Category: Home Schooling

A Short Review of a Complex Document: Armageddon Online, by Old Bobbert

I saw the link in the March 23rd  “Odds & Sods” to 297 free online reference books at Armageddon Online and began to drool with excitement powered by anticipation and saved the link to my desktop. Two days later, while sitting at my desk finishing off a small tube of Albuteral in my nebulizer, I finally followed up on that wonderful impulse to get something good for me for free. I soon found that “free” was actually $5, a small fee supported quite well by an apologetic explanation of the onslaught of used bandwidth when offered for free. We all …


Letter Re: Preparing Your Sons and Daughters

[Editor’s Note: The following letter was edited substantially, for factual accuracy and for protection from potential libel litigation.] Dear Mr. Rawles, Readers should be made aware that the ALERT Academy has some connection to the defunct Worldwide Church of God. I would never put any child of mine under this influence. While it sounds like a wonderful program, their founding roots were in a group that at one time had very dangerous doctrine. To understand the influence of cults, I recommend the Under Much Grace web site. I believe that you never intended SurvivalBlog to endorse this kind of doctrine. – …


Games Preppers Play, by T.W.

Preparedness is well within the top ten subject matters of interest today.  Most everyone is thinking about it and many of us are well under way toward some level of advanced planning.  Groups of like minded families are common but it would be a mistake to fail at making preparedness attractive to our children. Our pioneer ancestors invented creative games to teach their children skills of survival in an unfriendly world.  Games were simple and fit for most occasions.  If they were weathered in at a cabin, there was a game where one child was the subject and the others …


Dispelling Some Homeschooling Myths, by Lori R.

The Boston Tea Party was a terrorist act—or so it is characterized in the 6th grade curriculum widely used in my beloved state of Texas.  The Pledge of Allegiance—in Arabic?   The national anthem—well, some schools have banned it for being “too offensive…”   At least the flag is still there—oh, wait, that’s the Mexican flag…Speaking of flags, let’s design a flag—for a new Socialist country.  Why is patriotism under attack in America’s public school system? Better yet, why are kids under attack in America’s public school system?  Hugs are banned as a form of sexual harassment, yet condoms and STD screenings …


Two Letters Re: Foundational Documents of the American Republic

Jim, I’m sure many will point out that a list of educational sources should include those who thought the proposed US system would turn into a tyranny: The Anti-Federalist Papers More about the Anti-Federalist Papers, at Constitition.org. It may be seen as a different issue, but the debate between Hamiltonians and the anti-Hamiltonians is also most worthy of study. This leads into the whole question of what was called the American (or National) System of Political Economy, which has been used at times for great development in the US, Germany, and now China. On the other hand, the way it …


Foundational Documents of the American Republic, by Steven G.

Often, when two modern patriots are having a discussion, they agree with the failure of the public education system to teach basic American history, or to expose students to the foundations of our modern Republican form of government. The speakers quickly move on since they are often unable to specifically identify that which has been lost. Similarly, you often hear talk radio or television personalities spend an enormous amount of time suggesting courses of study or books, only concluding that the answer to the conundrum is the latest product that they happen to have for sale on their web site …


Letter Re: Legal Research

Jim: I have some advice for your readers on legal research. While it is not as robust as Lexis or Westlaw, Google Scholar is easier to use and should be more than adequate for people to find and read the cases they are looking for.  In addition to being able to directly access cases by the citations you provided, users may also search databases containing primary authority for both federal and state court opinions in the same manner they would do an internet search on Google or Bing. Another nice feature of internet research, as opposed to using a law …


Details From American Jurisprudence on Unconstitutional Laws

In my recent (and now notorious) Burn Barrel essay on civil disobedience, I made reference to a legal summary in the 2d edition of American Jurisprudence. But at the time I didn’t have access to the important case citation footnotes. SurvivalBlog reader and legal scholar S.G. very kindly sent me an extract with full case cite footnotes, from American Jurisprudence 2d. This was from Volume 16 (Conflict of Laws to Constitutional Law 1-359). This came from the latest edition, so it cites cases as recent at 2009. Here it is: § 195 Generally The general rule is that an unconstitutional …


Two Letters Re: Plan B: Key Phrases to Memorize for Citizens’ Reservation of Rights

JWR, I am a 14-year veteran of one of the “top 10 by size” police departments in the US. My whole career has been within this department so my perception of this issue is only that of a large urban city department. I want to comment on your article “Plan B: Key Phrases to Memorize for Citizens’ Reservation of Rights.” In my earlier days I can unfortunately admit I probably may have been one of these officers that would try to find something to turn a civil violation traffic stop into a felony arrest. I will add though that I …


Creating a Secure Post-SHTF Community, by Old Bobbert

This is the time for all of us to learn something abut “Building a community”. We have done our best to be prepared to survive and to continue to enjoy an acceptable good life, and provide for the present and for the future. Time surely appears to be getting very short. Now is the very best time we will ever have to ready ourselves to rebuild our community and provide the services and protection that we will need. We sincerely believe that our post-SHTF life must be more than simple survivalism, more that just having enough basic food to survive …


Letter Re: Laptop Becomes Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator

Jim: I’d like to tell the readers about an amazingly affordable electronics workbench tool that turns you laptop into an oscilloscope, and a lot more: Analog Discovery. This one card can replace $10,000 worth of other gear. The student version is just $99. See a quick summary of the specifications. I think that this is the Pico scope taken to the next level. This puts AM radio, FM radio, radar, sonar, ultrasound, spread-spectrum radio for secure communications, encryption tools for running secure comms over otherwise insecure channels, high-bandwidth servocontrol of machinery and countless other modern technologies in hands of the …


Letter Re: A Wikipedia Offline Reader

James; Speaking of offline Wikipedia tools, there are a number of offline readers available for your laptop computer. I have found these: Aard Okawix WikiTaxi and BZreader None of these are great, but they are all free. – Regards, – Patrick W. JWR Replies: Thanks for sending those links. The 3.5 Gigabytes required to store LeftistAgendaPedia Wikipedia complete with graphics is a good reason to remember to buy a laptop with a larger hard disk drive, the next time that you need to replace yours.


Skills You Never Knew You Had–Eliminate the Starting Point, by Natural State

As a newbie prepper I have gone through the emotional progression of realizing my lack of preparedness.  It started with the feeling that something bad was going to happen now!  This quickly subsided, followed by the overwhelming feeling that I must act now.   This impulse quickly digressed to the obvious and most important step in my preparedness action plan, honest self-evaluation.  With the growing database of information on preparedness, I felt overwhelmed with my apparent lack of knowledge when it came to surviving.  I had less than a week’s worth of food in my home, no guns, and a vehicle …


Your Local Museum: A Key Non-Internet Knowledge Resource, by Prairie

One of my favorite places to find information on just about everything I may need at TEOTWAWKI is at my local museum.  As a genealogist and museum professional I also have an inside track and know that 90% of all hard copy information about individuals or local communities is not now and probably will never be on the internet.  I am one of four part-time employees at our local county museum and am responsible for all nine computers, printers, our server and web site.  Technology is a tool that may not always work when I need it and I recognize …


Sound Judgment and Reasoning Skills for Preparedness, by Anthony C.

p align=”left”>Judgment, reasoning, decision-making, logic, figuring it out… Call it what you will, the first level of preparation should be your mind. To roughly quote Einstein “the thinking that created the problem is not going to solve the problem”. Computer folks call it “garbage in, garbage out”. There are numerous “rosy paths” that can cause a person to make a poor judgment call. Considering each of these in turn will, I hope, increase your awareness of them in your own decision making, and make you less susceptible to those who would use them to change your actions against your better …