Preparedness Notes for Sunday — August 18, 2019

August 18th is the birthday of Meriwether Lewis, an American explorer, soldier, politician and public administrator that is best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. An interesting side note is the Girandoni Air Rifle carried by Lewis during that expedition.

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 84  of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A $3,000 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 gift certificate from Quantum Harvest LLC (up to a $2,200 value) good for 12% off the purchase of any of their sun-tracking models, and 10% off the purchase price of any of their other models.
  2. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  3. 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,
  4. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
  5. 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).
  6. 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. Good2GoCo.com is providing a $400 purchase credit at regular prices for the prize winner’s choice of either Wise Foods or Augason long term storage foods, in stackable buckets.
  2. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  3. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  4. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  5. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  6. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances.

Round 84 ends on September 30th, 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.




5 Comments

  1. I think the death of Lewis is quite interesting.

    At first the official explanation seems quite plausible. A man is a hero in a heroic expedition, then his life stalls if you will, he gets depressed and commits suicide.

    What bothers me is a suicide with multiple gunshot wounds. If he did commit suicide, he must have been one tough, determined man.

    What was he headed to Washington to report? Something routine or something earth shaking?

    I put this in a category with our four presidential assassinations. In other countries, all throughout history, powerful political opponents have assassinated leaders on a fairly regular basis. In the US, we have experienced assassinations only by random, pretty much fringe individuals. Powerful people do not assassinate our Presidents. With the Lincoln assassination, the official account has a small conspiracy of nobody’s. With the others it was lunatic individuals. With the Reagan attempt, the would be assassine was once again a lunatic individual supposedly with no connections to any of Reagan’s political opponents.

    Are we “fortunate” in this regard or have we always been very good at controlling narratives?

    I don’t know. But I increasingly subscribe to the old saying, “Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see.”

    1. “With the Reagan attempt, the would be assassin was once again a lunatic individual supposedly with no connections to any of Reagan’s political opponents.”

      Well, not quite. John Hinkley Jr. was the son of very close family friends to George H.W. Bush. You remember him, Vice President under Reagan and former CIA director under Carter. The same G.H.W. Bush that was one of the CIA team in Dallas on November 22, 1963. This is not “conspiracy theory”, it’s just a true fact. If the facts lead to a conspiracy, so be it. G.H.W. Bush was indeed a political opponent of Ronald Reagan, even as his VP, he was still an opponent. The shooting wasn’t meant to kill, it was meant as a warning. If TPTB actually wanted Reagan dead, Hinkley would have used a .45 not the .22 that he used.

      The Bush crime family, like the Clinton crime family, have a lot to answer for.

      1. I am familiar with the Hinkley link. Whole libraries have of course been written about the irregularities in the Kennedy story. There are irregularities similar to the Hinkley link in the Garfield and Lincoln stories as well. I have never studied the McKinley assassination so I don’t know if that story is questionable since I don’t know the story.

        Regarding Lewis, there was a lot of blood shed in the colonial period between the Spanish, French, English and American colonists. I was reminded of this during a trip to Florida last may where I viewed some art recording some of the battles between Spaniards and English early in Florida’s history. Very bloody encounters. With all the early conflict who knows what Lewis may have run into or what information he may have stumbled across or what?

  2. I am in the middle of the book, Out West by Dayton Duncan, about his journeys following the trail of Lewis and Clark. Although he is sometimes cute in his writing, he is often spot on.

    Duncan’s recounting of the history of the people The Corps of Discovery encountered is well written.

    Carry on

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