Thursday, March 31, 2011

We Have 31 Associates...

So, anyone that wants to receive some interesting PDFs and other E-mail exchanges, you have to shoot me an E-mail so I can establish the list. I have T.T., Joe. S., Joe E., K.C., Grizz, T.J., AC and I think it would be best for the rest of you folks not mentioned to shoot me that E-mail, please.

Look in the links section, to the right, on this blog. Go to my website and shoot me an E-mail through the website. In the subject line, just put "SURVIVAL LAB LIST." Tell me what your name is as a Associate/Follower on the blog and what your name is and I'll shoot you a mail back.

I have to say this because of the world we live in and the nature of the Internet. I don't know many of you. Some of you, I have known for years. So, please try to put yourself in my shoes and what I am doing combined with human nature and please try to understand the following and don't be offended by it.

I'm not doing this, "going private" in a way, because I'm a "closet racist" or "domestic terrorist" or trying to establish "contacts with like-minded" people who are racists, bigots, terrorists or wannabe badasses and other bullshit of that nature.

I am not a member of any organization, legal, illegal, whatever. I don't want to be a member of any organization or "movement" or ANYTHING of that nature. I am a registered republican but that is basically meaningless at this point in my life. I'm not a member of The Tea Party and I don't want to be, I'm not a member of the Constitution Party or anything like that. Not interested in any of it, either.

If you are a republican, democrat, libertarian, that's fine with me. Tea Party? Whatever, I don't care.

What I don't like and don't appreciate are authoritarian control freaks - public sector or private sector - I don't care which. Please, move on. I don't like all of the klan/neo-nazi bullshit and, I don't like those who see a neo-nazi, a skinhead or a klansman behind every tree (or politically incorrect or unpopular statement), either. Those people are WORSE than the people they "investigate." They all need to get a life.

So, the idea is to put forth good survival information. It's nothing that would be earth-shattering, per se. But I have had a lot of stuff lifted and I'm just sick of it. It's also easier to do it this way.

If you're in, you're in. If not, it was good knowing you. 8-)

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A few pages I wrote about six years or so ago...

I kept them concealed because of a couple things I had to say that and I didn't want to get into the whole mess again with some people online.

The Eden Tree was all about the forbidden fruit, right? I just sent out links to these simple pages to friends, most of these friends knew I got doinked on a couple designs by other people. I figured I would put it up here and see if anyone finds any value in them.

They were also sort of the death knell of me writing about self-defense issues. If people want to believe that whatever they are into is going to save them above and beyond anything else, that's fine.

There was a time when I was a lot more altruistic. Most people thought I was just on a powertrip. There was some ego involved but I really did care about people taking some goofy or stupid martial arts class and learning something that would get them killed on the street.

I care about smart people who reject dogma, popular opinion, trends, fashions and conventional wisdom.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

War is a strange thing...

Once again, we see "democrat start war, war good..." But the other side of that is..."Hmm...republican start war, war bad..."

Why isn't Cindy Sheehan all over the nightly news now? Hmmm...I wonder... Could it be that the media...no...it couldn't possibly be that the media is actually in cahoots with the democrats!!! No, that would be paranoia, wouldn't it? Perish the thought.

And people eat up the rhetoric and the promises of "change" and the rest of that B.S., like candy to a child on Easter morning.

Friday, March 25, 2011

What is your focus when it comes to survival skills? Also, what would you like to see?

When it comes to "survival," what is your focus and what would you like to see?

If I know about it, I will write about it. If not, perhaps we will find out together.

Japan: Two Weeks In...

Everything is settling down...the warning has gone out that residents of Tokyo who have infants should not give their infants tap water. Tokyo is, if I remember correctly, over 100 miles from Fukushima. Not good. There is also bottled water rationing going on now.

I don't think regular people will ever know the full scope of this disaster, all we can hope is to get bits and pieces of valuable information.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The DVD List...

is a good thing. I will put up entries from time to time on some of the DVDs listed but not all of them. All of them have value or they would not be there. The order is a rough order, depending on what your focus is.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Coast to Coast AM, Alex Jones, etc...

I had a person E-mail me through my website and asked me why I don't have a link to Coast to Coast AM, the old Art Bell Show, and Alex Jones' websites "InfoWars" and "Prison Planet" on my website and my blog. (Not the first E-mail about this, either!) Especially since I have cited elsewhere that this is where I discovered Gerald Celente and Frosty Wooldridge, among other people that I pay attention to. (To clarify, I heard of both of them on Coast to Coast AM when I used to work midnight shift...)

The reason I don't have links to them is simple: there is so much negative baggage associated with Coast to Coast AM because of all of the UFO - Alien Abduction shows that I don't want to link to it because the first thing people think is, "He believes all of that stuff..."

Because...I don't.

I don't know if there are aliens but I know I went to see "Battle L.A." the weekend before last because it looked like it was going to be a good movie. It was and it's entertainment.

When I know someone interesting is going to be on Coast to Coast AM, I listen to the show. Otherwise, I don't. It's really that simple. I have better things to do with my time than listen to some lunatic rambling on and on with these fantastically stupid tales. Hour upon hour of audio dementia about various species of aliens and which President really knew about it all and entered into secret deals with the aliens so they could check our innards with telescoping ass probes like some demonic proctologist.

Or, babbling incoherently about numerology for over an hour.

Alex Jones and InfoWars and Prison Planet?

Where do I start?

About the time that Alex Jones was finishing up High School, I was already hearing about mobile guillotines on tractor trailers traveling through Montana to some secret location. Ostensibly so United Nations troops could round up all the Christians and behead any of them that would not deny their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. All you had to do to hear such stories was go to a gun show.

You could read the fliers about VHS videotapes that had all of the "proof" of these things.

When I was a Cub Scout, I remember going to a church one evening and they showed us a movie. It was called, "A Thief in the Night." That was probably about thirty-three years ago, so I might be mistaken, it might be one of the sequels to "A Thief in the Night."

Nonetheless, it was one of the three movies in that series. I guess this is where the whole "guillotine" propaganda originated. Ah, the good old days, back around 1977 or so.

By the way, I'm not kidding about this guillotine stuff. I actually saw that movie in the Cub Scouts and actually remember reading the handouts at gun shows in the early 1990s.

There are actually places on the internet, wonder of wonders that it is, where you can actually read where people think they suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from watching "A Thief in the Night" as a young child. This country is so obsessed with mental illness, most people cannot wait to be diagnosed as being crazy. I mean, this is pretty sad really. It's becoming like a status symbol.

Anyway, when I hear the latest twist on hidden U.N. troops or mobile head-choppers or FEMA internment camps or the long laundry list of secret government projects and nefarious plans, I really don't get riddled with anxiety. I'm sorry. This has been going on for years, the talk and the rumors.

There are plans in place, and they have been in place for decades, for "continuity of government" in case of nuclear attack or something on that level. Or whatever they deem to be a "National Emergency" on such a level that they should initiate these plans.

If they will take a Citizen's home and give the property to Pfizer (Kelo Decision) by using Eminent Domain and The Supreme Court of The United States agrees with it, it's pretty safe to say if there is a major disaster in this country they will do just about anything they want to in order to preserve their way of life. I know some people will be wondering how I talk about "continuity of government" and end up talking about the Kelo Decision, it's very simple. It's about government power.

(The Kelo Decision is just about the most blatant example of corporate welfare and crony capitalism gone mad.)

The government serves itself. It doesn't serve the people and has not served the people in decades...maybe a lot longer than that.

Another thing that a lot of people on forums are not discussing is the fact that the government, in the case of some massive disaster, can basically show up with refugees from whatever area and relocate them. To your small town or perhaps the field in your backyard. I'm just mentioning this because it's on the periphery of the whole "FEMA internment camp" issue that people talk about.

Alex Jones is right about a lot of things. In fact, a frightening amount of things. I just don't want to be linked to all of the stuff that is being ranted about that is on the fringe...sometimes the lunatic fringe.

If people want to judge me by what I write, well, that seems fair enough. If they want to judge me by what I believe, well...also fair. Although I don't always communicate as well as I think I am at the time of expressing views and opinions and upon reflection tend to wish I would have said something different or differently, I don't want to be judged via guilt by association. Of course guilt by association is unfair but that never stops people.

I do believe that so many laws are being passed for two main reasons:

1. So the every day common person will find it very difficult to navigate them without running afoul of them somehow. The more people that have a criminal record, the more people they can exert even greater control over.

2. Money. Even if #1 is "nonsense," #2 cannot be denied. I think it's both of them actually, a great two-fer for them. Money-money-money, increased fines for everything.

When Red Light Cameras became all the rage so every jurisdiction could rake in the cash, they set the yellow light for a shorter duration to catch more "Red Light Runners." More fines.

The companies that made the cameras and serviced them, along with the jurisdictions that passed the laws and had them, they laughed all the way to the bank. They did it for our own good, don't you know? Because as you might have already guessed, someone running a red light does pose a great danger to everyone. Someone gets T-boned by someone flying through a red light and crippling injury or fatality is oftentimes the result. Unfortunately, by shortening the duration of the yellow light, they created "The Dilemma Zone."

They sold their money making scheme, otherwise known as "Red Light Scameras," to "save lives." They created more accidents that were rear-end collisions because people were being nailed and fined because of the shorter yellow so the people started slamming on the brakes when the light turned yellow and the car behind them would plow into them.

Now we have "Speed Cameras" and laws being passed. And laws about using a cellphone or texting on a cellphone, which really is a problem. But like mandatory seatbelt laws, the concept that one of these politicians really "cares" about you or your family is a sick joke. It's all about the money, these people are not altruistic.

So, I look at everything, the continued militarization of police departments, the over-use of Tasers, even on kids, law enforcement and their cheerleaders saying, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" when it comes to every new intrusion on our private lives. You name it and they're doing it.

And, law enforcement is also not fond of the camera being aimed at them. Apparently their own rhetoric about, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is lost on them.

So, I'm incredibly pessimistic about the future of our country and what freedoms we are going to have in just another decade. It appears as though they have out-Orwelled - George Orwell. Evey year it is something else. Another law, another rule, another regulation. Another fine, another fee, another toll, they're non-stop. It just keeps coming and coming and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight for all of this, the vise, the pressure cooker. And you, the regular, every day person, are the target of their efforts.

Even the Department of Transportation has expressed a positive attitude towards tracking you via GPS and taxing you, per mile driven. That is something else Alex Jones was talking about six years ago and everyone thought he was nuts. LPRs - "License Plate Readers." Jones spoke of them around the same time and, again, people thought he was either making it up or was being an "alarmist" about something that law enforcement was never going to use. Well, they're using it now. He also spoke at great length about our highways being whored out to the private sector...toll roads. It's not enough that you get charged all of these fees and taxes every step of the way for owning a vehicle, not enough that you pay tax on the fuel, not enough that you get taxed for your labor...they just keep finding new ways to squeeze and liberate more and more of your money from your possession.

If Alex Jones would just turn his Nonsense Discriminator on the maximum level, I would link to him. But for now, too much stuff that is being thrown around all the time is too much for me. Same with Coast to Coast AM, but the content I don't want to be associated with is different when it comes to that show.

Coast to Coast AM can do great things when it comes to informing people about survival kits and, from time to time, they will have a show on about that.

Unfortunately, the subject matter experts they usually have on are more well known for other subjects on the show...like UFOs...aliens...alien abduction...giants.

"Giants," you ask?

Yes..."giants."

I would like to hear, for once, someone on that show for hours telling people why they need a good knife and the ability to start a fire under adverse conditions and a host of other real survival topics instead of the generic lists for survival kits. What is your first line shelter? The clothes on your back. Things of that nature.

I'm still waiting for that show.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

AP's Todd Pitman in Japan

Todd Pitman reporting from Japan, this is a great read and much too short. Oftentimes on forum threads, you will see these lists of survival items, especially for urban and suburban disaster scenarios. Being a journalist, he has a few other concerns as well. I have one of the power inverters he is talking about, very important item to have.


"We have survived mostly on snack food — peanuts and potato chips and canned coffee scavenged from mostly empty street-side vending machines. When we found one small food store open, it's dwindling stocks already plundered, we bought everything left that we could fit in our car — raw sausages, dried squid, bread."

Saturday, March 19, 2011

More On Nuclear Power Plants

I was reading more about nuclear power plants in general and The Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in particular. Since this would be the one that could cause me to have to evacuate if something goes wrong.

There was mention in that article that The Chesapeake Bay acts as a heat sink for the power plant. So, this might be why Fukushima was built near the ocean and why so many of these types of plants are built near water.

I am 100% Pro - Nuclear Power. I think we should be building more of these power plants but I think only having one backup pump for the cooling system is almost ludicrous. The same goes for generators that would be so critical to run the pumps to begin with.

I also don't believe much of anything that Constellation Energy or Baltimore Gas and Electric have to say about anything.

As far as I'm concerned, electric power and natural gas in this country should be nationalized and take the profit out of all of it. Is that a "great" idea? No, it's not, but it sure beats being held hostage out of the mad profit monsters in this game. Ditto for all of the speculators in oil causing prices to climb.

Sorry, I'm not much of a "conservative" anymore on a lot of issues. But it's pretty hard to take the hits I have taken while watching companies that have been doing the hitting continue to pay their executives all of these high salaries and bonuses while lobbying local government for more corporate welfare and to allow them to screw consumers.

Posts Per Page

I had boosted it up to 50 posts per page so people didn't miss anything. I just knocked it back down to 30 posts per page. So, don't forget to hit the older posts button at the bottom of each page if you are visiting for the first time.

Japan: "Faith"

I'm not an engineer or nuclear physicist. That should be obvious, right? Still, I am saddled with this quandary when it comes to nuclear power plants. I have about as much faith in the media as I do in government. Basically, none. I guess when either one of those entities does something that makes them trustworthy, I'll have a little bit more faith in them. That having been said, I can only go by what I have watched, listened and read about Toshiba's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

They have the main (primary) water coolant pump and then the emergency (secondary) coolant pump - for each reactor.

Since the impact to the environment and the populace from meltdowns and partial meltdowns can be so horrific, why did all of these great scientific minds only decide to have one backup coolant pump? I mean, even if this is per reactor, that is still woefully deficient when you consider what can happen when your emergency pump fails.

It's sort of like parachuting. You have your main and your emergency reserve, right? Well, anyone that skydives realizes that if their main fails and the reserve fails, they are a dirt torpedo - they're going to die. A person, the skydiver die, singular. Nuclear reactor emergency plan fails, many die, plural. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. Maybe more.

Why did they build this power plant in such a low-lying area in the first place? Japanese engineers did not realize that the word "Tsunami" is a Japanese word?

The Great Chilean Earthquake of 1960 was a 9.5 and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.

Just back in 1960, not ancient history.

The 51st anniversary is coming up on us fast. Some of the local Tsunami waves from this earthquake were 82 feet high. Think about that for a moment. The Tsunamis from this quake destroyed Hilo, Hawaii. Six-thousand miles from the epicenter, the waves from the Tsunamis were 35 feet high. Japan also received Tsunamis from this earthquake.

The Japanese engineers are to be praised for the earthquake resistance of the design at Fukushima. It actually withstood an earthquake much more powerful than it was designed to withstand.

Unfortunately, that doesn't quite make up for the short-sightedness and lack of study when it comes to Tsunamis. The Fukushima plant was commissioned in 1971, just eleven years after the aforementioned Chilean earthquake which locally created Tsunamis up to 82 feet high.

So, it's no great leap of logic to think that this could happen in Japan or am I mistaken?

If you cannot use salt water to cool the reactors without damaging them, what is the rationale for building such a sensitive power plant basically at sea level? This just doesn't make any sense at all. Sure, if there is a desalination plant adjacent to the power plant to convert sea (salt) water to fresh water, that would make some sense but not enough to trump the fact that this is a Tsunami-prone area and one where 30-85 feet high Tsunami waves could be anticipated because it did happen before elsewhere.

So, we all look at the footage with awe and horror, at these waves over 30 feet high, smashing through everything. Imagine 82 feet high waves, would there have been anyone left to fight these reactor fires for the last week had that happened?

It would seem that all nuclear power plants that only have single emergency coolant pumps and single emergency generators for those pumps, that this should be increased dramatically. Why not have multiple emergency pumps and generators?

Of course it would increase the cost of the plant. You know why equipment like that is so expensive? Because it's worth it, that's why.

You cannot plan for every possible combination of terrible things a disaster could bring, but it seems you could lessen the damage by not building these plants in low-lying areas and whenever one is built in the future, it should be built on higher ground or far enough inland that only the most incredible disasters could touch it. I mean, we couldn't really prevent an asteroid from striking whatever ocean and sending a massive Tsunami into whatever area, but we can plan for what we have already experienced.

Another thing is planning for disruption in water flow to the pumps. All of the emergency pumps in the world and generators to run them won't make any difference if there is no water to pump. I don't know about other countries, but The United States is littered with water tank towers. Communities have excellent water supply and pressure thanks to these. A few of these ringing the area to supply the emergency pumps might be a good idea. If they could not be earthquake-proofed due to their height, then build them lower and let the pumps do the work, at least the water would be on tap for the plant.

I know that you cannot possibly plan for every contingency and as I said before, the Japanese really need to be congratulated for the earthquake-resistance the power plant had. However, it seems to me that when these types of power plants are planned and then built, very little thought...no, let me strike that out, not enough thought is put into what has happened in the past and what might happen in the future.

We have a lot of faith in science, including medicine. I have read many debates on forums - the religious folks battling it out with the atheists. There is a funny thing about atheists. A lot of the time, they bring in science and medicine as some type of ultimate tool of winning debate. Let me tell you something, absolute blind faith in science and medicine will enslave and kill all of us just as absolute blind faith in religion could enslave and kill all of us. Science and medicine have become new religions to many people. Faith in things that are still created and controlled by easily corrupted people.

Not to get too far off track...my Wife suffers from ovarian cysts from time to time. One time she had such a terrible flare-up they though that she had appendicitis and they actually removed her appendix...only to discover that her appendix was fine and that it was her ovarian cysts flaring up.

A couple years later, she had a return of the pain and went to see her primary care physician. Indian lady, seemed nice enough at the time. This "doctor" ignored every, single thing that my Wife had to say about her lower abdominal pain and then went on to sing the praises of Lipitor. She wanted to push Lipitor on my Wife without so much as a blood test to check for cholesterol issues, etc.

A few weeks later, my Wife collapsed at home and started vomiting and I called her primary care physician and got her on the phone and we then got into an argument about my Wife EVER having ovarian cysts! This is what I was told on the phone, "I did not diagnose her with these..."

This "doctor" was obviously getting some type of kickback "rewards" program[1] for pushing Lipitor and even when it came to the health of her patient a few weeks later, it was as if she didn't even know her. If it wasn't about putting her on a drug so she could get a cash reward or a free trip to the Bahamas, she wasn't interested. So, we fired her ass. But you know what? This sort of corruption is everywhere. Not all Doctors, but enough of them that you should not have faith in them anymore. When you look at the hospital or a doctor's office, you should see a fast food restaraunt. It's just a business.

And today's entry has been about "faith."

At this point in the development of our species, I have about as much faith in science and medicine as I do in religion. Not much at all.

[1] By the way, representatives from pharmaceutical companies do have bennies they give out to doctors for prescribing their medications. Just in case you didn't know. So, doctors can be rewarded for writing more prescriptions for certain medications. Oh, yeah, by the way, police do have ticket writing quotas to meet as well. Maybe not in all departments, but in most of them. Yes they do. When your job performance is measured in how much paper you produce and you don't produce much paper, that's called, "poor job performance."

Friday, March 18, 2011

Japan: Seven Days Later...

Well, it's been a week.

Read this: "He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were.", it's a very in-depth page. Interesting admissions, interesting pictures...

I knew they were lying about it. Governments lie over things they don't even have to lie about, over trivial matters. So, when something really bad happens, it's not a great leap of pessimism to expect them to lie about that, too.

Just a word about pessimism. The pessimist is basically looked down on. Our country, our society, as well as others, is based on a constant level of positivity. Big used yacht salesmen smiles, sunshine and puppydogs. Not a rainy day or a three-legged, one-eyed dog in sight. We can't even refer to as a used car as a used car anymore! We're so entirely full of shit - they're referring to used cars as "pre-owned cars." Yeah, no shit, Sherlock, ya think? What did the prior owner do with it? He drove it, didn't he? Sort of makes it a used car since the prior owner used it. But used car sounds so low-rent, so negative, so pessimistic, doesn't it?

Pessimism, to me, is simply expecting the worst and preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. That's it. When something goes wrong, I already figured it would so it's less of a pain in the ass or a shock to the system in any event. But if it doesn't go wrong and everything is OK, great! That's a win I didn't expect.

I didn't sit here for a week and believe all of the used yacht salesmen with the reassuring statements.

Like I wrote days ago, the moment they said it would not be a Chernobyl level event, that is precisely what I figured it would be. A little less or much more, same ballpark. It's not going to be "Chernobyl" because these disasters are very unique.

And this is not some concealed liberal versus conservative or republican versus democrat statement, either. They all lie. Apparently it's their job because it's all they're really good at if you look at the performance of governments over the years.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Reality...Our Fragile Systems...

Life is a struggle. And the further we get from the struggle of finding food and making shelter and creating warmth, the further we get from reality and the closer we get to being so dumbed-down and stupid that we can't survive whenever there is a belch in our life-support systems.

I admit it, I love the fact that we have the medical science that saves newborn children with severe medical problems who would have died just two decades ago. What is not to love about that? It's wonderful!

I like movies and music and books. I don't just "like" these things, I do love them.

I know, "survivalist types" are not supposed to like things like movies and music. They're supposed to shun things like MP3 Players and Ipods, etc. I like my MP3 Player.

I love the fact that I can flip a switch and have light in the middle of the night or turn a knob and fire magically appears and I can have a can of safe and nourishing chicken noodle soup whenever I want it. But I always keep in mind that these things are supported by very fragile systems. Our systems are not robust. We have been very lucky...very fortunate.

From time to time, we see glimpses of reality. They oftentimes have names. Names like Camille, Agnes, Andrew, Hugo, Katrina, Ivan, and Rita. Tornadoes don't have names, but they have dates, locations and Fujita Scale designations. Locations become the thing of legend for those who survived them, places like Xenia, Ohio and Mattoon, Illinois.

Hurricanes have the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale but we name them, so the names are remembered along with their "Category" of power via that Scale.

Earthquakes? Richter Scale designations go along with the locations, Loma Prieta and Northridge and many others. And then we have the Tsunamis...don't we?

The 2004 Indonesian Tsunami which killed over 200,000 people. The current, unfolding horror in Japan - the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.

Volcanic eruptions...some ancient, like the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum from a massive eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

The massive explosion of Krakatoa. In more modern times? Mount Saint Helens.

How many people are aware of the Yellowstone Caldera or Supervolcano?

Most Americans have heard of the San Andreas Fault. How many know about the New Madrid Fault?

Then we have manmade disasters. Sometimes they are coupled with a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina followed by the failure of the Levee System in New Orleans which turned the natural bowl that is New Orleans into what some people referred to as a "toxic bowl of soup."

Then we have human error or stupidity as was the case with the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill or hubris and avarice with the Deepwater Horizon or B.P. Oil Spill.

The Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal, India. The meltdown at Chernobyl. The partial meltdown and successful containment of Three Mile Island.

Then, a natural disaster that becomes so much worse when the human element, the ever-present fragile system...fails...as we see with the current Fukushima Event.

Then there are the incredibly strange events like London's Great Smog of 1952 which killed 4,000 people in London. Four-thousand people or "Lake Overturn" or Limnic Eruption. "Exploding Lakes," add that wonderful phenomenon to your ever-expanding disaster lexicon.

The Blackout of 2003. When this happened everyone wondered how one substation could take down such a massive portion of "The Grid."

Survival in Urban and Suburban areas is basically snubbed by most people writing about "survival" on forums and websites. Sure, there are a few, but at the core of most of those pages you see the hawking of gold and silver or seeds...which is the real focus of the writing.

Not all, but most people who are writing about "survival" are writing about "wilderness survival." Again, this is fine, I'm interested in that as well. Or, they are writing about primitive living skills and holding that up as the answer to the problem of surviving. The large flaw, perhaps the fatal flaw for some of these folks is, you would have to put yourself into a situation like that. It won't naturally occur unless you hunt, fish, hike, camp or do some combination of all of them, in a remote area.

You are much more likely to encounter some other type of disaster and then...to be caught up in that disaster or some other event on the periphery of it and it won't be by choice. It will just happen. But these problems are, as I said earlier, basically snubbed by the survival folks. Some of them like to make fun of the whole Urban and Suburban element to survival.

So, what I wanted to try to do with this blog is write about that. That doesn't mean that I won't talk about surviving in the wilder areas, but I wanted to talk about surviving in a wide range of areas. Years ago I put up this article that this guy wrote, The Joys of Being Homeless. I don't know what happened to Jerry Leonard, but he is the guy that assembled all of that information and I just wanted to save it for as long as I have a website.

Seven years ago, that's the date at the bottom of that article. A long time. I've been beating the drum for a very long time. So, this is nothing new but a lot of people think it is something new for me. 8-)

So, what is your own threat assessment for the area you live in?

I left non-hurricane and non-tsunami flooding out of the hyperlinks up above! Should I bore you and include some of them as well?

Flood-prone areas, a large concern as well. There are so many things you have to look at and then adjust your preparations accordingly.

Do you live near a nuclear power plant? What would you do if the unthinkable happened at that plant? How about a Hydroelectric Power Plant...a Dam?

Do you live near a major interstate or railroad tracks? Do you have any idea what flies down the roads and rails on a daily basis? One goofball does something in traffic around a tractor-trailer tanker full of chemical nastiness and you might have to evacuate...a train derailment with multiple tankers of chemical nastiness...have you thought about this?

Societal collapse...tyranny in infancy...so many possibilities.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Kelly McCann's "Combative Pistol"








I am not even going to address the handgun fighting aspects of this video. Kelly McCann's background, who he is and what he created in The United States Marine Corps is enough of an accomplishment.

What this video is, beyond the handgun material presented, is a look into prison and street knife attacks. McCann and The Late, Great Bob Kasper boiled down some of the most nasty knife attacks and then Kelly McCann created a close-quarter handgun system based on that.

In the video, he demonstrates the use of the knife to show the crossover to the handgun.

That is very, very valuable to anyone wanting to learn how to defend against edged weapons or how to use a knife under the most dire circumstances. This video is a perfect compliment to the aforementioned videos and I highly suggest you purchase it and study it.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Japan's Fukushima Plant - evacuation of workers...

"The government has ordered some 140,000 people in the vicinity to stay indoors. A little radiation was also detected in Tokyo, 150 miles (240 kilometers) to the south and triggered panic buying of food and water."

That entire statement is a hyperlink to the story.

It's so predictable nowadays. From the very start with the reactor's emergency pumps failing and the remarks about this situation not being another Chernobyl made me wince. It's getting to the point where if you are told by the media not to worry about something specific, that is precisely what you should be worrying about.

I hate to be so pessimistic, I know people like to say that statements like that are the thing of "tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists," but what do you say, or do, when the negative side of things is the reality? Just shut your mouth and listen and do as you're told?

I think we should be building more nuclear power plants, not shutting the ones that we have down. But we certainly need to be smarter instead of building them on coastlines or fault lines and the other madness that we have been doing for years.

"We" meaning "mankind" and not just The United States of America, or Japan or the former Soviet Union, etc.

More on Japan...

2,000 bodies wash up on the coast yesterday. Three explosions in as many days and then, this morning, BOOM-BOOM-BOOM, three of them, I don't know how far apart.

Aftershock earthquakes that are quite powerful have been going on all along, impressive from a scientific point of view, terrible for the people trying to survive this and those on-scene helping them. All with the specter of breathing in radiation.

Now, here is the most important part to remember - because governments lie constantly so people don't panic, including on the West Coast of The United States, and because anti-nuke activists are used as scientific experts on all of this as it unfolds, even on FOX News, YOU CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT ANYONE HAS TO SAY ABOUT ANY OF THIS.

They were very quick to say that Fukushima would not become the next Chernobyl. A little too quick to be believed.

Will Tokyo become the next Prypiat? Only time will tell now, but nothing looks very good or hopeful at the moment.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Japan...

With the meltdown of multiple reactors looming, everyone is playing the threat down so no one panics. Which is typical. The West Coast of The United States is now threatened by whatever radiation released.

Japan has over 10,000 dead and counting and over a half million people are homeless.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

The Poor Man's Plumpy'nut and More...

I need to give you two warnings about the following information.

I don't know about longevity and safety issues of do-it-yourself (DIY), made-at-home recipes of anything involving dried milk products. So, if you decide to make a batch of home-made, "Poor Man's" "Plumpy'nut", I would not keep the finished product outside of a refrigerator. I also don't know how long it will last inside the refrigerator but to be on the safe side, I would treat it like leftovers (three (3) days) if you have added dried milk to it.

If you end up in the hospital with some type of food poisoning because you did not heed the warnings given, you accept full responsibility for your own actions. I also cannot control the cleanliness or lack of same with your mixing utensils, etc.

The other warning I would like to give you is this, this is a very powerful concoction and if you eat a lot of it, you might have to butter your hips to get your quickly-widening ass through your front door. This stuff is a very powerful emergency ration. It's not something that you sit around and eat while watching television.

"Plumpy'nut" was developed by a French Pediatrician as a food for use in famine-stricken countries.

While I don't have the formula for actual "Plumpy'nut", I can tell you what I have tried at home. It is tasty and it's no wonder it turns around severely malnourished children on death's door in a matter of a couple or a few weeks.

This is the incredibly simple recipe:

1. Dried (Powdered) Milk
2. Peanut Butter
3. Honey

That's it! Isn't it great? Purchase some Dried Milk, Peanut Butter and some Honey and whip up a small batch in your kitchen and try it out. You can mix it just about any way you want to, it's very versatile. Start out with a cup of dried (powdered) milk and a cup of Peanut Butter and about a quarter cup of Honey. Add more Honey as required. Just start mixing it up until it is mixed well and you should have a very, very thick goop and, VOILA! You have Poor Man's "Plumpy'nut"!

You can also use Nutella, Ovaltine or Nestle's Milo added to the ingredients or in just about any combination that your taste buds find appealing.

All of these ingredients with the exception of the powdered milk don't have to be refrigerated. These are all basically dry goods that you can use and then put back in the pantry, right? Honey, Peanut Butter, Ovaltine, Milo and Nutella don't have to be refrigerated once opened.

I'm also not a chemist or some type of food safety specialist so I don't know the long-term ramifications of combining these foodstuffs together and leaving them together for long periods of time.

I do know that if used carefully, this is a very valuable list of ingredients to have in your pantry in case of emergency. It could save your life. In the future I want to run some experiments with a Rival or Tilia Brand Food (Bag) Sealing appliance and see how everything turns out. I'd also like to contact powdered milk manufacturers and find out about the safety of that material once the foil envelope is opened and the product is added to these other ingredients and re-sealed in another air-tight bag.

My entry on Honey from over a year ago is a must-read for survival food information as well.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Explosion at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plent

Versatile Tools for Survival

You can spread peanut butter with it. You can slice the sandwich in half with it on the diagonal when you are done...with it. You can open a box with it. You can cut the tape when you are sealing up a box...with it.

We are being dumbed down. We are being turned into a more primitive people because of childish fear and hateful bigotry and stupidity.

The Knife.

Yes, former pro-football "stars" can kill their ex-wives and the friend of the ex-wife with it. Violent, hardcore felons can use it to settle scores or impose their will on their fellow inmates with it. And, yes, as unpopular as it might be in some areas of the Internet to discuss it, it can be used to save your life in a self-defense situation.

I cannot understand the myopia that some people suffer from when it comes to this stuff. Whatever you have available to you, you should be able to utilize for self-preservation. I cannot understand how people can be interested in "survivalism" and not want this capability. Yet, I see it all the time on forums and on websites.

Some of it is simple protectionism. They value knives highly for survival purposes and anything that casts a dark shadow on knives, real or perceived, giving them a bad reputation, is viewed as negative and not only something to be avoided...but attacked. They don't understand that the best way to protect the right to own, carry and use the knives of their choice is to legitimize their other uses as well instead of trying to appease the control freaks who want to ban everything. Because you're never going to sate the control freak's appetite for power.

As Winston Churchill so brilliantly explained the dynamic - “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last."

That's why so many duck hunting NRA Members wrote in to The National Rifleman, the NRA's monthly magazine, during the debate over "assault weapons" back in the 1990s, saying that they were going to cancel their membership to the NRA if the NRA continued to protect politically incorrect firearms like "assault weapons."

And, yes, some of them don't like handguns, either. It was "protectionism." Nothing more and nothing less. They hoped to save their precious shotguns that they use to hunt fowl with by throwing the rest of the gun owners to the political wolfpack that is always waiting in the wings to ban another class of firearm until they are all ultimately gone from the hands of the Citizenry.

And this is why you should also not flee in terror from the words "survivalism" and "survivalist." The root word of both is "survival." So, when you acquiesce to the demands of the control freaks and you bend to their philosophy of demonizing the people they wish to control, you give them even more power.

Legitimize survival. We have become so politically correct that we have to defend variants of the word "survival." Don't you find that rather disturbing?

The control freaks will never stop thinking the way they do. You can call yourself a "prepper" or whatever cute term you can think up, it is what you are doing that they find so offensive. Things like "self-defense" and "self-reliance" are anathema to the authoritarian control freak.

Back in December, I wrote this blog entry on Jeff Snyder's incredible essay, A Nation of Cowards." You can find it here.

In that entry, I quoted a website which quoted former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and I shall do so again right now:

"Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark calls gun ownership an insult to America: 'A state in which a citizen needs a gun to protect himself from crime has failed to perform its first purpose.' Clark denounces this kind of society as a return to barbarism, and anarchy, 'a jungle where each relies on himself for survival.'"

Can you believe it? What about survival kits? The same thing could be said. It's an insult to governmental control freaks that you should have the capability of surviving without their help. They want you helpless and totally dependent on them for your every need. That's power.

And so it goes with knives and especially talking about using them for self-defense. There are some people that simply collect knives and they might use them once in a while but by and large, they are nothing more than Lionel toy trains or Barbie Dolls to them. They are some of the most nasty people on forums when it comes to discussing these things. The other main group of people use knives as tools, in their work or out in the woods. Using them for hunting, fishing, hiking and camping. Some of them are vehemently opposed to discussing knives as weapons. While they are a more respectable lot than the pure collectors, they are still getting it wrong.

Of course, there are those that think it's just stupid to use a knife for self-defense. Which, of course, is a stupid opinion to have.

I'm not saying knives are "better" self-defense weapons than firearms. I'm saying they are viable and there are some situations where they are the only realistic alternative to a firearm. Or, if you have it with you because you spend a lot of time in the woods, why not learn to use it for self-defense? Why carry something around that has the potential to do so much more and then just decide not to do it? It doesn't make any sense to me at all.

The Stick.

To be cold and calculating about self-defense, taking firearms out of the self-defense lineup for a moment, it is better to knock someone unconscious quickly than it is to use a knife. A cane or a walking/hiking staff is an excellent self-defense weapon because it has the ability to simply knock an attacker out. You can do the following:

Strike them to dissuade them.

Systematically disable them, up to and including breaking bones.

Render them unconscious.

Choke them out.

Restrain them.

The simple cane or hiking/walking stick has all of the utility in the woods that these tools are known for plus they have this incredible capability as a self-defense weapon. The stick also possesses a precious commodity in self-defense: the ability to keep someone at a distance. If you get skilled with the cane/stick, you can do that with all but the most skilled of attackers.

I would much rather face law enforcement, be it a regular police officer or a park ranger, after a self-defense situation and have to explain that I had to thump someone (or multiple attackers) with a hiking stick than use a knife.

This is pragmatic and realistic with all of the fantasy eliminated. Logical and reasonable. But that does not mean that I would not use a knife if I had to. It really doesn't do you any good to be the most politically correct dead person, does it?

So, if you are really interested in surviving whatever life may throw at you, I think you should be able to use anything you can get your hands on in a self-defense situation. Even if you have a firearm on you, even if you have a carry permit, it doesn't matter. Learn to use knives and sticks as well. It only makes sense.

The life you save may be your own.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Kelly Worden's "Practical Knifefighting For Personal Protection."










"Practical Knifefighting For Personal Protection" Volumes One and Two by Kelly Worden

After all of these years and so many training videos released by so many people, these two videos remain the best "Nuts and Bolts" training videos as far as I'm concerned.

There is a whole line of thought that it is impossible to learn from a video. For most people, that is all too true. I started out wanting to learn how to use two things because of a job that I had. I wanted to learn how to best use the ASP Telescoping Baton and edged weapons.

The reason was very simple, I had a very dangerous job that used to not only allow employees to carry a handgun open or concealed, but they encouraged it. One anti-gun corporate weasel who would rather shed crocodile tears at the needless death of an employee instead of giving them the tools that would give them a fighting chance put an end to that.

So, I already knew what I needed. I needed Filipino Martial Arts (FMAs) training and I sought that out. I was disappointed because what I needed, I needed in a short period of time. I didn't expect to "master" what I needed in a short period of time, but I needed to start learning it NOW, not weeks, months or years later.

I was in an Arnis Class and things were going at a snail's pace and what I learned was valuable but I had been reading for years about Dan Inosanto's thoughts on FMAs and I thought that was the way to go. The reputation of FMAs when it came to sticks and knives was solid and that's what I wanted.

Unfortunately, the guy running the school had other priorities and one of them was Tae Kwon Do. I had already been through the whole Tae Kwon Do and Tang Soo Do thing when I was a teenager and I was simply not interested in it. But that was the cash cow and if you didn't cough up the money and get into that as well, you just were not going to get what you wanted.

So, I learned what I could and I was frustrated and eventually I left that school. A few years later I started reading about James Keating and Kelly Worden and after a while and some rave reviews in Fighting Knives and Full Contact Magazines, I started pouring some money into those materials. And what I learned was amazing. Now, I already had the all-important understanding of the footwork from FMAs, I was already skilled to a degree. I just needed the knife-specific material but I couldn't obtain it. I mean, I didn't just want it, I had a legitimate need above and beyond the legitimate need of a regular Citizen wanting to learn these arts. I didn't want it for cultural reasons or as a hobby, I wanted lifesaving skills.

So, my advice to you is, as it has been a constant coming from me for years, you need to get into a Filipino Martial Arts class. You need to learn that and then, if you are not getting what you want out of it or, you want to take a look at other people's movements, then you can go and purchase material like this.

These two videos are an awesome foundation, bedrock, to lifesaving skills using edged weapons. I know that other "names" in "knifefighting" have criticized Kelly Worden for some of his materials over the years. It's really easy to do when you are putting out stuff that's demonstrably not as good, trying to knock down your competition. Or, more cowardly, you send out your students and your online fans to basically stalk and harass your competition. Now, isn't that low? I've watched it for years.

A lot of people think you need to spend years and years and years in this stuff, to learn how to tear someone to pieces in a few seconds. It's simply not true. As one Pekiti Tirsia Instructor told me years ago, Doctors, Surgeons, spend about a decade and a half learning to put people back together that have been shot, stabbed, cut, beat up, stomped or torn apart in car accidents. Why should it take that long to learn how to tear the body apart? That's wisdom. This is a science, but it's not rocket science.

Likewise, our wonderful friends on the street and some that eventually go on to serve prison time, what about them? They're pretty effective at what they do and what they do is victimize some of the most violent and paranoid people on the planet - their fellow prisoners. The only kids they put through college was their lawyer's kids, not some martial arts instructor. So, you don't have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to the guy who has the knowledge you want anymore, you don't have to stroke his ego and kiss his ass. You can pour your foundation and then go your own way and build on it if you are serious.

If you can only afford two DVDs on using an edged weapon for self-preservation, these would be the two to purchase. They are that good.

The World Ends For Many Japanese

Waves 22+ feet high moving with the full force that such a seismic event can propel it, three miles inland in some places. Entire villages wiped from the face of the earth. People dying on film, trying to run from it. Oil refinery on fire and a nuclear reactor dangerously close to melting down. The scenes look like a Roland Emmerich film, but it's real.

Rearranging the Blog and Adding Lists, etc.

Just doing some housecleaning and adding some other elements.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Book, yeah, no kidding, "How To Shit In The Woods..."




"How to Shit in the Woods" by Kathleen Meyer is the treatise on how to relieve yourself in the woods. If the word "shit" offends you and you are put off by it, you're really missing out on an excellent book. The book is actually all about the importance of water purification and if you are "into survival," you really need to pick up a copy. Sure, it's funny, how could it not be? But it is a very serious book on the subject. The more genteel forums won't even discuss this very important topic because, well, they're offended by everything, not just the word "shit."

We need 7 more Associates

We need some more folks. 8-)

Monday, March 7, 2011

The Membership Drive For "Followers" Continues...

If you find this blog to be valuable in your preparations or if you simply enjoy reading it, please choose to "follow" it.

I search for new twists and information on survival related topics and I see a whole lot about buying gold, silver and seeds. I see a whole lot of "inside" information on Wall Street games and other things that have to do with investments and other things and how that relates to the current mess we are in and what might happen in the future.

Are you really out there buying K-Rands and bags of old silver coins? Really? Is that type of information which is so readily available nowadays really that valuable to warrant such a vast audience?

But then I see the BIC lighters and the common stuff that everyone already knows about and because Joe Smuckatelli thinks he has it figured out, he then shares that information with the world. 8-)

If 75% of the people who read this blog would officially "follow" it, we could make this a powerhouse together.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Would Anyone Be Interested In This?

Establishing an E-mail list where we could all communicate and swap pictures and information, etc.?

It sure beats forums and it wouldn't be the end of this blog or my website but would just be something extra.

The one thing that I would like is for anyone interested in this to join this blog, "follow" it, I hate that term, and post in the comments section of THIS post.

I would greatly appreciate it.

Don

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

A Good Read...

So here is an interesting article by John Robb of "Global Guerillas." A few years old but well worth reading.

"The Coming Urban Terror."

Links Gone...

Survival Today...it doesn't look like much of any real substance is being offered at this point in time.

EDC Forums, intellectual dead zone along with a couple other forums that are supposed to be survival based but are really, really lame in that regard. Picking through the camping section to get the Ozark Trails Wal-Mart brand matches isn't exactly conversation-worthy.

No time for nonsense.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

"Freegans"

I found this over on the ESEE Forum. Things rapidly deteriorated and the thread was locked.

There might be some valuable information on that website. I certainly don't agree with many of the views expressed on that website, but, times they are a changing. You never know, might be my way of life two years from now. :::shrug:::