Preparedness Notes for Monday – August 21, 2017

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SurvivalBlog Notes

In 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon erupted with an estimated billion cubic yards of carbon dioxide gas. The gas had apparently been accumulating in the crater lake, held down by the weight of the water. When it finally erupted, the gas cloud smothered and killed every living animal, including insects, in its path until it dissipated. Outsiders learned of the disaster when they approached the villages and found animal and human bodies on the ground. The best estimate is that 1,700 people and thousands of cattle died.

Cold Steel Heavy Duty Sword Cane, by Pat Cascio

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Cold Steel Heavy Duty Sword Cane

The Cold Steel Heavy Duty Sword Cane may well be the strongest and without a doubt the sharpest real world sword cane ever built. In 25 years of testing and writing about knives, firearms, and all manner of survival gear, it was done on a professional basis, and I always tried to maintain an unbiased opinion. However, in the case of the Cold Steel Heavy Duty Sword Cane, it was tested for real world use—my own personal, medical use.

My Slow Hip Replacement Recovery

As this is being written, I’m in my eleventh week of recovery from hip replacement surgery. Quite honestly, the recovery is taking much longer than I expected or was led to believe it would. I’ve never been a very patient person, and I thought I’d be back to 100% a few weeks after the surgery. Such is not the case. I’m far from a total recovery, I’m sad to say. However, my therapist told me some weeks back that at that point in my recovery the average person scored a 30 and I scored 60 on a national average. Still, I wasn’t satisfied.

Unfortunately, there is no way to speed up the recovery from this type of surgery, and a full healing takes about a year. My orthopedic surgeon said I was doing so well that instead of returning for a checkup in six months, he told me to return in a year. Still, I’m not satisfied with the recovery time.

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Recipe of the Week: Susie’s Creamy Pie Recipe

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Recipe of the Week

The heat of the summer and the busy times call for something fast, easy, and tasty. Try this creamy pie. I highly recommend it. We tried and really liked a mixture of 1 cup blueberries and 1 cup diced strawberries. We also used some fresh cherries from the store for another version, but be sure and remove the pits.

Ingredients

  • One pie crust, baked and cooled (empty)
  • 1 small tub of Cool Whip
  • 1 small package of “Fat free” cream cheese
  • 1/4 cup of powdered sugar
  • Packets of Stevia
  • 2 cups of fresh fruit (whole blueberries or pitted cherries, sliced strawberries or peaches, or some combination like blueberries and strawberries)

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Economics & Investing For Preppers

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Derivatives

Here are the latest items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. And it bears mention that most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on  derivatives counterparty risk. (See the Derivatives section, below.)

Precious Metals:

This Year’s Best Commodity Is One of the Smallest Metals Markets

o  o  o

Commentary from Hub Moolman in South Africa:  Gold Set To Rise While Debt-Based Assets Collapse

Stocks:

Stock market’s record-setting rally at risk as doubts grow over Trump agenda. JWR’s Comment: Of course what the Mass Media is not reporting is the fact that most of the controversy was self-generated by the leftist mass media talking heads.  They are shouting and then reporting the loud noise as “news” from within their own echo chamber.

o  o  o
European shares fall, Barcelona attack weakens travel stocks.

 

Commodities:

Alaska’s Conflicted Oil Future

o  o  o

Indonesia barters coffee, palm oil for Russian fighter jets

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Situational Awareness Starts in the Home, by J.G.

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Situational Awareness

Most everyone tends to start life with very low levels of what is called situational or tactical awareness. These words are often mentioned in the same conversations along with the term OPSEC (Operational Security). These same men are wearing MOLLE covered gear talking about fields of fire. They might also include fatal funnels, eyeballs on targets, heads on swivels, and other tactical lingo. However, in case you didn’t know, situational awareness is for everyone.

So where do we begin with this discussion? I’m glad you asked. I believe that tactical awareness, just like kindness, should start in the home.

Mom and Dad’s Roles

My childhood in the 1970s and 80s may be seen as an unusual childhood by today’s standards. But growing up I felt like I had a very normal, stable childhood. I had parents who made a wonderful home life for me and my siblings. My mother was our nurse, teacher, homemaker, financial advisor, and life coach. My father was our PT instructor, outdoor guide, professor, and provider. We were not home-schooled in the current sense of the word, but we were educated at home constantly. There was always a discussion of what we had been taught in public school. Often there was many a correction made to what we had been taught. I guess my parents did this because they believed we were important to the family.

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Letter Re: Getting Ready For The Long Walk

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Lone Wolf and Cub

Good Day Sir,

I writing to you to make amends for an error that was included in a recently published article entitled “Getting Ready For The Long Walk, by Lone Wolf and Cub” on the blog. In the article we discussed a scenario, in which persons may have to walk at least partway to their retreat.

In the article, it was incorrectly stated that a tourniquet can be placed on for two days. The correct answer is tourniquet removal should be considered in two hours. My COC recently has informed me the upper limit should be of eight hours.

I apologize to the readers for this mistake. In the military we admit to our errors, accept any due punishment, and move on.

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The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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Genocide

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. Today brings us an enlightening article on path of Genocide. Do you know where the U.S. is on that path?

Fear

Reader H.L. sent in the link to this article on the five most dangerous demands of fear. Excerpt: “It seems the fear is taking over. After all, it’s been such an integral part of our lives for such a long a time now that, sadly, life just wouldn’t feel normal without it.” Some fear is good. It keeps your senses honed to fine edge and can be used as a great motivator to get things done. However, when it begins to control your life, there are some issues.

Second Amendment

Reader G.P. sent in this article on the DOJ’s Operation Choke Point. This is the operation that was intended to crack down on questionable activities like online gambling and “escort” services by choking off their finances. Under the Obama administration, firearms sales were also lumped in their, even though that is a constitutional protected activity and is not questionable at all. Many firearms retailers were either forced out of business or were severely impacted when their financial channels were shut down. Now, however, the DOJ has announced that under the Trump administration, it has ended all activities associated with Operation Choke Point.

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Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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Quote of the Day - Bible KJV

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” 1 John 4:1-3 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Saturday – August 19, 2017

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SurvivalBlog Notes

August 19th is the birthday of Philo Taylor Farnsworth (1906-1971). Farnsworth was an American inventor who is best known for his image pickup device that formed the basis for the fully functional and complete all-electronic television system. Among his many other inventions was the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor, a small nuclear fusion device that remains a viable source of neutrons. At his death, he held over 300 patents, mostly in radio and television.

August 20th

We’ve Been Doing Preparedness Wrong For A Long Time- Part 2, by Old Bobbert

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Emergency

We’re continuing to take a look at how preppers have looked at “emergencies” versus crises. We must learn the “new old” mindset is that is required. We’ve read about the some of the issues and diseases that caused massive deaths in the mid nineteenth century. Now we are moving on to see what we can do better post-SHTF.

Preppers Must Do More To Prevent Sickness

Whooping cough, bad water, starvation, freezing, you name it, and they had it. They died from it. We who call ourselves thinkers and preppers must do better. We now know how important the washing of our hands can be. Now we know that prevention can be a life savior. Sicknesses like these have been returned to our lives, and now we will have to deal with them again. We can not simply re-establish the poor practices of corrupt government that have crept into our lives. The culture of deceit, of low principles must go. The ignorant youth dependent upon the welfare state and the modern mob rule and votes for sale don’t work.

As preppers, survivors, and re-builders, we must carry the burden of individual responsibility and self government.  We must provide the education and concern for others that was the foundation of our republic. We must rekindle the fires of freedom wrapped tightly in rational responsibility once again in the souls of our children. They will be our future in our new old world.

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The Editors’ Preps for the Week

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Montague Paratrooper Folding Bike

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. Steadily, we work on meeting our prepping goals. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities.  They also share their planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, property improvements, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year. We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in the Comments. Let’s keep busy and be ready!  This week’s focus is on beginning to prepare for fall.

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,

This week was fairly quiet. The children did a lot of horseback riding around the Ranch and once up into the adjoining National Forest. However, they weren’t long in the forest because the horses were on extra high alert and kept staring into the woods and snorting and making their nervous “whoosh” sounds. We concluded that there must be a predator somewhere just off the road in the forest, and even though we were fully armed, decided to not tempt fate. We erred on the side of caution and went back home. The family continues to do a lot of mountain bike riding around the ranch. (On of our bikes is a Montague paratrooper folder.)

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Letter Re: Metal Building as a Faraday Cage

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Metal Building as a Faraday Cage

HJL or JWR

I will be building a small building to house electronic equipment (batteries for off-grid) and want to protect it from any EMP type of conditions. If we use metal roofing and clad the outside in corrugated metal would that be satisfactory protection? There will have to be ventilation for it too. The equipment will have to be well grounded.

HJL’s Comment:

If the panels are bonded together well (meaning more than just the 1 screw every 4 feet) and you have some form of conductive flooring also bonded to the building, then yes, it would work. Most metal building will not work well because of those two deficiencies.

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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suppressor safety

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. Wait till you read Mike Williamson’s suppressor safety story today!

Hard Left

Once again we find the questionable organization “Crowds on Demand” paying participants in violent demonstrations. The Los Angeles company ran a Craig’s List ad asking for participants for rallies and protests in the Charlotte, North Carolina area a week before the violent counter protest that occurred. Pay was variable but is listed as typically $25+/hour. They were asking for participants and photographers. Of course, the company denies any involvement in the protests.

o o o

Reader H.L sent in this article outlining plans that some hard left groups are making for November 4th. Apparently, the goal is to replicate the “Days of Rage” campaign from 1971 and bring about enough anarchy that a change in government is forced. It is readily apparent that this isn’t about some confederate statues; it’s also about bringing down anything that the hard left disagrees with.

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