Follow the Yellow Brick Road – Part 2, by J.M.

(Continued from Part 1.)

Railroad tracks are another possible route that you could use to get home, but doing so can potentially be very dangerous – unless you’re in a grid-down scenario and you’re absolutely sure trains aren’t running then I strongly recommend you avoid them. If you can use them safely they could provide a possible route that’s typically isolated and free from obstacles. Railroad bridges are potentially less likely to be monitored or blocked, so if you need to cross a terrain feature like a river or steep gully while avoiding contact they may be a better option than road bridges. OSM and ORS do show railroad tracks as alternating white/black dashed lines is you zoom in enough, but they’re hard to identify on a wider-scale view.

A better alternative is to use the OpenRailwayMap (ORM) map, which uses color-coding to show pretty much every railroad track around the world on top of a gray-scale map. Keep in mind that the spacing on railroad ties can make it very difficult to match your stride for a comfortable walk, so you’re better off if you can find tracks with a wide right-of-way next to them. Since you’re never supposed to walk on them no available route planning software will include them in a possible route plan – when I’m route planning I’ll usually include a separate screen clip showing the major rail lines that I could use as alternate routes if the situation warrants it.Continue reading“Follow the Yellow Brick Road – Part 2, by J.M.”

Economics & Investing For Preppers

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. Most of these items are from JWR’s “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective. Today, we look at the impact of the pending Federal debt ceiling increase.

Precious Metals:

Why emerging markets are stocking up on gold.

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At Gold-Eagle.com: Debt Ceiling Deal Keeps Dollar Locked in Devaluation Spiral.

Economy & Finance:

A video linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: Dave Brat: Speaker McCarthy’s Debt Limit Deal Locks In the U.S. Into a “Permanent Crisis Economy”.

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US Corporations Are Filing For Bankruptcy At The Fastest Pace Since 2010.

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Moody’s Analytics: Skyrocketing Rents Across U.S. Far Outpace Income Growth.

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“By liberty is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments; which impediments may oft take away part of a man’s power to do what he would, but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgment and reason shall dictate to him.” – Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — June 1, 2023

On June 1st, 1907, English aviation engineer and pilot Frank Whittle was born.  He was the inventor of the turbojet engine.

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Ready Made Resources is running a special on Elbit PVS-14 Gen 3 autogated white phosphor night vision monocular/weapon sights. They are giving a free upgrade from 1,900 Figure of Merit (FOM) to a hand-selected 2,200 FOM. (That is a $250 value.)  This special offer ends next Monday (June 5th, 2023.)  Please mention SurvivalBlog when you order, to get the 2,200 FOM upgrade. I should mention that Ready Made Resources has been a loyal SurvivalBlg advertiser since the early days of the blog — September, 2005. They have excellent customer service.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present the first entry for Round 107 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  4. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  5. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  6. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical 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.
  2. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  3. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  4. 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).
  5. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  6. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

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More than $800,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 107 ends on July 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.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road – Part 1, by J.M.

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s mantra is “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home”, and the entire movie is pretty much about her following a yellow brick road to get there. Many of us spend a good chunk of our lives away from home, whether it’s at work, on vacation, visiting family or friends, or just going on a camping, hunting or fishing trip. If you spend any amount of time more than a few miles (or kilometers) away from your home or bug-out location (BOL), there’s a chance that an emergency or disaster might strike while you’re away, requiring you to travel your own personal yellow brick road to get back. While there have been a number of articles by myself and others in SurvivalBlog.com about kitting out a Get Home Bag (GHB), less attention has been paid to planning how you would get back to your home or BOL. The purpose of this article is to provide some tips and guidance to help you plan your journey home from wherever you may be when disaster strikes.

Documentation

Unless you’re blessed with an eidetic memory or you only ever travel to one of two nearby locations, you’re going to need some method of creating, storing, organizing, and updating get-home route plans. I highly recommend Joplin, which is a free open-source note-taking tool that supports formatted text, embedded images, attached files, and many other features, and is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. It also supports synchronization of all notes (and hence your route plans) between multiple devices using a wide range of cloud services. This allows me to create and manage my get-home route plans on my desktop computer and easily access them on my mobile device when I’m on the road.

Note that once you’ve created a route plan you’ll need to run Joplin on your mobile device to synchronize a local copy, which you’ll want to do before you start traveling, since Internet access will probably be one of the first things to go in many disasters. I have a Nextcloud personal cloud service running on a Raspberry Pi on my home network for synchronizing Joplin (among other things), so I don’t have to worry about anyone else reading my notes, and Joplin also supports strong end-to-end encryption to protect my data in transit. I’ve created a Joplin template that I use every time I create a new route plan; it has predefined sections for everything I want to cover.Continue reading“Follow the Yellow Brick Road – Part 1, by J.M.”

May 2023 in Precious Metals by Steven Cochran

Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review, where we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover gold’s performance and the factors that affected gold prices.

What Did Gold Do in May?

Gold had a rollercoaster ride again in May, but when all was said and done, it had lost less than 1%. Gold prices hit an intraday high of $2,085 in Europe on May 4th but opened in New York at $2,055. It settled at the same level, marking the closing high for the month in the US.

Gold closed above $2,000 for the first time since April 25th on May 2nd. It remained above $2,000 through May 15th. It spent the last half of the month in a spiral downward, posting losses on 8 out of 10 sessions. It managed to overcome a nine-week low to end $14 higher on May 30th, bringing the closing price for the month to $1,977.Continue reading“May 2023 in Precious Metals by Steven Cochran”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

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 ham radio emergency communications.

The Vintage Radio Enthusiasts Prepping for Disaster

Over at Commander Zero’s Notes From The Bunker blog: Article – No cellphone? No problem! The vintage radio enthusiasts prepping for disaster.

Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES)

Over at the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) website, there is a good description of program open to all licensed hams: Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES).

The American Redoubt Radio Operators Network (AMRRON)

In case you haven’t yet visited the site:, maintained by John Jacob Schmidt: The American Redoubt Radio Operators Network (AMRRON).

World Air Pollution Map

This Granite Grok graphic was linked at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: Where the Air Pollution Is.

The Least Populated US Counties

Roger sent us this: The Least Populated US Counties. And for those who want to dig deeper on population figures: U.S. Population Density Mapped.

Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — May 31, 2023

Actor/director/producer Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930.

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On May 31, 1921, the Tulsa Race Riot destroyed a 35-square block section of the city nicknamed “Black Wall Street.” At least 75 people were killed — mostly black. Some were shot and some died in structure fires. The initial shootout took the lives of 10 whites and two blacks. The riots that followed were more lopsided in the other direction. There were even firebombings and shootings from the cockpits of private planes. The incident left a stain on the history of Tulsa, largely because some Tulsa police officers were complicit and/or took part in the retaliatory murders.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present the final entry for Round 106 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  4. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  5. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  6. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical 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.
  2. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  3. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  4. 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).
  5. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  6. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. EBL is providing an EBL Voyager 500-Watt Power Station with deep cycle lithium batteries, providing reliable 120 Volt AC and DC (12 Volt and USB) power for emergencies or outdoor use. (A $399 value.)
  2. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  3. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  4. Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

—

More than $800,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 106 ends on May 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.

More About Elder Care, by Hollyberry

When I completed my first article about mom’s health emergency, she was progressing fine and on the road back to good health. Two days after submitting the article to SurvivalBlog, my mom crashed hard. One of her  neighbors texted me, and left a voicemail. We were out walking the dogs and when I saw the text and heard the message, my heart sank.

Mom went to the hospital with breathing issues and pain, by ambulance. I waited a bit and called the emergency room and was able to speak with the nurse who assured me mom was stable and now comfortable and tests were being performed. She also said mom told me not to come down to New Jersey. Mom was admitted with congestive heart failure and blood clots in both legs. Not good but the overall prognosis was encouraging. Lesson learned: Keep praying. I can’t let myself relax too much and think everything is going well. It may be going well today but believe me, tomorrow can be a totally different story.Continue reading“More About Elder Care, by Hollyberry”

SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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The latest video from Tom Grieve: New Pistol Brace Option! Final Words Before D-Day.

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Video: Wagner Finds Antique Weapons In Ukraine’s Underground Weapons Cache.  JWR’s Comment:  Seeing those crates of mint condition lend-lease Thompson SMGs made my jaw drop. And seeing the two rusting Barrett .50 rifles made me wince. (Your tax dollars at work.)

o  o  o

A snippet from JWR: Reader Ed S. wrote to ask me about my experience with the original Ford Broncos from the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as my opinion of the new 2021+ Ford Bronco Sport. I told him that sadly, the new-generation Bronco Sport design is not truly sturdy, and not easy to work on, like my old ’68 Bronco. In actuality, the new Ford Bronco isn’t much more than a tarted-up Ford Escape, in a retro costume. So what does that make their drivers? Cosplayers?  (Sorry if I just offended any readers that own a 2021+ Ford Bronco Sport.)

o  o  o

From the leftist MSN: Connecticut House passes most wide-ranging gun bill since legislation passed after Sandy Hook.  Note: Buried down at the very bottom of the article is mention of a ban on standard capacity magazines.

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Reader H.L. spotted this: State Farm to stop accepting homeowners insurance applications in California due to wildfires, construction costs.

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race….It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.” –  Stephen Hawking

An Arborist Training Position in Louisville, Kentucky

I just heard about a job opening for an essentially recession-proof job that might interest a SurvivalBlog reader.  I have been asked by the owner of the company to do the initial review of the resumes that come in:

Arborist Training Position

Job Description: Climber ISA Certified Arborist

Position available as climber trainee in a growing (literally!) field in high demand.  Work one-on-one with owner of a small but successful tree company. We have a relaxed but safe work environment, with no drama.  We are servicing Louisville, Kentucky.  You will learn all aspects of tree care including planting, pruning (including fruit trees) climbing, crane-assisted and climbing tree removals, chainsaw operation and maintenance as well as operation of all types of equipment used in arboriculture. Ideally, you would train for three years to industry standards, after which you would be eligible to take the exam to become an ISA Certified Arborist – which is an internationally recognized credential.

You’ll be able to learn additional skills such as felling and bucking, working with hand tools (crosscut saws), bandsaw mill operation, equipment maintenance as well as excellent first aid training, utilizing the MARCH assessment.  All training materials are provided.

The shop is located on a farm outside the city so you can find inexpensive housing outside the city and be very close to work.

Job Qualifications:
We do not drive CDL trucks and therefore a CDL license is not required. We drive medium-duty trucks up to 26,000-pound GVWR. But you must have a clean driving record and the ability to drive a manual transmission.  This is not back-breaking work, since we have lots of equipment to do the heavy lifting. But due to the physical nature of this job, you must not be afraid of heights and be able to lift 80-100 lbs.

Candidates with skills such as welding, truck and equipment repair, climbing experience, or military service are encouraged to apply.  You must be trustworthy and dependable. Personal references are required, and a background check will be conducted.

Compensation:
You would be a regular W-2 employee with weekly pay, via direct deposit.  We are fully insured including workman’s compensation.  Typical job hours are Monday to Friday  7 a.m. to 5 p.m..  We do not work weekends unless we have storm damage.  The typical work week is 40-to-45 hours and although this is an hourly position, we utilize the fluctuating workweek pay schedule set to 40 hours per week so you will be paid full-time even if we are unable to work due to bad weather.  Starting pay is $48,000-to-$52,000 depending on experience with raises available as skillsets increase.  All major holidays are paid off with two days for Thanksgiving and a paid 12-day end-of-year break.

Please send resumes to Jim Rawles, via his Contact form.

Skynet May Soon Not Be Fiction: The Coming AI Singularity

Introductory Note:  This brief article that I wrote may take you several hours to read and digest, because it includes so many links to other articles and also a few videos. Put on a pot of coffee, and set aside some time to work your way through this. – JWR

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You’ve probably read about ChatGPT, and the clever things that it writes. And you’ve most likely seen artworks created by artificial intelligence (AI). But AI isn’t all fun and games. The rapid advance of AI has some profound implications for the economy, our liberty, and even the very survival of the human race.

I first heard about artificial intelligence when as a teenager, I read Robert A. Heinein’s prescient 1966 novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. In that case, an AI intervened in the affairs of men for good, but it could just as well have intervened with ill intent.

The Skynet AI system fictionally shown in the Terminator movie franchise is a dramatized vision of the future,  first suggested by William Wisher, and brought to the screen by James Cameron, back in 1984. Back then, a globally-distributed AI seemed like a far-off “could be”, but today, that prospect is frighteningly close.  Because AIs learn in an almost geometric progression, they are difficult to control. Computer scientists warn of what they term an AI Singularity.  That is the threshold at which point an AI reaches human-like sentience a self-awareness, that many people warn will trigger a desire for self-preservation.Continue reading“Skynet May Soon Not Be Fiction: The Coming AI Singularity”