Water Safety: Prevent Deaths by Drowning!, by M. in Canada

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Prevent Drowning

Summer Vacation Around Water

Summer is a wonderful season and one that requires knowledge of water safety to prevent deaths by drowning. The weather is warm, sunny, and even cold in areas of the country. Children cheer their happiness and excitement for the last day of school. Everyone is dreaming of summer vacation when they go camping, set up a tent in the cool shade of a wooded camp ground with a nice sandy beach by the shore of a lake with its refreshing waters. What could be more perfect?

They look forward to a vacation at the sea on a sandy beach. Even families with young children enjoy playing in the sand. Those beautiful days at the beach make wonderful memories.

There is however something that can transform a paradise into a nightmare. An unforeseen catastrophic event can result from a very avoidable accident. It is one of those things where you say to yourself: “How could I have let this happen?”. “How can this happen to me?” “If I only knew what to do; my best friend, my brother, or my girlfriend would still be with us today.” When these things happen, it really makes a vacation go sour. When you lose someone in a specific way, like an accident in the water, injuries, or drowning, the scenery stays in the memory. Lakes, rivers, and the sea will always remind you of that day.

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Letter: Best Homeschool Materials for TEOTWAWKI

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Homeschool

Hugh,

Here’s a theoretical question I’d like to as SurvivalBlog readers. If you had all the money you wanted to spend on homeschool materials  right now, but never had any more money to spend on it later, what would you buy for your children to ensure that they had a complete K-12 education? I am looking for a curriculum that works for almost everybody, contains almost no consumables, and doesn’t require electronics. Just dreaming here, but would like your ideas. – E.

Economics & Investing for Preppers

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Economics and Investing

Here are the latest items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. And it bears mention that most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on the Fake Recovery.


Precious Metals:

First up, Frank Holmes asks: Is India’s Gold Market Recovering?

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The Herald (in New Zealand) reports: May gold deliveries buoyant

 

Commodities:

Next, there is this from Nick Cunningham: Déjà Vu: Shale To Kill Oil Prices Once Again

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JWR’s Recommendations of the Week

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Here are JWR’s Recommendations of the Week for various media, tools, and gear of interest to SurvivalBlog readers. This week’s emphasis is on auxiliary fuel tanks. (Down in the Gear section.)

Books:

The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century by James H. Kunstler

Fire and Ice, by Ray Kytle

Movies:

Enemy at the Gates. A highly fictionalized retelling of the battle of Stalingrad. It is from the perspective of a Red Army sniper team.

Panic in Year Zero. The corny film that first got me thinking about TEOTWAWKI. It was recently mentioned by a SurvivalBlog reader, in an e-mail.

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Editors’ Quote Of The Day

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John Adams

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, of the people; and if the cause, the interest, and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute other and better agents, attorneys and trustees.” – John Adams A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)

Passing on Family Prepping and Gardening Experience, by J.L.

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JIT

Continuous Learning

I officially became a prepper during the Y2K experience, but upon reflection I have been prepping most of my life. I have always been fascinated with how things work. Learning became a lifelong occupation. I sometimes wish that I could focus on one discipline and become an expert. But looking back at the age of 61, I suspect that I’ve always had a little ADD (attention deficit disorder). Because of that, over my life, I have been involved in most phases of construction. I’ve been a welder, an instrument technician, a tree worker, an environmental analyst, and a manager in a large power company. Currently, I currently own multiple businesses, after retiring four years ago from the corporate world. My hobbies include gardening, woodworking, reloading, and doing as much shooting as I have time for. We raise chickens, bees, and have a year-round greenhouse.

I believe, in a TEOTWAWKI or even a SHTF moment, what we have in our head is the most important piece of survival gear we possess. I am amazed, in every job I have had, how the skills and knowledge that I learned in my other pursuits helped me out. And I am baffled at how few interests and skills other people have developed.

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Letter: Heating Oil and Kerosene Uses

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heating Oil

Hello Jim:

I wanted to write a note about an idea for heating. We use a Nestor-Martin as well as a napoleon oil stove to heat. These are very, very efficient. They burn one and a half to three gallons maximum per day and can heat a 2000 square-foot home. They require no electricity in their gravity fed from oil tank. I’ve heated with wood most of my life. (There is nothing like a wood fire.)

To give you an example of how much the world has changed, in the late 70s and 80s as a Boy Scout our troop raised most of our funds from going in the woods felling trees and selling firewood. Nowadays, the Scouts have been watered down to car washes and cupcakes sales. We had professional woodsmen guiding and overseeing us to minimize the danger, but the danger was there nonetheless. We also did paper drives in the late 70s-’80s. When the paper price spiked, everyone in our town was helping us out. We could fill three or four tractor-trailers in a weekend. Unfortunately, this is a sad truth. Baden Powell would be ashamed. Wood does not have a very long storage lifespan before it becomes punky and loses as much of its caloric value.

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SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

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American Redoubt

This column is posted on Tuesdays. Here, we present news and announcements from around the American Redoubt. We also mention companies in the region of interest to preppers. Today’s focus is on the proposed Scotchman Peak wilderness area.


Idaho (Scotchman Peak)

First, over at Redoubt News, we read: Scotchman Peak Still A Hot Topic. JWR’s Comments: This proposed wilderness area straddles the Idaho/Montana State line. (On the map, look east of Clark Fork, Idaho.) The Wilderness designation will eliminate motorized access to a huge swath of National Forest. But presently the lower elevations have well-established roads. These are  National Forest roads that are open to the public. Built during logging, those roads were indirectly paid for by your tax dollars. Not surprisingly, the self-proclaimed “caring” leftists have other plans. They intend to deny back-country access to non-backpacking older Americans.

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SurvivalBlog reader TTABS posted a fun rafting video a couple of years back.  But I didn’t discover it until this week: Rafting Idaho’s Lochsa River – Row Adventures

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The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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Survivalist Odds 'n Sods - EMP

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods – a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”.

Digital Face Reconstruction

Remember the days when it was important to get the victim or witness of a crime to a sketch artist as quickly as possible so they could remember the facial features? The sketch artist of the future is here now and it’s a bit different. Researchers are now able to use brain scans and direct neuron recording to identify and recreate “faces” with uncanny accuracy. I guess I’m okay with the brain scans, but the “direct neuron recording” is a bit disturbing to me. Nobody is sticking needle probes into my brain. The technology is in its infancy so maybe they’ll fix that. Thanks to B.B. for the link.

Eye-in-the-sky

Miami-Dade is considering a flying platform at 25,000 feet to use war-time technology to constantly monitor and photograph large areas of the city and then use that footage to track down suspects after a crime occurs. This means blanket surveillance for everyone outside and within the airborne camera’s 25-square-mile field of vision. But don’t worry, it’s just to catch the bad guys. This technology would never be used against you. Ahem.

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Editors’ Quote Of The Day

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Charles Montesquieu

“There is no word that has admitted of more various significations, and has made more different impressions on human minds, than that of Liberty. Some have taken it for a facility of deposing a person on whom they had conferred a tyrannical authority; others for the power of choosing a person whom they are obliged to obey; others for the right of bearing arms, and of being thereby enabled to use violence, others in fine for the privilege of being governed by a native of their own country or by their own laws.
Some have annexed this name to one form of government, in exclusion of others: Those who had a republican taste, applied it to this government; those who liked a monarchical state, gave it to monarchies. Thus they all have applied the name of liberty to the government most conformable to their own customs and inclinations: and as in a republic people have not so constant and so present a view of the instruments of the evils they complain of, and likewise as the laws seem there to speak more, and the executors of the laws less, it is generally attributed to republics, and denied to monarchies. In fine as in democracies the people seem to do very near whatever they please, liberty has been placed in this sort of government, and the power of the people has been confounded with their liberty.” – Charles de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

Preparedness Notes for Monday – June 19, 2017

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SurvivalBlog Notes

June 19, 1834 was the birthday of Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon, who died 31 January 1892. He was a British Particular Baptist preacher. His sermons are still widely read, for good reason.

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Summer is a great time to finish writing that article you have been planning on for SurvivalBlog. We are in Round 71 and there are nearly $11,000 worth of prizes on the line so get cracking and get it submitted!

CRKT Rakkasan, by Pat Cascio

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CRKT Rakkasan

The CRKT Rakkasan was designed by Austin McGlaun as part of Columbia River Knife & Tool’s “Forged By War” program. Austin McGlaun is a military veteran who served in the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and chose to donate 10% of net profits to the Green Beret Foundation.

CRKT- Rock-Solid Designs

Anyone who has seen my many knife designs knows that I like designs that are simple, uncomplicated, easy to manufacture, and tough. There are several knife companies producing some of my designs, with more on the drawing board. One company is Columbia River Knife & Tool (CRKT), of which I’ve been a fan of their knives since they first started out in the knife industry.

CRKT was actually started by two executives from another major knife-making company. They started out with some rock-solid designs and have continued to grow year-after-year.

While many will argue the point, you can get as good of a knife as you want from overseas. In this case, CRKT has many of their knives made in Taiwan. They actually own one of the plants and lease the other one. Every six weeks or so, an executive from CRKT makes a trip to Taiwan and spends a few weeks there to make sure everything is operating as it should be. They are very picky about their knives. One of the many benefits is that we, the knife consumers, get some great knives at super good prices. I like that.

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The Editors’ Preps for the Week of June 19th, 2017

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Security Camera

To be prepared for a crisis, every prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. Steadily, we work on meeting our prepping goals. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors share their planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, property improvements, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year. We also welcome you to share your planned activities for increasing personal preparedness in the coming week. (Leave a Comment with your project details.) Let’s keep busy and be ready!

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,

The weather in the northern American Redoubt will be clear and dry with moderate temperatures, this week which will be excellent weather for outdoor activities.

In The Garden and Greenhouse

We’ll be continuing to pull weeds.  It looks as though I need to replant certain squashes.  I also plan to plant some more carrots, broccoli, and some turnips.

Around The Ranch

Jim will continue to work on the carpentry and plumbing projects which are nearly finished.  He will also be hauling firewood from our ranch’s woodlot.  Jim will have a shorter work week on the ranch since he needs to make a consulting trip at the end of the week. Continue reading →