Preparedness Notes for Monday – October 23, 2017

On October 23rd, 2002, around 50 Chechen rebels stormed a Moscow theater, taking 700 hostages during a popular musical. After 57 hours, during which two hostages were killed, Soviet Special Forces pumped a powerful narcotic gas into the theater knocking the terrorists and hostages unconscious before breaking in through the walls and roof. When the dust settled, most of the rebels and 120 hostages had been killed.

Springfield Armory TRP Operator 1911, by Pat Cascio

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The Springfield Armory TRP Operator 1911 is one of the best of the best 1911s available, at any price, and we’ll report our results from testing in this article.

Bear With My Sad Story

Bear with me, before I give my findings on the TRP Operator 1911 in this article. This is a sad but somewhat humorous story about the start to my testing this outstanding 1911. I received the TRP Operator 1911 from Springfield Armory during the past winter. Before testing this gun, I noticed that the Tritium front sight wasn’t glowing at all. I have had this happen with more than a few brand new guns out of the box. It’s no problem; a call was placed to my contact at Springfield and a replacement front sight was on the way through next day FedEx.

The day the new front sight was to arrive, we had one terrible freezing rain in our area. Schools should have been closed, as the roads were hazardous, to say the least. I planned a trip to the local gun shop to have them remove the defective front sight and would return later that day after FedEx brought me the replacement sight. I knew our front steps were ice-covered before I walked out the front door. My wife alerted me to this when she left for work.

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Recipe of the Week: Potato Leek Soup, by K.M.

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(Approx 2-3 hours prep time)

I use our 23-qt. canning pot to make a big batch and fill it to the brim, as everyone in our family enjoys this recipe. It usually only lasts two or three days among our family of five, and almost all of the ingredients can be sourced independently (e.g. from your own garden or farm). You can add/subtract a portion of the water, broth, milk, or potatoes to the recipe to suit your needs.

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. bacon
  • 3 lbs. potatoes (approximately; any variety will do; I prefer fingerlings, as they stay firm in the soup, and it’s what I grow in my garden.)
  • 4-6 large leeks, diced (using all of the white portion and a little of the green)
  • 2 large yellow onions, diced finely
  • 1 qt. heavy cream (can substitute milk, but…mmm… heavy cream!)
  • 48 oz. chicken broth (bullion will suffice)
  • parsley, salt, and pepper, to taste
  • optional: 6 oz pepper-jack cheese, 6 oz cheddar cheese, 4-6 stalks celery, cabbage, bok choy, green onions

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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 making money buying and selling vacuum tubes. (See the Tangibles Investing section, near the end of this column.)

Precious Metals:

First on today’s roster:  Lawrie Williams: What now for precious metals?

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Why Is Silver Really Lagging Behind Gold?

Stocks:

Shiller P/E – A Better Measurement of Market Valuation.  We  are again approaching the over-valued levels last seen during the dot.com bubble of 2000. Beware!

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CNN: Meet the bears predicting stock market doom

 

Commodities:

Jerry Gulke on Agricultural Commodities: Markets Disappoint Despite Trump’s EPA Reversal

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For anyone who wishes to watch ag commodities closely, I recommend: Commodity Week Podcast.

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Commuter’s Get Home Bag, by M.M.

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Packing a Get Home Bag

How do you prepare a get home bag when you commute more than 100 miles each day for work? Let’s for a moment presume that you have no idea that some sort of event is about to happen that will render your job irrelevant, your vehicle useless, and your location being close to your office, to which you commute each day, when it occurs. How and what in the world would you consider packing in a go bag and then heading home?

I received a perfect example of your travel day changing due to a recent hurricane. Hurricane Irma forced a mass migration of Floridians to flee the storm and caused all the local roads to be choked. All of my alternative roads were jammed with those trying to get back home to Florida. The entire downtown area was affected because of some folks overloading the local roads. Tempers flared, and driving skills devolved to a sad state of traffic flow. Imagine three roads into town backed up beyond capacity.

Are you planning to shelter in place at your office? You’re not if you have family at home and are confident we just got hit by a CME or EMP. I work in a metropolitan area, and that will be the last place I want to remain.

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Letter Re: Compound Interest on Debt

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HJL,

I was going to leave a short comment but this deserves wider exposure.

Amen to all that about debt in the Zero Hedge article. Compound interest is not your friend if you are paying it. I bought into leverage for asset acquisition. Robert Kawasaki (intentionally incorrect) has a special place in my heart or is that some place much lower… It is a serious mistake not to take the income sheltered by depreciation and put it toward loan principal reduction. When you hit 50 and want to be out of debt the cold reality hits that profit and income must be earned and taxed to reduce principal. Practically speaking, you have to earn 140% of the principal in order to pay it off because you have run out of depreciation and you are in your prime earning years and therefore in a higher tax bracket.

The creepy part is to be personal guarantee element. Even if you have just one asset still financed you are vulnerable when SHTF. After every economic disaster there is a wave of lawyers and opportunists that buy up delinquent financial instruments for pennies, add legal fees to the tune of 300% of the original debt and then go to court to get judgments in Federal court. Understand that the retainer for a defense lawyer in Federal court is $10,000. At that point they just take assets that are paid off.

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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”. Today, we are focusing on the North Korea bizarre diplomacy measures this week while their nuclear test site is in danger of collapse.

North Korea

North Korea has obviously bought into the media propaganda about President Trump. They believe him to be a crazy, wild man with an itchy finger on the nuclear trigger. The Pyongyang regime has sent bizarre letters to the Australian government to appeal for help in pressuring Trump. The letter to Australia’s Parliament also included an open letter to parliaments around the world. Trump Derangement Syndrome strikes again.

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One of the reasons China has closed off much of it’s border with North Korea is because of the underground nuclear test site. Similarly to nuclear test sites in the United States and Russia, North Korea’s test site, Mt Mantap is suffering from Tired Mountain Syndrome. As footage of the September test has been reviewed, the mountain can be seen visibly moving and multiple earthquakes have been experienced in this previously stable location. The fear is that as the mountain collapses, it will release significant radioactive components into the air.

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” – Matthew 24:43-44 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Saturday – October 21, 2017

Safecastle has launched their new site that you should check out when you get a chance. As part of the upgrade, they have discontinued the lifetime membership and instead are using an annual membership model. However, they are extending the lifetime memberships to SurvivalBlog readers. To take advantage of this offer, you need to register at their site (https://www.safecastle.com/account/register) and then email them at site@safecastle.com and mention “SurvivalBlog Free Lifetime Membership” in the Subject line. They will then upgrade your account for free (A $49 value).

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What I Learned Living Through Harvey, by M.S.

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I’ve lived through several disasters and learned some thing. The worst events, in my experience, were the World Trade Center attack, Hurricane Sandy in New York City, and then most recently Hurricane Harvey in Beaumont, Texas. South East Texas was hit with life threatening, devastating rain fall, which put entire cities under water, turned towns into islands, and crippled the municipal water system of Beaumont. The following is a list of lessons I learned during this experience.

1. I’m not overly paranoid.

I’ve been freedom oriented and interested in prepping for a while, and many of my family and friends think I’m just being overly paranoid. I was hoping this was the case, but unfortunately it’s not.

2. Every disaster, natural or otherwise, presents its own challenges and obstacles.

One common issue is self defense as well as defense of one’s family and belongings. This was a continual struggle while I lived in NYC, since although I managed to obtain a pistol license (which was an incredible challenge), my NYC Pistol License did not allow for carry outside of my residence. Once I moved to Texas, I immediately obtained my concealed carry license. Although I’m guilty of not carrying 24/7, it was certainly comforting knowing I have the ability to carry a gun for defense in instances such as a disaster or crisis. Everyone in Beaumont couldn’t have been nicer, perhaps because no one got to the point of desperation. However, I still carried, and I’m glad I did, just in case it got worse.

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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!

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,
This week we had some beautiful, beautiful fall weather followed by a huge windy rainstorm that caused many in our region to lose power for about 12 hours; We’ve had continual rain since that day. Whenever we lose power our SOP is to immediately call the power company to let them know about it, then we fill water containers from our faucet until the water runs out. This is for drinking, cooking and hand washing, only. We usually get less than 10 gallons from the faucet. (We do have some bottles of water stored and we also have a shallow well hand pump near the house and the river flowing through our property. But water from the hand pump and river will need to be filtered and brought to a near-boil.)

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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”. The onslaught against the Second Amendment continues and the Middle East Tensions are on fire again. I’m starting to get whiplash from looking east and west so quickly.

Second Amendment

The Democrats have now added a 3 day waiting period and Tannerite regulations to the bills waiting in the wings of the House. Refer to the Preparedness Notes for Wednesday – October 18, 2017 for a list of these proposed bills. Note that it is still the case that not a single one of the proposed bills, nor any of the existing laws on the books would have stopped the Las Vegas tragedy. This is clearly a case where the Congress (including Republicans) is pushing a gun control narrative and using this horrific shooting to justify their actions.

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The Legal Brief has posted a video about the gun control onslaught and what we are up against. They break the proposed legislation down and give you a good overview of the bill and the real-world issues the proposed legislation will cause. In any case, the laws only affect law abiding citizens. Those who would commit atrocities such as the Las Vegas shooting would simply ignore these new bills just as they ignore existing gun laws.

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

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.” – Isaiah 54:7-8 (KJV)