Day: April 12, 2010

Letter Re: 550 Cord–The Use of Arts and Crafts for Survival and Practical Tasks

Mr. Rawles and SurvivalBlog Readers, I am a newly dedicated reader and have had an interest in your contests since day one. I have a few skills I’ve learned in life (hunting, fishing, marksmanship, tracking and writing) but the newest one is macramé. This is the art of weaving knots to make beautiful and often decorative pieces and is just a craft some folks use to entertain themselves. I’ve combined both of these and applied one more purpose for the art: rope-making, belt-making and strap-making. All three of these have occupied my time overseas for almost a year now. I’ve …


Letter Re: Scam Alert on an Heirloom Seeds Dealer

Hello Mr. Rawles: Back in February we ordered a batch of 100 vegetable seed packs from Vegetableseed.net. To date we’ve not received them and the company steadfastly refuse to respond to e-mails, either to their direct e-mail address or via their payment people, Digital River. Now they may just be incredibly busy but we’re beginning to think we’ve been scammed out of our £42.09. We’d hate to see any other SurvivalBloggers getting stiffed Very best wishes to you all. – Michael JWR Replies: Thanks for your warning. There are indeed a lot of fly-by-night mail order companies. But at least …


Six Letters Re: Suburban Survival

James, In response to “Suburban Survival, by The Suburban 10” posted on April 10th: I expect that the author will receive a lot of feedback on what he considers ‘Security’. Based on his erroneous assumptions on the role and proper use of a firearm in a suburban TEOTWAWKI situation, I can conclude that he is among the anti-Second Amendment crowd. Living in New York under the Bloomberg/Schumer cloud has obviously affected him. That being said, I shouldn’t have been so surprised when he wrote: “8. I have friends who are police officers and have never fired their weapon in the …


Economics and Investing:

GG flagged this: Property Tax Rebellion Brewing After Real Estate Collapse. Here is my prediction on how this will play out: Property values will eventually drop by 50% in most of the more populous states. Assessed valuations eventually drop correspondingly, but only after a public uproar and some foot-dragging. Tax revenues will decline. State legislatures will respond, increasing property tax rates by 100%. Net result: The politicians still get their money. Also from GG: Total Fed Credit: A Credit to Fed Stupidity (The Mogambo Guru) K.L. in Alaska suggested this piece about U.S. Treasury auction shenanigans, posted by Chris Martenson, …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Readers R.V.L. and S.S. both sent this good bit of news: Arizona House approves concealed weapons bill. If it is enacted, I suspect that several other western states will follow suit with Vermont-style “no-permit-required” concealed carry bills.    o o o SurvivalBlog’s Editor At Large Michael Z. Williamson forwarded this: More Air Marshalls arrested than arrests made.    o o o Jon in Wyoming sent these two articles that underscore the importance of finding a retreat locale with plentiful water: Water publication focuses on drought, and Colorado Basin nears drought tipping point.    o o o Reader J.M.S. recommended that …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“No one of us is ever safe. There is no security this side of the grave. A shipwreck or a hurricane can put man back to the brink of savagery, both in the means he uses to get his food and the lengths he will go to get it. The more ill-prepared people are to face trouble, the more likely they are to revert to savagery against each other.” – Novelist Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) from his novel “Bendigo Shafter”