completely agree with TT.  there's definitely "weird" stuff happening around the world both natural and man made type events.  we have screwed up the balance of this planet in just the last 100 years more than any civilization in the past... not counting volcanic eruptions, solar flares CME's, ice age, etc etc.  the earth WILL regain it's balance with or without our assistance just as it has done for the past 4.5 billion years.
there is a saying that it is YOUR responsibility to be prepared.  if you are a father or mother, you are the sole entity who needs to take care of your children.  not your relatives, friends, neighbors, church, GOVERNMENT, etc etc.   the responsibility lies squarely on you.  if you are religious, it is your biblical duty to do so.
are you afraid of the guy with the gun... or are you afraid of BECOMING the guy with the gun.

I'll start off by saying that I believe most people are good.  I agree wholeheartedly with the concept of forming small tribes or communities if SHTF and banding together to survive.  but there are far too many people who feel they are entitled to such groups without actually having any real world skills or anything to contribute to the group.  young kids these days wouldn't be able to find their way home if they didn't have an "i" something rather type device.  also there is a bad element in our society who will band together and cause major problems because they have nothing to lose.  the less fortunate don't steal from other less fortunate folks.

there are ~1.0 to ~1.4 million people on Oahu at any given time depending upon the amount of visitors.  if the ship's stop coming, there is approximately 3 days worth of food for that amount of populace.  the biggest reason the ships stop coming would be the left coast falling into the Pacific due to a massive earthquake.  there are other reasons too like fuel shortages, dock worker union calamities, EMP, and so on and so forth. 

the worst case scenario would be that an massive EMP from either the Sun, North Korea, China, or other source puts us back about 250 years technology wise and we must survive Little House on the Prairie style quite literally.  anything that operates via a microchip and is not protected via a Faraday cage won't survive. imagine all the cars just stopped in the midst of travel(with the exception of carbonated vehicles), no cell phones, computers/internet, radio, TV/cable, power(power plants operate via computers), lights, refrigerators, no radios for law enforcement and fire authorities, etc etc.  if you've fallen and can't get up and no one is around... well you're pretty much done.

also, don't forget that these Islands are a major strategic stepping stone and locale to the entire Pacific rim.  it is highly desirable.  nuking them to get rid of its inhabitants and threats is not feasible due to contaminating the property.

anyhow, bottom line is that if you have little to no skills with growing food, designing/building/fabrication, ranching/livestock duties, seeking fresh water, security/defense, negotiating/leadership, fishing, food preservation, cooking ... and the list goes on and on... but the point is to be able to be marketable in bad times.  you will NOT have the luxury to be a consumer without contributing to the group.  there are far too many people today that have no real world skills outside modern society and this is truly sad.  our world revolves around money and we have lost touch with what we should be really focusing on, which is to help one another.  not socialism or communism, just to be human to one another.

you cannot survive on your own if things get bad.

Blue Beam Project. You have been prepped through years of televised & hollywood indoctrination to eat it up when it happens. Bewaaaaaaaare. The time is neeeeeeeeeeeear!

I actually tend to lean towards the AA theory (we were a primitive species that were given knowledge by an advanced race), but wary of the BBP (massive holographic and laser light show to give the illusion that aliens have returned, and to unite all religions under a single rule)

I heard somewhere that it's actually ILLEGAL to touch aliens. Forgot where I saw this. I believe the firefighter training manual that was updated to include alien invasions.

Yeah, there's wierrrrd stuff goin' on. One wonders if this is a function of vastly improved communications like the net, or what.  I've noticed that the mainstream news outfits are picking up on stuff on the net and reporting on it nowadays, and this goes beyond the entertainment value of reporting on the latest viral vid.

One of my favorite flicks on the subject of SHTF is "Panic in the year zero," not for its entertainment value, but for its logical and fairly realistic consideration of what will go on in the case of a disaster. This one's about atomic attack, but can be generalized to any total breakdown of society.

Yeah, it's just a movie, and it's dated (1962, right around the Cuban Missile Crisis), but I don't see human motivations and behaviors changing much from then.

It also has a rather sensationalized title, unfortunately, but it's pretty well done.  Ray Milland (star and director) was a bit of a prepper himself. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_in_Year_Zero!

Some reviews, quoted from the above Wiki article:

Michael Atkinson, the film critic for The Village Voice, liked the film and wrote, "This forgotten, saber-toothed 1962 AIP cheapie might be the most expressive on-the-ground nightmare of the Cold War era, providing a template not only for countless social-breakdown genre flicks (most particularly, Michael Haneke's Time of the Wolf) but also for authentic crisis—shades of New Orleans haunt its DVD margins...the movie is nevertheless an anxious, detail-rich essay on moral collapse."[1]

Glenn Erickson writes, in his DVD Savant review, "Panic In Year Zero! scrupulously avoids any scenes requiring more than minimalist production values yet still delivers on its promise, allowing audience imagination to expand upon the narrow scope of what's actually on the screen. It sure seemed shocking in 1962, and easily trumped other more pacifistic efforts. The Day the Earth Caught Fire was for budding flower people; Panic In Year Zero! could have been made as a sales booster for the gun industry."[2]

Another quote from the same article shows a more hand-wringing perspective (selected quote):

The only thing that was hard to fully approve of in Panic in Year Zero!, was Milland's selfish philosophy for survival—it was simply not a very human one. It was a narrow philosophy that did not give him the high moral ground over the looters, who also recognized it was a dog-eat-dog world and they must also look out only for Number One. But if everyone behaved like that, the world would indeed be a place of anarchy and hell.

Got news for ya:  there will not be a moral high ground. This one cracked me up: "But if everyone behaved like that, the world would indeed be a place of anarchy and hell."

Got more news for ya:  the world will be a place of anarchy and hell.  That's the new starting point.  What the hell are you thinking?  If there are fuzzy pink unicorns with cutesey big eyelashes and pretty flowing manes, we'll be killing them for the meat.  And when you get hungry enough, you'll quit your hand-wringing and dig in with both those hands.

Terry, 230RN