Preparedness Notes for Saturday — February 27, 2021

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On February 27, 1902 Harry “Breaker” Harbord Morant was executed in Pretoria.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 93 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical 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,
  4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (a $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

  1. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, that have a combined retail value of $589,
  3. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  4. Naturally Cozy is donating a “Prepper Pack” Menstrual Kit.  This kit contains 18 pads and it comes vacuum-sealed for long term storage or slips easily into a bugout bag.  The value of this kit is $220.
  5. An assortment of products along with a one-hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).

Third Prize:

  1. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  4. A transferable $150 purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Round 93 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.


6 Comments

    1. Thank You Wally, that was refreshing. He is a shining example of what we in our modern society have lost.
      It’s not old age that keeps the spirit of the warrior down, it’s the worn out carcass that fails to keep up with what the spirit demands…..
      I’m seeing in his voice and eyes that were another war to come about, the spirit would try and join, but the body would simply say…..NO…

      1. As I was researching the history of Lt. Morant, I stumbled upon this: The feeling still prevails that not all the guilty parties were dealt with – the notorious Captain Taylor being the most obvious one of all.”

        Then I looked up “the notorious Captain Taylor”, and found this:

        South African historian Dr. C.A.R. Schulenburg has described “The Irishman Taylor” as “a notorious sadist”, who was “ruthless” toward white and black South Africans alike.[1]

        In October 1901, a letter accusing Taylor and other officers of crimes against the laws and customs of war was signed by 15 enlisted members of the Bushveldt Carbineers and mailed to the Officer Commanding at Pietersburg. In response, Taylor was arrested by Royal Military Police and put on trial at Pietersburg.

        In one of the first war crimes prosecutions in British military history, Taylor stood accused of ordering the murders of six unarmed Afrikaner men and boys at Valdezia on 2 July 1901 and the theft of their money and livestock. He was also charged with the murder of an unarmed Black man, who had refused to reveal the hiding place of his Boer employer.

        Australian Army Major J.F. Thomas, Taylor’s defence attorney, managed to secure an acquittal on both charges.

        Right below that Taylor, was this Taylor:

        Thomas Happer Taylor (December 11, 1934 – October 1, 2017[1]) was a highly-decorated veteran of the United States Army,[2] a military historian, an author of seven books, and a champion triathlete.

        He served in Vietnam and followed the footsteps of his father, General Maxwell Taylor.

        He arrived in Vietnam as a captain in July 1965, joining the First Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, (the “Screaming Eagles”) which his father had commanded in World War II.[7] Taylor’s first assignment was as the intelligence officer of his brigade. His commander had felt that his Special Forces training would be an advantage in combatting guerrillas, and this proved to be true. In September 1965, Taylor participated in the first encounter between a U.S. battalion and a Viet Cong main force battalion. Two company commanders were casualties in that battle, and Taylor inherited B Company, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, called “Strike Force.”

        In 1970 Taylor wrote A Piece of This Country (W. W. Norton) about a black sergeant who found in Vietnam the respect that he was unable to achieve at home. The book received many positive reviews. Publisher’s Weekly called it “a powerful novel.”[12] Writing in The New York Times, Marin Levin observed, “The Byzantine complexities of the Vietnam war are brilliantly sifted in this stunning history of a siege.”[13] The novel, identified by Ken Lopez as one of the 25 best books about the Vietnam War,[14] earned Taylor the George E. Crothers Literary Prize awarded annually by UC Berkeley.

        So, I requested the book from the library. If any of you have read it, please comment.

        Carry on

  2. Here is a little something I started as a note to Oregon folk ( Coming Soon To A Neighborhood Near You! ), then morphed into a discussion of a ‘who benefits, follow the money’ dealy-bobber.
    Join me for a wander, please!

    *****

    Oregon House tax-bill 3296:

    As I understand this tax-bill, Oregon bureaucrats intend to increase the Oregon tax-bill on beer and wine by a whopping 2,600% ( two-thousand six-hundred percent ).

    The press-release tells us this Worthy! Goal! tax-bill intends to combat criminal drinkers.

    ( The press-release didn’t mention nothing much about the federal tax-bill on beer and wine… nor their intentions regarding criminals or the combat thereof. )
    .
    .
    As I understand our Oregon system, alcohol beverages are trucked from the bureaucrats-operated makers to bureaucrats-operated warehouses to be stored, then are trucked to bureaucrats-licensed liquor stores and other sellers.
    How does this work?
    Not well.
    Does the word ‘clumsy’ come to mind, along with ‘sabotaging business-owners’ as well as ‘institutionally incompetent’?
    Only kidding; the answer is ‘unsustainable’.

    ( As an aside, since January 20th 2021, Oregon fuel prices for travelers and truckers are increasing by a few cents daily.
    We are told to expect the increases to ‘level off’ at us$6 (for you Three Stooges fans, this is ‘six face-slaps’ aka ‘six eye-jabs’) for a gallon of fuel.
    Since January 20th 2021, propane increased from under two bucks a gallon to about three.
    For you math whizzes, is this four-week propane increase a 50% increase?
    And amortized annually, is this a 666% increase?
    Only kidding; the answer is ‘unsustainable’.)

    But back to tax-bill 3296…
    If I am a bureaucrats-licensed brewer with a bureaucrats-licensed tasting-room, I pay to truck my beer — using bureaucrats-licensed trucks and truckers — to a bureaucrats-operated warehouse, pay bureaucrats to store it, then pay to truck it back to me so I can give Free! Samples! to potential customers coming to my tasting-room.
    And my costs can potentially increase by another 2,600% according to this proposed legislation?
    Only kidding; the answer is ‘unsustainable’.

    Discussing the bureaucrats truck-warehouse-truck system with operators of local-owned wineries and brewers, they say tasting-room sales collapsed in February 2020, with income reductions of at least 80% ( eighty percent ) during 2020-21.
    So… if bureaucrats are getting 80% less taxes from 80% less sales, it follows they must compensate by increasing the taxes rate, right?
    Well, that makes perfect sense, right?
    Only kidding; the answer is ‘unsustainable’.

    Except…
    Vineyards and hops farms are ground-intensive; those proposed increases in tax-bills ‘to combat criminal drinkers’ come after real estate tax-bills are expected to significantly increase to compensate for business closures in downtown areas… partly because of bureaucrats dictating small business owners to close because of ‘chuckles-19 the virus’, and partly because of criminals using cities as their toilet… and partly because burned buildings need a bureaucrats-licensed demolition, then a bureaucrats-licensed re-building For! A! Better! Tomorrow!.

    As I visit other small business operators, I see business closures in a thirty-mile radius around Eugene Oregon of at least half, and the rest are struggling.
    A fifteen dollar minimum wage Looks! Good! On! Paper! — I use the word ‘shiny’ — but cannot be paid to unskilled entry-level employees if tax-bills force business-owners to close-up shop.

    The irony:
    * I anticipate bureaucrats will inevitably increase the tax-bill on wages, so the increase to fifteen smackaroos will result in a net loss to employees
    In other words, I pay you seven clams at today’s rate, and after paying the tax-bill, you take home about four.
    I pay you the New! Improved! — aka ‘shiny’ — fifteen, and you take home that same four.
    The irony:
    * your fifteen-per wage boosts you into a bigger federal tax-bill.
    Your fifteen take-home is three-fifty.
    The irony:
    * property and business tax-bills increase to compensate for customers not able to buy products/services because of increased costs to business-owners.
    How does that ‘work’?
    Only kidding; the answer is ‘unsustainable’.

    But back to tax-bill 3296…
    The irony:
    * a — many craft brewers and vintners moved to Oregon to open small businesses because of favorable taxes.
    * b — many of those small-business owners came from California cities
    * c — those California urbanites left their sh#t-h#le cites because of criminals [ the ‘pound’ sign is in the LM original ]
    * d — after California urbanites settled in Oregon, criminals increased by many tens of thousands
    And here we go with a Fresh! New! tax-bill to combat criminals.

    That sequence may not have a direct cause-effect, but the timing seems curious…

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