Day: August 29, 2025

Preparedness Notes for Friday — August 29, 2025

August 29, 708: Copper coins were minted in Japan for the first time. (By the traditional Japanese calendar: August 10, 708.) Pictured are some later Edo Period Japanese copper coins. — August 29, 1708: A raid in Haverhill, Massachusetts by French, Algonquin, and Abenaki forces killed or captured 40 residents. — August 29, 1831: Michael Faraday demonstrated the first electric transformer. — August 29, 1862, the Second Battle of Bull Run in Virginia began. The same day marked the founding of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 120 of …


Goldilocks Fire-Starting Kits, by C.S.

The Problem In the spring of 2009, a group of adventuresome whitewater kayakers dipped their boats into the meager headwaters of the North Fork of the Virgin River above Zion National Park. The weather was cold, but spirits were high. The paddlers had read about kayaking through the Zion Narrows in the preeminent whitewater guidebook for the southern Rockies. Confident their paddling abilities were more than up to the task, the group shrugged off having to frequently drag their boats through early shallow stretches. They knew the North Fork of the Virgin River picked up most of its flow from …


Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, we look at Rolex wristwatch prices. (See the Tangibles Investing section.) Precious Metals: Friday morning update:  Spot silver jumped to $40.13 per Troy ounce on Friday morning (29 August, 2025.)  It will be interesting to see if this rally continues in Asian trading, on Monday morning. o  o  o Gold (XAUUSD) and Silver Rally on …