Category: Odds ‘n Sods

Mike the Blacksmith flagged this piece: Study sees harmful hunt for extra oil    o o o Keith mentioned: A draft UN treaty to tackle any future giant asteroids heading for Earth is to be drawn up this year. Keith’s comment: “An interesting story, may be more likely to happen than Peak Oil or Sudden Climate Change, at least this is not as complex.” Meanwhile, NASA’s JPL dropped the impact risk of CA 19 (a one kilometer diameter asteroid due to approach Earth in 2012) from Torino Scale 1 to Torino scale 0.   o o o Rob at $49 …

Readers Scott S. and Gokuryu both mentioned this article: Saudi-Based Al Qaeda Group Calls for Attacks on Oil Facilities Worldwide to Cut Off Flow to U.S.   o o o “The Werewolf”–our correspondent in Brazil–sent us this bit of emerging technology: Pinpointing land mines with ultrasound beams.    o o o RCP mentioned this article: Grocers Prep For Pandemic Run On Food

Reader Alfie Omega recommended some very sobering observations from Peak Oil guru James Howard Kunstler. Yes, he’s coming from a left-of center political perspective, and the timing of Hubbert’s Peak may be decades (or more) premature, but this is still worth pondering.   o o os Those RFID chips just keep getting smaller and more numerous. Now Hitachi has announced a nascent RFID dust.    o o o JB in Tennessee spotted a disposable toothbrush with self-dispensing toothpaste in the handle called Fresh ‘n Go. JB notes: “It is advertised as good for about two weeks use, but I find …

Reader CM flagged this piece: Flu pandemic could choke ‘Net, force usage restrictions. CM’s comments: “I came across this article in LinuxWorld and thought it meshed very well with your thoughts on lean supply systems. Everything’s great when the critical people continue to show up to work and system disruption or damage can be limited. As the article states, no one can war game out exactly what those critical people will actually do in a real Crunch.”   o o o David in Israel recommended this inspiring story of survival, from World War II.    o o o Mike F. …

A scary video on binary explosives. I can now see why US and UK transportation officials recently got so anxious about allowing any cigarette lighters and any liquids aboard commercial airline flights.   o o o For those of you considering a “blue water” or “brown water” bug out, Bob at Ready Made Resources mentioned that he has in stock just one high capacity PUR-Katadyn Model 35 MROD-type desalinator that has been freshly factory reconditioned. It produces 1.5 gallons of fresh water per hour. These are normally around $1,500 each. Ready Made Resources is selling this one for the bargain …

Frequent content contributor Michael Z. Williamson found an amazing web site, by way of an Internet discussion on asthma. Mike notes: “It seems a bit extreme by modern standards, and I hope I never have a need to try the traditional cure.”    o o o By way of our friend Noah at the DefenseTech blog: British SAS troops use a commercial gravy mix to darken their skin for Middle East infiltrations.

I don’t know how I overlooked it for so long, but I should have mentioned that there is a great web resource on post-Peak Oil living at Life After the Oil Crash (LATOC), hosted by California attorney Matt Savinar. They also have their own Forums, which are quite active. See: The LATOC Forums.   o o o Mike F. sent this article link: Mystery Ailment Strikes U.S. Honeybees. Apiary expert “The Bee Man, Jr.” tells SurvivalBlog: “The CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) is a real and devastating threat to our nation’s food supply and economy. At this time, there are few …

Another indicator of inflation ahead? SurvivalBlog reader Bill H. notes: “A trend that I have not seen mentioned on your web site, apart from gold and silver investment, is that [fine] “art” is going through the roof. Most of us cannot afford to invest in art, myself included. However, we can still see the writing on the wall when the moderately wealthy are flocking to acquire art at record prices. You don’t have to buy thousands of pounds of gold when you can pay $20 million for a painting that will only appreciate. That’s a fairly extreme example, but you …

Blog reader B.H. sent this snippet: “Last month I was at the NRA headquarters in Virginia. I noticed a sign across the street for condos for sale for $260,000. I made a comment on how expensive that sounded when a NRA headquarters employee said that he sold his condo in the same development for $465,000 just eight months prior. That’s a decline of 44% in one year. Ouch for the guy that bought at the top of the bubble.”   o o o There are just 3 days left in the big “Container load sale” at Survival Enterprises. Looking at …

As reported by The Daily Reckoning: “The Central Bank of Zimbabwe announced this week that henceforth inflation would be illegal. Anyone who raises prices will be arrested.” Do they honestly believe that they can put the brakes on a 1,200% per annum inflation rate, by decree? The Zimbabwean government is beyond corrupt, and beyond incompetent. Comrade Mugabe and his band of fools from the ZANU-PF must go!   o o o RBS mentioned this news story at CNN.com: Vagrant: “We killed for scrap metal, hid bodies in manholes.” Human nature hasn’t changed. When times get really hard, you can expect …

Flagged by HPF (one of our regular content contributors): Retired CIA Energy Analyst’s Latest Comments on Peak Oil   o o o There are just 6 days left in the big “Container load sale” at Survival Enterprises. Many items have already sold out. Don’t dawdle on this one, folks! All of the storage food items are “first come – first served.” The prices are less than half of retail.    o o o It is nice to see that silver has come out of its doldrums and appears to be back on its long term bull market trajectory. (At the …

“Kon Tiki” recommended this article from Tom Feeley’s Information Clearinghouse Blog: The Great Dollar Crash of ‘07   o o o From CometGold.com comes this disturbing news story: Strange Visitors at Barrett Firearms.    o o o Our friend JB in Tennessee recommend this site: www.urbansurvival.com, and its sister site, www.independencejournal.com (The former is heavy on economics, while latter has more of emphasis on frugal living and self-sufficiency.)

Jason in North Idaho mentioned: Far-flung exurbs hard hit by housing downturn   o o o There are just 8 days left in the big “Container load sale” at Survival Enterprises. I can see from their availability chart that some items have sold out, and that they are now running low on their remaining inventory of both the “Bacon bits” (bacon TVP) and the shortening powder in the #2-1/2 cans. One bit of unexpected good news: The owner of Survival Enterprises just e-mailed me and mentioned: “We just found 10 more cases (we thought we were out) of Corn Starch …

Federal budget explosion: $2.9 TRILLION! Gee, you don’t suppose that this will be inflationary or that it will force higher taxes…   o o o An interesting article ran in Disaster Recovery Journal‘s 20th Anniversary issue: No Rain, No Power. Written by Ugandans, it describes how the recent drought in Eastern Africa has created a systemic power crisis. Lack of hydroelectric power has forced the Ugandan power utility resort to lengthy “load shedding” power blackouts.    o o o The folks at Safecastle wrote to remind me that they now have a Safecastle Royal Buyers Club, with hundreds of high-quality …

For those of you that have a fast Internet connection, watch SAR expert Robert Nielsen’s recent Google Tech Talk lecture video: Wilderness Survival: Building and Using a Wilderness Survival Kit. It will be one hour of your time, well-spent.    o o o Reader P.M. sent me flyer that mentioned the Earth-Box gardening system. P.M. says that he has used these for two years with great success. They can be put on wheeled platform or casters, allowing them to be moved indoors at night when frosts are expected.    o o o Rourke (moderator of the Jericho Discussion Group) mentioned …