Notes for Friday – August 14, 2015

14 August 1945 V-J Day o o o Today, we present another entry for Round 60 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $10,000 worth of prizes for this round include: First Prize: A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,195 value), A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper with a hammer forged, …


Letter Re: Our Experience Growing and Storing Our Own Food- Part 1

Dear Survival Blog: I share Tennessean’s love of pole beans (and second the nomination of Rattlesnake as a wonderful variety), but up here in NY, where you have to wait for the soil to warm up before planting, bush beans will produce something edible 7-10 days faster than pole beans. So, in a must-eat situation, that may be important. The fastest maturing pole bean variety I have grown is Golden Gate. If using horse fence as a trellis is out of your price range, take a look at Herrick Kimball’s bicycle tire trellis. Go to his Gardening Ideas Book page …


Economics and Investing:

$2,672,414,000,000: Federal Taxes Set Record Through July; $17,955 Per Worker–Feds Still Run $465.5B Deficit – B.B. o o o Desolation Row: the Silver Market – G.C. o o o Massive Commonwealth Bank glitch takes cash from customers – G.P. o o o Europe in crisis: everyone from Putin to ordinary savers is stockpiling gold – GJM o o o Why This Bubble Is Actually WORSE Than The Internet Tech Bubble


Odds ‘n Sods:

American knife collector “Stilletto” just posted a very positive video review of the Rawles XL Voyager Knife. He compares the knife to the earlier-generation extra large Voyagers, and shows some nice close up views. He also mentions that this limited edition knife with the SurvivalBlog logotype will probably never make it to Cold Steel’s regular catalog or to any stocking dealers. These will probably sell out quickly, so don’t hesitate. As I’ve mentioned before, all profits are going to two Christian charities. – JWR o o o Federal Agencies Fight for Warrantless Access to Emails – G.P. o o o …



Notes for Thursday – August 13, 2015

Ready Made Resources is letting SurvivalBlog readers know that FLIR is offering a factory rebate on their thermal units. The FLIR PS-32 has a $500 rebate and the RS rifle scope series has up to $1000 rebate. o o o Camping Survival now has “gently evaporated” eggs back in stock. (They’ve been on back order for quite a while due to the bird flu.) It sounds silly to call them “gently evaporated”, but they taste excellent. o o o Don’t forget about the Survival Cave Food meat sale at Safecastle. As the political season starts ramping up, you may need …


SurvivalBlog’s 10th Anniversary!

This month marks the 10th anniversary of SurvivalBlog. The blog was propitiously launched just a few weeks before the well-remembered Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. Since August of 2005 we’ve only missed a few days of daily posting. (Those were immediately following the untimely death of my first wife.) The blog’s archives of articles and letters are now amazingly deep, and we’ve kept them all fully accessible to everyone, free of charge. The blog now has more than 320,000 unique visitors per week, and has logged nearly 76 million unique visits. My sincere thanks to our many loyal readers, …


Letter Re: Regarding the Tails for Mac Users article

HJL, Almost every “Mac” made since around 2006 has been Intel-based. From a name perspective, the products were renamed with the shift. Earlier product names included PowerMac, iBook, and PowerBook. Intel-based product names include: Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, etc The only two devices that didn’t get a name shift were the Mac Mini and the iMac. You can see full details at these wikipedia links, and to figure out which mac you have, you can go under the Apple Menu to “About this Mac” and it will tell you both the model as well as the processor …



Odds ‘n Sods:

Court Rules Police Can Use Volunteered DNA In Other Cases – G.P. o o o Mapping 1083 People Killed By Cops In The Last Year – GJM As usual, the Redoubt rates very well here, though the low population density probably has a significant impact. o o o Judges Can’t Use Freedom of Religion to Avoid Performing Same-Sex Marriages – D.S. o o o Not preparedness oriented, but I stumbled upon this: Riftworld. Quite entertaining! (But beware of some foul language.) – JWR o o o Europe Watches Nervously As NATO And Russia Ready For War With Each Other – …



Notes for Wednesday – August 12, 2015

Today, we present another entry for Round 60 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $10,000 worth of prizes for this round include: First Prize: A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,195 value), A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper with a hammer forged, chromlined barrel and a hard case to go …


Letter Re: Growing and Storing Our Own Food

Dear Hugh, Tennessean wrote a very useful article regarding providing your own food, but I wanted to point out one remark about choosing Yukon Gold potatoes. One lesson from the Irish Potato Famine was that most farmers had gone to planting only one variety of potatoes, the Irish Lumper. Other countries had a variety of potatoes, some more resistant to the fungal blight that hit Europe and so the blight did not hit them as hard. The lack of potato variety was only one contributor to the famine but nevertheless an important factor. I humbly submit that it might be …


Economics and Investing:

China Rattles Markets With Yuan Devaluation – G.P. o o o Trends in low wage America: 1.4 million waiter/bartender jobs gained while 1.4 million manufacturing jobs lost since 2007. Top 4 employment sectors pay $10 an hour or less. John Kerry Warns “Dollar Will Cease To Be Reserve Currency Of The World” If Iran Deal Rejected – P.W. “Scaremongery… or maybe the whole point, as Obama’s former chief economist noted, is to lose reserve status. Take that China!!” o o o Items from Mr. Econocobas: The Long-Range Social Security/Medicare Deficit: $72 Trillion And Counting The Fed Is Out Of Options, …