Letter: Drought

Dear James, The biggest current threat to the U.S. food supply is the extraordinary drought that has had a relentless grip on the western half of the country. If you check out the U.S. Drought Monitor, you can see that drought conditions currently stretch from California all the way to the heart of Texas. In fact, the worst drought in the history of the state of California is happening right now. And considering the fact that the rest of the nation is extremely dependent on produce grown in California and cattle raised in the western half of the U.S., this …


Economics and Investing:

G.G sent this in: The Taxman Driveth: In the future, Your Car May Rat You Out to the Tax Collector. Santelli Slams Central Bank Policies – P.M. B.B sent in this link about just how badly the American People are messed over by their elected officials. Record One-day Withdrawal of Gold from JP Morgan G.C. sent a link to his video about the HSBC debacle Standing out in the video is this quote: “As this was not a change to the Terms and Conditions of your bank account, we had no need to pre-notify customers of the change,” And the …


Odds ‘n Sods:

A commentator who is better known for his science videos observes: The Problem With Facebook. His cogent arguments are just a few more reasons to avoid Facebook and other social media. – JWR o o o Connecticut doesn’t know how to deal with non-compliance to their anti-2nd amendment laws. So here’s their latest scheme. – MDL o o o Several readers reported this: Newspaper conglomerate considers building massive database of gun owners o o o This is certainly a novel way to deal with landmines – Mike o o o M.K.P sent in a link to this multitool. A bit …




Training for Survival, by Warm Winds

During a survival situation, being able to do a task with a good amount of stamina can get things done much faster. As an example, a recent survival blog entry was about how bikes are very valuable during survival. If one has no stamina, bikes can be pretty useless. Even if one has a limited amount of stamina, biking can be very exhausting and require a very long time to get from place to place. As a personal example, yesterday there was a big snowstorm where I live. My younger brothers and I decided to shovel snow for money. I …


Letter Re: Short Term Conflict Versus Long Term Conflict

Hugh, First of all, welcome to the blog. I was impressed by your credentials and have enjoyed reading your comments these past few days. However, I do have a bone to pick. Gee, no grace period? In the Friday, Jan. 24 issue of SurvivalBlog you said, “If our civilization reaches the point of collapse, the lawlessness will, by necessity, be relatively short lived.” In a devastating collapse, I would expect a couple of waves of large-scale “die-offs” fairly early. I think that this is where your theory comes from. However, to say that lawlessness would be short lived doesn’t take …


Letter Re: Myths About Income Inequality

Dear Editor, In your post under Economics and Investing, you said: “It’s important to understand that when a person creates wealth, they are not taking more of the pie from you; they are actually creating a bigger pie. It’s really only government that forcibly takes from you.” I wish to respectfully disagree. If a merger and acquisitions corporation, such as Bain capital, buys out the company you worked for (Dade Behring, where I worked for over 17 years), slices and dices, sells off the profitable parts to foreign companies, makes you train the new foreign employees (which I had to …


News From The American Redoubt:

Photos: Boise woman’s tiny house o o o Two Gun bills have been posted on the Oregon Legislative website that may interest our readers there. SB 1551 which deals with an expansion of gun registration legislation, and HB 4068 which deals with people who have had convictions for small amounts of marijuana or who had those convictions before Oregon reduced the penalty to apply for CHLs. o o o Sandpoint ranch raises Budweiser Clydesdales o o o R.B.S. sent these three videos in. I especially like the all-terain wheel chair. Paralyzed vet gets all-terrain chair complete with gun rack Senators …


Economics and Investing:

D. B. sent in this link asking if it is The Beginning of the End for the U.S. Dollar? S.E. sent in a link showing how many Americans feel about the financial future. And M.R sent this email warning of the coming Global Financial Meltdown caused by China’s crdit bubble. Items from The Economatrix: 20 Early Warning Signs That We Are Approaching A Global Economic Meltdown Celente – The Entire World Is Now Unraveling Before Our Eyes JPMorgan’s Gold Vault Has Biggest One-Day Withdrawal Ever Bank-Run Fears Continue; HSBC Restricts Large Cash Withdrawals


Odds ‘n Sods:

Reader B.H. sent this news headline, which reads like something out of a novel: Indonesia Moves Warships to Border For some background in the recent growth of Indonesian military power, see this article from The Jakarta Post: TNI gears up, sets sights on foreign threats o o o For those intereted in light weight rifles this one sounds like it has quite a bit of promise. o o o G.G. sent this news report in onNew Hampshire Thieves Raiding Woodpiles For Firewood. o o o Disturbing news that the US Government may have been colaborating with the Sinaloa drug cartel …


Hugh’s Quote of the Day:

“The thing was, though: When James Wait got there, a worldwide financial crisis, a sudden revision of human opinions as to the value of money and stocks and bonds and mortgages and so on, bits of paper, had ruined the tourist business not only in Ecuador, but practically everywhere…Ecuador, after all, like the Galapagos Islands, was mostly lava and ash, and so could not begin to feed its nine million people. It was bankrupt, and so could no longer buy food from countries with plenty of topsoil, so the seaport of Guayaquil was idle, and the people were beginning to …


Notes from SurvivalBlog Editors:

Note from JWR: On a recent trip to the eastern U.S., my wife and I had the opportunity to finally meet face to face with sci-fi novelist Mike Williamson, (SurvivalBlog’s Editor at Large) and his family. It was great fun to put faces to names, and to build stronger bonds than is possible through mere correspondence. Notes from HJL: January 27th is the birthday of the late Helen Chenoweth, (born, 1938, died October 2, 2006), a controversial Republican congresswoman from Orofino, Idaho.


Notes from SurvivalBlog Readers:

Sometimes SurvivalBlog gets small emails from our readership that just are not big enough to warrant placement in their own blog post. Some of these can be quite profound too. Rather than just let them fall by the wayside or respond privately, I will post them in this section. – HJL —– A quick note of thank you from B. Jim, Pat will be greatly missed. Us southern Louisiana preppers will keep him and his family in our prayers. – B. —– And another quick note from P.W. HJL said it “The reality is that we can’t go it alone.” …


Pat’s Product Review: SOG Trident Folder

In all the years I’ve been around knives, there are one or two things I’ve learned about what most people think about knives. It really depends on where you live, too. Many folks in the big cities see knives, including folding knives, as a weapon of last resort, and that isn’t wrong thinking by any stretch of the imagination. Folks who live in rural areas think differently about knives. Instead of a weapon, most see a knife as a tool to use in dressing out game. Then we have Preppers, living in the city or in the country. They see …