Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Punishment is now unfashionable… because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility." – Thomas Szasz

Note from JWR:

There are now just four days left in the special two week “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” Six Pack Sale. For any orders postmarked on or before June 30th, I’m offering a box of six autographed copies of my novel “Patriots“, packed in a well-padded USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate box, for $93, postage and Delivery Confirmation tracking label costs paid, to any US or APO/FPO address. That is just $15.50 per copy! And again, I pay the postage! Make sure that your order is postmarked on or before June 30th. See my original post for ordering details.

Weather Forecasting the Old-Fashioned Way, an Important Skill for WTSHTF

One thing that we take for granted in our modern age is ready access to sophisticated weather forecasting, complete with satellite imagery. But when the Schumer Hits the Fan (WTSHTF) and the power grid and Internet go adios, those will no longer be available. Under these same circumstances, gardening, hay cutting, and small scale grain raising will be crucial. You will need to be able to predict the weather with some accuracy. If you cut your hay at the wrong time–just before the advent of a wet summer weather system–you could end up with a moldy hay crop. And if you delay your late summer harvest a week too long and your vegetable garden is hit by an early frost, you could lose a substantial part of your annual crop. Either of those could be disastrous for a family that is dependent on subsistence farming to fill their larder. So I strongly recommend that you learn how to predict weather the old-fashioned way, with a thermometer, a barometer, an anemometer, a hygrometer, and some cloud-reading skills.

Thermometers
I recommend traditional mercury bulb thermometers. The latest electronic thermometers are fantastic, but there is a lot that can go wrong with them. Instead, buy a traditional glass outdoor thermometer in a sturdy housing with easy-to-read gradations.

Barometers
 The barometer is the crucial tool for weather prediction. With the current high price of mercury, barometers are very expensive to buy brand new. But used barometers can often be found used at thrift stores for just a few dollars. (In fact the mercury that they contain can often have a scrap value that is more than the asking price for the instrument!) Just be sure to get a well-made modern instrument that has a tick-marked front scale, an adjustable reference pointer (to compare daily rising or falling pressure readings) and a properly-marked “offset” adjustment dial on the back to compensate for your local elevation. Note to high elevation residents: Many barometers have adjustment dials that go no higher than 3,000 feet. Check on this before you make a purchase!

OBTW, it was recently reported that the EU has banned the production of new barometers and thermometers that use mercury. (They will be phased out in the next two years.) So much for tradition! Readers of SurvivalBlog in Europe should buy their traditional instruments soon, before prices inevitably rise.

Anemometers
And anemometer (wind speed instrument) is another important tool to have at your disposal. Unfortunately these have also gone “high tech ” in recent years. But if you shop around (for example on eBay) you can often find traditional mechanical/analog instruments that don’t requires batteries. Many of the better anemometer units report both wind speed and direction. The ones built for maritime use seem to be the most sturdy and resistant to corrosion. New units are expensive, so yet again, it pays to shop around for a used one.

Hygrometers
A less important but still useful tool is a hygrometer (humidity gauge). You will of course want an outdoor humidity gauge. And again, traditional technology is preferable to high tech for WTSHTF preparedness.

Cloud Reading Skills
 The art of cloud reading is complex and requires graphics to explain, so I will suffice here with some pointers to some good books and web sites:

Cloud Reading Books:

The Weather Wizard’s Cloud Book: A Unique Way to Predict the Weather Accurately and Easily by Reading the Clouds

The Weather Identification Handbook: The Ultimate Guide for Weather Watchers


Cloud Reading Web Sites:

Caity Ross’s World.
Non-Instrument Weather Forecasting by Dennis Kawaharada
Marine Navigation and Naval Operations I (Powerpoint Presentation)
Mountain Weather (UK)

Many of the instruments that I’ve mentioned are available from Wind & Weather. They are one of our Affiliate Advertisers. (By using any of our Affiliate links, SurvivalBlog will get a small commission if you place an order.)

Letter Re: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina and Indiscriminate Weapons Confiscation

Dear Mr. Rawles,
First off, I would like to thank you for writing the novel “Patriots” and starting SurvivalBlog. My dad sent me your book in the mail and told me to read it. Being a fan of Tom Brown-ish survival literature, I decided to give it a try. I read it in one night, starting at about 8 pm and finishing at 3 in the morning. Truly, my world view has changed. I have immediately started making preparations—getting my Bug Out Bag together, my Bug Out Routes planned and starting to practice some of the skills sets I’ve let fall by the wayside recently.
I am a full time college student and collegiate cross country and track runner at a school in the great state of Tennessee, but have had the benefit of being raised in a preparedness oriented family in a
southwestern region of rural Montana. I was at school when [Hurricane] Katrina hit and remember the close-to-home impact it had on many of my friends who lived in the New Orleans area. Our school sent relief teams to New Orleans immediately afterwards, with shipments of food and water. At the time, my perception of the Katrina disaster was largely shaped by the major media
outlets. A humanitarian crisis it surely was, but I never realized the uglier side of the story until recently.
It seems that disasters and emergencies bring out the best and the worst in people. Having read extensively many of the SurvivalBlog entries and perused the Internet for stories and first-hand accounts of surviving the Katrina disaster, I discovered that the population of New Orleans could be broken down into four “classes” of people during the evacuation/hurricane/post-disaster crisis.
The first class of people was composed of a small group of individuals and families who had plenty of food, water and protection stored away to either weather the storm, or to travel to a safer location without sacrificing their safety.
The second class of people was composed of a larger section of the populace who decided to leave New Orleans or evacuate their area and had no food, water or self-protection supplies built up before-hand. These became the highway refugees, or the refugees huddled in the Superdome. Some were successful in escaping safely, many were not.
The third class of people was composed of people who decided to stay in New Orleans, without the necessary preparations, and planned on either the government helping them or on obtaining supplies from their vacant neighbor’s homes and Wal-Mart. These were looters, thieves and murderers.
The fourth class of people was composed of law enforcement and National Guardsmen who stayed in New Orleans to try and maintain order. They were usually not successful.
In my analysis, everyone in the first class of people were prepared to handle whatever came their way. They were good, hearty men and women, with respect for God and a practical view of the world. In order to survive, they just needed to minimize contact with all three of the other classes of people, namely the refugees, the looters and the police.
The refugees were desperate people, some willing to kill for gasoline so that they could rescue family members. While not necessarily bad people, they were victims of the circumstances. Avoidance of these people was relatively easy, as long as one stayed off of main highways and out of refugee concentration areas. One reader posted a letter on this blog about his experience with his dog and pickup filled with gas-cans on his way back to secure his gun store. The looters were also desperate, but not necessarily refugees. They weren’t fleeing, but were actively preying on people and businesses to
sustain themselves. These people were a lot like the “Mutant Zombie Bikers” [often mentioned by SurvivalBlog readers]. Mostly active in New Orleans, these looters were to be feared and avoided mostly by the prepared and self-sufficient people.
The police were able to direct traffic and enforce the law in the early stages of the disaster, but by the time traffic spilled out into the opposing lanes and looters really started opening up on their rampage,
they were relatively helpless. One thing that much of the public is not aware of is the indiscriminate”martial law” tactics undertaken by many police/SWAT and National Guardsmen during and after the evacuation. While their actions in arresting and confiscating weapons may have been justified in trying to control the looting problem, many honest, prepared men and women who were “holding the fort” had their homes invaded, searched and any and all weapons confiscated. In one of the parishes near New Orleans, the police used boats to pull over riverine traffic and search and confiscate any weapons found, often without providing receipts for the weapons confiscated. Obviously, for a prepared survivalist who was protecting their property, Bugging Out, or trying to provide humanitarian/rescue assistance, this was a major problem. After watching this short documentary on 2nd Amendment violations in [the aftermath of Hurricane] Katrina, which every law-abiding American owes it to themselves to watch, I have realized that in a TEOTWAWKI or near-TEOTWAWKI type disaster, even law enforcement can be more of hindrance than a help. The indiscriminate firearm confiscations that occurred in the wake of Katrina are very worrisome indeed.
In planning my Bug-Out-Plan (with multiple, redundant routes…one by foot if need be: yes, all 2,000 miles of it back home to Montana), I fully intend to avoid law enforcement like the plague. As [the] Doug Carlton [character] said in Patriots, “Roads are for people who like to get ambushed.” Similarly, getting searched by the police in a TEOTWAWKI type situation is something you definitely want to avoid. There may be cops out there with their heads screwed on straight who can discern an honest citizen from a looter, but the risk of running into a hotshot and losing the means of protecting myself is too great.
I hope all other preparedness men and women take this into account when planning. Oh, and never become a refugee and confine yourself to a refugee camp. – R.D. from southern Tennessee

JWR Replies: The troublemakers in New Orleans came from many races, and surprisingly from both lower class and the lower middle class. It is difficult to stereotype the “looters” when based on the archived news footage it is clear that they represented a fairly wide cross-section of the New Orleans populace. Safe distance from major population centers is the key to survival during a widespread disaster. Fewer people means fewer problems. Most of the armed confrontations will take place in the big cities. Yes, lives will be lost far and wide WTSHTF, but the vast majority of the violence will be in the cities.

Odds ‘n Sods:

This news story caught my eye. Buffalo Man Lives in Underground Bunker. On a somewhat related note, the folks at Walton Feed have an interesting web page titled: “The Granddaddy Of All Underground Storage Areas “

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Home Sales in US Hit Slowest Pace in Four Years. Don’t say that I didn’t warn you. This “downturn” may very well be the beginning of a housing market collapse that will last a decade.

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Commentary from the International Herald Tribune: Finding doomsday asteroids.

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From WorldNetDaily: Untreatable Tuberculosis threat ‘apocalyptic scenario’

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry." – Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

The Bear Stearns Bears–The Near Collapse of Two Real Estate Hedge Funds Sends Economic Shock Waves Around the World

Last week’s big economic news was that two Bear Stearns hedge funds worth $20 billion are teetering near collapse. These two Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) funds–ironically named the “Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund” and the “High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund”–are in trouble because of their heavy exposure to sub-prime mortgages. A well-publicized rescue plan involving Merrill Lynch fell apart. At one point Merrill Lynch–one of Bear’s credit backers–said that they planned to seize about $850 million worth of collateral assets from Bear Stearns and sell them on the open market. Reuters reported Bear Stearns injected $1.5 billion of cash into the troubled CDO funds. Meanwhile we read that the head of the European Central Bank, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and about 250 other international banking executives planned to meet at a “Financial Stability Forum” on June 23 & 24 at BIS headquarters in Bale, Switzerland. Much of their conversation will surely center on the derivatives traders, especially the Bear Stearns hedge funds. The results of the BIS meeting? Uncertain. The bottom line: Be ready. Minimize your exposure to market fluctuations. Diversify into precious metals. Minimize you exposure to U.S. dollars. Any U.S. dollar-denominated investment should be specially selected to be resistant to inflation. For example, see the next blog entry about Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS.)

I’ve been warning SurvivalBlog readers about derivatives trading in general, and hedge funds in particular, for more than a year. Ditto for the US residential real estate, especially on the coasts. The hedge fund crisis will likely widen. Collateralized Debt Obligations will plummet as their underlying assets lose value. The macroeconomic consequences of this nascent collapse are enormous. The ride may get very bumpy. Fasten your seat belts, folks.

Two Letters Re: U.S. Treasury Bonds

James Wesley:
I recently inherited several U.S. Savings Bonds, Series EE. Do you recommend that I keep them, or cash them in so I can get better prepared? (We only have about two months of storage food here at our house.) How do I find out if the bonds are still earning interest, and what they are currently worth? Thank you, – C.C.

JWR Replies: You are right about recognizing priorities. You can’t eat bonds. If the bonds have fully matured, then by all means cash them in. You can check of the status of most bonds at the Treasury Direct web site.

 

Mr. Rawles,
You once mentioned Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). Do you still recommend them? Assuming they are still a good investment, which brokerage house should I use to minimize the fees? – Robert L. in Michigan

JWR Replies: Since further inflation of the U.S. dollar is inevitable, and significantly higher levels of inflation are likely n coming years, I still consider TIPS a great investment for any extra cash that you have on hand. That is, after getting your food storage squared away, after investing 25% of your portfolio in precious metals, and after investing as much as 50% in a productive retreat property. (By that iI mean farm or ranching land in a lightly populated area that is well removed from major population centers and away from likely refugee lines of drift.)

It is probably best to buy TIPS directly from the U.S. Treasury.

Letter Re: Record Keeping for TEOTWAWKI

Mr. Rawles,
Many have written on this topic and many more have mused on it. Some have even written on what I thought about, but revisiting topics and ideas allows for fresh perspective and ideas to surface and breath.
1. How Many People? – Does it take a Village?: ‘Billary’ references aside, what is the ideal size for a group of people after the Schumer hits? So many people really buy into the image of the rugged, self
sufficient individual. However, if we isolate ourselves, does not that make us easier targets in the long run? Small numbers of people can only do so much.
There are very few true ‘renaissance’ men today. A larger group of people creates a better pool of skill and skill potential to draw from. Also, security concerns can be less burdensome with a larger work
force to draw from. How many people have dental skill, especially in less than desirable conditions? Midwife skills? Children will be born, especially if the scenario goes on from more than one year. Trying to help a mother give birth while reading how to do it for the first time may not be a good thing. How many skills and how much practical knowledge do you really possess for yourself? How about members of your extended family? My maternal grandfather is a retired farmer and I remember watching him improvise and fix just about anything that he had in order to make it work, while at the same time costing him little to nothing.
Granted with larger groups of people come greater issues and problems. Sanitation, food storage and supply, clothing (especially shoes) and list goes on and on. Studying history can give us a sense of just
what size of population you need to survive, although every situation and our reaction to it will be different.
2. Records and Record-Keeping: One of the very unfortunate side effects of any conflict throughout human history has been the loss of knowledge – both in human experience and in the archived form. Since the trend is away from actual hardcopy volumes and to the electronic form, the risk to loss of knowledge is greater in a post-EMP world. Granted, today the sheer volume of printed material is greater than in the past, however, that paper will still burn just as easy as it has in the past.
So, what kind of records should we keep and in what form. At some point in the future the availability of some sort of records could be of immense value. Journals, diaries, birth records, death records, and
wedding records, especially in a multi-generational situation, can help establish a semblance of ‘proper’ civilization.
Oral history and traditions served many cultures well for countless generations. However, one must remember that especially in oral history, the memorization cannot be a trivial task. It is vital that the
training be just as seriously undertaken as any survival training. Both native American tribes and the Druids trained for years for such an undertaking as this.
Especially in the dreaded multi-generational scenarios, what kind of stories will be passed down from parents/grandparents to children/grandchildren, some 50, 100, 200, 500, or even 1,000 years later? Stories could be told of the magical metal stick “Evie” that could strike a man down over 1,000 paces away. It does fire the imagination. – Clayton S.

Odds ‘n Sods:

The UN does it again: Remember when the UN appointed Libya to head their Human Rights Commission? That was ironic. The latest outrage is that the UN has just appointed Zimbabwe to head the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. Is this some kind of cruel joke? The economic masterminds of Zimbabwe have absolutely wrecked the nation’s once-thriving economy. Basic commodities are chronically in short supply. Commerce and agriculture are in shambles, verging on total collapse. They have turned a major food exporter–once “the breadbasket of Africa””–into a food importer, with hundreds of thousands of their citizens malnourished, and thousands now starving to death. Meanwhile, the grid power is now off more often than it is on. They have sown the seeds of hyperinflation–expected to soon exceed 24,000% per annum. I wouldn’t trust them to run a neighborhood lemonade stand, much less chair the commission that ostensibly guides the world on key economic and agricultural issues. Leave it to the UN to make this sort of whacko appointment.

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From Steve Quayle’s web site: Milk, Eggs and Bread: Is Preparation a Lack of Faith?

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“The Werewolf” (our correspondent in Brazil) recommended these two books on survival cookery: Apocalypse Chow: How to Eat Well When the Power Goes Out, and The Storm Gourmet: A Guide to Creating Extraordinary Meals Without Electricity

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“What are the marks of a sick culture?
It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn’t the whole population.
A very bad sign. Particularism. It was once considered a Spanish vice but any country can fall sick with it. Dominance of males over females seems to be one of the symptoms.
Before a revolution can take place, the population must lose faith in both the police and the courts.
High taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that’s old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way – even though there are always endless attempts to wish it way by legislation. But I started looking for little signs and what some call silly-season symptoms.
I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort. Riots of course – but I suspect that little incidents of violence, pecking way at people day after day, damage a culture even more than riots that flare up and then die down. Oh, conscription and slavery and arbitrary compulsion of all sorts and imprisonment without bail and without speedy trial – but those things are obvious; all the histories list them.
I think you have missed the most alarming symptom of all. This one I shall tell you. But go back and search for it. Examine it. Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms as you have named… But a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.
This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength. Look for it. Study it. It is too late to save this culture – this worldwide culture, not just the freak show here in California. Therefore we must now prepare the monasteries for the coming Dark Age. Electronic records are too fragile; we must again have books, of stable inks and resistant paper.” – Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

Note from JWR:

I’ve once again updated and expanded the SurvivalBlog Glossary. There are now more than 1,500 entries.

If you find what you read in SurvivalBlog useful, then please consider becoming a 10 Cent Challenge subscriber. Subscriptions are entirely voluntary. All those little $3 monthly payments do add up–enough that they help pay the bills here. Thanks!

Letter Re: Bicycles for Emergency Transportation

Mr. Rawles,
Being a Vietnam era vet, I’m well aware of the efficacy of bicycles as transportation and “mules,” as Grandpappy describes in his article. Viet Cong forces used convoys of bicycles to transport war materiel south from North Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh trail. U.S. forces would bomb the trail during the day in the hopes of obstructing truck traffic moving south. At night the Viet Cong would use bicycles to move supplies in lieu of trucks. One should never underestimate pedal-power. Regards, – Jeff P.

Letter Re: Convincing the Unconvinced that TEOTWAWKI is Possible

James Rawles;
I enjoy your blog and wish I had more time to review [all of the content]. I plan on getting the best of the blog when my funds permit.
I saw the “Convincing the Unconvinced” post and thought I would reply.
I like what another reader recommended on bringing people around to preparing and hope you have a section dedicated to this subject somewhere on your blog.
Pushing a lot of information too fast will be counterproductive. They need to learn and decide for themselves to be prepared, and how prepared [they want] to be.
MJS could try getting Government-issued preparedness brochures. They are available from the American Red Cross and The Department of Homeland Security. This literature shows the need to be prepared for various situations. The information coming from a source that the doubtful will consider “mainstream” may be what they need to convince them to be prepared. You can work from there to discuss with them all the types of potential disasters (man made and natural) that can occur in your area and what can be done to be prepared.

Preparedness gifts are also a way to get the doubtful thinking about preparedness. I have given first aid kits, power inverters, Flashlights, Baygen radios, vehicle 72 hour kits, Preparedness books–some published by the Red Cross and Homeland Security–as Christmas gifts to plant the seeds of preparedness thinking. With the bird flu threat looming, I am considering a long term food supply for a month or less and publications on what you should know about bird flu for this Christmas. I am looking at water purification equipment for the following Christmas.
At least this gives family members a chance to survive a short term event. I know I cannot prepare for them and they have not considered what to do if the big cities that they live in melt down. But I can give them the information to make them think and to help them if they ask for it. – Ron from Ohio