francisco Chronicle. She adds, “that’s the easiest thing in the world.”

It is illegal for the government to make a person’s federal tax returns public without his or her permission. Still, Congressional committees have the power to order the IRS to turn over tax records to them, law professor George Yin notes.

Yes, Nancy Pelosi Can Get Trump’s Tax Returns

Nancy Pelosi can request Trump’s returns through the House Ways and Means Committee, Yin tells NPR. To explain, all Democrats need is a simple majority on that committee to demand tax returns.

Democrats will have that majority in January because they gained 34 seats in the midterm elections and currently hold 51.8% of the House of Representatives. Consequently, Nancy Pelosi will probably be the majority leader in the house after January 1, 2019.

Under the current law, the Ways and Means Committee has the unqualified ability to request anybody’s tax return, Yin reveals. As a result, Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin will have to hand the returns over.

Trump can sue to block the request but nobody knows how the courts will respond, Yin states. No federal judge has ever ruled on the issue of tax return requests. So, there are no legal precedents to govern the process.

Notably, Congress has subpoenaed officials’ tax records before. In the 1930s, a Democratic Congress demanded and received former Republican Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon’s tax records.

Democrats blamed Mellon for causing the Great Depression and accused him of tax fraud. Nonetheless, the fraud charges went unproven.

Nancy Pelosi Can Easily Make Trump’s Tax Returns Public

Once they have them, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats can easily make Trump’s tax returns public. Particularly, Pelosi can submit the returns to the full House.

Items submitted to the full House automatically become public record. Furthermore, Yin thinks the returns will become public on the internet if someone submits them to the House.

For this reason, Trump’s returns will become public in violation of federal laws that make it illegal to publicize returns without a taxpayer’s permission. Moreover, many private details of the president’s business will be available to reporters.

Why Does Nancy Pelosi Want President Trump’s Tax Returns?

Nancy Pelosi wants Trump’s tax returns because exposing them is a cheap and easy way of hurting the President.

Additionally, Pelosi can show she is an opponent of the president to left-wing Democrats. Fighting for Trump’s tax returns will also help Nancy Pelosi regain her former position as Speaker of the House.

Anti-Pelosi Democrats are already plotting to block Nancy’s return to the Speakership, The Intelligencer reports. For example, U.S. Representative Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who wants to be the Speaker, is leading the effort.

Is Nancy Pelosi Trying To Protect Herself Or Trump?

All in all, Nancy Pelosi is trying to protect her position by taking the offensive against Trump. Besides demanding tax returns, Pelosi plans “strategic use” of subpoena power against the president, Real Clear Politics reports.

In particular, Pelosi is trying to head off radical Democrats like Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-California) who want to impeach Trump. Oddly enough, Nancy Pelosi is trying to protect Trump and investigate him at the same time.

To explain further, Pelosi is afraid a Trump impeachment will distract House Democrats from their legislative agenda. In addition, impeachment will probably not remove Trump. Under the Constitution, the House can vote for impeachment but the Senate will probably block it.

Will Nancy Pelosi’s Request For Trump’s Returns Lead To Impeachment?

The Constitution requires a simple majority in the House to start an impeachment. As mentioned before, the Democrats now have such a majority. Nevertheless, the Constitution also requires a supermajority of the Senate or 67 votes to approve impeachment.

Impeachment will probably fail in the Senate because Republicans will control a majority (51 to 54 seats) in that body next year. Therefore, Democrats could end up fighting over impeachment in the House.

Nancy Pelosi is offering a limited investigation of Trump and his tax returns as an alternative to impeachment. An interesting possibility is that Pelosi knows there is no evidence of illegality in Trump’s tax returns. Hence, Pelosi could make the returns public to stop impeachment.

No matter what happens, a battle over Trump’s tax returns will be one of the main events in the next Congress. Only history will tell if Nancy Pelosi will make the President’s tax returns public.

It Is Not Illegal For President Trump To Release His Tax Returns

Trump’s tax returns are controversial because he is the first president since Richard M. Nixon (R-California) not to release his tax information. However, there is no law that requires a president to release his or her tax returns.

Democrats will keep demanding the returns because such a release is a popular idea. Significantly, polls show that 60% to 74% of Americans want Trump to release his returns, the Mic reports.

You may also enjoy reading an additional Off The Grid News article: Americans ‘Should Assume’ Their Tax Returns Can Be Hacked From The IRS, Expert Says

What are your thoughts on Nancy Pelosi and her quest to retrieve President Trump’s tax returns? Let us know in the comments below.

The post How Nancy Pelosi Plans To Get President Trump Through His Tax Returns appeared first on Off The Grid News.

This article first appeared on offthegridnews.com See it here

Restaurant Apps Collect Your Data For Big Money

November 15, 2018 by chris

It is currently unclear just who has access to the data that restaurant apps are collecting.

Restaurant apps are making it easy to get a table at your favorite restaurant by taking your data. In fact, some restaurant apps share your data with advertisers.

Moreover, popular restaurant apps like Nowait and Yelp are collecting huge databases containing information about diners. For instance, Nowait collects phone numbers and Table’s Ready uses phone numbers as IDs.

“The phone number is the unique identifier of a person to see how often they visited, all this information that restaurants really value,” Table’s Ready CEO Mike Errecart reveals. Consequently, apps and companies can track you through your phone number.

Restaurant Apps Can Track You With Your Phone Number

“The cellphone number is quickly becoming the new Social Security number in the digital age,” American Civil Liberties Union senior policy analyst Jay Stanley notes. For this reason, hackers or authorities could track with you with your phone number.

Data thieves could learn where you like to eat lunch and where you get your hair cut with your phone number. In particular, Supercuts is now asking customers for their email address and cell phone number.

Furthermore, some apps can use the GPS in your phone to pinpoint your location. As a result, somebody could follow you by tracking where your app is being used.

Restaurant Apps Are Big Business

Restaurant apps are collecting your data because it is worth big money. Particularly, Yelp bought Nowait for $40 million last year, CNET reports. Plus, Priceline purchased Open Table for $2.6 billion in 2014.

Yelp bought Nowait because it wants access to data regarding the app’s hundreds of thousands of customers. Additionally, Priceline wants access to data from all the eateries that accept Open Table.

Specifically, Nowait and Open Table automatically notify you when a table is available at your favorite restaurant. Notwithstanding, the data the apps collect is so valuable that restaurants compile it even when there are open tables.

Who Sees The Data Collected By Restaurant Apps?

It is unclear who has access to the data that restaurant apps are collecting. On the other hand, some of that data is easy for corporations, criminals, and government agencies to acquire.

For example, Table’s Ready will share phone numbers with restaurant employees. Restaurant apps also store phone numbers in servers that the bad guys can hack.

Restaurant app creators did not say if they sell phone numbers. However, there are information brokers that buy and sell data such as phone numbers, Motherboard explains. In addition, some restaurant apps store diners’ names and phone numbers.

Ultimately, biting the bullet and waiting in line for a table at your favorite restaurant could be a good way to protect your privacy. In the final analysis, restaurant app users are unfortunately trading their privacy for a better place in line.

You may also enjoy reading an additional Off The Grid News article: Apps Track You Even After You Uninstall Them

What do you think about restaurant apps that can track you and gather your data? Let us know in the comments below.

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This article first appeared on offthegridnews.com See it here