The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“A wise son heareth his father’s instruction: but a scorner heareth not rebuke. A man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth: but the soul of the transgressors shall eat violence. He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction. The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. A righteous man hateth lying: but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame. Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way: but wickedness overthroweth the sinner. There …


Preparedness Notes for Friday — May 3, 2024

On May 3, 2016, a wildfire forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray, Alberta—the capital of Canada’s tar sand industry—and the surrounding area; ultimately, more than 80,000 people fled the blaze, which caused billions of dollars in losses. — May 3rd, 1952 was the birthday of Pastor Chuck Baldwin. He has done yeoman service in promoting the American Redoubt movement. — With gardening and home canning season approaching, I’d like to remind readers about Harvest Guard. They make reusable regular and wide-mouth canning lids. Every serious preparedness-minded family that does home canning should buy several sets of their lids! Take note …


Societal Change: The Wide-Open Throttle

I’ll try to keep this essay quite short, so that it won’t turn into a lengthy rant. American society has been decadent for many years.  This trend began gradually but it accelerated in the late 1960s. The pace of change increased again in the year 2000, with the 9/11 terror attacks and then the immediate launch of the so-called War On Terror (WOT).  Just how a nation can declare war on a noun still baffles me. Societal decadence accelerated again with the supposed election of Joe Biden.  The Bidenistas have pushed America’s rate of societal change to a Wide Open …


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, we look at the crash in lab-grown diamond prices. (See the Commodities section.) Precious Metals: The NYSE stock market is slumping, and the crypto markets seem uncertain.  But gold and silver are still looking quite bullish. These were the opening numbers for the spot markets on Wednesday: Gold $2,318.10 Silver $26.74 Platinum $974.50 I must …



Preparedness Notes for Thursday — May 2, 2024

On May 2, 1780, William Herschel discovered the first binary star, Xi Ursae Majoris. — On May 2nd, 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France at a cost of four cents per acre for 828,000 square miles (2,144,520 square km), which soon proved to be a tremendous bargain. — On May 2, 1945, the Soviet Union announced the fall of Berlin and the Allies announced the surrender of Nazi troops in Italy and parts of Austria. — On May 2nd, 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton announced that high-accuarcy GPS would be made available to the public; the …


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 reported spread of an Avian Influenza strain detected in cow milk. WHO Demonizes America’s Cattle Herds for ‘Bird Flu’ By way of the Whatfinger.com news …



Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — May 1, 2024

On May 1, 1931, the Empire State Building in New York City officially opened. For four decades it was the tallest building in the world, and it is considered a U.S. landmark. — On May 1, 2004, The European Union was enlarged to include the new member states of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia — Today we present a product review and field test by Field Gear Editor Tom Christianson. — We are in need of entries for Round 112 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.  More than $875,000 worth of prizes …


SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This 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. — An American came back from Europe with a $143,000 phone bill after failing to set up international roaming. o  o  o Reader J.R.G. wrote: “I read the recent review by Mr. Christianson. I own the same knife model that was reviewed.  I was attracted to it by its leaf-bladed resemblance to the …


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Summing up: Correctly interpreted, the simple economic model specifically predicts that people will be less selfish as voters than as consumers. Indeed, like diners at an all-you-can-eat buffet, we should expect voters to “stuff themselves” with moral rectitude. Once again, analogies between voting and shopping are deeply misleading.” – Bryan Caplan, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies


Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — April 30, 2024

On April 30, 1897, English physicist J.J. Thomson announced that he had discovered the electron, which helped revolutionize the knowledge of atomic structure; he later was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. April 30, 1777 was the birthday of Carl Friedrich Gauss, who is widely is considered the world’s greatest mathematician. Camerone Day is celebrated on April 30th every year — the Foreign Legion’s most important holiday. On the 30 of April 1863 the French Foreign Legion fought for over 10 hours with a vastly-larger Mexican Army contingent. This battle is still celebrated by the Foreign Legion as the Battle …


SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. We also mention companies located in the American Redoubt region that are of interest to preppers and survivalists. Today, some driving tour videos that will give folks an appreciation of just how light the population density is, in most of The American Redoubt. Pictured above is Salmon, Idaho, sometime before 1950. Region-Wide On May 21st, there will be an advisory vote in Crook County, …



Preparedness Notes for Monday — April 29, 2024

On April 29, 1770, British explorer James Cook made his first landing in Australia, at Botany Bay. — This is the birthday of actor Daniel Day-Lewis (born 1957), often remembered for his starring roles in Last of the Mohicians and in Lincoln. — Today’s feature article is a review written by  SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor Tom Christianson. — Gone!  We are now out of stock of the waterproof 2005-2023 SurvivalBlog Archive USB sticks. There may be just 10 that we held in reserve for replacements that will be offered for sale in a few days, but otherwise there won’t be …