Preparedness Notes for Saturday — March 29, 2025

Today is the birthday of comedian Eric Idle, in 1943. From the Infogalactic Wiki: “He was a member of the British comedy group Monty Python and the parody rock band The Rutles. Idle studied English at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and joined Cambridge University Footlights. He has received a Grammy Award as well as nominations for two Tony Awards. Idle reached stardom in the 1970s when he co-created and acted in the Python sketch comedy series Flying Circus (1969–1974) and the films Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian, (1979) and The Meaning of Life (1983) with Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry …


A Little Lexicon of Liberty and Freedom Terms

The following is just a brief summary of some legal terminology.  A serious legal scholar would do a deep dive and end up with a 50,000-word treatise. But that is not my intent here, so I will keep it brief: One book that I’ve often referred to over the years is Black’s Law Dictionary. Mine is a 6th Edition, printed in 1991. I also have an e-book copy of the classic Bouvier’s Law Dictionary from 1856. It is interesting to see how some definitions of terms have morphed, over time. People often use the terms Freedom and Liberty synonymously. However, …


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar. And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto …


Preparedness Notes for Friday — March 28, 2025

On March 28, 1566, the foundation stone was laid for the new city of La Valletta in Malta by Knights Hospitaller Grand Master Jean de Valette. — March 28, 1774: Britain passed the Coercive Act against Massachusetts. — Just three days left! We are continuing our big one-week sale at Elk Creek Company. We’ve put all of our pre-1899 Mauser and Carcano sporters as well as all of our Pietta percussion revolvers on sale. This sale will end on Monday, March 31st. Also, take note that I’ve boosted our pre-1965 silver divisor to 25.1 times face value, if you’d like …


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, a closer look at the volatile precious metals markets. Pictured above is the Chicago Board of Trade, pre-2015. About 90% of the open outcry “pit” trading has since migrated to office computer screens. Precious Metals: On March 21st, I had a consulting client ask me about the spot silver market. He asked if I thought …



Preparedness Notes for Thursday — March 27, 2025

On March 27, 1351: The Battle of the Thirty: 30 English and 30 Breton knights and squires squared off using swords, maces, lances, and daggers. It was considered one of the most chivalrous battles in history — March 27,1855: Canadian geologist Abraham Gesner patented kerosene. — And on March 27, 1964, Radio Caroline, the first true Pirate Radio station, began broadcasting in England. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 117 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% …


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, we look at the Western European Defense Surge. The European Union’s $11 Trillion Defense Plan Reader Tim M. sent this: EU slams the door on US in colossal …



Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — March 26, 2025

On March 26, 1790, the US Congress passed the first Naturalization Act, requiring a two-year residency for arriving immigrant “free white persons” before granting them citizenship. The residency requirement was raised to five years in 1795, and 14 years in 1798. This first Nationality Act produced the new legal category of “aliens ineligible for citizenship.”  The 1913 painting above, “Wall Street, 1790” was by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe (1850-1936.) — On March 26th, 1812 an earthquake now estimated at 7.7 on the Richter scale destroyed 90% of Caracas, Venezuela. It killed an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people. — We are continuing …


A Disaster Laptop Computer – Part 1, by J.M.

Unless you’re already living completely self-sufficiently and off-grid, when a TEOTWAWKI scenario comes along you’re going to have to quickly adapt your lifestyle and mindset in order to survive long-term. That means bringing all of your preparations to bear, including skills, expertise, information and supplies. While you may have prepared for immediate survival, implementing a major long-term shift in your lifestyle will require an organized approach to keep track of the information, schedules and other activities you’ll need to keep going. In ‘normal’ times many of us use computers to perform these types of activities, and there’s no reason you …


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. — The government of France is issuing a 20-page survival preparedness booklet to every citizen, by mail. JWR’s Comments: This “Votre kit d’urgence” advice is all very basic 72-hour kit stuff, including a recommendation to store flashlights and a whopping 6 liters of water, per person. The booklet’s publication was reportedly prompted by …


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“You’d have to be very stupid, ill-informed and bigoted not to at least suspect that the global epidemic of autism is related to the untrammelled enthusiasm for repeated mass vaccination of children. I’ve been studying vaccines and vaccine damage longer than most people and it is patently clear that most (if not all) patients alleged to have autism are suffering from brain damage caused by vaccination. Autism, in other words, is a synonym for brain damage and vaccines are the cause of the brain damage. The fact that no one in the medical establishment will even discuss this is proof …


Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — March 25, 2025

On March 25, 1199, King Richard I (the “Lion Heart”) of England, was wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France. This led to his death on April 6th of the same year. — March 25, 1305:  Robert the Bruce was crowned Robert I, King of Scots, after killing his rival John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch. — This is the birthday of English film director David Lean. He was born in Croydon, England in 1908. He died in 1991. He is best known for his award-winning films Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Doctor Zhivago. — …


Prepping: The Department of Redundancy Department

This essay was inspired by SurvivalBlog reader R.T., who recently sent me a photo of his accumulation of 17 hand-crank kitchen grinders. In bygone years, almost every family owned one of these. But they have gradually been replaced by more fragile electric blenders, electric meat grinders, and food processors. So, most of these sturdy old machines have been unwisely discarded.  I assume that R.T. found most of his at yard sales and at thrift stores. He included the caption:  “One is none and two is one, but seventeen?” An oft-quoted saying in the prepping community is: ‘One is none and …