Hugh’s Quote of the Day:

“Over the years, Americans in particular have been all too willing to squander their hard-earned independence and freedom for the illusion of feeling safe under someone else’s authority. The concept of self-sufficiency has been undermined in value over a scant few generations. The vast majority of the population seems to look down their noses upon self-reliance as some quaint dusty relic, entertained only by the hyperparanoid or those hopelessly incapable of fitting into mainstream society.” ? Cody Lundin, When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes

Learning From Washington’s Huge Background Checks Mistake

The American electorate has once again proven itself to be easily manipulated by the mass media. Late last year, the voters in the State of Washington foolishly voted in favor of I-594. This ballot initiative fundamentally changed the status of gun owners in the state– treating everyone like suspected felons. Now, the centuries-long tradition of free intrastate commerce in used private party guns has been criminalized. In Washington, it is no longer legal to sell a used gun to your neighbor or even to your cousin. The law has only a few exceptions, such as transfers between immediate family members and transfers of pre-1899 antique guns (but only IF they are chambered in obsolete cartridges)! Now, nearly every gun sale or gift in Washington must go through a Federally-licensed dealer with a criminal background check, a Form 4473 filled out, and a dealer’s Bound Book entry completed, which is all information permanently put on file. (Under Federal law, FFL dealers who go out of business must ship off their bound books, or their digital equivalents, to the ATF’s cavernous “Out of Business Records Center.”) Also, a fee is charged for nearly all FFL transactions, and there is state-level paperwork now required for handgun transfers.

The enormity of the mistake that Washington’s voters made cannot be overstated. They traded their birthright for a warm bowl of feel-good pottage. These civilian disarmament schemes are often sugar-coated and labeled with Kumbaya names. This particular one was trotted out under the innocuous Soccer Mom-pleasing moniker “Universal Background Checks“. However, I-594 is the epitome of bad law. This is in fact very wicked legislation that converted a right into a crime, by putting an erstwhile private transactions under the control of a government licensed agent. Washington’s new law goes so far as to turn the former right of free intrastate commerce in used guns into a “gross misdemeanor” on the first offense and into a felony on the second offense. Think about that for a minute: A right has become a bureaucratized privilege, and failure to follow the bad law is a potential felony. As I’ve written in SurvivalBlog before:

Whenever someone must buy a license or pay a fee to exercise a right, then it is something less than a right. It is in fact a mere privilege, subject to the whim of petty bureaucrats. Fundamental rights are not abstract tokens that are given or sold by other men. They are in fact primary liberties bestowed upon us by God, our maker. Rights are not substantially secured by asking, “Mother may I?” of any government agency. Rights are more properly demanded or boldly seized and then conspicuously exercised regularly. This secures the liberties that have legitimately belonged to us since birth. If need be, lost rights can and must be restored through proscriptive use. If you live in a land where your rights have been marginalized into privileges, then it is either time to change your government, or to change your address. Much like a muscle that atrophies with disuse, any right that goes unexercised for many years devolves into a privilege, and eventually can even be redefined as a crime.

In essence, with the complicity of a distinctly biased media, the leftists won the War of Words that led up to the December 2014 election in Washington. They used feel-good phrases that conspicuously avoided the real, thorny, underlying issue to great effect. The mass media kept focusing on “keeping guns out of the hands of felons”, while always avoiding the real issue– putting government’s nose into our private business affairs, vetting nearly all gun transactions, and building mountains of paperwork that could someday be used for self-incrimination. This law will also ruin the tradition of private party gun shows in Washington. Sadly, gun shows in Washington will never be the same and will soon become like those in California– a great place to buy jerky and t-shirts but not guns. It is noteworthy that the I-594 vote was largely carried by the statist/leftist majority in western Washington. (Eastern Washingtonians are not so easily fooled.) I sincerely hope that the people of Washington realize the mistake they made and overturn this law. However, because populous Western Washington (west of the Cascades) has been flooded with statist immigrants from California for the past three decades, I doubt this will happen. This band of fools actually wants big government, with all of its trappings (and traps). The best that we can hope for is that the passage of I594 will further spur calls for the partition of Eastern Washington into a separate state. Given the increasingly polarized politics and morals of the two halves of the state, such a partition is almost inevitable. It is not a quest of “if” but rather of “when.” Ditto for eastern Oregon. (This explains why I only included the eastern halves of both states in The American Redoubt.)

All Americans should study what happened in Washington and learn from this monumental mistake. We must be prepared to stop similar ballot initiatives or legislation at our state capitols. We must be ready to clearly and forcefully articulate the real issues, not play by the statist rulebook, and not get suckered into using their mamby-pamby words and phrases. We need to stand up and say: “Wait second! You are talking about converting a right into a felony!”

The I-594 initiative was not really about “disarming felons”. Rather, it was about eventually disarming us all. – JWR

Scot’s Product Review: MRE Depot Food Products

I recently wrote about the Yoders meats sold by MRE Depot, one of a number of vendors that sell storage foods aimed at preppers. As well as MRE’s and Yoders meats, they also carry a number of other items of interest. While MRE’s are useful and everyone should have some, the other items are, in my view, more important. A diet of MRE’s is going to get old pretty quick. This review is on some of the other food products they offer. They were kind enough to send several different items for me to review.

Since I think readers deserve more than my opinion on food, I have assembled a family taste panel, which I’ve described before. For the benefit of regular readers, I put the description of the panel at the bottom of the review. I have also noted before, but will repeat that I think storage food needs to be composed of stuff your family will eat in normal times. Many of us fear that there is a crunch coming, but we hope to never need it, and so I don’t want to get stuck with food that might go to waste. We, therefore, taste test before we buy, and we don’t buy what we won’t eat in normal times.

All of these products were in #2½ cans– a size I favor for storage. My immediate family consists of three, and we can finish the contents of this size can before anyone gets so sick of what came out of it that we stop eating it and it goes to waste. The products in #10 cans last far longer than any of us want to eat the same thing over and over, and we therefore have to worry about wasting food. This probably won’t be as much of an issue in crisis, but it sure comes up when we eat things to rotate supplies. Your mileage will vary as you may have a much larger family, or food fatigue may not be as much of an issue for you.

Future Essentials Canned Fifty Chocolate Gold Coins

These are six-gram pieces of chocolate, wrapped in gold foil and embossed to look like a Kennedy half dollar. They are 1½ inches in diameter and 1/8th inch thick. The can provides a total of about 10.5 ounces of chocolate. I tricked my son with this one and didn’t tell him it came from storage food, and he liked them. He has grown suspicious of some of his dad’s experiments with storage food. He wasn’t the only one who liked it; in fact, everyone did. It’s not Godiva, and it’s not Hershey’s, but it is good; it will never, ever go to waste in my home. In a SHTF situation, these would represent a huge cheer up factor, especially if you have kids. The problem will be making them last. They are $10.95 per can and have a five-year storage life.

I didn’t try them, but I saw that they also offer a chocolate variety pack for $109.45 with three different chocolate items and a seven- to ten-year storage life, if kept out of the sun or heat. You get canned Milk Chocolate Caramel Cups, canned Mini Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, and canned Hershey’s Mini Milk Chocolate Kisses. This could go a long way in keeping folks happy under stress.

Freeze Dried Strawberries

My son, who devours fresh strawberries, turned his nose up at these, alas. The adults approved; however, I suspect my son was being fickle. They offer no competition with fresh strawberries, mind you, but they are quite acceptable. They can be eaten without reconstituting with water, but I liked them better after letting them soak for several minutes. A bit of sugar helps too, as they seemed slightly tart. I thought they worked quite well with vanilla ice cream or yogurt; my wife and sister agreed. They cost $8.95 per can.

Pilot Bread Crackers

These crackers are almost the same diameter as the #2½ can they come in. There are 12 in the can, and each 100-calorie cracker is considered a serving. They reminded me a bit of hard tack without the hard. In other words, your dental work is quite safe. I had expected something of a Ritz cracker flavor, but they don’t have the soda taste; that makes me like them even more. My sister and wife also enjoyed them as did my son, who grimaced when he discovered they came out of one of my cans. He kept eating it, though. There are a lot of possibilities with these things. Soups go great with them as do peanut butter or jam. Cheese is also an excellent companion as is a fried egg. They are sturdy enough to be wrapped and carried in a coat pocket. You would have to take a bit of care, but if they were in a bag, you could dribble the crumbs into your mouth. They cost $7.95 per can, and MRE Depot says they will last for 30 years, so you won’t have to rotate them very often.

Future Essentials Freeze-Dried Marinara Sauce

This rehydrated into a chunkier mix than my son or I prefer. Since my son and I both cringe at the sight of intact tomatoes, my wife threw it into the blender for some extra processing. She used it with the pasta noodles that came with the shipment and made a pleasant meal. It wasn’t my favorite ever Marinara sauce, but there were no problems using it in normal times. It goes for $10.95 per can. They say it is good for 10 years storage.

Future Essentials Cooked Freeze-Dried Ground Beef

My wife called this “a great raw material for meals”, which is high praise coming from her, as she really likes putting things together for herself. It rehydrates easily, and while neither of us were crazy about eating it by itself, it worked well in a couple of dishes my wife prepared. One involved the Marinara sauce and the pasta noodles that are part of this report. This one costs $14.95 per can. They rated it as six servings per can, which I thought was pretty appropriate for how it will be used in recipes but probably not if served alone.

Future Essentials Canned Cream of Broccoli Soup Mix

This one was the one that failed for us. A failure was bound to happen sooner or later. The recipe called for milk or water, and I made it with milk, figuring it would be creamier that way. There were liberal amounts of broccoli, but both my wife and I felt the vegetable had a rubbery texture, and neither of us really liked the overall taste. I would eat it in a crunch, and I suspect my wife would too, but neither of us would eat it in normal times, so it isn’t something I will plan to stock. You might like it, but be sure to try it before buying it in quantity. It goes for $5.95 a can, so it’s no huge loss if you buy one and find you don’t like it either.

Future Essentials Canned Instant Mashed Potatoes Instant Mashed Potatoes

These were pretty much like any other instant mashed potatoes. My wife warned that the recipe didn’t ask for enough liquids, so she added milk. They suggest adding butter, which she also put in along with some salt. I wondered if they had been made completely with milk if they might have been better, but they were fine if you are okay with instant mashed potatoes. I’m not a fan of them, having been spoiled by the real ones my wife makes, but these were okay, and there will be no problem using them in rotation. They cost $7.95 per can.

Future Essentials Canned Small Shell Pasta Noodles

There isn’t much to say. These were noodles; they came out of the can and were just like the ones from the grocery store that come in a box; they tasted the same. The only difference is that they will last a whole lot longer on the shelf and the bugs and varmints can’t get into the can, like they could a cardboard box. They are $5.95 per can.

The Tasters for This Review

When I write about food, I need to give more than just my opinion. The taste panel I can conveniently herd together consists of my wife, my son, my sister, and me. I thought a rundown of our tastes might help you determine how valuable our comments are for your own needs. Please remember that everyone has different tastes and you may love stuff we hate. That’s why I have tried a panel approach, though it is a limited one.

I am the closest to a tasteless barbarian, though my table manners are better. While I like a well-prepared, tasty meal with fresh ingredients assembled by a talented cook (the national command authority also known as my wife), I can get by on far less, as long as mushrooms, raw tomatoes, and kimchi are out of sight. I can handle most MRE’s, but I do get bored with them. Mountain House freeze-dried meals are generally quite satisfying to me as a baseline meal, though they sure don’t compare to my wife’s excellent cooking. As long as I have a good recipe, I can prepare a decent meal, though I panic over judging whether fish and meats are cooked enough and having to improvise sends me screaming in terror from the kitchen.

My wife is on the gourmet end of the spectrum and is an accomplished cook. She doesn’t need any stinking recipes to toss together a very pleasant meal from whatever she can scrounge from the kitchen. I suspect she could make something tasty with the sponge by the kitchen sink. She bores if she has the same thing too many times, which is probably about twice. She grew up in French Canada and U.S. Maine, eating fresh lobsters and dining in good restaurants that had chefs rather than cooks. She can spend hours watching cooking shows. MRE’s provoke threatening looks. She truly enjoys exotic foods from around the world, and there is little she won’t try.

My ten-year-old son likes Vietnamese and Chinese foods and will go for a number of dishes his peers panic over. His table manners would be barbaric if allowed. He has had bouts of suspicion over some of the storage foods we have tried, as a couple of them weren’t so hot, but he seems to be getting over it. He makes some good observations on meals that surprise me with their sophistication. He does have some typical ten-year-old boy aversions to vegetables, but he likes meat in most every form. When he likes something, he will eat it for days without end. He trusts his mom’s cooking more than his dad’s and will even watch cooking shows with her.

My sister might be a cross between my wife and me. She will eat most anything, but she really likes quality food. She spent a lot of time living in Europe and was exposed to many cuisines. Although she is good in the kitchen, she doesn’t cook much herself as my brother-in-law fancies himself a chef, and he really is quite good at it.

SimGar Update

I have been meaning to do an update on the SimGar container gardening system I reviewed quite a while back. As a reminder, it has two containers for soil that sit on a tank of water that is circulated through the containers with a solar-powered pump. I got a nice batch of black-eyed peas out of it and then switched to green peppers when the black-eyed peas gave out. The peppers didn’t do well, and I was puzzled why until I remembered I had been warned to watch the pH of the water and soil. I picked up a pH meter and sure enough, things had gotten really acidic. Apparently, the fertilizer I was using, or perhaps the rain, brought the pH down substantially, and the green peppers were miserable. I picked up some stuff to bring the pH up to a more normal range, deep stirred the soil, and put in some chives, parsley, oregano, and basil; now things are looking pretty good. My wife is also happy to have the herbs, so that’s a plus too. I still have one container open, so I’m going to try some more green pepper plants. I still like the concept, and the unit is working well. I had to move it to catch the winter sun. A nice feature is how well it catches rain water. I have only had to add water once, but it has been a wet year in these parts. I’ll keep you posted.

– SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor, Scot Frank Erie

Recipe of the Week: Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Halupkies), by OkieRanchWife

I am now living west of the Mississippi, but when I was growing up in a northeastern state, these were present at weddings, fire company (hosey) picnics, church functions, and family holidays in various Eastern European traditions. Called halupkies, cabbage rolls, stuffed cabbage, blind pigeons, or Hunky Hand grenades, they were staples of Eastern European cooking. They are packed full of protein, whole grain goodness, Vitamin C, and they are filling!

I only use the dark green, outer leaves of the cabbage head. They are easier to roll and have more nutrients than the pale, inner leaves. You have to find these at farmer’s markets, in your own garden, or possibly at the local store if you make friends with the produce manager. They usually cut off the outer leaves before arranging them in the produce section, so you can ask if they will either keep the leaves on the head or save the outer leaves for you. I have chickens, so the local produce manager also keeps the produce and fruit cull for me. My hens are happy hens.

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound ground venison or beef (I buy various cuts on reduced quick sale and grind it myself)
  • 1 pound ground pork (ditto on quick sale)
  • 1 cup barley
  • 1 sweet onion, grated
  • 2 whole eggs
  • ½ stick unsalted butter, melted
  • sea salt and black pepper, to taste
  • approximately 4 pounds of outer cabbage leaves
  • 4 cans (15 ozs each) sauerkraut
  • 2 cans (15 ozs each) diced tomatoes
  • 1 can (15 ozs) tomato sauce

Directions:

  1. In a medium size pot, heat 2 cups of water. When it is boiling, add the barley. Reduce heat, and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, and fluff with a fork.
  2. Combine ground meat, cooked barley, onion, eggs, butter, and seasonings. Set aside.
  3. On all of the cabbage, trim the center rib to about 1/8 inch thick so the leaves are easy to roll. Wash the leaves. While you are trimming and washing the leaves, heat salted water in a large stock pot until boiling. When the water is boiling, place the leaves in the water and blanch for 10 minutes. You may need to do this in several batches. When the time is up, remove leaves from water and allow to cool in a colander.
  4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  5. <place picture here- right justified> Using a large turkey roaster, place a layer of 2 cans of sauerkraut. Take approximately 2 tablespoons of the meat mixture and shape into a little football. Select a cabbage leaf. Place the meat football on the leaf at the stem end, and roll the cabbage leaf up like a Mexican burrito stuffed cabbage. Arrange each cabbage roll in the roaster. When you have a full layer, top the rolls with 2 cans of sauerkraut. Arrange a second layer of cabbage rolls. Top that layer with 2 cans of diced tomatoes and a can of tomato sauce. Cover with roaster lid. Bake 2 hours. Makes approximately 50 rolls.

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Do you have a favorite recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers? Please send it via e-mail. Thanks!

Letter Re: E-readers: My Personal Alexandria, Now Less Flammable!

I was excited to hear of someone else besides myself using an eReader as a repository for info, which would be handy after TEOTWAWKI. I had arrived at the same conclusions just a couple weeks ago and bought one myself. I’m very happy with my decision.

I’d like to shine a light on a few of both the advantages and caveats of of using these devices for this purpose that weren’t covered in the original post. I should mention that I am not connected with any eReader company. The only dog I have in this fight is as a consumer who is just trying to find the best product for my own somewhat eccentric needs.

First of all, in my mind, I have wrestled with this very problem since the mid-1970s. I was a prepper then, and I recognized how valuable the printed word could be in either a short- or long-term crisis. As much as I wanted to lay up an archive of texts that would be useful in an emergency, there were a number of things that stood firmly in my way.

Even being a pathological archivist, I could not overcome the fact that I just couldn’t scrape together the cash for all but a few of the books I wanted to put aside. After moving to the subtropics, I also became aware that the climate I was living in greatly shortened the service life of conventional books.

Finally, with the Internet, I now have access to most of the titles I couldn’t afford, but because of the sheer number of books I have in digital form it is not realistic to print them out. I was also somewhat put off by the ironic fact that in an emergency I would need electricity AND a computer to peruse their information, so I would actually have less or no access to them when I needed them the very most.

For a while I toyed with the idea of building an ultra low-powered computer, just for viewing these kind of files in a grid down situation. This could be done from off shelf parts like the Raspberry PI coupled with an eInk screen instead of an LCD monitor. This is very doable by someone, just not me. Though I’ve built many computers, the eInk screens have not been available to the DIY computer crowd long enough for me to get it all together and build one. The big advantage of an eInk screen is low powered operation and the fact that once it puts up a screen full of information, it requires no more electricity to continue displaying it for up to a week. The down side of eInk displays is the slow refresh rate, but that would not be an issue for reading files in an emergency. Having searched around on this topic for a few years and observed the interest and progress already made in that short time, I am confident that a few ultra low-powered post-apocalyptic computers will be cobbled together soon and how-to articles may appear in as little as two years.

My thinking on all of this changed when a friend of mine gave me an old Barnes & Noble Nook eReader a few months back. It wasn’t long before the archiver in me took over and I was experimenting with creating and loading my own files onto the Nook. While I love the Nook, it was a painful experience.

The Nook will not recognize or display TXT or HTML files, which pretty much put it out of the running for disaster related information files. I was able to create PDF files that worked on the Nook, but I find PDFs to be very limiting for my needs.

My experiences with the Nook DID convince me that there was a possibility that some eReader or other may be appropriate for a large archive of emergency information. After a week of research on different brands of eReaders, I decided that the Kobo line would hold the most utility for me.

While no currently available eReader could be described as a totally “open platform”, the Kobos give far more freedom to the end user and thus many more options to the dyed in the wool archiver.

The Kobos support an almost incredible variety of file formats when compared to ALL other comers:

  • Books: EPUB, EPUB3, PDF, and MOBI
  • Documents: PDF (and perhaps DOC, too)
  • Images: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, and TIFF
  • Text: TXT, HTML, and RTF
  • Comic Books: CBZ and CBR

While some of these formats are DRM encumbered and of no use to me, I can see where having them in place would be nice if you needed them. Having a very basic HTML capability has been very handy already. Even if you can only use a half dozen HTML tags, you may reformat any web pages for the Kobos that you might want to use as a reference at some later date. Even crude HTML compatibility is a very powerful tool for the archiver.

Many (but not all) of the 18th and 19th century technology books I’ve found in digital formats are confined to PDF. I find PDFs cumbersome, but the Kobos make PDFs a bit easier to navigate by including a landscape viewing mode and a built-in image viewer. It’s much better than nothing in situations where I just have to view a title in that format.

The Kobos win on file formats.

Another issue for archivers is on board storage. Some eReaders have internal flash memory storage but lack a micro SD slot. Also, with some very popular eReaders, there is a trend where newer models of their readers have no micro SD slot in spite of the fact that their previous models were equipped with them. That is a total deal killer for my purposes.

As an example, my Kobo Aura comes with 4 GB of internal flash memory for storage, and it will also recognize up to a 32GB (!) micro SD card. 36 GB of flash translates into enough storage for roughly 30,000 books. It also allows me the option of growing the archive on a scale of magnitude by simply buying more 32 GB high speed micro SD cards. (Amazon has 32 GB class 10 micro SD cards at $18 each.)

Another small point here is that, if anything happens to my reader, I’ll still have the files intact on the micro SD cards, so I could plug them into a spare reader or at least have an outside shot at accessing them with a charged up laptop.

So Kobo does very well on storage flexibility, too.

I initially decided on the Kobo Aura H2O, but when I had the money in my hand I couldn’t find one. Then I had the same problem with the Kobo Aura HD. I finally settled on the Kobo Aura, and I am very happy with it.

I totally recommend getting a case for your eReader right from the get go. EInk screens are more complex and fragile than cell phone or tablet screens, and they really need protection to get the most out of their service lives. Clean the screen with a microfiber lens cleaning cloth at least once a week. Wash your hands before reading. Don’t use alcohol or other chemicals to clean the screen. Don’t eat fried chicken while you use your eReader. 🙂

For the long term, I’m looking for an Otterbox– an actual watertight box of the type Otterbox became famous for as opposed to an Otterbox phone or tablet cover. I want one sized to fit my reader, in its case, with enough room for a microfiber cleaning cloth and a desiccant. Aside from the box giving more protection to the screen, the desiccant will constantly be reversing the effects of subtropical humidity whenever it’s put away.

I know that this system I have described is not perfect or fool proof, but it is WAY better than nothing. After 40 years of wrestling with these emergency archive issues, I feel good enough about this to proceed. It’s far more versatile than anything I’ve had before, and with any luck it should hold me until something better comes along. – B.

Odds ‘n Sods:

Bureaucracy Kills: A Lesson from Rome. – P.S.

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South Carolina Inmate Sentenced to 37 Years in Solitary for Facebooking. – H.L.

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President Barack Obama’s Complete List of Historic Firsts [Updated]. – B.B.

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Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, not Places. – P.B.

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The Feds Unveil Its New Surveillance Tool ‘Memex’, Developed By DARPA To Reveal The Hidden Nature Of The ‘Dark Web’

Notes for Sunday – February 15, 2015

February 15th: We’d like to wish Mike Williamson (SurvivalBlog’s Editor At Large) a Happy Birthday!

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Today, we present another entry for Round 57 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $12,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or three course (a $1,195 value),
  2. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
  3. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper with a hammer forged, chromlined barrel and a hard case to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR type rifle to have quick change barrel, which can be assembled in less then one minute without the use of any tools, and a compact carry capability in a hard case or 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
  4. Gun Mag Warehouse is providing 30 DPMS AR-15 .223/5.56 30 Round Gray Mil Spec w/ Magpul Follower Magazines (a value of $448) and a Gun Mag Warehouse T-Shirt. (An equivalent prize will be awarded for residents in states with magazine restrictions.),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A pre-selected assortment of military surplus gear from CJL Enterprize (a $300 value),
  7. A Model 120 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a 340 value),
  8. A $300 gift certificate from Freeze Dry Guy,
  9. A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo,
  10. KellyKettleUSA.com is donating both an AquaBrick water filtration kit and a Stainless Medium Scout Kelly Kettle Complete Kit with a combined retail value of $304,
  11. TexasgiBrass.com is providing a $300 gift certificate, and
  12. Two cases of meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Second Prize:

  1. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  2. A FloJak EarthStraw “Code Red” 100-foot well pump system (a $500 value), courtesy of FloJak.com,
  3. Acorn Supplies is donating a Deluxe Food Storage Survival Kit with a retail value of $350,
  4. The Ark Instituteis donating a non-GMO, non-hybrid vegetable seed package–enough for two families of four, seed storage materials, a CD-ROM of Geri Guidetti’s book “Build Your Ark! How to Prepare for Self Reliance in Uncertain Times”, and two bottles of Potassium Iodate– a $325 retail value,
  5. $300 worth of ammo from Patriot Firearms and Munitions. (They also offer a 10% discount for all SurvivalBlog readers with coupon code SVB10P),
  6. A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials,
  7. Twenty Five books, of the winners choice, of any books published by PrepperPress.com (a $270 value),
  8. TexasgiBrass.com is providing a $150 gift certificate,
  9. Organized Prepper is providing a $500 gift certificate, and
  10. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site.

Third Prize:

  1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  2. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
  3. *Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security,
  5. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances,
  6. APEX Gun Parts is donating a $250 purchase credit,
  7. Montie Gear is donating a Y-Shot Slingshot and a Locking Rifle Rack (a $379 value), and
  8. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).

Round 57 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

The World of the Bug Out Bag, by D.M. – Part 1

Bug Out BagTo all who are reading this article, all is not well in the world of the bug out bag! It is my hope that this article will:

  1. Address the common bug out bag problems.
  2. Bring new insight on items that a bug out bag should include but most likely do not.
  3. Save you money.

There is nothing like putting on a backpack filled with everything that you need to survive and thrive.  After more than 15 years of avid backpacking and other outdoor pursuits, I have learned profound lessons. One of the most profound lessons I’ve learned through hard experience is to try to be prepared! As to what you are preparing for, I will leave that up to you.

Many of you already have bug out bags or are reading this article to make one. As I write this article, I am bewildered by the immense problems I see with most bug out bags. I would like to say that all is not well in the world of bug out bags!

There are so many choices and companies that call their product “the perfect bug out bag”. I have come to a vexing conclusion. Please don’t be mad at the messenger, but someone needs to say this to protect others. While some  stores  genuinely want to help you find a useful and practical emergency bag (B.O.B, I.N.C.H bag, or what have you). But there are others are money-grubbers who are selling gimmicky and unpractical products. Many of these apart or are not suited for the rigors of a bug out bag.

I believe in God and hate it when people take advantage of others. My hope through this article is to point out some of the common bug out bag problems. I’d also like to share some insight from a backpacker’s perspective.

The Bug Out Bag

As a backpacker I am able to go out into the mountains for a week and have everything I need. My main backpack is about +/- 5,000 cubic inches. In the summer, I have plenty of room and usually cinch down the compression straps for short trips. When I go winter camping or mountaineering, I can easily fill the backpack all the way and sometimes need to attach, on the outside, a snow shovel, ice axe, crampons, hiking poles, and an extra sleeping mat. My pack has been very versatile over the years. It disperses the weight very well.Hiking 15-mile days through the mountains feels truly like just a walk in the park. Most people can’t say this about their bug out bags.

There are some very nice backpacks on the market today. However, it means very little if it does not fit your body type well. I remember trying on a backpack at an REI store. An experienced worker there  fitted the pack to my torso length. He then added 55-pound sand bags to the pack. I then walked around the store for about 40 minutes. After the walk, we both noticed that I needed a medium pack to fit my torso. I also needed a small waist belt. The worker swapped out a small waist belt from another pack, and now I had a custom fit pack. What service!

More than a decade later, through heat, snow, mission trips, and porting, the pack is still working just fine. It even came with a lifetime warranty. Now that you have heard the sunny side of a good pack, let’s talk about the dark side of things.

Common bug out bag problems:

  1. Size problem: Most bug out bags are too small! Many companies show pictures of their bags open with amazing gear. They usually include a flash light, a knife, first-aid kit. Sometimes there are MRE’s, high Tec electronics, firearms and ammo. There is room for one water bottle if you’re lucky, and some other small items. However, when I look at most bags I think to myself, “Where is there room for your sleeping bag?” Is there even room for a shelter (tent, hammock, bivy, or tarp)? What about room for a jacket or other clothing to keep you warm and dry from the elements? I believe it is safe to say that more people die of exposure than wild animal attacks. Most bug out bags are to small;. Even on a perfect day you would most likely be miserable. You could not bring important items such as more than 20 ounces of water. I’ll list three examples of items that I feel a good bug out bag should have enough capacity for. Number one is a practical shelter. I have heard many say, “I am manly enough to not need a tent,” or that they don’t need to carry a shelter. However, they quickly change their minds after being eaten alive by bugs or having a snake or scorpion snuggle up to them for warmth. Some people say they don’t carry a shelter because they will just make a shelter out of trees and limbs. Take it from someone that has taught shelter building. It is no walk in the park! Even if you are good at it, it expends many calories to build one, and then you need to build another one at the next location all over again. It takes only three to five minutes to put up a hammock with bug netting and tarp versus two or more hours for a stick one that will most likely not be bug free or 100% waterproof. The last time I was teaching some friends how to build a stick shelter, I got 74 (that’s not a typo) ticks on me. I fortunately did not get Lyme Disease, but this story just emphasizes the value of carrying an extra 2-5lb shelter, not to mention saving you the aggravation of asking your wife to pull ticks off of you “where the sun don’t shine”.Number two is a sleeping bag for the chilly nights. In a disaster situation, good quality sleep is very important and is often overlooked. Remember that sleep deprivation is used in some countries as torture. It could be a sleeping bag, wool blanket, or other sleeping items, but when you are tired from high mileage, healing from an injury, or in a stressful situation, sleep is your friend. In many places there is a +/-20 degree differential from the day’s highs and lows. If it is a wonderful 75 degrees at noon, it will most likely be too cold for comfort at night (possibly much colder in higher elevations), and once you factor in wind chill, your sweaty wet cloths, and the many calories needed that you are most likely lacking to keep your body warm, a sleeping bag makes sense. Since this is often a bulky item, this shows the importance of having a bug out bag with adequate capacity. A helpful suggestion would be to get a sleeping bag that is water resistant. This will help block the wind-chill factor, keep your bag dry (a wet bag is not a warm bag), and at times the bag could also be used as a standalone shelter (just sew in bug netting) as a backup.Number three is a sleeping pad. Here is when many readers might call me a wuss, who has never slept on the cold, hard, and often rocky ground, like I have. Here are ten things that MacGyver might do with a sleeping pad that just might change your mind about the need for one:
    1. A sleeping pad prevents the cold ground from sucking away your body heat and helps prevent hypothermia (been there, done that, it is not fun).
    2. If you have back problems and ever plan to use your bug out bag overnight, a cheap eight dollar foam pad might save your back and expensive trips to the chiropractor later. I would like to add that the inflatable pads are very compact (the size of three apples) and more comfortable than my home bed.
    3. It can be used for splinting a broken leg or arm.
    4. If a tornado hits, get into a tub or low grounded area and pull a pad over you to protect you from hail or flying debris.
    5. By tri-folding a pad and then taping or tying it together, you can use it as an effective shield against an attack.
    6. Use it to insulate an injured person from shock.
    7. Use it as a collar to immobilize a neck injury or as a back board.
    8. It acts as a windbreak.
    9. Some pads are used as flotation devices.
    10. Use it as a fan for starting a fire, convert it into a chair, or cut it to make a bowl, hat, clothing, protective body armor, or sandals.
    11. You can even use a marker and write important survival notes on it (like how many drops of bleach per liter for water purification) or draw a tic-tac-toe and a checker/chess board on it for entertainment.

    A sleeping pad is like duck-tape. Who’s a wuss now?

  2. Suspension system problems A backpack’s job is to carry a load. It’s ideal weight capacity, comfort, and how evenly it can disperse weight are all import factors many people forget. Here is a lesson that I hope everyone learns. You are special. Yes, you! A survivalist company is trying to sell you their backpack. Let’s say you are a six foot tall male with broad shoulders. Does it make sense that a bug out bag company will sell you a bag and then sell that same bag to a petite five foot tall female? Many of the military bags I have seen advertised have the one-size-fits-most methodology, which I highly disagree with. A backpack suspension system consists of many parts. However, I will cover the three main parts– the shoulder straps, hip straps, and backing (the parts that touch your back):
    1. Shoulder straps The first issue to deal with is how many straps? I have seen bug out bags that cost a pretty penny and look very cool with only one strap, which is essentially a sling backpack. This type of bag is not advised. I have a Timbuk2 messenger bag that I used to carry daily with me with essential and emergency items. It worked real well going in and out of the car and office. However, once you add a water bottle, first-aid kit, flashlight, jacket, food, and other essentials, it became a real burden to my shoulder, and I found myself shifting shoulders throughout the day. I discovered I was not able to comfortably carry the bag long distances, like I could with a two-strap bag with the same weight. I must also address the dangerous side to sling packs. In high school I got myself a nice sling backpack for school, only to find out that when I rode to school on my bike or jogged that the weight in the pack would sometimes slide the pack from my back to my chest and rub my neck raw. When leaning down the strap would sometimes slide from my shoulder and dangerously hang on my neck. After a half semester, I visited the doctor and found that my shoulder was now two inches lower on the side I carried the bag. After money spent on a new bag and having bad posture for years, I can confidently say the cool factor of one strap is not worth it to me. Go with two straps. Please take note on what type of straps they are as well. The straps could cut into and blister the shoulders ff the they are thin or unpadded. As you are most definitely aware, there are anatomical difference between males and females; I just don’t know why some companies don’t understand this. A good female pack will have curves in their straps to curve around their bust line and thus be more comfortable. Males have broader shoulders than women, so a good pack will have the straps a little more spaced out than a female spec one.Now, let’s talk about one of the biggest bug out bag problems. Most bags only have shoulder straps, and this is a dilemma. When you have 30-40+lbs of gear on your shoulders that is not distributed elsewhere, your back arches more, and you will likely have back pain or soreness. Many people who buy a bug out bag, fill their bag up and walk around their house with it on and say, “This is a great backpack.” My challenge for you would be to take it on a day hike of 10+ miles and then see how it feels. Your thoughts might change after that. This is just food for thought. Have you ever seen a backpacker with a fully-loaded backpack on the trail with only shoulder straps? They usually don’t, because it is so uncomfortable and unpractical. This is why hip belts are so important.
    2. Hip belts are so important I don’t understand why many companies don’t add them on. They serve two main functions. One is to keep your pack against your back and lumbar area and from swinging laterally as you move. The second and main function is to bear most of the vertical weight of the pack onto the hips. This disperses weight through the shoulders and hips. I have seen many bug out bag companies add little dinky straps, which do address the lateral swinging; however, in no way is a one- or two-inch webbing strap going to harness most of the pack’s weight onto the hips comfortably. Take a look at modern-day backpack hip belts. They are thickly padded, memory foamed, reinforced, and wide. I believe this is the secret to being able to carry a heavy pack comfortably. Very little weight is actually placed on one’s shoulder straps on a good backpack. When shopping for a bug out bag, try this test: Fill the bag up as much as you can in the store, place it on you, and then loosen the shoulder straps all the way on a bag. Move on to another bag if it slides down your legs or  is not mostly or completely held up by the hip straps. Remember hips don’t lie. You have them, so you might as well use them.A nice addition to having a thick supportive hip strap is that there are many accessories you could attach to your hip belt. I usually carry a big knife on one side, a large water bottle, and a firearm in a pouch on the other side. This makes for very easy access to these items.
    3. Backing I am going to address all parts that touch your backside in this category. First, is it the right length for you? As I have mentioned earlier, a good backpack is one that fits your body type well. A pack that fits a long torso, say a six foot tall person, will not fit a short torso, one of a five foot two inch person, unless it is adjustable. A bug out bag company that advertises their bag will fit you (or anybody) and you don’t see different torso adjustment options is a company that is NOT being honest with their customers.A very important question to ask yourself about a bag that you might have to trust your life on and wear for miles is what your back is actually touching. Some packs have thin fabric backings with no padding against your back. This might seen harmless, until you put oddly shaped or pointy items in your bag. You might feel like you are being tortured with jabbing devices being prodded into your back. You also run into the risk of objects ripping holes into the fabric. I would highly suggest a pack that has a firm backing.If you live in a hot climate or you sweat a lot, there are better options. There are packs that use mesh channels to circulate air between your bag and your back. Some companies have developed ingenious ways that keep your pack completely off your back. This greatly reduces sweating and the amount of water you need to consume when water is scarce.

Letter Re: IRS to Pay Back-refunds to Illegal Immigrants Who Didn’t Pay Taxes

Dear Gentlemen,

In the article titled, “IRS to Pay Back-refunds to Illegal Immigrants Who Didn’t Pay Taxes” by The Washington Times, raised a red flag to me. As a CPA, I try to look out for my clients so that they do not get in any trouble, but the quote below opened my mind to a problem that is coming.

The article stated, “Under the new program, if you get a Social Security number and you work, you’ll be eligible to apply for the Earned Income Tax Credit,” Mr. Koskinen said.

He said that would apply even “if you did not file” taxes, as long as the illegal immigrant could “demonstrate having worked off-the-books during those years.”

This might make you mad that the illegals get a refund. However, read the statement, “…could demonstrate having worked off-the-books…” If the illegals show they worked off the books, the full wrath of the IRS will be coming upon the businesses or people who paid the illegals and did NOT withhold or match payroll taxes.

The amnesty is to the illegals not the businesses that paid them. The “Trust Fund Penalty” for not paying Social Security Tax and Medicare Tax is severe. The employer will be responsible for the employer and employee portions of the tax and penalties equal to 100% of the tax. If we do the math, let’s say you had a person, illegal, being paid $500 per week and he worked for 50 weeks. That would make his pay $25,000 per year. The tax you would have paid, if you had paid him legally, would have been ($25,000 * 7.65%) or $1,912.50. Now you will pay your portion, his portion and a penalty equal to both portions or $7,650.00 (1,912.50 (your tax) + 1,912.50 (their tax) + 3,825.00 (penalty)). Remember the statement at the bottom of your tax return, where you sign it; it starts out “Under penalty of perjury…” By signing your personal and/or business tax forms, if you paid illegal workers off-the-books, you also have committed perjury. Also, if the tax owed is substantial, you have committed FRAUD. FRAUD=Jail!

Be careful; the amnesty program is another program to go after businesses that did not withhold and pay what was legally required of them. If you have paid illegal people off-the-books, consult with a tax attorney, CPA, or other competent financial consultant.

There is one more problem; if the bookkeeper paid the EFTPS (federal withholding, Social Security Tax, and Medicare Tax) online and knows you were paying people off-the-books, the IRS will come after that person if the business did not pay the taxes and the owner is unable to pay the taxes. If the bookkeeper knows more secrets about you, you had better watch out! They can cut a deal. The IRS will chain your doors and run you out of business. I have seen it done.

Please understand; I am a CPA. If I were a plumber, I am conservative enough to wear suspenders and a belt. I am not trying to cause anxiety in anyone, but I am reading between the lines. We all have a responsibility to pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to pay to God what is His. My job is to keep you legally from paying any more than you have to. Paying people off-the-books is trouble brewing.

Respectfully, – JEH

Odds ‘n Sods:

Yet another Philip K. Dick novel has made it to the screen. This one is an alternate history story: The Man In The High Castle

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SurvivalBlog Reader JBG sent in this link talking about the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission Report. It’s notable that the report references that there were over nine minutes that passed while the shooter had unhindered access to do his evil deeds. Then the report takes a tangent into left field and makes recomendations that would have had zero impact on this school shooting but certainly carry the left’s anti-gun message. Missing from the report is the impact that having armed personnel on this gun-free victim zone would have had.

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SurvivalBlog Reader T.B. writes in from California to confirm the severe drought they are having. They are already ceasing the watering of low-producing trees. He also warns that in the poor conditions, bug infestations on the trees are becoming an issue. Be careful of the advice given over controlling these infestations, too. The local garden center recommended a systemic poison that kills ALL bugs (including beneficial ones, like bees).

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Automatic License Plate Readers Also Gathering Millions Of Facial Photos Daily. – B.B.

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Warning: Facebook video: Off Grid Rotisserie. – BRB

Hugh’s Quote of the Day:

“Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother. And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people.” Luke 7:12-16 (KJV)