Dear Jim, I found a link from a fellow writer, who’s a former Naval officer, Ph.D. and EMT as well. It has good advice on bail out bags and some one-liners on survival. While not specifically survival oriented, I also enjoyed some of his astute observations of reality versus entertainment. – Michael Z. Williamson
SurvivalBlog reader Dr. Sidney Zweibel flagged this article:This war on germs has a silver lining o o o Jim Jubak of MSN Money Central: The Worst Case Scenario is Not About Us: Think About Inflation, India and China o o o I have once again expanded the SurvivalBlog Glossary. Let me know via e-mail if you notice anything else that I should have add.
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." – Patrick Henry, 1778, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention Reference: The Debates of the Several States, Elliot, vol. 3 (45)
Today we present another article for Round 5 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The writer of the best non-fiction article will win a valuable four day “gray” transferable Front Sight course certificate. Second prize is a copy of my “big box” preparedness course, generously donated by Jake Stafford of Arbogast Publishing. If you want a chance to win, start writing and e-mail us your article soon. Round 5 ends on July 31st. Tomorrow will be the last day to order my preparedness course at the special introductory price. If you wait until the 5th, the price will jump to …
Over the years I have spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out various ways to earn extra money to purchase the needed survival items I wanted without causing a fight with my spouse. I feel fortunate to have found several that work well for me, and may work for you as well. Ground rules for myself were that working a part time job was out. I hated working my normal 40 hour week and being committed to having to be at a certain spot at a certain time five or six days a week. Over the years …
Some worrisome commentary about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the debt bubble at one of the Yahoo message boards. o o o New York Mayor Bloomberg unveils a city hurricane preparedness plan. o o o SurvivalBlog reader SF in Hawaii mentioned that a self-winding watch is a nice idea, but “they are not viable long term due to the complexity of the internal workings (read: easy to break) and daily winding requirements. A solar powered watch (see Eco-drive) solves both of these problems.” My only point of disagreement is fragility. My 1978 Caravelle (Bulova) hairspring watch is …
“Congress has no power to appropriate money as an act of charity. As individuals, Americans have the right to give away as much money as they please, but Congress has no right to take our money from us and give it away, however worthy the recipient.” – Tennessee Congressman David "Davy" Crockett, from The Life of Colonel David Crockett, by Edward Sylvester Ellis (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1884)
Congratulations to T.H. of Louisiana, the high bidder in the recent SurvivalBlog benefit auction for a fully stocked M-17 Advanced Medical Bag/Rucksack. Many thanks for your generous $275 bid. And our special thanks to the fine folks at Ready Made Resources who kindly donated the kit. Meanwhile, we have launched another benefit auction, courtesy of the fine folks at the RWVA and Fred’s M14 Stocks.This one is for a “Super Shooter’s Package” including two shooting jackets and two admissions to a RWVA match. Please submit your bids via e-mail. This auction ends on the last day of July.
I’ve stated much of the following before, but it bears repeating: Don’t make the mistake of slipping into the “Armchair Commando” mindset. It is what my friend Keith in North Idaho calls the”Tommy Tactical” mindset. You know the type: your overweight friend with the big gun collection, but hardly any stored food. He is the same guy that will spend hours debating the finer points of exterior ballistics or starlight scopes, but that hasn’t even taken the time to zero all of his guns. He is too busy collecting guns, talking Schumer, and reading Soldier of Fantasy magazine. Armchair Commandos …
Jim, I have been stocking up on surplus 308 as it seems it is drying up. After all with nearly every nation switching to 5.56mm, it makes sense that it would dry up sooner or later. AIM Surplus has South African 308 in battle packs, but the price continues to climb every time I check their web site. I too, have looked and continue to debate over choice of MBR. Boston’s Gun Bible has been insightful but as FALs evolve it makes this choice harder. We had initially settled on M1As, but I too have been looking at the FAL …
Marty Weiss comments on the “upright spike” of global population, presaging its implications on the markets and currencies. Based on what Mr. Weiss has to say, it appears that economic trouble is on the way, sooner or later. Best to stock up. If you aren’t certain exactly what you’ll need to get your family prepared, then get a copy of my “big box” preparedness course. o o o Freeze Dry Guy reports brisk sales of their scarce U.S. Army Long Range Patrol (LRP) rations. They are now sold out of LRP Beef Stew, but we still have LRP Beef …
“I sincerely believe . . . that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” – Thomas Jefferson
Today we present another article for Round 5 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The writer of the best non-fiction article will win a valuable four day “gray” transferable Front Sight course certificate. Second prize is a copy of my “big box” preparedness course, generously donated by Jake Stafford of Arbogast Publishing. If you want a chance to win, start writing and e-mail us your article soon. Round 5 ends on July 31st.
The recent SurvivalBlog letters regarding wolves illustrate something that has interested me for a while. This is a phenomenon that might be called “The Great Disconnect”. “The Great Disconnect” is defined as the increasing number of people who lack the ability to distinguish between reality and their own beliefs. These are people who reject out of hand anything that conflicts with their internal world-view, no matter how out of touch with reality that view may actually be. I have no idea what percentage of the population falls into the ‘disconnected’ category, but judging from what I see on the Internet, …
Dear Mr. Rawles, I would like to point out an error in Bonehead’s letter posted on SurvivalBlog on 6/30/06. He states that one ton of red meat is equivalent to two elk, which is false. Let us assume that the average bull elk weighs 1000 pounds (an optimistic assumption, but let’s run with Bonehead’s numbers), the average cow weighs 600 pounds, and the average calf weighs 300 pounds. Roughly 40.1 percent of an elk consists of edible muscle so that the average bull would provide 401 pounds of meat, the average cow 241, and the average calf 120. Thus one …