Preparedness Notes for Sunday – April 15, 2018

April 15th, 1912, is the anniversary of the sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic. 1517 people lost their lives on the maiden voyage. As research into the incident has progressed over the last 100 years, it seems as if, one way or another, the ship was just going to sink. Impact with an iceberg, raging coal fires in the fuel supply, wrong turns, locked-up binoculars, weak rivets, too few lifeboats, and more. Perhaps this whole incident was really the result of man’s hubris.

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Sunday April 15th, 2018 marks the 15th anniversary of Commander Zero’s blog: Notes From The Bunker. I believe that it was the original blog on individual and family preparedness. (Yes, Jerry Pournelle talked a bit about survival topics in his famous Chaos Manor blog, but that could hardly be considered a preparedness blog, per se.) Notes From The Bunker had already been up and running for two and a half years before I ever started SurvivalBlog. Consider this: 15 years in Blog Years (sort of like Dog Years), makes it an Ancient, Grizzled, and Pioneering blog. Congrats, Commander Zero!

The DHS: Acquiring a Core Competency in Tyranny

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Did you see this recent news item at Forbes? Department Of Homeland Security Compiling Database Of Journalists And ‘Media Influencers’’. Hmmm… That’s interesting. The contract will be for “DHS Media Monitoring Services.”  Ah, that sounds suitably mundane. But digging deeper into the original FedBizOpps announcement to read the Statement of Work (SOW), I noticed that it begins with:

1.) Core competencies. Introduce your company’s core competencies and relate those to the specific needs of the attached SOW.

That gave me a laugh. How does one describe a Core Competency in Snooping?  Or a Core Competency in Tyranny?

I see that they want to contract with a company that to start has these abilities:

    • Ability to track > 290,000 global news sources
    • Ability to track online, print, broadcast, cable, radio, trade and industry publications, local sources, national/international outlets, traditional news sources, and social media
    • Ability to track media coverage in > 100 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Russian. Translation function to instantly translate these articles to English.
    • Ability to create up to 20 searches with each unlimited keywords
    • Unlimited coverage per search (no cap on coverage)
    • Ability to change the searches at keywords at any given time
    • Ability to create unlimited data tracking, statistical breakdown, and graphical analyses on any coverage on an ad-hoc basis

With all of their handy-dandy parameters and deep archives that never forget, this database tool will be able to constantly monitor individual trade journalist and bloggers. It could certainly watch for their use of certain key words or phrases. And presumably, if they ever used the, ahem, wrong words, then they could be flagged for action.  End result:  Something much worse than a traditional Ban List or Round-Up List. Instead, the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate will have a database that constantly watches the article topics and phrasing used by hundreds of thousands of journalists.  And if any of them ever use the wrong words, then they could effectively self-select their names for a constantly-updated Action List.

Continue reading“The DHS: Acquiring a Core Competency in Tyranny”

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 “HJL”. Make sure you comment on the ATF bumpstocks ban today.

ATF and Bumpstocks

The ATF’s comment period on the proposed Bumpfire Stock Ban is still open. There have already been 15,200+ comments. More are needed. Let’s absolutely bury them in politely-worded specific objections. Thanks!

Danish Television Series

A new Danish television series that will start airing on May 4th looks to be pretty fascinating: The Rain. The series picks up six years after a brutal virus wipes out most of Scandinavia’s population. Two siblings join a band of young survivors and the adventure begins. Lately, Netflix has been pushing the SJW movement through the series and movies that they have been picking up and I would expect that since this one is from Europe, it will be no different. Perhaps the telling of the stories will make up for the obvious SJW problems. I plan on giving at least the first episode a chance.

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

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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“And when Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, he said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that land.” – Matthew 9:23-26 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Saturday – April 14, 2018

Today marks the birthday of actor Adrien Brody (born 1973). He played te lead role in The Pianist.

o o o

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today features another entry for Round 76 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. Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value), and
  8. 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 gift certificate for any two or three-day class from Max Velocity Tactical (a $600 value),
  4. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
  5. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
  6. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
  7. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site.

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, and
  6. 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).

Round 76 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.

Stoic Virtues, by A Modern Stoic

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Stoic justice at its heart is about fairness and the golden rule. Other virtues remain, which I will grab onto because a virtuous life is one to pursue for real happiness.

Seneca on the Good, the Honorable, and Virtue

“Your letter roamed, over several little problems, but finally dwelt upon this alone, asking for explanation: “How do we acquire a knowledge of that which is good and that which is honourable?” In the opinion of other schools, these two qualities are distinct; among our followers, however, they are merely divided.

This is what I mean: Some believe the Good to be that which is useful; they accordingly bestow this title upon riches, horses, wine, and shoes; so cheaply do they view the Good, and to such base uses do they let it descend. They regard as honorable that which agrees with the principle of right conduct – such as taking dutiful care of an old father, relieving a friend’s poverty, showing bravery on a campaign, and uttering prudent and well-balanced opinions. We, however, do make the Good and the honorable two things, but we make them out of one: only the honorable can be good; also, the honorable is necessarily good. I hold it superfluous to add the distinction between these two qualities, inasmuch as I have mentioned it so many times. But I shall say this one thing – that we regard nothing as good which can be put to wrong use by any person. And you see for yourself to what wrong uses many men put their riches, their high position, or their physical powers.

Continue reading“Stoic Virtues, by A Modern Stoic”

Editors’ Prepping Progress

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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 review their week’s prep activities. They also often 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 always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in the Comments. Let’s keep busy and be ready!

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,
The snow finally receded to point that I was able to get into the woods here at the Rawles Ranch and start cutting firewood. With the heavy snow this winter there were so many downed trees that I won’t even have to cut any of the remaining dead standing trees.

We also re-positioned a couple of our cedar plank raised beds. And then it started to rain, and rain, and rain, three days of it, thusfar. And there is more rain predicted until Tuesday. I’ve heard that on the east side of the Great Divide, the precipitation will be in the form of snow.  There could be 2+ feet of Spring Snow in parts of the Midwest and and the northeast. Welcome to the Grand Solar Minimum, folks! Call Al Gore, because we’ll need all the Global Warming we can get!

Avalanche Lily Reports: Earlier this week I did some roto-tilling in the garden in anticipation of planting some store-bought onion sets and my own indoor-sprouted broccoli seedlings. We will also be planting the seed potatoes that we saved from last year. The shady part of our garden plot still has patches of snow 3-to-8 inches deep. I got a kick out of plowing the edge of this snow under as I was making the turns. Take that, you snow! We’re going to beat you yet!

Please continue to post comments about your own preps.

Thanks, – Jim Rawles and Avalanche Lily, Rawles

Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”

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 “HJL”. America attacks Syria and Russia preps for war in today’s Odds ‘n Sods

Fantasy History and Private Arms

Bill Buppert wrote a follow on to his article on how the government hates your guns titled “Fantasy History and the American Left.” In it, he shows how despite the historical record of all gun confiscations leading eventually leading to government genocide, the left wants to pretend that it is for your protection. He notes that academia and book publishers have rewritten American history with fiction leading one to believe that the firearm was not as important as it truly was. Even the Supreme Court has taken a revisionist view. I love how he states it: “Please remember all the government supremacists who want your guns will see you dead to achieve their goal. Guaranteed.”

Facial Recognition in China

Reader A.E. sent in this article on how China used facial recognition at a pop concert to recognize and capture a man wanted for “economic crimes” from among the 60,000 concert goers. Gone are the days when you could fade into a crowd and become virtually invisible. The technology has become so advanced that individual faces can be picked out of large crowds and facial recognition run on large numbers of these faces in a very short time. While the crowd once offered the ability to hide, those that would use this technology want you to attempt to hide in that very same crowd. It makes their job much easier. While some wonder how much longer before the technology is here, my guess is that it already is here and is actively being used.

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

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians: and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life.” – 2 Kings 7:5-7 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Friday – April 13, 2018

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On April 13th, 1970, disaster struck 200,000 miles from earth when oxygen tank number two blew up on Apollo 13. Mission commander Lovell reported the now famous words “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” The landing mission was aborted and the next four days were spent inventing innovative ways to create survival equipment out of various hardware on hand as well as performing emergency, untested procedures and maneuvers to bring the crippled craft back to earth. On April 17, with the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

CMMG Banshee 9mm AR Pistol, by Pat Cascio

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Today, we are taking an exclusive look at the all-new CMMG “Banshee” 9mm pistol. Some might even call it a Personal Defense Weapon (PDW). SurvivalBlog was the first to receive this new pistol, and it has been a confidential project.

Hush-Hush Five-Week Test

We conducted a five-week test on this new AR 9mm pistol. I had originally planned on running about 500 rounds of 9mm ammo through the Banshee, which is a more than a fair test. However, I had so many volunteer testers helping me that we ran more than 1,500 rounds of ammo through this new AR pistol. It was difficult keeping this project hush-hush, and I had to keep the name of the gun and company covered over with duct tape, so no one knew what they were shooting.

Quick Specs on 9mm Banshee Pistol

Some quick specs on the 9mm Banshee pistol are in order, then we’ll get into the meat of this outstanding firearm. The Banshee has a 5-inch barrel, and the muzzle is threaded at ½-28 for a 9mm flash suppressor or registered sound suppressor (“silencer”). The handguard is actually made by CMMG, as is most of the parts. Furniture consists of a MagPul MOE pistol grip, and a Tailhook Mod 2 brace, an ambi sling plate, ambi safety, and a very unique ambi charging handle. The upper and lower receivers are Billet 7075-T6 forged aluminum, and the trigger is a CMMG single stage mil-spec design. CMMG was very good at listening to folks, and this Banshee takes any double-column Glock 9mm magazines. It comes with one 33-rd mag. Weight of the gun is 4.6 lbs, but it feels lighter. Overall length is 20 inches with the stock closed and 23 inches opened.

Continue reading“CMMG Banshee 9mm AR Pistol, by Pat Cascio”

Economics & Investing For Preppers

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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 we have an update on the prices of registered machineguns. (See the Tangibles Investing section, near the end of this column.)

Precious Metals:

First up, some analysis by Christopher Aaron: Silver Price Forecast: Continued Lagging Signals Caution

Stocks:

Stocks Rise as Trump Shakes Up Trade Landscape: Markets Wrap

Economy & Finance:

Several readers sent me this frightening headline: US Deficit To Soar Over 40% In 2019, Exceed $1 Trillion By 2020: CBO

o  o  o

Next, over at Fortune, some commentary from Gary Shapiro: We Need a Reset With China, Not a Trade War

o  o  o

Reader J.F. suggested this: How the Cult of the Colossal Imperils American Agriculture

 

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

Preparedness Notes for Thursday – April 12, 2018

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April 13, 1743 The birthday of Thomas Jefferson. (He died on July 4, 1826 just a few hours before the death of John Adams. How patriotic of both of them to pass away on the Fourth of July.)

o o o

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today features another entry for Round 76 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. Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value), and
  8. 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 gift certificate for any two or three-day class from Max Velocity Tactical (a $600 value),
  4. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
  5. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
  6. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
  7. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site.

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, and
  6. 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).

Round 76 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.

How to Prepare When You’re The Only One- Part 3, by Patriotman

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I’m a man in his mid 20s trying to prepare for when SHTF to care for 21 family members and guide another 21, none of which are really contributing in any significant way. I’m also part of a fireteam group, but they are not walking the walk on preparations either. My girlfriend is supportive, but I feel generally alone in my preparations. I’ve outlined the problems I have in each group– family and fireteam– in Part 1 of this article series. In Part 2, I went over how I am resolving these problems and my specific plans as well as began outlining the details of steps I’m taking. I just began with a summary of how I am dealing with food and water and provided tables that consider the various sizes of groups I might have to support.

Let’s continue looking at the details of my plan. Food had been classified as Tier One and Tier Two. Let’s take a look at the items in these tiers and their estimated expense and then move into other categories.

Continue reading“How to Prepare When You’re The Only One- Part 3, by Patriotman”