Month: January 2026

The Editors’ Quote Of The Day:

“Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not; The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses: Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, …


Preparedness Notes for Friday — January 9, 2026

On January 9th, 1580, Francis Drake‘s ship the Golden Hind struck a reef off the Celebes islands. It fortuitously slipped off the reef at high tide the next day and sailed onward to Java, and then around the Cape of Good Hope and back to Plymouth, England. — January 9, 1839: Louis Daguerre demonstrated his ‘daguerreotype‘ photographic process to the French Academy of Sciences. — The 20th Anniversary SurvivalBlog 2005-2025 Waterproof/EMP-Resistant Archive USB sticks are selling rapidly, in pre-ordering.  The limited number of them packaged in steel keepsake tins have sold out. But there are still plenty of the standard sticks …


Introducing Your Community to Emergency Preparedness – Part 2, by A.F.

(Continued from Part 1.) The next topic is water. I begin with the low hanging fruit of having water stored at all times. It hurts my soul to thoughtlessly parrot the “one gallon per person per day minimum” tripe we have all heard so many times. My recommendation is to store no less than three gallons per person per day or ten gallons each. I follow this up by encouraging each family set a goal of having a five-gallon water jug set aside for last minute filling for each person. For those who lament storage space, I recommend the collapsible …


Economics & Investing Media of the Week

After some huge price swings in the last week of the year, the Silver Bull has resumed his charge. As of Tuesday afternoon (January 6, 2026), spot silver was at $82.06 USD per Troy ounce.  I expect a few gasps of short-selling today, but $70 seems to be the new floor for silver. I’m holding to my prediction that silver and platinum will continue to outperform gold’s gains. The formerly languishing price of nickel has spiked.  Surprisingly, we still have the opportunity to stack Nickels (U.S. 5-cent pieces) at face value.  The U.S. Mint recently stopped producing pennies.  I believe …



Preparedness Notes for Thursday — January 8, 2026

On January 8, 1297, Monaco gained its independence. Pictured are Buffalo Bill Cody and Prince Albert I of Monaco, in 1913. He was the first reigning European monarch to visit the United States. — On January 8, 1610,  German astronomer Simon Marius independently discovered the first four moons of Jupiter, just one day after Galileo‘s lunar discovery. — The 20th Anniversary SurvivalBlog 2005-2025 Waterproof/EMP-Resistant Archive USB sticks are available for Pre-Ordering. This year, we are also offering a limited number of them in steel keepsake tins, with keychains.  Both types have been selling very rapidly. Orders should start to be …


Introducing Your Community to Emergency Preparedness – Part 1, by A.F.

Back in 2016, the organizer for a local church’s senior citizen ministry approached me regarding a program she wanted someone to present on family emergency preparedness. In the two previous years our area experienced a “thousand-year flood” and the wind effects from a passing hurricane. Several of the seniors had requested a speaker who could help them think through steps that could be taken to minimize the impacts of another storm or similar short-term disaster. This article is a summary of what that presentation has become after multiple iterations over the past ten years. My hope in sharing is that …


The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is 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. In today’s column, an increase in fallow farm ground. Georgia Farmer Warns of Fallow Farm Ground Reader Robert W. sent us this: Farmland Shock: Georgia Grower Drops 3,000 Acres, Warns of …



Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — January 7, 2026

On January 7th, 1558, Calais, the last English possession in France, was retaken by French troops under Duc de Guise. (The Pale of Calais had been an exclave and parliamentary borough of England across the Strait of Dover from 1347 to 1558.) The painting above, The Siege of Calais was completed by François-Édouard Picot in 1838. — January 7th, 1610, Galileo Galilei discovered the first three moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa and Ganymede. — And on January 7th, 1930, French physicist Marguerite Perey discovered Francium (Fr), the last naturally occurring element to be found. — Today’s feature article is a guest …


Detecting AI-Written Slop Before You Buy Books, by Jennifer Rader

Editor’s Introductory Note:  The alarming trend that is described in this article is also taking place in many other book genres. It is possible that at least one of the author names cited in this article may be genuine, so I’m preemptively stating: Jennifer Rader’s article is an attempt to accurately describe the extent of A.I.-generated trickery in contemporary publishing. If the she has mentioned any actual living human authors by mistake, our apologies. We will be glad to update this article with corrections or clarifications. – JWR — As a preparedness author, the meteoric rise in the number of …


SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

Our weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters. — Federal court strikes down California open carry gun ban as unconstitutional. Here is an excerpt from the   article: “A federal court in California on Friday struck down the state’s law that prohibits people from openly carrying guns in most public places, ruling that the state law was unconstitutional because it violated the …



Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — January 6, 2026

January 6, 1799 was the birthday of Jedediah Strong Smith, one of America’s greatest trapper-explorers. He was born in Bainbridge, New York. Smith explored a huge area of the American West during his short life. “He began his western voyages in 1822, when he joined the pioneering fur trader William Ashley on a trip up the Missouri River. Unlike earlier fur traders, who depended on Native Americans to actually trap or hunt the furs, Ashley eliminated the Natives as middlemen and instead sent out independent white trappers like Smith to do the job. To escape dependence on Native Americans, though, …


Lessons From a Fight at a Restaurant, by Robert E. Downing

(The photo above, courtesy of Openverse, was taken by “Terren in Virginia“, a witness to a 2008 baseball team “fan rivalry” brawl at a New York sports stadium.) The following is what I learned about security at lunch one day: Scenario One Tuesday, about six weeks ago, I stopped for a late lunch at a local upscale family restaurant in Virginia Beach, Virginia, that is part of a well-known chain.  It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and it seemed to be a quiet place to have lunch and prepare my Sunday school lesson. I selected a seat near …