Volunteering With RAM, by Dan D. in Arizona

A Brief Introduction In 1994 I picked up a copy of Wired magazine and there was a full-page image of Marc Thorpe showing a radio-controlled tank with a chainsaw mounted to the top. It was an advertisement for the first Robot Wars event (which then became the BattleBots television show that you are likely familiar with). I thought “I was made for this!” and then went on to compete and win a number of trophies. Not bad for a software engineer. Last year, I was browsing DVDs at a thrift shop in town and stumbled across a Remote Area Medical …


For the Want of a Horseshoe Nail, by 3AD Scout

There is a very old poem, with many variations about for the want of a nail. Basically, the poem goes like this: “For the want of a nail the shoe was lost For the want of a shoe the horse was lost For the want of the horse the rider was lost For the want of the rider the battle was lost For the want of the battle the kingdom was lost And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.” On occasion, I get to teach disaster logistics and I use this poem to get students to understand the …


Boers, Beans, Bullets, and Bear Soup – Part 2, by Tunnel Rabbit

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) A Rifle for the Recoil Sensitive Around here, .30-06 is more common than .308 Win.  The second most popular in my neighborhood is 6.5 Creedmoor (6.5CM), then 6.5×55, and lastly a wildcat for the AR platform, the 6.5 Timberwolf. Ideally, we would be best off to standardized on .308 Winchester. Yet .30-06 is still king in these woods. It is time tested and found to be the best all around cartridge CONUS, good for mouse to moose, and the occasional Griz, because it can shoot the heaviest .308 caliber bullets with a …


Blacksmithing Basics: Working From Next to Nothing, by Richard P.

Iron work is a foundational skill, literally shaping the bones of civilizations for well over a millennium today. As such, the earliest practitioners started out with nothing but ingenuity and raw natural materials. It is possible to do the same in a survival context, but the amount of labor necessary to smelt one’s own wrought iron from ore is prohibitive unless one has no other choice. Much more reasonable in a survival setting would be the repurposing of available metals. In history, this was extremely common. Viking societies would burn longships and sift the ashes to recover nails. We can …


Update: Big Decisions — Weighing The Risks and Benefits

JWR’s Introductory Note: The following is a slightly expanded update to a post that I wrote for SurvivalBlog back in September of 2005: — When doing radio interviews or giving lectures, I’m often asked where the “perfect” place is for a survival retreat. The short answer is: There is none. Granted, there are a lot of places that are much better than others, but there is no single “one size fits all” perfect place. Much ike buying a pair of boots, the decision has as much to do with the size and shape of your feet as it does the …


The Fed’s Strong USD Policy: A Recipe For Systemic Implosion, by Matthew Piepenberg

From Main Street USA to the village corners and central banks of Europe, Japan, and elsewhere, the Fed’s strong USD policy is backfiring—big time. Just ask the Brits… Having spent years creating the inflation (QE1 to unlimited QE, Repo bailouts, massive money supply expansion, and an historical wealth transfer from an inflated, Fed-driven stock market), the Fed will be cleaning up its own inflation mess on the backs of the U.S. working class and its other global “allies” while blaming the CPI inflation on Putin, Covid and climate change. How’s that for rigged to fail? But that’s just the beginning, and …


The Queen Died, but King Dollar Lives On, by Arkadiusz Sieroń

Queen Elizabeth II died, but King Dollar is the strongest in decades. Gold doesn’t like it. To say that gold has been struggling this year is an understatement. As the chart below shows, the price of the yellow metal declined from above $2,000 to below $1,700 (as of September 20). That slide occurred during the highest inflation since the great stagflation of the 1970s.


One Man’s View of Geopolitics, by Francis The Semi-Prepper

I have a somewhat different view of the war between Ukraine and Russia. This starts off with some rambling so just relax. I’ll get to the point. I refer to myself as a semi-prepper sine we live in a nice suburb about 24 miles (~17 miles as the crow flies) from where our daughter and family live in a major southern city (they are about 2.9 miles from the city center). This is not the ideal location as far as I’m concerned but our grandchildren are that important to us, we are not moving even though I feel something will …


Ways to Combat News-Overload Induced Worry, by Elli O.

During these times of instability and unc+ertainty both in our country and throughout the world, it is easy to become concerned about our future. In fact, if you are a Pollyanna who is not concerned about the future, then your head is probably in the sand dunes of Egypt and you are not being realistic in your thinking. But these are unstable times. There is constantly a threat to our way of life and the peace to which we have become accustomed. Whether it be man-made or by nature, ranging from the international conflicts (pick any two countries- Russia and …


Europe Is Facing Energy Disaster And It’s Going To Bleed Over Into The US, by Brandon Smith

Editor’s Introductory Note: This article by Brandon Smith was originally published at Birch Gold Group.  It is reposted with permission. — Though the situation is ever changing, currently the Russian government has announced an official shutdown of all natural gas exports to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and plans to maintain the shutdown until the EU ends its economic sanctions over the war in Ukraine. This means that around 40% of Europe’s energy resources are now gone, with supply chain issues surrounding the other 60% and prices skyrocketing for households and businesses. Back in March in an article …


Locksmithing for TEOTWAWKI, by R.M.G.

Let’s take a moment to think about all the things/issues a locksmith might help us with today, that we might be able to prepare ourselves for tomorrow. We have keys and locks that secure our house, our vehicles, the storage shed/workshop out back, our place of business, our guns, our money/important papers/silver/gold. The list goes on and on, and most of it is stuff we take for granted. Many of us have no idea that there are things that we can do to better secure all or most of the things listed above and most people don’t know that there …


Front Yard Pharmacy: Your Herb Garden, by B.W.

Introductory Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. Use medicinal herbs under direction from your own doctor and with your own discretion. Always do your research before taking any medication, herbal or otherwise. Does the world as it sits right now have you feeling overwhelmed and more than a little nervous about the future? Maybe you’re prepping like crazy, putting back food and water. Maybe you’re rearranging your investments and starting some of the projects you’ve been wanting to do for years. In all of your preparation, have you made considerations for what you will do if modern medicine takes a …


Masters of Deceit: The Government’s Propaganda of Fear, by John & Nisha Whitehead

“It is the function of mass agitation to exploit all the grievances, hopes, aspirations, prejudices, fears, and ideals of all the special groups that make up our society, social, religious, economic, racial, political. Stir them up. Set one against the other. Divide and conquer. That’s the way to soften up a democracy. –  J. Edgar Hoover, Masters of Deceit The U.S. government has become a master of deceit. It’s all documented, too. This is a government that lies, cheats, steals, spies, kills, maims, enslaves, breaks the laws, overreaches its authority, and abuses its power at almost every turn; treats its …


To Sleep, Perchance to Dream – Part 1, by J.M.

Ahh, waking up fresh and well-rested in the morning to the soft musical chime of your alarm clock, with the beautiful rays of morning sunshine nudging you to start your day after a restful night’s sleep. Okay, so I may be leaning a bit into the fantasy world, but the reality is that sleeping (and waking up, hopefully) are things that everyone reading this has in common. The other thing that pretty much everyone shares is that we all have problems sleeping occasionally – tossing and turning, getting up at oh-dark-thirty and feeling like we’re walking around in a coma …


Default – Deflation – Depression, by Kelsey Williams

Inflation is the primary game plan of governments and central banks. Its effects have left their mark on societies throughout history. As the effects of inflation continue to dominate headlines, financial and economic activity is scrutinized and analyzed with the intent of planning, projecting, and predicting it. Most people think they understand inflation – they don’t – but for now, let’s look the other way. There is a triple-decker bus coming straight at us. DEFAULT Default can happen three different ways: 1) Credit default 2) Bank failures 3) Asset price collapse Universal credit default happens when individuals, corporations, and countries …