Day: February 26, 2010

Odds ‘n Sods:

Mike C. liked an article comparing ammunition with other barter items. The authors list and rankings are interesting.    o o o I noticed that there are some great links to information on gun caching and long term storage, over at MouseGuns.com.    o o o I’ve been pleased to see that GunPal–the pro-gun alternative to the PayPal online payment service, is expanding rapidly. You can now buy thousands of items with the GunBroker.com auction service, where payments are accepted via GunPal. As background, I must mention that for nearly a decade, PayPal (owned by eBay, and both headquartered in …


Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 27 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will include: First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A HAZARiD Decontamination Kit from Safecastle.com. (A $350 value.), and D.) A 500 round case of …


Empty Hand Survival, by Joe G.

We are living in a time when all has gone wrong and societies rules and conventions no longer hold true.  People no longer respect the sanctity of life and well established morals and honor have become a thing of the past. You have prepared yourself and your family to survive without the amenities we have grown accustomed.  You have enough food, a secure shelter, preparations for clean water and enough fuel and weapons.  At least you thought you did. As the evaporation of society continues and you begin to watch your inventory of all things drastically shrink you begin to …


Letter Re: Which Foods Have Indefinite Shelf Lives?

James Wesley, What are the chances of you posting a link to all food items and such that have an indefinite shelf life as they come from a store, I have heard that items like Crisco vegetable shortening have an indefinite shelf life. Is this true or just hearsay? Thanks in advance for any info and also thank you so much for the huge wealth of information you have made available to me through your blog! You have probably saved more lives than you can imagine. – Jeff JWR Replies: Tables of shelf life info are provided in my “Rawles …


Getting Medieval in London–The Planned New U.S. Embassy

Jim, I recently read the paragraph in your most recent book “How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It” that when we consider retreat architecture, that we should “think medieval castle”. Well, evidently the U.S. State Department must have read your book too, and taken that passage to heart, because an interesting new feature in the proposed US embassy in London is a moat. For some details, including a photo of an architectural model, see this article. That piece includes a link to a Times of London Online article. All the best, – Yishai


Economics and Investing:

The various state budget crises are increasing in severity. Here is the news from California, and Illinois. (Thanks to GG, for both links.) Reader “Burrito Boy” forwarded this warning of darker days in Europe: Greece leads Europe’s winter of discontent Michael H. suggested a piece by Professor Bainbridge: What, Me Worry? Credit Default Swaps on US Treasuries. Oh, don’t miss his advice at the end of the article: “Although sovereign defaults are hardly unknown, things would have to get incredibly bad for the US to default on Treasuries. And if they got that bad, you’d probably have been better off …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Steve W. wrote to mention that he’d found an interesting resource web site with links to appropriate technologies of all sorts: Practical Action.    o o o Courtesy of Kevin S.: Where have all the MANPADS gone? And here is a related article: Anti-Missile Jammers on Commercial Jets    o o o A trend to watch? Spokane Tax Assessor Wants Low Altitude High Resolution Photos of Private Property. A hat tip to Chad S. for the link.