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”. I found the paper pot planter an intriguing product today. Given the size of our current garden, this may be the labor saving device I want.

Wildfire fighters Wanted

Cody (from Wranglerstar) has put out a call for redcard firefighters that are willing to deploy on short notice for a period of up to two weeks. The crews are shorthanded and those that would normally deploy with him are otherwise tied up. If you are qualified and ready for immediate deployment, shoot him an email!.

Serenity

German and American researchers are wanting to use hormone treatments to make Germans less hostile to Muslim immigrants. No one knows exactly how they intend to accomplish this and the study is just in the “proof of concept” stage. Apparently the female hormone fosters a nurturing and bonding between mother and child. The hope is that they can also use this to foster the same type of bonding between the host country and the immigrants. I guess they haven’t watched the movie Serenity yet. Reavers, here we come! Thanks to reader T.J. for the link.

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Saturday – September 02, 2017

September 2, 1969 is the day that the first automatic teller machine (ATM) made its first public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York. While being as indispensable to most people as cell phones and e-mail, they have introduced a whole new set of issues. Consumers are faced with scams, skimmers, and robbers, and even fake ATMs have been discovered.

Earthquake and Power Out Experience in the Philippines- Part 1, by S.B.

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This was my experience with a mild earthquake and a power outage in the Philippines. Amazingly nothing was damaged by the quake. I expected some things to tip over. Latest reports say it was a 6.5 quake. The epicenter was about 15 miles away. It was stronger than other quakes I have experienced here in the past eight years. Also, immediately after the main quake, there was a long slow side to side rocking motion for several seconds. I never felt that before. We also had 10 or more aftershocks. A local man who is about 50 said it was the strongest quake he has ever felt in town.

Generator and Fuel

Generator and Fuel Status Upon Event

At the time, I had two 5-gallon containers of gas and half a tank in my generator. I needed to get one empty 5-gallon can filled, but I had not done it. I expected that two cans should last three or four days. My generator started easily. I was lucky because I had not started it in more than a month.

Generator Fuel Status Now

I now have four new gasoline cans with modified caps. So now, I could run 2.5 days for the full 24 hours or 7.5 days of only eight hours a day.

Water

Water Status Upon Event

For water we have a 1000 liters (250 gallons) in our main water tank. This is part of our water system. City water does not run in the morning. So, if you want to have water in the morning you need to store it at night. That is what this tank is for. I also have three plastic 50-gallon drums cleaned but not filled. Next time I will have filled them. I have voltage regulators for everything! Voltages fluctuate a lot in the Philippines. Every hardware store and department store sells them. I ran the generator and the AC until about 10 PM. In the past, the neighbor had complained about the noise.

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The Editors’ Preps for the Week

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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 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!  This week’s focus is on Hurricane Irma preps.

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,

Summer has come to an end for us here at the Rawles Ranch. The children started back to homeschooling on Monday. Obviously, this takes up the bulk of our time in a day. This year our children are variously studying Biology, Chemistry, Algebra and lower maths, American History and Documents, American Literature, Current Events and writing position essays, Latin, Hebrew, Shakespeare, Reading through the Bible/Christian History/Literature/Apologetics/ Discernment/Eschatology, Philosophy, Spelling, Cursive, Review of English Grammar, World Geography: drawing, labeling, memorizing, and piano. Several of these subjects we do all together as a family and the other subjects they study by themselves.

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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”. Hurricane Harvey continues to remind us of why we prep. We need to evaluate our preps in light of stories we hear.

Gas prices

The Colonial pipeline was shutdown due to issues caused by hurricane Harvey. The pipeline supplies nearly 40% of gasoline in the south with a capacity of 57.5 million gallons of gasoline per day. The company has stated that they expect the pipeline to be back up and running on Sunday. This is an example of how fragile our transportation system actually is. We all know how dependent we are on the trucking industry. If the trucks quit rolling, people starve. What happens when the pipeline is damaged and it takes months to repair? What if the backup/competing pipelines are damaged? Thanks to reader W.W. for the link.

Reality TV

Mike Williamson, SurvivalBlog’s Editor at Large, sent in this article on the backstory of the failed “Eden” reality survivor show. The shows intention was to create a Utopian paradise isolated from the world. As it turns out, they failed on both accounts. Eden wasn’t so isolated with cast members sneaking out at night, quitting the show then returning and eventually even making demands for modern amenities. It wasn’t a paradise either as there was much strife between participants. (It is “reality” TV, you know. Where would that be if there wasn’t drama.) Half of the cast quit and some even came near starving to death. It certainly stands as an example of the clash between the romantic side of survival and the harsh reality of actually surviving.

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Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young; you shall certainly let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, in order that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.” – Dueteronomy 22:6-7 (KJV)

Guest Post: A Discussion on “Bugging Out”, by Max Alexander

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Let’s have a discussion today about “bugging out”. This is in fact a huge topic and often discussed across the prepper-sphere. There are many aspects to this and a detailed discussion, including the debate about “to stay or to go” is written up in “Contact! A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival. The issues, pros, cons, and mistakes around this are further illustrated in the collapse-novel Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises.

Foolhardy Bugging Out On Foot

Given the breadth of the topic, my plan today is to focus on the idea of bugging out on foot with a “never coming back’ mindset. Much has been discussed before about the problems of trying to survive in the woods, or of becoming a refugee, and I think that there are a number of issues with the idea of trying to bug out from your home base carrying a huge load on your back. So much so that I believe the idea of trying to bug out on foot with a huge load is foolhardy. Let us examine why.

None of us know what form and extent a collapse, or event, will take. For the purposes of this post, let us assume that something serious has happened that has us staying in place at a location that is our home base, or retreat location. Thus, we have already gone through the decision making process of an initial “get home” or “bug out” to a retreat, or attempt to stay in the suburbs, et cetera. Related to this is the idea of attempting to use whatever vehicles we have available for any sort of move that we make. We still do not know exactly what will befall us, but our assumption here is that we are now at our prepared location and we are surviving in place.

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Freeze Dried Friday:

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Welcome to Freeze Dried Friday on SurvivalBlog! We’ve been making so many things in the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer that we want to share some of them with you. If you have something wonderful you’ve prepared in your freeze dryer that you would like to share with SurvivalBlog readers, take a photo of it and send it in along with a description. We might just feature you here!

No More Eggs!

We fired up one freeze dryer this week. Normally, I would run milk or eggs while waiting for produce to run in the machine. However, we didn’t make it to the store this week for milk and we have quite enough scrambled eggs. When you hit fifty-eight quarts of scrambled eggs, you start asking the question “Do I really need to freeze dry more?” Instead, we decided to offer our eggs for sale. It would appear that the going rate for organic brown eggs is $3/dozen. Why brown eggs are more expensive than white eggs is beyond me. Since about half of our chickens are Easter-Eggers, the customer can get a dozen straight brown or a dozen of mixed pink, blue and green (pastels). It’s a bit funny watching someone see the colored eggs for the first time. City-slickers!

I’m about done with those Easter-Eggers though. As cute as the eggs are, the hens are about as flighty as they come. But that’s a story for another time.

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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’s focus is on zinc.  (See the Commodities section.)

 

Precious Metals:

To begin, over at Zero Hedge: Grant Williams: “History Is About To Repeat Itself Again… And It Might Get Ugly”

o  o  o

Hub Moolman in South Africa: The Amount Of Dollars In Existence Relative To The Silver Price Points To Much Higher Prices

Stocks:

Mexico approves new stock exchange; aims for start early next year

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Provident Financial set for demotion as FTSE loses ground

Commodities (Zinc):

In the midst of the overall soft commodities market, the one year chart for zinc stands out.  Perhaps a precursor for the other base metals?

o  o  o

Video: John Kaiser: The Zinc Price Will Go a Lot Higher Than People Expect

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U.S. natural gas sees bumpy trade in Harvey’s aftermath

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Preparedness Notes for Thursday – August 31, 2017

August 31st, 1992 is the day that Randy Weaver surrendered to the Federal Authorities, ending the 10 day siege on Ruby Ridge. This is the incident that preceded the Waco siege and is known for the unconstitutional rules of engagement and overzealous actions by the jack booted thugs of the federal authorities that resulted in the death of two innocent people– Sammy and Vicki Weaver, Randy’s son and wife. It is notable that Randy was acquitted of all charges except missing a court date and violating bail conditions on an ATF sting operation where it is suspected that Mr. Weaver did nothing wrong but that the ATF informant altered the shotguns sold to him by Weaver resulting in Weaver’s arrest. In addition, the missed court date was due to clerical errors on behalf of the court. All involved Federal agencies were publicly reprimanded, and the state of Idaho attempted to press charges against some individuals for their actions but were stymied due to federal interference.

A Response to Going Analog, by M.G.

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Selectric Typewriter Security Issues

Back in the 1970s IBM was required by at least one of its customers to make some options available for Selectric typewriters because they discovered the Selectric design was susceptible to electronic eavesdropping that could determine what the typewriter was printing. As it turns out, mid-’70s electronics were capable of detecting not only the unique electronic signature of individual typewriter motors but also measuring the load incurred by that motor during character selection from the main power feed outside the building. So, it’s possible that even using a mechanical electric typewriter for written communications may not be as secure as we think.

Typebar typewriters, both electric and manual, do produce a typeface “signature”; so actually does a Selectric typing element– the “ball”. However, it’s trivial to change elements. Were someone to use a Selectric for secure communications I’d suggest, depending on the level of security required, one typing element be reserved and used only for that purpose. The elements are metal-coated plastic and will burn, although there will be some metal remaining, assuming it is not melted.

Regarding Selectric-type ribbons, you have pointed out that the correctable film ribbon can be very easily read; so can the correction tape. Even the fabric ribbons can be read, although it’s much more work than the film ribbon. As an FYI, typewriters of all types will leave impressions on the platen (the rubber roller the paper goes around), with typebar machines, especially manuals, leaving the strongest impression. I do not know how long those impressions remain readable, but I know some impressions can be readable in limited form for a day.

Continue reading“A Response to Going Analog, by M.G.”

Letter Re: Search Engine Privacy and Security

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Good day Sir,

I want to reference to a topic which could prove of great importance. A situation where the loss of personal liberty and freedom occurs. There are some that believe that we are in that situation currently.

I browse the Internet for news and factual information, much like earlier times when a person would pick up a newspaper. I have in the past used “Google” as my primary “Search Engine”. To my understanding and experience, my search results are cataloged and referenced. When I do searches through “Google”, I am bombarded by advertisements that seemingly reference my previous search preferences.

An example

Case in point. I had been doing a search for cold weather sleeping bags, and nearly every site I visit contains an exact advertisement to a choice that I in fact have already purchased.

I have recently switched over to the “Epic privacy browser”. Their site states their browser does not divulge your personal IP Address to your Internet provider. To my understanding, your personal “IP Address ” is the same as a person’s mailing address.

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