Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — March 27, 2019

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March 27th is the birthday of the late Robert W. Ford (born 1923, died 20 September 2013). He was an amazing man who had a remarkable life. His book, Wind Between The Worlds (an account of experiences in Tibet, captivity by the communist Chinese, and his fight against brainwashing), is highly recommended. It is available for free download.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 81 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $11,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A $3000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. 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,
  4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

  1. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
  2. 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,
  3. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
  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. An assortment of products along with a one hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).

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, LLC,
  5. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances.

Round 81 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.

It is Time to Build Several ARs, by D.B.

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I believe that it is time to build several AR-15s. There are many reasons why. These include:

  1. You will soon need them.
  2. Prices are down, due to the Trump Slump in firearms sales. A reasonable cost for an AR equates to $600 today.  This is definitely a “low point” in pricing and hence the ideal time to buy or build.
  3. Your family is not building them, so you should.
  4. The government doesn’t want you to build them. (Read: The threat of upcoming legislation.)
  5. It will help you to better understand how the firearm runs.
  6. Building your own is just fun.

I retired after 21 years of service to our nation as a Cavalryman. My years of service spanned 1980 to 2015 and included active duty, Army Reserve and National Guard service. My civilian schooling includes multiple trips to Thunder Ranch, instruction under Gabe Suarez and Rifles Only, as well as one course at Gunsite. I am not an “expert”, but feel okay with stating that I know my way around firearms.

The need to build multiples

Rainy days are coming. In the last week, I saw at least four articles openly discussing a new civil war in the United States. Our political system has been driven to failure by the professional teat suckers in Washington, District of Criminals. (A result of no term limits and original sin.) The politically correct nazism of the liberal left has done a quite decent job of silencing cogent discussion of issues. The leviathan tech bullies of YouTube, Google, Fakebook have taken away the town square from anyone not supporting their agenda.

Theft of your firearms could occur. Therefore, keeping spares at multiple locations are prudent. However, you should realize that not all theft occurs via petty theft and burglary. The federal and state governments are now actively murdering citizens and taking their firearms. (The shooting of Gary J. Willis was just the beginning.) To date, 14 states have passed Red Flag gun confiscation laws. And 25 more states have this Constitutional violation under consideration.

Murphy is always with us

Two is one and one is none. Man-made items break. You will not have an arms room and armorer to fix a weapon that breaks. The local gunshop (if one exists in your neighborhood) won’t be available to fix things for you. The only spare parts you will have are the ones that you set aside now. You have to be your own arms room. Extra parts kits and spare complete ARs are prudent investments.

Continue reading“It is Time to Build Several ARs, by D.B.”

JWR’s Recommendations of the Week:

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Here are JWR’s Recommendations of the Week for various media and tools of interest to SurvivalBlog readers. This week the focus is on the Cobra RX Adder crossbow. (See the Gear & Grub section.)

Books:

The book Resistance to Tyranny: A Primer just jumped into Amazon’s top-150 selling books list. That is very unusual for a book that has already been in print for nine years. The renewed interest in this title says a lot about the direction that our country is headed.

o  o  o

The Top 100 Classic Radio Shows. With this book as reference, you’ll be equipped to go hunting for MP3 files of old radio shows. I was amazed to find that thousands of them are available for free download.  My advice is to load up a laptop or an MP3 player with carefully-selected old radio shows. Assuming that you have just a modest photovoltaic power system, those shows can keep your kids occupied in future disaster situations when Internet service is not available. Those wholesome shows will be a welcome distraction, for down time.

o  o  o

Food Storage for Self-Sufficiency and Survival: The Essential Guide for Family Preparedness

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I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage! Updated and Expanded Version

 

Movies & Television:

Sadly, I can’t recommend most modern “Children’s” films and “Family” films. So many of them undermine family values and morality.  But I recently watched one that is an exception. It is a film suitable for your whole family with a great cast, great acting, and wonderful cinemaphotography: Hugo. It is available on Blu-Ray and DVD, and also free streaming for those with Amazon Prime.

o  o  o

Meru. Here is a description: “Three elite climbers struggle to find their way through obsession and loss as they attempt to climb Mount Meru, one of the most coveted prizes in the high stakes game of Himalayan big wall climbing. Meru is the story of that journey, an expedition through nature’s harshest elements and one’s complicated inner demons, and ultimately on to impossible new heights.”

Continue reading“JWR’s Recommendations of the Week:”

Economics & Investing For Preppers

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Here are the latest news 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 SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we focus on the impact of recent floods on grain prices and the  implications for poultry and other livestock producers.

 

Precious Metals:

Will The Historic Imbalance In Gold Stocks To Gold Price Resolve?

o  o  o

BMO: Gold, Platinum ETF Holdings Rise In 2019

 

Economy & Finance:

Worsening Inventory Pileup Rattles Goods-Based Economy

o  o  o

Charles Hugh Smith: The Coming Crisis the Fed Can’t Fix: Credit Exhaustion

o  o  o

This comes as no surprise: US Freight Volume Drops

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — March 26, 2019

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Today is a sad day for American liberty. Following a directive by allegedly “pro-gun” President Donald J. Trump that he handed down to the BATFE, part of of our freedom died. As of today, bumpfire stocks stocks are now formally banned. They all just became re-classified as contraband “machineguns” — a felony to possess.  Contravening a long-standing tradition in American jurisprudence, with this ban ruling there is NO grandfather clause. Nor is there any compensation offered for a Federal “taking”. And because of the Hughes Amendment to the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA ’86), there is no $200 registration available to owners of these newly-redefined “machineguns.” The Federales are in effect saying: “Tough luck pal, they’re banned–because we said so.” This illustrates the arbitrary and capricious nature of 21st Century statutory jurisdiction. They are running roughshod over the Constitution. This is a sad day, indeed.

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With the current sweeping changes in our gun laws in mind, I highly recommend a short video from Reid Henrichs: Stirrings of Revolution: Then and NOW.  The book that he mentions, Resistance to Tyranny: A Primer definitely belongs on your bookshelf. It is noteworthy that this book just recently jumped into Amazon’s top-100 selling books list. That is a very unusual feat, for a book that has been in print for nine years. For comparison, my 10-year old non-fiction book How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It (now in its 22nd printing from Penguin Books) usually bounces around down near #27,000 in Amazon’s overall book rankings. 

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There are just a few days left in Round 81 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. Get your article written and send it in soon. The top three prize winners will share $11,000 worth of prizes. And we will be adding a new prize of considerable value, starting with Round 82. That begins April 1st.

Phase Three of the Internet Censorship War

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Back in October of 2017, I wrote this article: Internet Censorship is Now Rampant — It is High Time to Bookmark Your Alternatives.  That was back in what I now refer to as Phase One of the Internet censorship war. I didn’t know it then, but that was back when the censorship campaign was still fairly mild and relatively subtle. Then, in early August of 2018, Alex Jones was systematically banned by more than 10 social media services and sites. Eventually, even Twitter jumped on the “Ban Alex” Band Wagon. When the Alex Jones mass banning was reported in the mainstream press, they made it sound like it was an independent decision made by Apple, and that the various social media then merely followed suit. But I suspect there was a meeting of many of those corporate leaders that took place in advance. (That meeting was probably in cyberspace, but it might have looked a lot like this one.)

In my estimation, the blacklisting of Alex Jones was just a trial balloon. Once they saw that Jones was banned without too much of a fuss, it was the turning point. Thus began Phase Two: Overt Censorship. As Phase Two got underway, at least 10 other outspoken conservatives were similarly given “strikes”, or blacklisted, or outright banned. They included:  Kris Paronto, Laura Loomer, Jesse Kelly, Candace Owens, actor James Woods, Gavin McInnes, Libertarian comedian Owen Benjamin, and street artist “Sabo”. Even left-wing feminist Meghan Murphy was banned, ostensibly for the quasi-conservative “crime” of “misgendering”. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the same has been done to Paul Joseph Watson, Carl Benjamin (aka Sargon of Akkad), Milo Yiannopoulos, Tommy Robinson (aka Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon), and several others. These censorship campaigns became so overt that a partial list of Twitter bans was documented at the ultra-leftist Wikipedia. Despite repeated attempts, the cabals couldn’t make that wiki page go away.

Continue reading“Phase Three of the Internet Censorship War”

SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

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Here is SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt. This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. We also mention companies of interest to preppers that are located in the region. We’ve written a lot about holsters in SurvivalBlog, over the years.  But today, I’d like to mention makers of holsters and scabbards in the American Redoubt.

Region-Wide

Reader Bart S. sent us a link to a piece in the New York Times: A Lighter Matthew Barney Goes Back to School, and Back Home. “The artist dances with wolves, and hunters, in his new film ‘Redoubt,’ shot in his native Idaho. It’s the most emancipated work of his career.” JWR’s Comments: It seems that the American Redoubt movement now qualifies as “iconic”, in even the hoity-toity world of art and dance films. It is noteworthy that the film-maker convinced competitive high power shooter Anette Wachter (aka “30CalGal“) to act in the film.

o  o  o

Over at PrepperBroadcasting.com: American Redoubt Radio!

Idaho

Tedder Industries is several pistol holster and pistol belt companies in one.  They operate the very popular Alien Gear Holsters, Old Faithful Holsters, and Bigfoot Gun Belts. I wear a steel core Bigfoot gun belt several days a week. I highly recommend them. Tedder is located in Post Falls, Idaho.

o o o

Here is a gent who deserves a repeat mention:  There is custom leatherworker from Bayview, Idaho who does excellent work at very reasonable prices. His name is Clay Ensley. Along with his wife Shelley, he operates C&S Saddlery. Clay has 30 years of experience as a commercial leatherworker. In addition to custom-order saddles, his main line is traditional Old West style revolver holsters, gun belts, chinks, and cuffs. He also makes tooled smart phone cases, semi-auto pistol holsters, and pistol magazine pouches. For instance, he makes a nifty 3-magazine Glock 21 magazine pouch that is about the same size as the Classic Milt Sparks Six Pack.

o o o

How this local woman ended up on the dollar gold coin. Here is a snippet:

“Teton is a Fort Hall native and is featured on the US Sacagawea dollar gold coin. She is the only living person to currently appear on a United States coin.”

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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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 “JWR”.  Today, we focus on censorship.

Google Makes Greenpeace Co-Founder Vanish

The Ministry of Truth is hard at work: Google makes Greenpeace co-founder ‘vanish’. (Thanks to DSV for the link.)

The Evolution of Body Armor

Our own Editor-At-Large Michael Z. Williamson penned this for the Baen Books web site: The Evolution of Body Armor.  Here is a snippet from his fascinating article:

“Moving into the 1990s, though, materials science improved again. We finally enter the era of modern body armor. Aramid fiber—Kevlar or Spectra, tough enough to stop virtually all pistol calibers—backed up with ceramic or steel plates capable of stopping most rifle bullets at least once, and if there isn’t time to swap out during an engagement, usually survivable for about eight hits on the torso plate. The newer plates are rated for a single hit from armor piercing ammo, with good survivability for a second hit.

Compared to the early armor with its mid 50 percentile protection, we actually now get close to 70 percent survivability, against much more powerful threats than our Bronze Age counterparts. Then, of course, we have far better medical technology.”

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

Preparedness Notes for Monday — March 25, 2019

This is the birthday of English film director David Lean. He was born in Croydon, England in 1908, and died in 1991. He is best known for his films Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Doctor Zhivago.

National Medal of Honor day is officially observed on March 25th of each year.

On March 25 1944 RAF Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade survived a jump from a burning Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet over Germany without a parachute. His fall was broken by pine trees and soft snow, and he suffered only a sprained leg. He died on June 22nd, 1987.

CRKT/Ruger AR Cleaning Tool, by Pat Cascio

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I do a lot of AR-15 shooting these days, either testing guns for articles, or just for my own shooting pleasure. One thing that I don’t especially enjoy, and never have, is AR cleaning. Because they use a gas tube rather than a gas piston, they require frequent cleaning. And they aren’t one of the easiest rifles to clean. Today, we’re looking at the AR cleaning tool, from CRKT and Ruger. Several years ago, Ruger commissioned CRKT to produce some cutlery for them – under the Ruger name, and it has been a great relationship.

The first time I handled an AR-15 type of rifle, was in October 1969, and it was the then US military combat rifle, in the form of the M16. I remember how happy I was to be issued this light-weight rifle, compared to the big and heavy  M14 I carried in Basic Combat Training, and the recoil was nothing compared to that of the M14 with its 7.62 NATO round that kicked a bit hard for a scrawny 17 year old kid. And, to this day, I still remember the white glove inspections, when it came time to turn-in our M16s to the unit armorer, after we thought we had thoroughly cleaned those rifles. No matter how clean we thought we cleaned those M16s, the armorer always found something that needed more attention. I wised up to their inspections. I was more than content with my cleaning jobs, and I’d go to turn in my cleaned M16, only to be told it was still dirty. Well, I’d wait until much later, when the armorer wanted to close up for the day – and I’d then return my “re-cleaned” M16 – and guess what? Yep, it passed the inspection, without me cleaning it again.

Continue reading“CRKT/Ruger AR Cleaning Tool, by Pat Cascio”

Recipe of the Week: Avalanche Lily’s Scratch Chocolate Cake

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Avalanche Lily’s Scratch Chocolate Cake

This is a standard, time-proven American recipe. It is a favorite in our family.

Ingredients

2 Cups white flour (sifting the flour is optional)

1 Cup Cocoa Powder

2 tsp Baking Soda

2 Cups Granulated Sugar

2 Eggs

2 Cups Hot Water

2 Rounded TBSPs of Butter

 

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Thoroughly mix all ingredients into a batter

Oil (or lard) coat the interior of a 8″x16″ glass baking dish.

Pour batter evenly into the baking dish

Bake uncovered for 35 minutes.

Decorating and serving Suggestions

Allow cake to cool 20 minutes before frosting.

Can be served warm or cold.

Frosting is optional.

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

 

Economics & Investing For Preppers

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Here are the latest news 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 SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we focus on the predictions of economist Marc Faber.

Precious Metals:

Gary Christenson: Self-Destruction: Cheerleading The Process

o  o  o

Worldwide Major Central Banks are Accumulating Their Gold Holdings

 

Economy & Finance:

Jon C. was the first of several readers to send us this news: Shopko announces closure of all stores

o  o  o

Marc Faber: Huge Asset Bubble Will be Deflated, Recession Started Last Year – Money Printing Coming. Here is a quote from the video interview:

“When I started to work in 1970 on Wall Street, the stock market capitalization of the U.S. as a percentage of GDP . . . was between 25% and 30%. Now, the stock market capitalization alone is 150% of GDP, and when you add the bonds to it, we are at 300%. It’s a huge asset bubble compared to the real economy. I think no matter what they do, this asset bubble will be deflated, and it will be very painful. The asset holders are the powerful ones here, and they don’t want it deflated. . . . The question is would it have been better economically to go into the hospital in 2008/2009 and clean up the system rather than to essentially inject the sick patient with more opioids to keep him alive? It’s going to get much worse the next time it happens.”

And, in describing the asset bubble re-inflation following the 2008 debacle, Faber said:

“You can print money for a long time, but it doesn’t end well.”

o  o  o

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”