Day: January 1, 2015

Notes for Thursday – January 01, 2015

John Cantius Garand (January 1, 1888 – February 16, 1974) was born in St. Rémi, Quebec. John Garand designed one of America’s best known battle rifles, the M1 Garand. General Patton praised Garand’s design, writing to Chief of Ordnance Lt. Gen. Levin H. Campbell, Jr., (January 26, 1945): “The M1 rifle is the most deadly rifle in the world.” o o o Today, we present another entry for Round 56 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $12,000+ worth of prizes for this round include: First Prize: A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or …


December in Precious Metals, by Terrence Campbell of Gainesville Coins

Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review, where we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover the price action of gold and silver and examine the “what” and “why” behind those numbers. Gold continued to sputter throughout the month of December, hitting a high of just 1,230 per troy ounce on the 10th, and slowly sinking to a low of 1,175 over the next two weeks, ending on the 25th. Market analysts are again attributing the weak performance of gold to continually sagging crude oil prices globally, lower than expected inflation, …


Lessons on Prepping From an Afghanistan Deployment, by A.K. – Part 1

My experiences as a Sergeant in a Marine Infantry battalion have ultimately changed my philosophy towards prepping. Living in a remote region of Afghanistan, Marjeh district, was very much like living in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. There were no roads, other than small cart paths, used by civilian and Taliban alike. There was no running water and no electricity. Locals pumped water from wells, if lucky, or drank from the canals. Electricity was a luxury and power came from a generator. Many of the locals were so poor they had never owned a single piece of any currency; barter was a …


Letter Re: Prepper Digital Security

Mr. Latimer, I read the article “Prepper Digital Security“, by A.B. and would like to offer a couple of comments. The article mentions the use of TrueCrypt. I was a serious user of this software package until June of this year after Microsoft ceased support of Windows XP. When that happened, the development of TrueCrypt was ended with very little explanation. I run Ubuntu Linux and used TrueCrypt. Now that development has stopped, I cannot get updates so am no longer protected if NSA finds another exploit. The website has the following to say: WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure …


Economics and Investing:

Why You Should Be Prepared for Both Inflation and Deflation o o o From the desk of SurvivalBlog’s Editor At Large, Mike Williamson: Corn ethanol is of no economic use o o o Items from Mr. Econocobas: Russia Says Ruble Crisis Over as Reserves Dive, Inflation Climbs Japan Struggles to Escape Recession as Production Drops U.S. Bond Sentiment Is Worst Since Disastrous ’09 – It is my opinion that the Fed won’t ever raise rates but will always pretend or let the markets believe they will, and use just use the excuse du’ jour to put it off. Perhaps I …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Hackers can steal your fingerprint from a PHOTO: Copycat print could be used by criminals to fool security systems. – D.S. o o o License Plate Reader Technology Looks At Faces. – G.P. o o o Der Spiegel Reveals Loose Standards Needed for Drone Assassination. – RBS o o o 28 Signs That U.S. Public Schools Are Rapidly Being Turned Into Indoctrination Centers And Prison Camps. – B.B o o o Be American . – B.B.