Day: December 22, 2007

Note from JWR:

The high bid in the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction is now at $200. The auction is for a scarce original 1980s-vintage Heckler und Koch 19mm Emergency Flare Launcher (EFL) aka “Notsignalgerät“ from my personal collection. It comes with three magazines and 28 scarce original German 19mm flares–10 red, 10 white, and 8 green. Together, this package is worth approximately $400. It is not classified as a “firearm” under Federal law. (Consult your state and local laws before bidding.) Sorry, no overseas bids will be accepted for this auction. This auction ends on January 15th. Please e-mail us your bids, in …


Letter Re: Sources for Gasoline and Diesel Fuel in a Grid-Down Collapse

Dear Jim: There have been a lot of posts recently about bug-out vehicles and such on SurvivalBlog. Of course, every car or truck requires fuel, and in a sudden grid-down situation there will be a bunch of fuel in underground tanks at most every gas station, unable to be pumped out due to the lack of electricity. I have observed oil company trucks filling these tanks, and it appears they simply pry up some covers and drop the fuel into the tanks. How deep are these tanks, and can the fuel be pumped out by some kind of lightweight hand-cranked …


Letter Re: LDS Church Offers Food Storage Starter Kit

Jim, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [LDS or comminly called “The Mormons”]. I am also the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for my ward. As you know the leaders of the church constantly speak of preparedness. In April 2007 a talk was offered by Keith B McMullin in the Saturday evening session of conference titled “Lay Up in Store”. This talk proclaimed again all the benefits of preparation. While not every Latter-day Saint is fully prepared, a percentage somewhere in the mid-teens have done at least a 72-Hour Kit (Bug-out Bag). The Church’s preparation …


Odds ‘n Sods:

With credit to SHTF Daily (one our favorite sites) comes this tale of housing market woe: Bargain houses largely unsold Courthouse-step auctions offer 1,336 properties in foreclosure — 17 are sold    o o o Great Britain bans samurai swords. I suppose that the British citizenry will soon be down to just butter knives, cricket bats, ASBOs, and harsh language for self defense.    o o o SurvivalBlog reader Mary R. forwarded us this odd notice from the US Treasury: Annual Purchase Limit For Savings Bonds Set at $5,000. Could the Treasury have been warned that the Fed plans to …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Every nation that has ended in tyranny has come to that end by way of good order. It certainly does not follow from this that peoples should scorn public peace, but neither should they be satisfied with that and nothing more. A nation that asks nothing of government but the maintenance of order is already a slave in the depths of its heart; it is a slave of its well-being, ready for the man who will put it in chains." – Alexis DeTocqueville, Democracy in America