“Are you going to tell the soldier to shoot the soccer mom trying to get her kids out of the city in her minivan?” – Ed Richards, a Louisiana State University law professor, on using the military to enforce quarantines, as quoted at GovExec.com
I’m often asked how long the U.S. Military “Meal Ready to Eat” (MRE) rations can be stored. SurvivalBlog reader “Mr. Tango” (BTW, don’t miss reading his fascinating profile) had a round of correspondence with the U.S. Army’s Natick Laboratories in Massachusetts, on the potential storage life of MREs. The data that they sent him was surprising! Here is the gist of it: Degrees, Fahrenheit Months of Storage (Years) 120 1 month 110 5 months 100 22 months (1.8 years) 90 55 months (4.6 years) 80 76 months (6.3 years) 70 100 months (8.3 years) 60 130 months (10.8 years) — …
The food additive monosodium glutamate (MSG) is now used in an alarmingly wide variety of processed foods. MSG has a bad reputation for more than just inducing “Chinese food headache.” IMHO, it is nasty stuff and should be avoided. But that is difficult these days because food processors hide it by applying umpteen clever nom de guerres. These can include: Autolyzed yeast, Barley malt, Broth, Bouillon, Calcium caseinate, Carrageen or carrageenan, Enzyme modified, Fermented, Flavoring, Natural flavoring, Gelatin, Glutamates, Hydrolyzed oat flour, Hydrolyzed protein, Hydrolyzed vegetable, Malt extract, Maltodextrin, Natural flavors, Pectin, Plant protein extract or extracts, Potassium glutamate, Protein fortified, …
Jim, This past Thursday thru Saturday was spent by me and a like minded, survival oriented friend in the mountains doing a cold weather shakedown. We headed up to the mountains, and did some primitive camping out in the middle of Bigfoot country at about 3,500 feet. This was a well scouted area, and I had found that nobody in at least the last year had been in the area but me. One of the items that we “shook-down” was my Wiggy’s Hunter. When I opened the box that it came in, I could see right off that it appeared …
A reader alerted me that the manufacturer of Gamma Seal Lids (those nifty screw top lids that fit on standard 3 to 7 gallon food storage buckets) are now available directly from the manufacturer at very reasonable prices if bought in quantity. See: http://www.gammaseals.com. ___ In a recent phone conversation, the gent who was the basis for the “Roger Dunlap” character in my novel Patriots mentioned: “In inflation-adjusted dollars, gold’s $850+ per ounce peak back in 1979 would be the equivalent of about $1,550 per ounce today.” Despite the price increases since 2001, gold is still dirt cheap. He recommends …
“A pandemic is going to be a catastrophic nightmare. What we’re going to be doing is trying to make it less of a nightmare.” – Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, on preparations for a possible bird-flu pandemic, as recently quoted in GovExec.com.
I encourage you to continue to spread the news about SurvivalBlog. Our readership is growing fast, but there are still millions out there with web access who have never heard of it. A brief e-mail to your like-minded friends or mention of SurvivalBlog when calling in to talk radio shows would be greatly appreciated! Every friend that you help motivate to get prepared represents one less person that you’ll find sheepishly begging on your doorstep, come TEOTWAWKI+1. Instead of being part of the problem, they’ll be part of the solution.
Here at the Rawles Ranch the chicken-loving Memsahib couldn’t help but be dismayed when her DH suggested the immediate sale of her sizable flock of terribly cute and tame chickens. So off to the internet in search of answers… Wild birds can be the carriers of Avian Flu to domestic chickens and turkeys. Bird flu can be spread from country to country by migratory birds. Waterfowl can carry avian flu without clinical signs of infection. With that said, how can any government in the world keep the Avian Flu from reaching their shores? To prevent Avian Flu infecting your home poultry …
This question causes a lot of confusion for people who are new to survivalist movement. The mass-media has always portrayed people in the survivalist movement as paranoid nuts. Either they show us as racist killers waiting for the day when the ‘mud-people’ can be put in their place, or religious freaks praying for the end of the world, or cold-war nut cases who think the Russians are coming to steal their women and rape their cattle. In truth, the run-of-the-mill survivalist got his start as an average person with an average job who simply looked around and didn’t like what …
Hi Jim, I have been a big fan of yours for several years since I read your book [Patriots]! I was very excited to find your blog (via Claire Wolfe’s blog) and have been reading it and recommending it since day four. My husband and I have been busy socking money away into retirement accounts to prepare for the future but after listening to your interview with Geri Guidetti we decided to take the money we were putting away in Roth IRAs and spend it instead on survival preparations. There are several reasons for this decision: 1) Roth IRA money …
“A billion dollars isn’t what it used to be.” – Nelson Bunker Hunt
Today we feature another entry for the SurvivalBlog writing contest. The prize is a transferable four day course certificate, good for any course at Front Sight. Enter your non-fiction articles via e-mail by the end of November to be considered for the contest.
Introduction Let us review the basics of child rearing. Children are a gift from God and we are to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. All preparedness means nothing if we have prepared our children for the eternal fires of hell. God, in His eternal wisdom and grace, providentially provided His son Jesus to restore us to a loving relationship with the Almighty. God provides covenantal blessings for those who obey Him and curses for those who don’t. With that being said it is imperative that all our worldly preparation be first and foremost spiritual …
Jim, I think your estimations on the results of a pandemic are … incomplete. Say the worst case scenario happens…say 1/3 of the population of the US dies. That is 100-million or so people, out of 300 million or so.We really don’t know what segments of the population H5N1 will attack. In Asia, it’s attacking the very young mostly but they’re also the ones that have the most contact with the infected fowl. The 1918 Spanish Influenza killed mainly young to middle aged, very healthy people, but that was from secondary infection that couldn’t be treated (today we have antibiotics …
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." – Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (Appointed by James Madison)