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 examine the risks posed by major solar flares.

Largest Solar Flare In Years Reported

Over at Zero Hedge: Sun Ejects Biggest Solar Flare In Years Ahead Of Active Cycle. Here is a quote:

“‘Remarkably, the flare was even bigger than it seemed. The blast site is located just behind the sun’s southeastern limb, so the explosion was partially eclipsed by the body of the sun. “X-rays and UV radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth’s atmosphere, producing a shortwave radio blackout over the South Atlantic… Ham radio operators and mariners may have noticed strange propagation effects at frequencies below 20 MHz, with some transmissions below 10 MHz completely extinguished…”

The Great Relocation

Linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site is this piece on societal trends by Michael Snyder: The Great Relocation: Americans Are Relocating By The Millions Because They Can Feel What Is Coming.

An Update on ATF’s Ever-Changing Pistol Brace Policies

Over at Townhall Media, Cam Edwards (of Cam & Company) has posted his fascinating interview with Alex Bosco of SB Tactical: ATF Pistol Brace Shenanigans, A Sign Of Things To Come?  Bosco confirms that more than one million of his company’s SBA3 braces have been sold. He also points out that the ATF lied through omission about their approval letters for five other SB Tactical pistol brace models — not just the SB-15 and MPX-SB. Those five received specific ATF approval. Bosco assorted that there have been more than 4 million arm braces produced, nationwide. So banning them would NOT be trivial! Again, please repeatedly contact your U.S. Senators and U.S. Congressman to have them rein in or better yet disband the ATF!

Forensic Investigation: The Beirut Port Explosion

Our own Michael Z. Williamson suggested this: The Beirut Port Explosion.  Mike’s Comment:
“Basically, the warehouse was used to store anything with issues until said issues could be sorted out…  Ammonium nitrate, ammonium phosphate, powdered tea and coffee, fireworks, tires…”

Navy to Scrap a Fire-Ravaged Amphibious Assault Ship

This piece was recommended by reader Tim J.: Navy will decommission warship damaged in suspected arson.  The article begins:

“The Navy said Monday that it will decommission a warship docked off San Diego after suspected arson this summer caused extensive damage, making it too expensive to restore.

Fully repairing the USS Bonhomme Richard to warfighting capabilities would cost $2.5 billion to $3 billion and take five to seven years, said Rear Adm. Eric H. Ver Hage of the Navy Regional Maintenance Center.

The amphibious assault ship burned for more than four days in July and was the Navy’s worst U.S. warship fire outside of combat in recent memory. The ship was left with extensive structural, electrical and mechanical damage.”

A.I. Can Augment Thermal Imaging

Reader C.B. spotted this: Using artificial intelligence to help drones find people lost in the woods. JWR’s Comments:  This great news for people who become lost in the woods. But this is bad news for anyone who wants to be concealed by woods.

LLNL Predicts Nuclear War Climate Change

And another article suggested by C.B.: Examining climate effects of regional nuclear exchange. Here is a snippet:

“A team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers has found that the global climatic consequences of a regional nuclear weapons exchange could range from a minimal impact to more significant cooling lasting years.

The five LLNL scientists examined the potential for global climate changes from large urban fires ignited in a hypothetical regional nuclear exchange of 100 15-kiloton nuclear weapons between India and Pakistan.”

—

You can send your news tips directly to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) Thanks!


49 Comments

  1. As SCOTUS ruled long ago, the power to tax is the power to destroy.

    With this in mind, special taxes or fees on firearms, ammo, and related accessories would seem to be an infringement since those taxes could be raised to make it nearly impossible to exercise our 2A rights.

    1. If the power to tax is to the power to destroy…and if, to quote Frank Herbert, “he who can destroy a thing controls that thing”…then it follows that any form of taxation on firearms is by definition a form of gun control, to include taxes on ammunition, parts, and accessories. Therefore those taxes are absolutely an infringement on our God-given and Constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms.

  5. About 10% of those moving out of NYC are settling here. The state government considers this good news as ,for the first time in decades, illegal aliens are not making up the bulk of the new population. Until this China virus arrived, CT encouraged illegal arrivals as it was the only means to stem it’s bleeding population losses as working people and conservatives kept moving out.
    Now the state is gaining taxpayers instead of welfare recipients.

    1. More tax-payers, less tax-burners?

      Can you imagine — simultaneously reducing the numbers of government agents?
      Can you imagine — one dog-catcher instead of two hundred?

      Can you imagine — eliminating the need to pay taxes?
      Can you imagine — nobody on the other end to receive taxes?

      Can you imagine — knocking down the Bureau Of Justifying Our Existence and turning it into a park with beautiful food-producing gardens?

  6. @ LLNL Predicts Nuclear War Climate Change

    This research only becomes new by the collaboration between two organizations, and a new computer model. The scenario, results and conclusion of this study were first introduced in 1982 in a scientific paper titled “The Atmosphere after a Nuclear War: Twilight at Noon” by Crutzen and Birks.

    The thing is, the 1982 paper talked about climate change over a matter of months, not years. This new paper increased the time from months to 4 years. Yet, climate is measured over 30 year periods. So, in almost all climate change disaster scenarios, researchers are talking about weather as if it was climate. Weather and climate are studied and measured in entirely different ways.

    In addition, the early 1980s was a time that Cold War fears were at a all time high, and there was a lot of research produced that talked about different topics, such as dinosaur extinction, wildfire impacts, and the ever famous “nuclear winter,” campaign by Carl Sagan. I am of the opinion that this current research is nothing more than an attempt to tap in to those Cold War fears.

  7. re:
    USS Bon Homme [‘good man’] Richard aircraft-carrier

    To ‘up-grade’ it, a quarter of a billion with a ‘B’ dollars was spent by American tax-payers?

    Then, according to the theory, after the ‘up-grade’, one sailor arsoned the ship, and she alone wrecked it into the scrap-heap?
    Then, to repair it so it could continue war-making, another two billion with a ‘B’ in additional dollars from American tax-payers?

    To war-make upon what enemy?

    And the biggie:
    * How could 41,000 ton of American machinery be so easily disabled/destroyed by one (allegedly American) woman?

    The other biggie:
    * How long could the war-makers on that ship survive First Contact?
    If I was assigned to war-make on that ship, I would question the sanity of my superiors.
    Or… is my ship on a one-way suicide mission… while sitting stationary in the ‘up-grade’ pit in San Diego?

    Similar to recent elections, none of this ‘passes the smell test’.

    A rational person might conclude:
    * the American Navy superiors are dangerous to their inferiors.

    1. RADIO CONTRA EPISODE 36: USS BONHOMME RICHARD, LEFTIST CALLS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES, AND LISTENER QUESTIONS ON SETTING UP A TABLET FOR RADIO
      Posted by NC Scout
      Dec 2, 2020
      https://www.americanpartisan.org/2020/12/radio-contra-episode-36-uss-bonhomme-richard-leftist-calls-for-human-rights-abuses-and-listener-questions-on-setting-up-a-tablet-for-radio/

      Can you imagine it being 1941, and the USS Enterprise (CV-6), or one of her sister ships is destroyed by a similar fire. How would this have affected the war in the Pacific??? At a certain point, the USN was down to one carrier in that theater.

      Yes, the U.S. seems to have the wrong people in leadership positions.

    2. Nothing new. Back when I was a sailor, the leadership had been functionally inept for decades. Serious lack of training, excessively overworking the crew, promoting incompetents to senior positions, punishing performers, putting the whole crew on restricted rations. I am surprised there hasn’t been more attempted sabotage in the decades since I left. To further the issue, ships aren’t being built to survive, but to be test platforms for technology development for defense contractors so they can milk the system. It is amazing how easy it is to render a combat vessel inoperative these days, even moreso how available the information is to do it. Our enemies (foreign and domestic) have all this information and would be able to render most of our fleet DIW in a matter of minutes in a well coordinated attack. How sad.

      2. I was in the Navy from 1982 to 2005. I had a friend who was in the Navy from 1934 to 1963. We would sit and sometimes I would complain about the incompetence. He would then tell me stories from 1940 or 1955 or 1960 that sounded almost the same as my previous day at work. Except in some of his stories people died or were dismembered. Sometimes not. Sometimes they were funny. But he taught me that nothing fundamental had changed.

    3. Marge, you ask the same questions I have. What quality were the fire suppression systems expected to meet? Yeah, first contact–yikes.

      Burned four days???

      I hope, for the sake of our current sailors and Marines, that every ship in our arsenal undergo a deep inspection and immediate upgrade so this never happens again. But then, as you say, the command people seem oblivious. Or, treasonous.

      Carry on

      2. The ship’s fire suppression system had intentionally and legitimately been disabled to facilitate the upgrade/repair work by the contractor. The contractor was obligated to post fire watch and have alternate suppression strategies in place before commencing hot work. those two occurrences had a significant gap between implementation. The piles and piles and heaps of cardboard and other detritus collected in the hold were set to be offloaded, but to make that more efficient the materials were concentrated in a single area. It was a perfect storm of ineptitude and irresponsibility of the Navy to put all their faith in the contractor to perform to standard. The arsonist (alleged) knew this and took advantage of a lapse or overlap in responsibilities to exploit the critical weakness. But, the arsonist (alleged) has been released and not charged?
        A sad state of the fleet indeed, and now the Bonnie Dick is to be scrapped.
        Semper Fidelis Devil Dog- glad we are not in any longer to participate in such reindeer games.

    4. I cannot speak to this ship specifically but as a 23 year sailor I can speak to shipboard fire fighting and damage control.

      The Bon Homme Richards is listed as having a crew of about 1100. It is reported that 160 were on board when the fire occurred. Underway the ship would have been fully manned and if at battle stations would have had damage control parties prestationed to meet virtually any casualty.

      In port in maintenance periods many systems are taken down, potentially compromising damage control ability. Typically plans are in place to offset these issues but they are seldom as good as the design. There is theoretically adequate Manning for damage control but it will never be as good as at sea.

      In port damage control philosophy is also different. At see, you will potentially put personnel at significant risk to fight a casualty because there is no where to run. You either deal with the fire or flooding or you potentially all die. In port you can run and you will if it gets too crazy. Ships in port are not worth lives regardless of cost. At sea and certainly in battle there is a whole different mindset.

      Now I was on submarines, so we always knew that if the fire was not controlled the flooding would put out the fire. So if there was a fire everyone ran to the fire. I don’t know if surface guys view it the same but I suspect it is similar.

      If you are interested in whether modern sailors will stand up in the face of a casualty, read some accounts of the Fitzgerald collision. A lot of mistake made but no lack of courage. And mistakes have always been made regardless or era.

  8. Relocation article:

    I found this statement of great interest.

    Increasingly, Democrats are moving to “blue states” and conservatives are moving to “red states”.

    Does this mean that democrats in red states are leaving for blue states? One can only hope.

    1. With a few exceptions, most hard data shows that the country is self segregating. Despite some people with liberal views moving to conservative area by and large conservatives are moving to conservative areas and liberals are moving to liberal areas.

  9. The article on relocation is interesting. I have a family member, a couple of them actually, that work as Loan officers. Business is so big right now that they are working 60 hour weeks and exhausted from months on end of dealing with stressed out and demanding clients. A lot of the business is refinancing, but a good chunk is relocation.

    From the article, “Increasingly, Democrats are moving to “blue states” and conservatives are moving to “red states”.” I’m not so sure that is accurate and don’t see a source link for the opinion. I think people of all stripes are “heading for the hills” – they want out of the big cities for a couple of very simple reasons: BLM, Antifa, illegal immigrant criminals (not all immigrants), have been given carte blanche to search and destroy without repercussions. No one wants violence, no matter what kind of political affiliation they may have. Defunding the police is an absurd and dangerous ideology (“call a social worker” when the guy is stabbing you, right?). People are snapping up property sight unseen all over the country in rural locations – not just Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. It’s happening in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, Missouri, etc. Flyover country!

    The secondary reason is the Election. Everyone knows that if Biden is inaugurated, the tyrannical state Governors will be more emboldened in every way. We will end up back in the Paris Accord, back to appeasing the terrorists, back to unfettered immigration, back to high taxes, back to China owning us, etc. It’s safer in the country than in the cities due to sheer lack of population (less crime, less regulation, etc), the ability to become self-sufficient, etc.

    I guess there’s a third reason – Christians, many of them, believe we are in the End Times and fleeing into the hills and mountains is a Biblical response.

    This post is too long… but the thing I find very interesting is the dynamic between the “country folk ” and the “city folk” and how that will pan out. Country folk are mighty stubborn. lol. City folk are mighty “needy”. Where I live, the “city folk” moving here in droves are thrilled to be here and try very hard to adapt. Yes, there are few snooty ones, but they aren’t the majority. And the money they all bring in is very good for local businesses. So, while the locals are complaining about housing prices soaring, what they should be doing is looking for OPPORTUNITY to run a small business. Trades people are in very high demand – it takes months to get someone out to your property. Everything the city folk miss, the locals can do: coffee shop, bakery, restaurant, house cleaning, salon, pet services, shopping and delivery services, how about buying a high end log splitter and providing firewood, etc. The list of opportunities are endless.
    My twenty-two cents this morning.

    1. Very true – my aging parents recently sold their house and acreage in a rural area. The buyers are from the largest metro area in my state. I grew up in that house, we cut 10-15 cords of wood to heat the house every year from the hardwoods on the property. The buyer asked where they could buy some firewood, so my parents referred them to a neighbor we’d lived near for over 40 years. I had a good laugh, with all of the available wood right out the back door. Still, it is an opportunity for those able to provide the service.

    1. Vickie,

      The two penitentiaries?

      * The new penitentiary in Junction City Oregon is supposed to be for whack-jobs, mass-murderers such as the Charles Manson and Juan Corona crowd… but I can see the potential for mission-creep [looking at you, 3%ers…].
      Two chums quit service jobs to work there.
      Their compensation at companies was barely minimum wage for long hours, their government compensation is a dozen times more with frequent ‘safety meetings’ and ‘union consultations’ during short shifts.

      * The convicts at the Salem Oregon penitentiary are a very very rough bunch.
      I volunteered at the Eugene Mission, and it was a ‘half-way house’ for recent convicts.
      Convicts repeatedly shared about years and decades of incarceration with zero-zero-zero access to basic trade-school skills.
      As one example — none of my kitchen staff knew anything about computers or cellular telephones.

      Can you imagine — going from complete custodial care in the morning to living under a bush and conniving everything you need to exist in the afternoon?

      My charges tried to act tough, but they were terrified of any organized group.
      Can you imagine — constant continual 24/7 fear?
      .
      .
      I can only offer one solution to asocial behavior, but most folk prefer to hide them away instead of dealing with them immediately upon conviction.

  11. Just saw an article regarding the global spread of the coronavirus in 2019. According to the article, 39 blood samples from mid December 2019 tested positive for coronavirus antibodies with other samples showing widespread distribution of the disease across the U.S. by the end of the month. Similar testing showed Italy likely infected in September and South America in November. This pandemic is all about taking out Trump, which they couldn’t do with their investigations and impeachment, because with the economy roaring as it was he was a shoe-in to win. Destroying Trump and the American economy had to be done to bring about the global reset. The controls being used are just part of the plans to further control the people. The democrats “do as I say not as I do” hypocrisy leads me to two possible conclusions – the pandemic really isn’t that bad and/or there is already a vaccine available for those that are part of the “reset” meaning the globalists. That’s my rant for the day.
    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-on-chinas-global-fraud-coronavirus

    Grace to you from the God of all grace!

    1. Here’s my one and only concern about the COVID: given how low the mortality/hospitalization rate is compared to the (claimed) infection rate, and how easily overwhelmed medical facilities become, what happens when a real pandemic occurs, and say the hospitalization and mortality rates are more akin to smallpox without a vaccine? I can imagine we will have tall robed black men ringing bells in the streets telling us to bring out our dead.

    2. I saw the same study BWL. Actually I had read similar things before. Two days after Christmas last year I came down with something nasty…worse than the seasonal flu I think. I lay there very feverish and nonfunctional for two days, while my husband did who knows what with the kids, and then they all started to succumb too. Thankfully the baby just nursed constantly (in between puking on me) and I was able to keep her hydrated enough to not need professional medical attention. It took a long time to recover my strength. I’m half sure that that was the covid, given all the crowds we’d recently been around.

      2. Remember the woman who iarsoned the navy ship. It’s not just men who does “who knows what”.

        Hopefully you can look towards marriage counseling to help ease the struggles you may be having.

    3. I have my own conspiracy theory about the virus. Or maybe not a conspiracy theory but more like a strong question. Could it be that “they” are releasing new strains upon the public just to keep it going and to make Trump look bad. I’ve been wondering about that now for over a week because my daughter and myself have come down with it. My daughters nearly well now and I’ve had it for ten days and I still feel sick. My daughter is 36 years old and I’m an old geezer of 64 and neither one of us had it that bad; at least no where near bad enough to go to the hospital. So I have to wonder in what horrible physical condition would a person have to be in for the virus to kill you. But to hear the news reports people are dying like flies. It makes me wonder if there’s more than one strain of the virus out there and I have to wonder if there will be other strains let lose upon us until Trump is no longer our President. Biden recently said that there may be 250 thousand more people die until January. Does he have some inside info? I’m probably wrong though, I was once before.

      1. Chris Martenson’s video on YT tonight was wonderful! He presented a compendium of evidence that IVERMECTIN has been proven to be very effective for not only prevention, bu also during ‘Rona both in early and later stages, and for the long-haulers who have symptoms way after the illness. Since it’s biological warfare, it’s not surprising that people’s symptoms vary.
        In my neck of the woods, I’m seeing it work. Of course, adding all those other things are beneficial, like vitamin C, D, zinc, and a blood thinner like aspirin or motrin, etc.

  12. For all those who ask us to count on honest and fair elections the next time around… We want to know how we’re supposed to count on you in the future when we cannot count on you in the present?

    Challenge everyone who makes this suggestion. It’s a cop out, and one that could cost us our Republic.

      1. I hear you, Benjammin… Yet I refuse to give up the fight. We can yet achieve victory and save the Republic. We face great difficulty, but not impossibility. I am thankful that our Founding Fathers, and everyone who fought in the American Revolution stayed the course. I will stay the course now. I will never give up.

        1. Agreed. We must make them pay for their arrogance and dishonesty. It doesn’t matter that we won’t win this fight. There will be blood. It is a necessary thing for our progeny to see and know what is worth laying down your life for. The tree of freedom requires the blood of patriots and tyrants from time to time. Now is as good a time as any, and better than most. I’d rather it be my blood than that of my children anyways.

  13. The 24th Amendment prohibited the “poll tax” on the ground that it was designed to prevent poor people and racial minorities from exercising their right to vote. What is the so-called “tax” on NFA firearms and silencers (actually a license fee) but the deliberate attempt to deprive American citizens of their Constitutionally enumerated right to bear arms? As things now stand, only the wealthy and well-connected may legally own full-automatic firearms and similar arms.

    1. Pat,, my M60 cost me about $500 back in 1979 plus $200 [Federal transfer] tax. My son last year sold it for $85K,
      In fairness silver was about $3a oz then today silver you can hold is closer to $30 if you can find it ,a big reason class III is so high is the shut off [making] new ones [for private transfer] by gov.
      My first mac10 was $65 if I remember correctly.just a guess but I would think upwards of 6 to 10 thousand now
      Add in the cost of ammo ,back then 45acp could be had for a buck a box ,same for 9mm (mil surplus ) the Mac would eat1,000 rds in a afternoon. The cost is relative,
      Some had new cars ,some had hard keepers girl friends,,some had class III
      In what’s coming your better off without class III
      Tea and chocolate

  14. For any of you with kids in your life, a change of pace here.

    Gardening books for yound’uns.

    In My Garden: A Child’s Gardening Book by Kelly and Helen Oechsli

    Peter and His Oak by Claude Levert

    This Year’s Garden by Cynthia Rylant and Mary Sylagyi

    They were published some years ago, so you may have to search a bit. Is the young’un worth some effort?

    Carry on

  15. I have read that Chief Justice Roberts has already hinted he will not accept President Trump’s request to SCOTUS to hear the voting “irregularities” complaints. If that’s the case, then all our fears are real. If not, then we’ll be okay.
    Someone has a tight hold on Roberts’ tail. Is it the fact he has illegally adopted two children from Ireland? I’ve read that several times. If so, then that’s big trouble for him. Ireland has very strict laws regulating adoption.
    In any case, Roberts deserves a “red belly.”
    Once A Marine will know what that means.

    Semper Fi

    1. Alito already headed that scenario of with his stepping in on the first Pennsylvania case. I don’t think it’s just up to Roberts. There should be at least 5 justices who will want to hear these cases. Also, I don’t see Sotomayor or Kagan or even Breyer wanting to water down their power with a packed court. The cases may be combined into one big case, problems are the same in all the contested states. We’ll see!

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