The latest meme created by JWR:
Meme Text:
Sorry, Kid
You Must Be This Tall To Deploy Nukes
News Link:
Volodymyr Zelensky demands nukes to end war with Russia.
Notes From JWR: Do you have a meme idea? Just e-mail me the concept, and I’ll try to assemble it. And if it is posted then I’ll give you credit. Thanks!
Permission to repost memes that I’ve created is granted, provided that credit to SurvivalBlog.com is included.
“And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick?
For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad.
If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.
And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given.
For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;
And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.
For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.
But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.
And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it?
It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth:
But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.” – Mark 4:21-32 (KJV)
On February 8, 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle aged 44 after being convicted of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I in the Babington Plot.
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February 8, 1879: Sandford Fleming first proposed dividing the world into 24 equal time zones and adopting a Universal Standard Time at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute. This was adopted in 1884.
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And on February 8th, 1963, the Kennedy administration issued an order prohibiting travel to Cuba and banned financial transactions and commerce with Cuba, by U.S. citizens.
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Today we present another entry for Round 117 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:
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More than $950,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 117 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. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.
(Continued from Part 2.)
The current war in Ukraine is a prime example of how the system works for large corporations without providing a single benefit for We the People.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991, Russia asked to join NATO. Even though having Russia as a NATO partner would have been the best possible arrangement for the citizens of the US, European Union, and Russia, the US, needing enemies in order to keep justifying obscene defense budgets, dictated “no”.
In 2014, the US orchestrated the overthrow of Ukraine’s freely-elected government to install an anti-Russian president, then contrary to all the agreements and treaties we signed with Russia, invited Ukraine to join NATO so the US could put missiles right on Russia’s border, 275 miles from Moscow. After successfully inciting Russia to attack Ukraine, the military industrial complex (MIC) got richer selling arms to Uncle Sam who gave them to Ukraine. Congress added the cost to the national debt. US lackey Boris Johnson went to Kiev two months into the war to talk Zelensky, who knew Ukraine didn’t have a prayer of winning against Russia, out of negotiating a truce. The MIC made three more years of obscene profits, all paid for by Congress’s deficit spending. At some point, the war will end, as Trump has promised. But We the People will have gained nothing but more debt. Ukraine will have gained nothing, lost much of their infrastructure, and the majority of the 1,000,000+ dead and wounded were Ukrainian. The political leadership doesn’t care about the human losses on either side, the US-led NATO-stan proclaimed they were willing to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian.Continue reading“Prepared For Financial TEOTWAWKI? – Part 3, by St. Funogas”
To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year. We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those — or excerpts thereof — in the Odds ‘n Sods Column or in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!
I finally did some substantial snowplowing for the first time in 2025.
Because I’ve gradually developed cataracts over the past three years, I had to make a decision on getting replacement lens surgery. I’m scheduled for surgery on my right eye this coming Wednesday. Even though this surgery is considered a “routine” outpatient procedure now in the 2020s, I’m still feeling a bit anxious. So I’d appreciate your prayers. The surgeon says that I’ll have a good chance of having 20/20 uncorrected vision. I’m also writing to beg you for some patience. My blog posts might be a bit incomplete, infrequent, or replete with typographical errors, starting on Wednesday. Ditto for the days following February 20th, when the surgery on my left eye is scheduled. Other than a few days after the death of my first wife in 2011, I’ve always been able to post SurvivalBlog daily, without fail. But the next few weeks might be an exception to the norm that I’ve established in nearly two decades of editing SurvivalBlog. Thanks for your patience! – JWR
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
“Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one upon another?
And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die.
And Joseph’s ten brethren went down to buy corn in Egypt.
But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him.
And the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan.
And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.
And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food.
And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him.
And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come.
And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come.
We are all one man’s sons; we are true men, thy servants are no spies.
And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come.
And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not.” – Genesis 42:1-13 (KJV)
On February 7, 1839, Henry Clay famously declared in the Senate: “I had rather be right than president”.
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On February 7, 1976, the FCC raided and shut down pirate radio station WCPR in Brooklyn New York.
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Today we present another entry for Round 117 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:
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More than $950,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 117 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. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.
(Continued from Part 1.)
There are three categories in the US budget. Mandatory spending is mandated by law to be paid. Discretionary spending can be adjusted for each department, or the funding can be eliminated at any time. Interest payments are in their own category but for all intents and purposes are in the mandatory category.
The 2025 budget has the interest payment estimated at $969 billion, just a hair under one trillion. If I can tweak that up to $995 billion based on historical budget misses it will make the math easier as this discussion progresses. The interest paid on the debt amounts to 18.1% of Uncle Sam’s income and when added to the items already discussed, the total comes to 97.8%, and with veteran’s benefits (discretionary spending, not a part of defense spending) added in, totals 99.1% of Uncle Sam’s income. Ninety nine percent. The other 1% will most likely be added to the real total interest on the national debt before the fiscal year is over.
As the national debt grows by over a trillion and a half dollars each year, we can rest assured this interest expense will only increase. Economists have warned that it will soon be the single largest expense in the federal budget, and from there the sky’s the limit.Continue reading“Prepared For Financial TEOTWAWKI? – Part 2, by St. Funogas”
Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, a look at the precious metals bull market and some conflicting predictions for the equities markets.
The bull market continues! Gold just hit another all-time high, in terms of US Dollars. Spot prices, as of Wednesday morning:
Not that the silver-to-gold ratio is at 88.35-to-1.So this is another good juncture to ratio trade some of your physical gold or ETF gold into physical silver. And it is not too late to hedge into some platinum, because it is still undervalued vis-a-vis gold. In the event of a Third World War, the price of platinum will almost surely be higher than the price of gold.- JWR
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A piece by Dave Kranzler, over at Gold-Eagle.com: Gold Market Stress More About A Shortage Of Deliverable Gold Than Tariffs.
A Reuters report: Morgan Stanley revises Fed rate cut forecast amid tariff uncertainty.
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Martin W. Armstrong: Trump Tariffs – The Art of the Deal.
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At Zero Hedge: World Bank Forecasts Economic Slowdown In The Caucasus And Central Asia.
“Resist this war on God, freedom of religion and freedom of speech.” – Dr. Benjamin Carson
On February 6, 1869, Harper’s Weekly published the first drawing of “Uncle Sam”. with chin whiskers.
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February 6, 1959: Texas Instruments filed for a patent for their first integrated circuit (IC), invented by Jack Kilby.
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Today we present another entry for Round 117 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:
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More than $950,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 117 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. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.
Sometimes the truth is ugly and nobody wants to hear it. Ignoring the truth is what got us into the current budget deficit mess and the insurmountable national debt we now face as a nation.
Hope is a remarkable thing. Hope that our actions will pay off keeps us working toward the goal and it generally pays off.
False hope, on the other hand, causes us to work toward solving a problem which is impossible to resolve. Because we fail to recognize it can’t be fixed, we keep working and hoping and can’t understand why our exertions aren’t achieving the goal. False hope gives us an incorrect view of the possibilities and ignores reality, leaving us unprepared when the feces finally hit the fan. Our teachings from the cradle to the grave to never give up, only make the problem worse.
The national debt and deficit spending by Congress is just such an unsolvable problem. Congress gladly stokes the fires of our false hopes and keeps us distracted from reality. We come up with back-of-the-envelope solutions on how to eliminate deficit spending, yet almost none of us have looked at the actual budget numbers, or tried to work the math out. How many of us have tried to understand the budget deficits by outlining how we would personally balance the budget if we were granted the power? Doing that would give each of us a better understanding of reality and what’s possible and what isn’t.
In this article I’ll move from a back-of-the-envelope analysis to a spreadsheet analysis. I’ll present the hard numbers, taken from the 2025 federal budget, to show why budget deficits are way past the point of being controllable, and why the national debt can only continue to grow exponentially. Then I’ll present a few ideas on what we as individuals can do to prepare for the inevitable financial catastrophe that awaits our nation.
How ready will we be when it happens?Continue reading“Prepared For Financial TEOTWAWKI? – Part 1, by St. Funogas”
SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, we look at the rise of diabetes.
International Diabetes Federation: Global Diabetes Cases Are Climbing. Here is a quote:
“The regions with the highest estimated numbers of adults suffering from the disease are the West Pacific and South East Asia.
The African continent is expected to see the largest increase in the number of people living with the disease, with the International Diabetes Federation predicting a more than 130 percent increase in cases by 2045.
In Europe, just over 61 million adults were estimated to have diabetes in 2021, a figure that is expected to reach 69.2 million by 2045.
The International Federation highlights that globally, diabetes is now among the top ten causes of death…”
JWR’s Comment: It is noteworthy that this organization is primarily funded by pharmaceutical corporations. Perhaps Coca-Cola, Pepsico, and Fanta should also be sponsors, since they helped create this 21st Century plague on humanity.
At The Hill: Latest iPhone update enables Apple Intelligence automatically: How to turn it off.
From reader H.L.: Five Takeaways From Trump’s Plans To Build An Iron Dome For America.
“I don’t personally consider myself Dr. Doom. I call myself Dr. Realist, even though it’s less exciting and more boring than being called Dr. Doom. If you are consistently saying ‘the world is going to end,’ who is going to listen to you?” – Nouriel Roubini
On February 5, 1644, the first American livestock branding law was passed, by Connecticut.
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February 5, 1953: Sweets rationing imposed in WWII ended in Britain.
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Today is the birthday of Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (5 February, 1840 – 24 November, 1916). He was an American–British inventor best known as the creator of the first automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun. Maxim held patents on numerous mechanical devices such as hair-curling irons, a mousetrap, and steam pumps. Maxim also claimed to have invented the lightbulb. He was the father of Hiram Percy Maxim, who founded the ARRL.
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The primary SurvivalBlog server was down for several hours this morning. It has been restored. Thanks for your patience.
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Today we present another entry for Round 117 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:
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More than $950,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 117 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. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.
