Category: Odds ‘n Sods

Readers on the East Coast should make plans to attend the specialized Tactical Lifesaver Course on April 15-16, 2006, in Douglas, Georgia. A Iraq war vet Physician’s Assistant will teach you a lot of skills that the American Red Cross doesn’t. (Such as: how to prep an intravenous infusion, how to insert and orthopharyngeal airway, wound debridement, suturing, how to treat a sucking chest wound, and much more.)  Don’t miss this one. In fact, SurvivalBlog readers from Canada or the West Coast ought to seriously consider burning some of their accumulated frequent flyer miles to attend this course. See: http://www.survivalreportblog.com/Tactical_Lifesaver_Course.html    …

I just finished reading the science fiction novel “Freehold” by Michael Z. Williamson.  It is a fast-paced Libertarian think piece. “Freehold” is a tale of interplanetary colonization, set some 500 years in the future. The descriptions of the bureaucratic totalitarian central Earth government are contrasted with the “Freehold” colony planet, Grainne. The main character is an Earth army logistics soldier that is unjustly accused of embezzlement. Realizing that she can never get a fair trial on Earth, she flees to Grainne. There, she finds a new world with a minimalist government and the sort of freedom that is only dreamed of. …

Have you ever wondreed how to decipher the date codes stamped on canned foods? See: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/Food_Product_Dating/index.asp    o o o A Portland Oregon TV station warns of the Tsunami risk on west coast of the United States: http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=82990    o o o More on the planned non-nuclear “Global Strike” Trident missiles: http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2006/02/07/Navigation/194/204486/Global+strike+concept+raises+hopes+and+fears.html    o o o Another record trade deficit: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/10/D8FMANN00.html

Disarming gun owners wasn’t enough for the hoplophobic Scots. Now they want to ban knives, too. See:   http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/55905.html and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4691634.stm Laddies, its time to call Mel Gibson. You could use another William Wallace “Sons of Scotland!” speech about now…   o o o Only six year too late, President Mugabe is asking Zimbabwe’s displaced farmers to return: The http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/09/wzim09.xml. Good luck Comrade. They’ll come back, but not until after you and your henchmen have been sent packing.   o o o Some of the Cell Phone Tracking web sites that we mentioned last week are being shut down: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/2/8/212731.shtml?s=ic …

I just learned that Ken Timmerman, my former colleague at Defense Electronics magazine, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize! See: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/2/8/111611.shtml?s=ic Back in the late 1980s Ken was living in Paris and was a columnist for Defense Electronics. At the time I was an Associate Editor, and I edited some of his columns. Since he was in tight with folks in both Parisian defense and diplomatic circles (he speaks fluent French), we had some fascinating conversations and on-line chats.) In the same era, Ken edited the Middle East Defense News newsletter (a.k.a. MEDNews.) His most recent book, “Countdown …

SurvivalBlog reader Warhawke mentioned that he recently downloaded an excellent book called “The Farmer at War” about the terrorist war in Rhodesia in the 1970s and how the farmers responded. Not a lot of detailed information but well worth the read.  See:  http://www.rhodesia.nl/farmeratwar.html    o o o In yesterday’s issue of the Defense Tech blog (http://www.defensetech.org/) our buddy Noah has a snippet and a photo about the U.S. military’s new facial armor. It looks a bit reminiscent of Star Wars storm troopers.    o o o Yahoo News reports: “Firewood in Vogue As Oil Prices Rise.” See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060205/ap_on_re_us/fashionable_firewood    o …

I was alerted to a useful forum on survival topics: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SurvivingTheDayAfter/. Lawrence Rayburn, who moderates the forum, custom builds 20 to 60 foot triangular towers and single to multi-tier Savonius windmills for pumping water and generating electricity. These are installed at survival retreats, farms, ranches, and other remote facilities. BTW, it was Lawrence who coined the term GLAZIS–for global socialists.    o o o SurvivalBlog reader “OSOM” recommends the article War Scenarios and Predictions by William Lind – a very insightful military commentator. See: http://www.lewrockwell.com/lind/lind87.html    o o o I’d like to welcome our newest advertiser, Safe Solutions. (See: http://www.SafeSolutions.net.) …

Cheuvreux, the equity brokerage house of the large French bank Credit Agricole has advised its clients to buy gold, citing short supplies and galloping demand. They expect a price spike to $2,000+ an ounce. The report is titled “Remonetization of Gold: Start Hoarding.” For the full text, see: http://www.gata.org/CheuvreuxGoldReport.pdf    o o o “Successful” Wolf Habitat Re-Introductions? See: http://eco.freedom.org/el/20060201/beers.shtml    o o o Hyperinflation-ravaged Zimbabwe has started to issue a $50,000 bank note. The new note is worth a whopping 50 cents, American. This travesty of monetary policy illustrates that Comrade Mugabe and his band of fools could muck up …

It was nice hearing the President mention in his recent State of the Union address the need to reduce our dependence on Middle East oil and his goal to get ethanol production into high gear. Hopefully this won’t be just more of the same empty “essential need for energy independence” rhetoric that we’ve been hearing from Capitol Hill and the White House since the Jimmy Carter regime    o o o The U.S. Northern Command recently “hosted representatives from more than 40 international, federal and state agencies for an exercise designed to provoke discussion and determine what governmental actions, including …

I spotted two interesting articles on the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threat faced by our deployed troops, and some prospects for IED countermeasures: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0131/p01s03-usmi.html and: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:hqHuuDmRiN8J:www.opencrs.com/getfile.php%3Frid%3D44184+IED+countermeasures&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6    o o o The Buckminster Fuller Institute has an informative web page that highlights dome building.  (For the sake of weatherproofing I prefer monolithic domes, but a lot of principles are common to both both geodesic and monolithic domes.  See: http://www.bfi.org    o o o It has been reported by the U.S. Commerce Department that the U.S. consumer savings rate has recently dropped to NEGATIVE 0.5 percent. Collectively, we are “spending it all”–and …

Reader M.W. recommends: http://www.trackertrail.com/survival/fire/cokeandchocolatebar/index.html   o o o A reader wrote to mention that in a controlled, independently reviewed study published in the Journal of Trauma, a comparison of Traumadex and Quickclot in a porcine model (severed femoral artery) showed that Quickclot was much more effective.   o o o Several long term storage food sellers report that storage food sales have been brisk–even to the point that there are now shortages of some varieties of freeze-dried foods. A lot of customers are citing concerns about the Asian Avian Flu, especially after the segment about how to prepare for a …

The folks at “Big Secrets” have updated their web page on alternative shelter. See: http://www.bigsecrets.cc/shelter.htm  Most of these techniques will not meet building codes, but should suffice “When the Schumer Hits the Fan.” (WTSHTF) and you have precious few alternatives to house refugees in a hurry.     o o o For some interesting commentary on precious metals, including some substantive details about those rumors we’ve been hearing about another gold confiscation, see: http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/columns/paper.htm  Note: I have not yet had the opportunity to listen to any of the MP3 files, so I cannot vouch for Mr. Steele’s background or his …

The U.S. Army plans to introduce new “Compressed Meal” (CM) freeze dried MRE alternatives. These will be about 2/3s the size and weight of the current MREs. See: http://www.dcmilitary.com/navy/seaservices/10_53/national_news/39293-1.html   o o o There was a recent report that the strain of Asian Avian flu that has made its was to Turkey is alarmingly similar to 1918 strain. See:http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=34224cff-120f-4d19-bd6c-526d264833f7&k=15148   My advice:  In case this bug mutates into s strain that is easily transmitted from person to person, be ready to self-quarantine for six months or longer, folks!  This will require a big pile-O-logistics!     o o o Some good …

“Eric”, a former charter airline pilot and computer programmer publishes an interesting albeit sporadically updated self sufficiency blog: http://www.selfsufficientfamily.com/   o  o  o If you fall into the Club of Rome school of thought on the potential for a major whammy multi-generational societal collapse (See Roberto Vacca’s  book “The Coming Dark Age“), then you might find this site interesting: http://anthropik.com o  o  o Two interesting web sites with some useful MicroHydro power info were recently mentioned in a discussion over at the Survival and Preparedness forum at The FAL Files.  See:   http://microhydropower.net/index.php and http://www.utilityfree.com/hydro/ (Scroll down to see their …

Defense Aerospace reports: “Future of US Nuclear Arsenal in Flux after Peacekeeper Missiles De-Activated”  See: http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi-bin/client/modele.pl?prod=66020&session=dae.17150781.1138033046.Q9UBgsOa9dUAAGt1mV8&modele=jdc_1     o  o  o Reader OSOM (“Out of Sight, Out of Mind”)  recommends the recent Popular Mechanics magazine article on “Worst Case Scenarios”  See: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/worst_case_scenario/   o  o  o Check out http://www.FreeCycle.org. If you have the storage space, this is a great place to pick up free items for charity or barter.     o  o  o Some details and commentary on “Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran” prepared by the US Army War College. (plus a PDF link to the original document) …