Odds ‘n Sods:

Reader “Hawaiian K.” mentioned this article on a sub-prime mortgage woes in Britain. K’s comment: “We have a tendency to think of the sub-prime meltdown as being an American phenomenon when it’s happening in Great Britain too.”

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It’s not even vaguely related to survival or preparedness, but I found this news story weird, wacky, and wonderful: Oregon man takes lawn chair up to 13,000 feet, travels 193 miles

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Sounds like something out of one of those survivalist novels: Desperate times in Zimbabwe – A country at the end of its tether. You will note that I’ve been highlighting Zimbabwe ever since the first month that SurvivalBlog was launched. (Mostly links to Cathy Buckle’s free newsletter. Her July, 2007 newsletter was particularly powerful.) I’ve done so because that once prosperous nation typifies of what can happen in a “slow slide” collapse. We can learn from their sad experience.