Year: 2024

The Greenhorn’s Guide to PSYOPS, by Scarecrow

When in doubt, do the OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. In other words, see what’s going on, understand how it relates to your situation, figure out what to do, then do it. But what happens when you can’t do your OODA loop because you can’t properly see what’s going on, i.e., you can’t Observe and then Orient? What happens when the tools you use, for example, mass media, are (at best) trying to obscure the truth or (at worst) are intentionally lying to deceive? Here are some clues that “they” (the government, the media, etc.) might be using propaganda …


SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

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, a special look at winter sports in the American Redoubt. (Photo courtesy of VirtualMontana.com.) Region-Wide Inland Northwest skiers enjoy the slopes despite El Niño predicted for 2024. o  o  o Inland Northwest Winter Guide 2023/2024. o  o  o The Spokesman-Review Inland Northwest Trapshoot. Idaho Idaho’s …



Preparedness Notes for Monday — January 29, 2024

On January 29, 1964, the British film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a landmark Cold War farce directed by Stanley Kubrick, was released in theatres. On this day in 1845 Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” was published. Today is the birthday of actor Tom Selleck (born 1945), best known for playing the title role of Magnum, P.I. He is an avid shooter and quite pro-gun. Today is also the birthday of journalist and inventor Thomas Paine (1737–1809.) — Update: We’ve received an unexpectedly large number of orders for the waterproof 2005-2023 Archive …


Savage Model 110 Storm in 6.5 Creedmoor, by Thomas Christianson

After a search lasting more than three years, I recently settled on a deer rifle to replace the Remington 742 in .30-06 that I inherited from my Father. The old 742 is still a dandy gun, and I have passed it along to my brother-in-law for continued use. But as the years have passed, I have become somewhat recoil-adverse, and I wanted a rifle that is a little kinder and gentler to my shoulder. My new rifle is a Savage Model 110 Storm in 6.5 Creedmoor. It is accurate, sturdy, weather resistant, well balanced, and chambered in a cartridge for …


Update: Letter from a Kansas Consulting Client

Introductory note from JWR: I just received this update letter: “I wanted to write to the readers of SurvivalBlog about the search for a family to live on our family farm. The opportunity is still open. Many areas in the United States are deteriorating, but our conservative area remains safe and prosperous. We are willing to consider letters from readers anywhere in the country as we are not concerned about the distance, but we are about finding a quality family to eventually join our family in living on our farm. There is still time in the preparedness window in which …


Recipe of the Week:  Chicken & Rice with Golden Sauce

The following simple recipe for Chicken & Rice with Golden Sauce is from Good HouseKeeping’s Book of Menus, Recipes, and Household Discoveries (253 pages, copyright 1925, now in public domain). That is one of the 11 new bonus books included in the new 2005-2023 edition of the SurvivalBlog Archive USB stick. Ingredients 1 fowl 1 cupful milk 1 cupful chicken broth 2 tablespoonfuls butter 2 tablespoonfuls flour Salt 1/4 teaspoonful pepper 1 egg-yolk 1 teaspoooful lemon-juice 1 cupful rice Minced parsley Directions Cook the fowl until very tender aud. cut into neat attractive servings, rather small, using only the white …


SurvivalBlog Graphic of the Week:

Our graphic of the week is an interesting annotated satellite photo montage of city lights. This NASA graphic has circulated on Reddit. It shows that 80% of the US population lives east of the annotated yellow line. This adds credence to my long-standing advice to live west of the Mississippi River. Generally, fewer people will mean fewer problems in the event of a societal collapse. Take a close look and note that the cluster of orange dots over western North Dakota and eastern Montana are not city lights.  Rather, those are natural gas flares in the  Bakken oilfields — a …



Preparedness Notes for Sunday — January 28, 2024

On January 28, 1887, In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, the world’s largest snowflakes are reported, being 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick January 28th, 1855 was the birthday of William Seward Burroughs, who invented the adding machine. January 28th is the anniversary of the rescue of General James L. Dozier from his Italian Red Brigades kidnappers. Tangentially, Colonel Jeff Cooper created a shooting drill in honor of those who freed him – The Dozier Drill. And on this day in 1986, the U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Florida, …


Storing Valuable “How to” Digital Data, by Slate Creek

I am constantly collecting data from the web and I save it to several USB memory sticks that I carry with me daily. If I’m in the office and happen to run across something of value I often pull the USB stick out of my pocket and save a copy. I have sub-directories organized on my stick such as “Food Storage”, “Water Supply”, “Topo Maps” or “Ham radio related” and then sub-category that into say “Antenna Builds”, “Local Repeaters” or “Radio Manuals”. I’m not advocating saving everything on a USB stick because nothing beats having the piece of paper in …


JWR’s Meme Of The Week:

The latest meme created by JWR: Meme Text:  Wake Up, You Sheeple! We Are The Carbon That They Want To Reduce! Notes From JWR: Do you have a meme idea? Just e-mail me the concept, and I’ll try to assemble it. And if it is posted then I’ll give you credit. Thanks! Permission to repost memes that I’ve created is granted, provided that credit to SurvivalBlog.com is included.  


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you: For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many. Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready: Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same …


Preparedness Notes for Saturday — January 27, 2024

A news update and constitutional law analysis, related through a video commentary from Mark W. Smith of The Four Boxes Diner:  BORDER WARS: The Constitutional Issues you need to know about in Texas v. Biden Admin. Two days ago, it was 11 states, but now, 25 states have signaled support for Texas Governor Abbott’s position. And at least 10 of those States have now pledged to send National Guard or State Guard/Militia troops to Texas, to assist. Tucker Carlson interviewed Abbott, on Friday. — On January 27th, 1967, a launch pad fire during Apollo program tests at Cape Canaveral, Florida, …


Day One of TEOTWAWKI: A Written Plan – Part 5, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 4. This concludes the article.) I’ll refer the reader to My Ten-Day Test-My-Preps Adventure – Part 4 for the details of how my system works and what I am able to do with it. In a nutshell, during sunlight hours I can take the available 1,500 watts and feed them into my home/shop wiring system and run nearly everything including the freezer. On Day One if the SHTF, the actual switchover process from grid-tie to off-grid takes just a few minutes. In a simplified explanation, I activate the SPS switch at the inverter and plug a suicide …