Day: August 9, 2011

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 36 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round 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 $795, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $300 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), D.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo, and E.) …


Converting a Standard American Home Into a Hardened Retreat, by CentOre

Not everyone can find or afford a solidly built brick home with fittings to hang bullet-proof shutters and doors. We agree with the bulk of the writings we have read concerning the ‘non-defensibility’ of the average United States home.  Our group has choices as to which house will become ‘The Retreat’ for the entire group when the SHTF.  Our group’s consensus is our ‘Primary’ retreat will probably be a 2,600 square foot triple-wide ranch style manufactured home.  It has three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a living room and family room.   There is an adequate kitchen with a totally …


Some Ground Truth on Intellectual Property Rights

I recently received an e-mail that perturbed me. In reply to my e-mail releasing the right to re-post an article from SurvivalBlog, a gent (who shall remain nameless) mentioned: “Personally, I don’t believe in copyrights because nobody can truly own ideas, thoughts or words…” To which, I replied: Do you really believe that?  Let me politely set you straight:  When I write a novel, that is my intellectual property.  Each book that I write represents the fruit of my intellect, and is the end result of thousands of hours of my work.  Without a limited-term copyright, strangers could rob me …


Economics and Investing:

Monday’s headline at the The Drudge Report proclaimed: BARACKALYPSE NOW. On Monday, following a losing week, stocks on the Dow dropped another 631 points. The spot price of gold jumped 3% to touch an all-time intra-day high of $1,720 per ounce, and then $1,723 in after-hours trading. And since silver is considered more of an industrial metal than gold, it drifted downward to just $38.65 per ounce. These atypical disparate moves in silver and gold brought the silver-to-gold ratio to a whopping 44-to-1. In my opinion, this is now a great time to ratio trade out of gold and into …


Odds ‘n Sods:

This piece from Switzerland has SurvivalBlog written all over it: Turning army forts into private homes. (OBTW, see the photo links at the bottom of this post in our archives. Fascinating, clever camouflage!)    o o o Some great commentary from Patrice Lewis: Man the lifeboats!    o o o Freeze Dry Guy has an August special on original military rations including Granola with Milk & Bananas and Granola with Milk & Blueberries, packed 60 Mylar pouches per case , at $119 per case, with even deeper multi-case discounts available.    o o o No doubt this abuse of power …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Patents and copyrights are the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man’s right to the product of his mind. Every type of productive work involves a combination of mental and of physical effort: of thought and of physical action to translate that thought into a material form. The proportion of these two elements varies in different types of work. At the lowest end of the scale, the mental effort required to perform unskilled manual labor is minimal. At the other end, what the patent and copyright laws acknowledge is the paramount role of mental effort in …