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’s feature is on government overreach, coinciding with today’s contest entry article.

Government Overreach

Reader H.L. sent in this article showing how three teenagers were handcuffed and detained for selling bottled water without a permit. She adds: “Please read carefully and understand how you are not free in America! As a child on our Vernon, CT farm Dad raised many great vegetables. I was at the roadside under the huge sign that said “L*******’s Farm”. I had a card table and umbrella, selling vegetables to passing motorists! It was not to make money, but that was not the point. Dad gave the neighbors extra vegetables, and we froze and canned lots and lots, but nothing went to waste. We gave some surplus to the pig and the turkeys. We sold the fresh picked surplus. It gave me, a shy child of 7 or 8, a chance to deal with adults and learn to make change!

Everyone benefited! Today, in most of America, local politicians shut down anyone, even young folks, from selling things. Often, it’s because they did not have an expensive permit! It is just another way for the towns and cities to tax the heck out of us. To throw their weight around. In many places you cannot even make cookies or some treats in your kitchen and give them away without a Health Dept. inspection and a permit, never mind trying to sell them to raise a little money to support your family.

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day

“For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” Romans 14:11-12 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Saturday – June 24, 2017

June 24th the birthday of rifle-toting abolitionist pastor Henry Ward Beecher. (Born 1813, died March 8, 1887.) He and his adherents from his church smuggled so many Sharps rifles to Bleeding Kansas that the Sharps rifles picked up the nickname Beecher’s Bibles. Wikipedia states: Several of his brothers and sisters became well-known educators and activists, most notably Harriet Beecher Stowe, who achieved worldwide fame with her abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

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I heard that fellow blogger Commander Zero just had an emergency appendectomy. (His appendix burst.) Please pray for a full, rapid recovery. Some details can be found at his Notes From The Bunker blog. – JWR

Preparing for a Flood– Part 3, by S.G.

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For the past two days, we have looked at risk management strategies for floods in Part 1 and Part 2. Today, we conclude with the final risk response strategy and the final step in Risk Management– Risk Monitoring.

Scenario 4: A flood has happened.

The water has peaked and is now receding. You may be in several positions now. If you left early enough, then you got out in time with your bug out gear and family intact. Your house condition is most likely unknown, but regardless the area is quarantined and you won’t be able to get back for days or weeks. If you left by the skin of your teeth while watching your house torn off its foundation, you may have almost no worldly possessions left. Or maybe you stayed, braved the flood, and now your house has survived but unfortunately the rest of your neighborhood was destroyed and now you are trapped since the bridges and roads were washed out. There is no electricity or gas, and raw sewage is flowing across your yard.

How you proceed will depend on your situation. Hopefully when you look at those scenarios you can see which are more ideal. Pretty much any scenario not involving bugging out early has put you in a situation with less control. Remember, the best risk management strategy is Avoidance. Bugging out early can avoid many worse scenarios than staying in.

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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 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 also welcome you to share your planned activities for increasing personal preparedness in the coming week. (Leave a Comment with your project details.) Let’s keep busy and be ready!

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,

This has been a delightful summer week, here in the Northern American Redoubt. The weather was sunny with seasonal temperatures in the mid 70s- low 80s, which were perfect for outdoor work/living.

Jim completed one of the plumbing and electrical projects this week. There is one more plumbing project to do sometime in the next two weeks. He gathered in a large pile of four foot logs which will need to be gang-cut and split.

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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”. Since today’s focus is on the USS Fitzgerald collision, we’ll start with that.

Politics

The Democratic psychosis continues this week with several prominent Democrats saying the dumbest things. A Nebraska Democratic party official was removed from his job after a recording surfaced of him saying that he was “glad” that Representative Scalise was shot. It wasn’t enough though. He continued on the recording saying “I wish he was [expletive] dead.”

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Reader H.L. sent in this article detailing that at least 30 GOP congressmen have been attacked or threatened since May! Some have only received death threats while others have been accosted in public spaces as well as their own homes. Several have had their homes vandalized. Only some of the offenders have been arrested, but many have not.

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Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them: and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation. Numbers 16:31-33 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Friday – June 23, 2017

On July 23, 1942, The Nazis continued their reprehensible and criminal behavior by making the first selections for the gas chamber at Auschwitz on a train of Jews from Paris.

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If you’ve been thinking about getting into Ham Radio for emergency communications, this is a good weekend to start. The Annual Field Day starts Saturday and many clubs will set up stations at public parks and locations. Sometimes they even feed the visitors! Check your local paper as most will run a classified ad or have a small write up. Learn, make friends, and most of all, have fun!

Preparing for a Flood– Part 2, by S.G.

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Yesterday, as we look at preparing for a flood, we started discussing risk response strategies for floods. Today, we pick up on the fourth risk response strategy.

Strategy 4: Mitigate.

Mitigation is when you make deliberate actions to reduce the severity or likeliness of an uncertain event. We are going to spend a lot of time here, in four sections. These will focus on what to do in four timeframe scenarios.

Scenario 1- A flood may happen sometime.

The best time to prepare for a flood or any emergency is well before it happens.

Most people, when it comes to flooding, are primarily worried about protecting their property. In my opinion, this is looking at the situation backwards. Your property is there to protect you, not for you to protect it. So any modifications or preparations you do to your property are for the benefit of your safety, not its. As such, the most important preparation you can make to your property is the mental preparation to leave if you need to.

Continue reading“Preparing for a Flood– Part 2, by S.G.”

Economics & Investing for Preppers

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Here is the latest economics news and investing news.  We cover market trends, stocks, and the precious metals markets. We also discuss hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on the oft-interviewed hard money advocate Peter Schiff.


Precious Metals (Peter Schiff):

First up, there is this video:  Peter Schiff on Gold, Trump, QE, & Potential Recession. Schiff predicts that the Fed will be forced to revert to ZIRP. (Zero Interest Rate Policy.) He also says that QE4 is on the horizon.

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I’ve found that the timeframe adjustable charts at Bullionvault.com are quite useful.

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Editors’ Quote Of The Day

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“Let us suppose for a moment that the harder virtues could really be theoretically justified with no appeal to objective value. It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that a ‘gentleman does not cheat’, than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers. In battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment. The crudest sentimentalism … about a flag or a country or a regiment will be of more use. We were told it all long ago by Plato. As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the ‘spirited element’. The head rules the belly through the chest – the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.

The operation of [much modern education and curricula] is to produce what may be called Men without Chests. It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence. It is not so. They are not distinguished from other men by any unusual skill in finding truth nor any virginal ardor to pursue her. Indeed it would be strange if they were: a persevering devotion to truth, a nice sense of intellectual honor, cannot be long maintained without the aid of a sentiment which [many modern students] could debunk as easily as any other. It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so.

And all the time – such is the tragi-comedy of our situation – we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” – C.S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man

Preparing for a Flood– Part 1, by S.G.

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A Real Flood Disaster Crisis

With seconds left before a disaster in the midst of a flood, David Phung made a daring decision. He jumped out of the safety of his boat and onto the roof of a Mazda Miata that was rapidly sinking into a swirl of muddy brown floodwater. Using his bare hands, he ripped the roof open just in time to pull a drowning woman from her car, and then he went back to save her dog. [1] David’s heroism saved the woman’s life and was a striking example of the kind of spirit American’s are known for when it comes to helping their neighbor.

Watching the video of this rescue during a recent flood in Louisiana triggered all sorts of alarms in my mind. First off, why was this woman driving around in a Mazda Miata, which is not well known for their water crossing abilities, during a flooding situation? Why was she unable to free herself from a manually operated roof that had both release snaps well within her reach? Her willingness to put herself in an extremely dangerous situation without proper understanding of her own equipment would have led to certain death without other people stepping in at their own risk to save her.

Continue reading“Preparing for a Flood– Part 1, by S.G.”

Letter: 2016 U.S. Census Implementing Massive Invasion of Privacy

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Dear Sir,

Last year we were contacted that we were chosen to be a part of the 2016 U.S. Census. This is a year-long census where you are contacted at intervals throughout the year. It is monthly and then there is a break of a few months and then back to monthly. Some months they come to your home for 20 to 30 minutes of questioning and other months they call you for follow-up questions. We now have three more to go. Last night was the most invasive to date. I was shocked at the personal questions I was being asked. I was asked all the normal questions. How many people live in this house? Do you work and where? How many hours a week do you work? What is your annual income? Years of college? What are your certifications? They asked the “normal” questions, but then…

Banking information:

  • Did we have a checking and a savings?
  • Did we use the teller, the ATM, online banking, or phone banking?
  • Do we transfer money from account to account via online baking or with an app on our phone?
  • Were there any loans we had applied for over the last year– auto, mortgage, credit card, et cetera
  • Had we applied for a Pay-Day Loan?
  • Had we pawned anything?

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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”. Since today’s focus is on the USS Fitzgerald collision, we’ll start with that.

USS Fitzgerald Collision

Something Fishy

Reader T.P. sent in this article that explores the concept of the collision being a deliberate act of sabotage or terrorism. The container ship was apparently running without lights and transponder (against maritime rules). The article, however, is based upon an alleged email from a Navy mother whose son was aboard ship. For now, this has to be classified as a rumor, but it’s an interesting angle in today’s world.

Possible Explanation

Reader T.P. also sent in this article from a retired navy destroyer captain with some plausible explanations of just how such a collision could occur with no evil intent. This article has some very good information on right-of-ways, radar, lights, and maritime traffic. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

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