Water fire extinguishers are handy to have around.

This weekly column is a collection of short snippets: practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. We may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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Reader Don in Oregon wrote to mention: “Water fire extinguishers are handy to have around. Suitable only for Class A fires, but easily rechargeable (water and compressed air). Best used in short spurts, with your thumb over the nozzle to make a fan spray.”

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From SurvivalBlog reader “The War Wagon”, a lengthy and quite useful comment that he posted to a forum: “The Postman” scenario: the ESSENTIAL economic tool!

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Tim J. sent a link to a detailed article that describes how fellow novelist Brad Thor was grifted: Groom, Doom, Grifting and Gifting: Getting Hustled in the Age of Apocalypse.

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Reader C.B. sent this: A public network name that ‘permanently’ disables Wi-Fi on iPhones.

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Another from C.B: 61% of American Counties are now Second Amendment Sanctuaries.

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Avalanche Lily suggested this: French President Sets Stricter Health Rules; Cannes Festival Unaffected by New Orders.

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F.J. sent this tidbit:

“Today I learned the Vikings fed their wounded soldiers a strong onion soup to help gauge how deep a stomach wound was. After a few minutes, they would smell the wound and if they could smell the onion soup, they knew the wound was too deep and the soldier could not be saved.”

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Reader S.B. spotted this open carry news: He walked Clearwater Beach with an AR-15. Is he a menace or a martyr?

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Dogsledder wrote:

“Something MAY be up. I have no inside information on this, but today, when I bought a few items at Wal Mart, the point of sale console

DID NOT ask if I wanted any cash back. Considering the number of customers that I have seen getting cash back, I think that this may be a big policy change. Also, I wanted to get some cash out of an ATM with a credit card, and it only offered a maximum of $80, which is much lower than what I recall it offeering before.

As I said, this may mean nothing, or it may be a new trend.”

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H.L. suggested this, over at RedState: That Troubling Expansion of Capitol Police Gets Even Worse With Tech They Plan to Use.

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Reader M.J. sent us this:

“For Independence Day weekend, I took a grand tour of rural New Mexico. I drove past the Very Large Array on the Plains of San Agustin, which was featured prominently in the movie Contact. I then turned south through Grant County and Catron County and stayed the night at a campground near the little town of Glenwood. I watched their Fourth of July parade and had some delicious fry bread tacos from a food truck, and chatted with the host of a nearby RV campground. It was a nice visit to small-town America. Getting a ranch there would be nice, but as you noted in Survival Retreats and Relocation, there isn’t much of an economic base. Besides, the dating pool would be rather small.

Here’s a survival hint: If you drive through that area, make sure your vehicle is in good shape and that you have a full tank of gasoline. There is NOTHING on the Plains of San Agustin. That means no cell towers as well. It was an eye-opener to see how fast I went through the water in the reserve bottles tucked under the passenger seat of my car (about 6 liters total). Fortunately, I had more water in my Camelbak and I was able to get some more at a park where I hiked briefly before taking the long drive back.

Wish me luck — I’m looking for a starter house now. While that will still be in a city, at least I’ve improved my survival chances by moving out of Southern California. Best wishes to everyone in the SB community!”

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The USPS’ Semi-Secret Internet Surveillance Apparatus.

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And, finally, Bear e-mailed this to Avalanche Lily:

“I’m praying for a break in the heat for you! And fresh air and protection from the fires! Too bad I can’t just pack up some of this rain and send it.

I kind of miss writing silly parodies about kids’ messes and virtual schooling mishaps…This one’s dark and disjointed like the past year it portrays.

Lily, I read your link to Mike Adams this morning while almost done assembling this. Yikes. None of it came as a true surprise; lots of people have been discussing those ideas for awhile now, but it’s horrible to see it in a govt document and not just hypothetical. I’d like to think we’re somewhat freer down here than in IL, but that will only buy us time. This stuff is metastasizing fast and I don’t think a single punch through the front door will stop it (though JP’s video was hilarious and darkly satisfying as usual!). Puts me in mind yet again of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

Will people lay ambushes and resist the vaxx stormtroopers? We can probably predict where they will and where they won’t. I hope enough do.

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With apologies to Kris Kristofferson (and Janis Joplin; it was her recording in my head)…

Δ, or, Here We Go Again

Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a check

I was feeling sad ’cause they closed down my gig

Nancy thumbed some trillions out, just like that no sweat

And rode us all the way to New Beijing

I pulled out some string and a dirty red bandanna

I made a mask while Gretchen spread the news

Talking heads yapping time, I was holding Gavin’s fear in mine

We sang ’til he said “no songs for you!”