Odds ‘n Sods:

SurvivalBlog reader “d’Heat” reminded us about http://www.tpub.com, which provides a wide variety of military manuals online, free of charge, with manual CDs available for purchase.

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In his Global Economic Trend Analysis blog, Michael “Mish” Shedlock recently quoted real estate market expert Mike Morgan of Morgan Florida. (Scroll down the piece titled “Ghost Housing Market” on July 20, 2006.) SurvivalBlog reader Bill in North Idaho comments: “There is a mountain of data in the article but the most salient point to take home is this: Combine increasing interest rates, a declining dollar and explosive increases in housing inventory and you have the recipe for a recession that could slip in to a depression rather easily when combined with other external factors such as war overseas, enormous debt and defecits–both trade and fiscal, uncontrolled spending by our masters and critical national outsourcing of traditional industrial strengths. My advice to home owners is pay it off and my advice to prospective home buyers is wait for the crash and pay for it with cash.”

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Pakistan is rapidly expanding its plutonium processing facilities. This move could be powerfully destabilizing, and could have ramifications as far away as Iran and the Korean Peninsula.