Note from JWR:

Don’t miss out on Safecastle’s current “Before the Fall” sale. At the core of the sale is a Mountain House three-case kit (18 of the big #10 size cans) that is a quick way to add a variety of high-quality freeze-dried foods to a food storage program. These cans have a shelf life of 30+ years. With a qualifying purchase of at least one of these kits, Safecastle offers four add-on packages at 33% off. As always, everything ships free to the lower 48 States. This offer is good for both Safecastle Royal buyer’s club members and non-members.


Letter Re: Surviving 90 Miles from the US — A Cuban-American Exile’s View

A brief background of myself. I am an Telecommunications Engineer, I served three years in the Cuban army as an Engineer in several units (it was mandatory unless you were integrated with the system, in which case you will get a better civilian job). After I served my time they did not want to release me (basically no one wants to stay unless you are willing to do their bidding) so they offered 2 years to a very harsh unit that stays in the mountains for months end ready to be sent anywhere, or stay for 20 years in very …


Letter Re: The Virtues of Fasting Experience for Well-Rounded Preparedness

Greetings! I have an idea that I have been wanting the patriot survival community to consider. Here it is: Basically we are able to go without food for much longer than most people know. This is not true with water to be sure. A normal, reasonably healthy human body is easily capable of going three to six weeks on very, very little nutrition and remain completely mentally alert and even physically active. During a prolonged fast you will not be able to pick up as much furniture as normal but you may easily be able to walk for 100 miles! …


Letter Re: Acquiring Pre-1965 Silver Coinage

Hello James, I’ve been an avid reader of Survivalblog for two years now. I have also read and passed along “Patriots” when I bought it on Amazon, during the Book Bomb event in April. I also purchased the“Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course a couple of years ago. I’m prepping even as I’m typing this. During this economic downturn starting in the last year or so, the corporation I work for has demanded no more overtime, cut back on the company match for our 401k, and since no one is buying anything, my sales commissions have gone to almost $0. …



Economics and Investing:

From Theo M.: Deficit grew by $181 billion in July Chris H. flagged this: No Longer Jobless, But Still Struggling Frequent contributor Karen H. kindly sent several items: Fed Focusing on Real-Estate Recession “The collapse in commercial real estate is preventing Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke from declaring the economy and financial markets are healed.” (JWR has predicted this for quite some time.) Treasurers’ Fear of Next Credit Freeze Shown in Cash Hoarding “Cash is king,” said Paul Kasriel, the chief economist at Northern Trust Corp. in Chicago. “Businesses are in survival mode right now.” Minneapolis Federal Reserve Inflation …


Odds ‘n Sods:

I was doing some research on sunspot cycles (whilst pondering whether it would be worthwhile to buy some more ham radio gear to work the 40 and 80 meter bands), and I stumbled across this web page from Finland: Timo Niroma: One possible explanation for the cyclicity in the Sun. Part 5 talks about possible climate change. It would be incredibly ironic if this new century were to be a Little Ice Age rather than the much-heralded Global Warming that Al Gore et al have been shouting about. Needless to say, the climate change jury is still out, and there …



Notes from JWR:

We’ve reached the milestone of 10 million unique visits for SurvivalBlog. When I first set up the blog visits counter in 2005, I thought that it would take a decade or two before we’d ever fill up all the places in an eight digit counter. My, was I wrong! Thanks for making this the world’s most popular blog on survival and preparedness topics. We get more traffic than all the smaller survival and preparedness blogs, combined. Please keep spreading the word. A link to SurvivalBlog in your blog or web page would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Today we present another …


Terminal Ballistics for Big Game, by Old Dog

The following is based on over 25 years making a living as a licensed guide in Alaska and as a professional hunter in Africa. Between clients shooting game and cull hunts I have personally seen over 7,000 big game (250 lbs or more) animals die from gunshots. I have formed my opinions on terminal ballistics from this experience The Biggest Myth that I hear is faster projectiles (Velocity) kills better than slow ones. As long as the projectile stays above supersonic it will kill big game effectively with a properly constructed bullet. Second Biggest Myth is that more foot-pounds of …


Letter Re: Preventing Steel Food Cans from Rusting in High-Moisture Environments

Hello James and Memsahib! Greetings and prayers for you both. In the Saturday August 8th blog there was a report of damage to underground storage food, with cans rusting. When we traveled for years on our sailboat we varnished our canned goods to prevent rusting. We removed the labels, wrote the contents of the can with a permanent marker, then varnished each can. We never had a can rust with this protection. Our cans were exposed to salt air and an occasional dousing from bilge water. B.B. thought that waxing his cans would help. That may work but any contact …


Economics and Investing:

GG flagged this: Banks still getting sicker; The economy may have turned, but banks will be cleaning up after their lending mistakes for years. Several big banks may already be doomed to fail. Also from GG: Bank of England surprises markets with move to increase ‘printing money’ plan This was linked at the excellent news aggregation blog Total Investor blog: ‘Lost Couple of Decades’ Looming for U.S. Economy: Chart of Day Several SurvivalBloggers sent us this: Obama announces $2.4 billion grant for electric vehicles Items from The Economatrix: Audio Clip: Unemployment Decline “A Little Bit Misleading” Analyst says “people have …


Odds ‘n Sods:

F.G. spotted this bit of inspiration for SurvivalBlog’s older readers: Never Too Old: The Story of Captain Samuel Whittemore. (Who went to war at age 80.)    o o o Do you remember my comments back in May, on the “Three K” depression-proof jobs? This Fox News article confirms it: Now Hiring: Everywhere You Didn’t Want to Work    o o o The recent much-publicized dehydration death of a child in Death Valley, California, prompted several SurvivalBlog readers to comment. The consensus on vehicular off-pavement travel in desert country is to over-prepare: Carry two spare mounted tires, extra fuel, sleeping …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“I told a reporter here a while back–young girl, seemed nice enough, she was just tryin’ to be a reporter. She said: ‘Sheriff how come you let crime get so out of hand in your county?’ Sounded like a fair question. Anyway I told her, I said: Any time you quit hearing ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’ the end is pretty much in sight.” – Tommy Lee Jones as Terrell County Texas Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, from the movie No Country for Old Men, 2005 (originally written by Cormack McCarthy)