Month: March 2020

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — March 10, 2020

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110 years ago today, March 10, 1910, China officially ended slavery. But unofficially, China now has one of the world’s largest slave populations. These are mostly political prisoners, working in prison factories. Sadly, there is no way of reliably knowing whether or not most of the “Made In China” merchandise that you buy might originate from the laogai prison factories. — Before I get to our feature article and regular columns, here are a few pressing news updates: Black Monday: Dow plunges more than 2,000 points, biggest decline since 2008 The Costcopocalypse Continues. (I’m glad that most SurvivalBlog readers stocked …


Coronavirus: More Thoughts on N95 Masks, by Survivormann99

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First, I should mention that I have no medical training beyond the first aid level. The purpose of this article is to address questions that have been of concern to me, and to toss out ideas on which others with more training and experience can comment on . As the news about the coronavirus was gaining more attention nationally, a relative pooh-poohed the coronavirus threat by citing the annual number of flu fatalities as being a basis for comparison. In a subsequent response, he said, “Well, I’m going to keep doing what I always do. After all, what can I …


SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

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This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. We also mention companies of interest to preppers and survivalists that are located in the American Redoubt region. Today, we focus on Montana’s Democrat Governor, and one presidential hopeful, Steve Bullock. (See the Montana section.) Region-Wide Here is an article on the American Redoubt movement, written by a religion reporter who interviewed me: 20 years after Y2K, preppers ready for societal collapse. o o …



Preparedness Notes for Monday — March 9, 2020

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March 9th is the birthday of Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin – the first man to ever travel in space. He was born in 1934 and died in the crash of a MiG-15-UTI fighter on March 27, 1968. Today is also the birthday of writer John McPhee (b. 1931), a master of creative nonfiction. One of McPhee’s most widely read books is Coming into the Country, which eloquently describes the Alaskan wilderness. — We are pleased to welcome aboard our newest advertiser: Redoubt Scout. If you are considering a move to northern Idaho, then you should definitely take a look at their …


Cold Steel AD-15, by Pat Cascio

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I’ve been an amateur knife designer since the early 1980s, and several of my designs have actually been produced by custom knife makers, as well as some factories. One custom designer went so far as to add my design to his inventory – never giving me credit for the design, nor paying me any royalties, but that’s okay, I don’t hold a grudge. Another knife company has been producing several of my designs for quite a few years now, and I actually gave them my design, to help them get their company up and running – no problem there at …


Recipe of the Week: Jen’s Storage Foods Brownies

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Jen kindly sent us three recipe options for small batches of brownies baked in a bread loaf pan.  Jen says: “Make a small batch of brownies when you need a little “comfort food” fix.  It will help make your supplies of these ingredients last longer.” The traditional recipe utilizes fresh ingredients. Both just-add-water mixes use powdered eggs and powdered vanilla extract.  You can find powdered vanilla extract in upper-end grocery stores right near the liquid vanilla extract and on Amazon.com. Just-add-water mix #1 has straight coconut oil. Mix #2 replaces some of the coconut oil with butter powder and water and …


Economics & Investing For Preppers

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Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we look at investing in AR-15/M16 Magazines, as a hedge of future legislation. (See the Tangibles Investing section.) Precious Metals: Gold price is on a path to $1,700 but volatility will be high – analysts o  o  o Investment demand for gold outweighs weak consumer demand Economy & Finance: The bloodbath continues: Dow …


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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“We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K.” – Sir Eddie George, Governor Bank of England in a letter to Nicholas J. Morrell, chief …


Preparedness Notes for Sunday — March 8, 2020

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March 8th is the birthday of revolver shooter, big game hunter, and gun writer Elmer Keith, who co-designed the S&W .44 Magnum and .41 Magnum cartridges. He authored the book Sixguns, which is still considered a standard reference. His fascinating life story is told in his last book, Hell, I was there!  A proto-Redoubter, Keith spent the second half of his life on a ranch near Salmon, Idaho. (Keith was born in 1899 and died February 12, 1984.) — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 87 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $10,000 …


A Prepping Reality Check – Part 4, by Mama Bear

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(Continued from Part 3. This concludes the article series.) Security/Defense There have been many articles on the blog about security and defense. Let me just throw out a few thoughts. What is the field of fire from each side of your grid-down retreat? Have you practiced with your family/group how to defend your retreat? Paintball is great for this. Have you thought about how far you are willing to go to defend your supplies, your home, your family? Have you thought about a procedure for admitting additional people to the retreat? Have you thought about which of your friends/family you …


Letter: Some Wuhan Coronavirus Observations

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Everyone will have a different perspective on this.  Here are some ramblings: Things are rapidly downshifting in greater Seattle.  In less than seven days.  There are strong parallels with the 2011 B-movie Contagion. Numerous employers are telling much of their workforce to work from home through the end of March (I expect that to continue beyond March…). Amazon, Microsoft, Puget Sound Energy (utility), Russell Investments.  Those are four big ones that I am aware of as of now. The Northshore School District just closed through the end of March, and will attempt to begin Remote Learning on Monday, March 9.  …


The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “JWR”. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. Today, we are linking to a plethora of Wuhan Coronavirus news. South Korea’s Hospital Bed Shortage The Reuters news service reports , with a possible preview of some American news headlines, once Mr. Wuhan …


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it …


Preparedness Notes for Saturday — March 7, 2020

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March 7, 1925 was the birthday of Rene Gagnon, a U.S. Marine, who was seen in the famous photographs of the Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. (He died in 1979.) March 7, 1707 was the birthday of Stephen Hopkins, (Governor of Rhode Island) one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. And March 7, 1944 was the birthday of Townes Van Zandt, a gifted Texan singer/songwriter. (He died in 1997.)