Month: February 2012

Odds ‘n Sods:

This company near Denver, Colorado might be of interest: RainyDayRootCellars.com. They make pre-cast concrete shelters that are multipurpose: root cellars, storm shelters, nuclear blast/fallout shelters, and storage vaults. OBTW, if you are wondering how to make a detached underground shelter disappear… just pile part of your supply of firewood over the hatch.    o o o Please note that my novel “Survivors” is not just available from Amazon.com. It is also available from Barnes & Noble, and several other Internet vendors. There is also a network of local independent bookstores, coordinated by IndieBound.com. Give the other guys some business, too! …



Note From JWR:

Today we present another two entries for Round 39 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) 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 C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a …


Ready for “Slutet På Världen Som Vi Känner Den” in Sweden

The migration of SurvivalBlog’s web server to Sweden is complete. The new dedicated server is now humming along nicely with 5 Terabytes of available bandwidth, utilizing very fast dual-quad core processors. The kinks have nearly all been worked out. Now that the DNS propagation has been completed, SurvivalBlog is also back to a #1 ranking when you search “Survival Blog” in the major search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and Google. We are now down to just one sticky issue with McAfee anti-virus software displaying a false malware warning when SurvivalBlog is visited. This is because our server’s IP address falls …


A Wannabe Homesteader, by Brenda K.

Some of my long-time friends can’t believe me now.  I was definitely a “city girl,” but now I’m a “wannabe homesteader.”  We’re living in the country now and I’m having fun learning to do a lot of “new” things.  Some of these things are just ordinary, every-day chores for people who grew up on farms, but for me, it’s a whole new way of life.  I’ve really enjoyed making butter and yogurt from the fresh milk we buy from the local Amish.  The first day I bought a gallon of milk from them, I told them I’d never had fresh …


Urban and Suburban Preparedness, by ChemEngineer

A recent conversation prompted this article. It seems that friends in urban and suburban homes feel that there may be little hope for them in case of disaster, since they have no “retreat” set up in a rural area as a destination. This article points out similarities in all disaster preparedness, as well as possible differences in strategies and tactics to make surviving in urban and suburban locations more likely. None of these are new ideas, just slanted toward those who are urban/ suburban dwellers and that do not have a rural retreat location. While not detailed in scope, below …


Two Letters Re: Powering Vehicles and Machinery Without Gasoline

James, Thanks again for doing everything you do.  It is with great pleasure I write to you again to contribute some of my knowledge. I mean no offense to Caspar d’Gonzo, but after reading his article I have the notion that he has not yet actually constructed a gasifier based on the FEMA instructions.  Though his article was very good about covering the theory and basics. I was first fascinated with gasification when I saw them make a gasifier on The Colony.  I read about it and planned to build one.  Not long after I almost wrecked my Jeep while …


Economics and Investing:

This set of charts says it all: The day of reckoning for global total debt – total credit market debt up from $28 trillion in 2001 to $53 trillion in 2012. Bob L. sent this: Richard Russell – A Bitter Pill to Swallow, Austerity or Inflation Items from The Economatrix: True UK Jobless “6.3 Million” Jim Sinclair: The Lonely Road We Take Together “Poor America” – How The Broke Are Surviving Mortgage Settlement Will Plunge Real Estate Values


Odds ‘n Sods:

Ian R. sent this one: How Weather Impacts the Dinner Table    o o o AmEx (American Expat) sent this: Decision time for researchers of deadly bird flu    o o o Also from AmEx: Special Report: Towns go dark with post office closings. This is of particular concern for those of us who live way out in the hinterboonies.    o o o Some sage advice from Ol’ Remus: Preps.    o o o Bryan E. sent a link to this not-so-new “Russian Inwention”: The AK-12. The latest incarnation of the reliable Kalashnikov action, quite predictably now wearing a …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“By many indicators, Greece is devolving into something unprecedented in modern Western experience. A quarter of all Greek companies have gone out of business since 2009, and half of all small businesses in the country say they are unable to meet payroll. The suicide rate increased by 40 percent in the first half of 2011. A barter economy has sprung up, as people try to work around a broken financial system. Nearly half the population under 25 is unemployed. Last September, organizers of a government-sponsored seminar on emigrating to Australia, an event that drew 42 people a year earlier, were …


Note From JWR:

Today we present a short guest article and another two entries for Round 39 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) 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 C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) A 9-Tray Excalibur …


An Overview of NFA Gun Trusts, by Patrick Stegall

The last few years have seen the development of an interesting legal mechanism called the gun trust. Gun trusts use estate planning law to deal with, and in some cases legally circumvent, arcane and restrictive federal laws that regulate the use and possession of certain types of firearms. These federal statutes make up the National Firearms Act (NFA), a series of laws that require registration of guns such as machine guns, short barreled rifles and shotguns, and sound suppressors (aka silencers). They are often referred to as Title 2 weapons because they are regulated under Title 2 of the 1968 …


Planning for Shingles Symptoms in TEOTWAWKI, by M. Matriarch

The chicken pox vaccine was not licensed for use in the US until 1995, which means a lot of adults today may have had chicken pox. That also means that a lot of us are susceptible to developing shingles, a painful potential recurrence of the same virus that infected us with chicken pox. I remember when my great grandmother had shingles in the early 1960s. She experienced great pain and disability for at least a couple of months, and was left much less ‘able’ than before the disease.  Medicine has come a long way since then. This contribution is to …


Powering Vehicles and Machinery Without Gasoline, by Caspar d’Gonzo

World War II has always fascinated me. I spend a great deal of time reading and researching a wide array of books, articles and Internet sites about this period. To the conquered peoples of Europe and Asia, it must certainly must have seemed like the end of the world as they knew it. One of the most fascinating aspects of my studies is discovering how individuals and groups in Axis-held countries survived behind enemy lines.  Valuable lessons can be gleaned by looking at the tactics and techniques of underground and partisan groups in France, the Philippines, Yugoslavia, China, Norway, Belgium …


Letter Re: Some Transportation Alternatives

Hi Mr. R.: I worked in a bike shop for five years up until two years ago and my better half continues to work in a bike shop to this day. I have to say having a road (or “racing”) bike for when the SHTF is a really bad idea. Road bikes are kind of like the sports cars of the bicycling world. They are not meant to beat upon, you run over or hit the wrong thing on the road or whatever–even gravel–and you could be walking. They eat tires and tubes. I have changed hundreds, maybe a thousand or …