Day: January 18, 2011

Notes from JWR:

Good News! It took many moons, but the archiving project for the early years of SurvivalBlog posts is now complete. You can now use the “Search” box at the top of the right-hand bar to search every SurvivalBlog post, all the way back to the blog’s launch in August, 2005. Thank you for your patience. — Today we present another two entries for Round 32 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. …


Thoughts on 2011 Silver Investing, by Texas Tony

Disclaimer:  This  article represents the opinions of one individual.  Keep in mind my views are more extreme than the mainstream.  For example, I am anticipating significant worldwide financial upheaval in 2011, which could include any combination of collapse and bailout of European economies (Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, or Italy); devaluation or collapse of the Euro; loss of faith in the US Dollar as a worldwide trading tool (note that Russia and China recently agreed to price trade deals in their sovereign currencies, not dollars); further “bailouts” and “Quantitative Easing” in the US Economy;  and widespread municipal bond and municipal pension …


One View of The End Of The World As We Know It, by John Y.

The wonderful thing about the Internet is how many viewpoints and perspectives there are out there that can save a person a lot of time trying to articulate his own.  And I found one that suits me and mine.  If you haven’t taken the time to explore the SurvivalBlog.com do it.  I have barely scratched the surface and have found so many interesting things.  I generally download or copy and paste the stuff that I think has value and add it to my growing digital library.  That’s actually another project that I encourage.  I have multiple digital folders divided by topics …


Letter Re: Lessons from the Tunisian Revolution

Greetings Mr. Rawles, In the ongoing chaos of the Tunisia revolution we are able to watch a real life SHTF scenario being played out. Well worth the time to observe and learn from. Even though the head of the government has fled, it’s body is still alive and flailing creating havoc. The resulting chaos has caused breakdowns in food distribution and security as evidenced by the following quotes in the Washington Times. I thought it interesting that how quickly the neighborhoods have formed their own militias to protect themselves. The following are some quotes from a Washington Times article: “Ordinary …


Avalanche Lily’s Bedside Book Pile

Here are the current top-most items on my perpetual bedside pile: I just finished reading the novel Life As We Knew It, a 2006 “young adult” novel by Susan Beth Pfeffer.  It is a survivalist story.  An asteroid strikes the Moon, knocking it out of orbit and closer to the earth.  As a result, the earth’s gravitational forces are changed, causing high tides, tsunamis, earthquakes and major volcanic eruptions.  The coastal cities world-wide are wiped out, weather patterns are completely disrupted, causing floods and droughts, terrible thunderstorms and blizzards and earlier, colder winters.  Food is scarce.  The story is a …


Economics and Investing:

Sue C. suggested this: The Black Swan Events of 2011? RVL sent: Record $14 trillion-plus debt weighs on Congress. The article begins: “The United States just passed a dubious milestone: Government debt surged to an all-time high, topping $14 trillion — $45,300 for each and everyone in the country.” Thomas Sowell: Honest Answer to Government Woes is Bankruptcy Wait for complete package on debt crisis: Merkel Weak Dollars and Strong Commodities? (Thanks to John R. for the link.) Items from The Economatrix: Homelessness Increases As Help Decreases   10 Things That Would Be Different If The Federal Reserve Had Never …


Odds ‘n Sods:

China’s control of rare-earth metals poses risk to U.S. solar future.    o o o Rourke spotted this: Inexpensive perimeter alarm. Keep in mind that those units are NOT weatherproof, so they should be installed in weatherproof enclosures, and buy plenty of spares!    o o o The Queensland Floods: Next shock will be high food prices    o o o James C. recommended this videotaped interview with Dimitri Orlov: “America Will Collapse”. It should come as no surprise to SurvivalBlog readers that Orlov predicts very high crime rates and that country dwellers will fare better than urbanites. He calls …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Since it’s not considered polite, and surely not politically-correct to come out and actually say that greed gets wonderful things done, let me go through a few of the millions of examples of the benefits of people trying to get more for themselves. There’s probably widespread agreement that it’s a wonderful thing that most of us own cars. Is there anyone who believes that the reason we have cars is because Detroit assembly line workers care about us? It’s also wonderful that Texas cattle ranchers make the sacrifices of time and effort caring for steer so that New Yorkers can …