Beans, Bullets, Band-Aids, and Birthdays, by Kathryn T.

“Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars,” said 34th U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.  I would add that morale is the greatest single success factor in any stressful situation, whether it be war, civil unrest, financial collapse, earthquake, snowstorm, serious illness, or job loss.  The means for keeping morale high is different depending on the person in question.  For adults, that may mean stockpiling tea, coffee, or brownie mix.  For children, though, it often means continuing to recognize the celebrations of happier times. To that end, I keep a “prize box” in our basement.  Throughout the year, I …


Letter Re: Don’t Be Blind-sided By a Secondary Event

Dear James: I second the motion – any nuclear power experts on the blog that can comment on the threat from further catastrophes in Japan, or similar catastrophes happening here in the US? Quite frankly I had not paid enough attention to Fukushima.  What I am finally reading is incredibly disturbing.   To summarize, we have a fragile earthquake, and tsunami damaged building, holding tons of highly radioactive and unstable nuclear fuel rods – on the building’s second storey, 100 feet in the air, in an active earthquake zone. Here is a photo. Here is a quote: “If an earthquake or …


Letter Re: Maps, Legends, and Ground Truth

Hello James,  Our contribution to being prepared was a Sunday drive. Here is what we did:   An essential piece of equipment for anyone contemplating any kind of emergency relocation are good maps. If your relocation is a “bug out” due to deterioration of local conditions you need to have a plan. In consideration that my current well placed rural residence might be a point of contention for those who want to ‘borrow my belongings and harbor unnatural urges about the occupants I have taken to making exploratory trips about my county. Even though we are sheltering in place an …


Economics and Investing:

Several readers wrote to send this: Canada Stops Making Cents as Flaherty Lets Penny Drop. JWR’s Comment: Don’t miss the last line of the article: “The penny, with two maple leaves on one side and a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the other, has lost 95 percent of its purchasing power since it was first produced by the mint.” If journalist Quinn were more discerning and incisive, he could and should have written: “Since 1902, the citizenry of Canada has been slowly robbed of 95% of the purchasing power of their currency, through insidious inflation. The worthlessness of the …


Odds ‘n Sods:

A new listing at SurvivalRealty.com caught my eye: Not only is it being sold with a fully-stocked larder and full fuel tanks, but it is also in my old stomping grounds: Orofino, Idaho Retreat. (There is also a dedicated web site for the property: IdahoRetreatForSale.com.)    o o o Douglas C. mentioned that there is a surprisingly good summary of Societal Collapse on a Wikipedia page.    o o o Hooray! The long-anticipated Kushnapup Saiga bullpup stocks are finally shipping. I trust that they will be worth the extended wait.    o o o Offshore retreats have their drawbacks, even …



Notes from JWR:

A few months ago, we transitioned to housing SurvivalBlog on a dedicated server in Sweden and as a precuation asked everyone to write down the IP address: 95.143.193.148. In addition to survivalblog.se, we’d also like to establish a couple of other low-bandwidth offshore mirror web sites for SurvivalBlog. This is one of our independent Continuity of Web Service (COWS) insurance measures. Does anyone outside of the U.S. have any inexpensive server space available? Preferably this would be in a country without close ties to the United States, like Finland, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Thailand, an independent island nation in …


Pat’s Product Review: Train Safe Barrel Block

I’ve been a firearms instructor for a lot of years. I attended the US Army Marksmanship Unit, Rifle Instructor and Coaches Clinic way back in 1970, and I’ve been an NRA Certified Rifle, Handgun and Person Protection In The Home, instructor for about 20 years now. It’s safe to say, I’ve trained numerous people over the years in firearm use and safety.   More than anything, before I’m done with one of my firearms students, they have to demonstrate firearms safety to me – marksmanship skills are secondary in my class. However, everyone walks away from my class being a …


Letter Re: Living With a Non-Prepper

Sir, I met a wonderful woman nine years ago and have been happily married ever since. I lost my job 3 years ago, (but I thank God that I am employed now), and that was the turning point in my life as far as researching the economy, world events, digging back into Bible prophecy, starting a garden, renewing my pistol permit, joined a club, bought a few more guns, in response to the writing on the wall due to the research I’ve done into current events and legislation that are changing this nation fast. I live in a suburban area …


Letter Re: U.S. Employment Figures

Mr. Rawles, The following paragraph is excerpted from John Mauldin’s excellent FrontLineThoughts.com newsletter this week: “The longer-term picture of labor force withdrawal is kind of shocking. Total household employment is down by 4.4 million since the Great Recession began in December 2007, and the number of unemployed is up by 4.9 million. The civilian population is up 9.6 million – but the labor force is up just 447,000. The number classed as not in the labor force is up by 9.2 million – and those not in the labor force and wanting a job is up 1.7 million. In other …


Recipe of the Week:

Jackie’s Venison Jerky 2 to 2-1/2  pounds venison roast, fat trimmed, sliced very thin  (an electric slicer works well for this) Ingredients for marinade: 11/3 tsp. garlic powder 4 tsp. onion powder 1 -1/3 tsp. black pepper 4 tsp. Lawry’s Seasoned salt 4 tsp. Accent Dash of meat tenderizer 1 cup Kikkoman low-sodium teriyaki marinade and sauce or regular soy sauce depending on how much salt you want to add 1 cup Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce Add dry ingredients to a large bowl. Add the teriyaki sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Stir with whisk until well blended. Add sliced venison …


Economics and Investing:

G.G. flagged this: Delaying retirement: 80 is the new 65 Reader AmEx sent this: Taxmageddon: Massive Tax Hikes on the Horizon The chicanery between the Fed and ECB – twin balance sheets near peak levels and many European nations back in recession Items from The Economatrix: Gross Says US Economy Suffering From “Structural” Unemployment (Not “Cyclical”) April Jobs Report: What It All Means US Economy Faces “Fiscal Cliff”:  Fed Officials Warren Buffett’s right-hard man, Charlie Munger doesn’t grok gold: “…Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but I …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Our mid-year 25%-off sale on the SurvivalBlog Archive CD-ROM ends on May 31st. The latest six year compilation includes my book “Rawles on Retreats and Relocation” in digital format. At the sale price, the CD-ROM is $11.25 and the Digital Download is just $7.50. Be sure to order your copy before the sale ends.    o o o K.A.F. was the first of several readers to send this: Space weather expert has ominous forecast –Mike Hapgood, who studies solar events, says the world isn’t prepared for a truly damaging storm. And one could happen soon.    o o o An …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Whether we like it or not, we are in an era of colliding crises that will culminate in a transition to a new social and economic system. Humanity always has burdens and troubles—that is the nature of a changeable world interacting with human nature—but there are decades in which little happens and years in which decades happen. We are in just such an era, and we will all be swept along by events that no longer respond to the Status Quo’s financial magic.” – Charles Hugh Smith, in his blog Of Two Minds


Notes from JWR:

A reminder that this is the last day of Safecastle’s big sale on Mountain House canned freeze dried foods with the maximum allowed 25% off, free shipping, and buyers club member incentives and rebates. The sale ends at midnight on May 6th. It is expected that Mountain House can prices will be going up very soon, so take advantage of this opportunity. — Today we present another entry for Round 40 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A course certificate …