Archive for the 'Survival' Category

Mike has a number of recommendations, and especially interesting is the links he provides at the bottom of the video.  I have my own preferences (e.g., for hatchets), and I notice no link for bush saws.  But there’s a lot of good recommendations for comms, med kit supplies, water filtration, and other needful things.

It never changes from year to year.  It’s always the same.  A Hiker goes out in the woods in California and is haunted by mountain lions for a long night.

A Man goes hiking in Tennessee hasn’t been heard from in a week.

Know your topography.  Carry a compass.  Have maps.  Carry a heavy rubberized poncho.  Carry a parka.  Use high quality hiking boots.  Carry cordage (I intend to purchase Amsteel cordage rather than 550 cord).  Carry a large bore handgun.  Carry plenty of water and a filter.  Carry energy bars.  Carry a knife, and carry a headlamp or tactical light.  Carry fully redundant, independent means of fire start.

Even if you’re going out for the afternoon.  One afternoon can turn into a week alone.

This is very long, but worth every second of it.  Ed talks about using things around you in innovative ways.  He has learned to improvise, adapt and overcome in the worst situations imaginable.

Only Red Bull could give you something like this.

I wonder what he does for fun?

Oh good.  Another protracted Paul Harrell story.  Get a cup of coffee and sit back.

I have a family member who lives in Austin, Texas.  This is a video he sent me (he didn’t take it, but is near where this video was taken).  This video is a couple of days old.  This line was about a mile long as guessed by the videographer.  There are no more lines like that because the grocery stores are out of food.

The trucks haven’t been able to run, so the shelves are bare.  Worse, the water system is torn apart by freezing temperatures, and water is off to most of the city.  There is no potable water, there is no more food.  There is now a run on gasoline, and the stations are quickly running out their tanks.

Power is off throughout vast portions of Austin and in fact throughout much of Texas.  It would be easy to write an essay about the power situation, but denials that the rush to natural gas and windmills is at least partially responsible are wrong.

The windmills are frozen, and the CTs (Combustion Turbines) sit above ground.  They are frozen solid and cannot operate.  Solar panels are covered with snow and ice, and besides, wouldn’t be capable of supplying the industrial base with enough power even if they could operate.

While there is a lot of research in next generation nuclear (like Molten Salt reactors) occurring at ORNL and ANL, and that’s nice, it wouldn’t have been necessary to wait on that.  PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) and BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) technology is mature and safe.

The problem is that no CEO wants to invest money in nuclear power because the tax incentives are so significant for solar panels.  But the only source of cheap, clean, mature energy that can supply an industrial base with power is nuclear.  Unless, of course, they intend to move the industrial base to China (which is in fact investing huge sums of money in nuclear) and then beg for scraps that fall from the master’s table.

My family member is safe and sound with copious supplies for everything, and I told him that the only people who would have been prepared for something like this is preppers.  He responded that people do in fact listen to the government and that had a warning come out in time to concern yourself with potable water, run water into bathtubs, get freeze dried foods, visit the grocery stores, get batteries, get medical kits, stock up on ammunition, get charcoal and be prepared to grill, have enough water to flush toilets, and so on and so forth, the people would have responded.

I told him that he had misunderstood what I said.  I meant that the only people who worry about preparations like this without being told to by the government is preppers, and that he was prepared because we talked about this sort of thing before.

He agreed.  Most of America is 24-48 hours from starvation and dehydration.  If the water system and/or electric grid goes down, people must be prepared for that.  Preparation isn’t just for the Northwestern redoubt, with all due respect to the folks at the Survival Blog.  In fact, it may be more difficult in an urban area like Austin than it would be in Idaho, weather notwithstanding.

I’ve used cotton soaked in Vaseline before as a fire starter, but usually kept it in some sort of jar.  I like the idea they present.

Field & Stream.

Even seasoned outdoorsmen are not immune to woods shock-the fear that accompanies spatial disorientation. You have to control the urge to panic and maintain some sense of inner peace. People who are lost progress from confusion to denial. They bend their mental map of where they think they are until it conforms to visible landmarks or their compass needle, and then they carry forward until they finally wake up to what their senses are trying to tell them that they’re lost. This is when panic hits. If you can recognize the sequence, you and a better chance of resisting the impulse to take those next potentially fatal steps.

Stop walking and establish a home base. If daylight permits, you can make forays to try to find a vantage, but mark a trail for your return. If you can’t regain your bearings after short walks in several directions, return to your home base and make camp, preferably in a lee with an overhead canopy.

I think this is the most important advice.  The other parts (about waiting for rescue) are debatable.

In fact, I wouldn’t even begin forays from home base.  If you’re lost and you know it, stop.  Set up camp.

Build a debris hut, lean to, or some sort of survival shelter, and begin collecting deadfall for firewood.

Better yet, it may end up being a wet night and you may die from exposure.  I’ve always recommended at least the following (even on a day hike): rubberized poncho, 550 cordage, flashlight, fire starter, large knife (or hatchet), pistol, parka, energy bars and potable water.

Water and food keep you alive and give you energy.  The poncho and paracord give you shelter from the rain.  The parka keeps you warm, the knife or hatchet gives you the ability to cut wood, and the fire starter prevents you from having to make fire by primitive means (or fail to do that because of dampness).  The pistol is for predators.

With these simple preparations, your chances of survival go up exponentially.  If you really want to be prepared, a cup for boiling water would be the final step in your preparations.

This video is very interesting.  It’s also know, apparently, as a chuckmuck.  Making char cloth is a skill useful for outdoor survival.

Via WRSA, this video is very interesting.  There are others that serve well as preliminary political and fact-checking background, but this video is the most well-informed analysis I’ve found.

I asked a few days ago whether Coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab, and said “That’s what I have believed from the beginning, it is what I believe today, and it’s what I will always believe unless someone presents clear and convincing evidence that persuades me to relinquish my belief.”

This informed video doesn’t dissuade me from my views.  It cements them.

His analysis is sweeping and he seems conversant on a whole host of topics, including the effect on the economy of having so much of our material and parts produced in China.  The effect on the logistics chain is enormous for a just-in-time chain when a blip happens.

He says we must bring it all home.  I agree.  If that doesn’t sound “capitalistic,” then so be it.  I’ve said before that I’m not a Ron Paul libertarian “The world is a Utopian trade platform and unicorns fart purple pixie dust rainbows over trade-friends to knit them together in love for each other” follower.  I don’t want to debate this point – it’s a value judgment, and it’s mine.  You can have your own, whatever that is.

And R.J. Rushdooy as well.  Libertarianism without a moral foundation is a recipe for disaster.  If “free trade” and “capitalism” means a borderless world where evil corporations outsource manufacturing to enemies in order to maximize quarterly earnings because idiot analysts want to play a better gambling game on Wall Street, then I’m not that.

Under the Lordship of Christ, nothing and no one is free to do anything they wish.  We are free to obey God’s commandments, which brings the ultimate liberty, and He has a lot to say about this sort of thing, including duties of company owners to their workers.  I cannot ensure that corporations are practicing righteousness, and don’t advocate holding CEOs at the barrel of a gun to force good behavior on them.

But as for the safety, security, health, protection and welfare of a country with borders, corporations who do business with enemies hell bent on destruction of our country should be seen and treated as allies of those enemies.  So should the politicians who enable that alliance.

Finally, as I mentioned before, I see the FDA as culpable in the deaths of Americans due to this virus, and I have previously mentioned that the CDC had one job, i.e., to prepare for epidemics and infectious disease.

They … had … one … job.  They failed.  They failed to model, they failed to stay abreast of the facts, they failed to ensure enough PPEs were available in the national stockpile.  Additionally, I stumbled upon this comment at another site.

Hospitals were given the green light by the government to get rid of private practice physicians. This occurred during the days leading up to the passage of Obamacare, when hospitals were initially promised they would have monopolies on patients vis a vis Accountable Care Organizations. Hospitals went on a buying spree, paying top dollar for physicians and their practices. Coupled with the expense and headaches of the Electronic Medical Record, and insurance companies and hospitals both developing so called networks, in which physicians were frozen out of contracts as independent practitioners.

Why? Because the government figured out that it is easier to control the 5200 or so hospital CEO’s, who would now be the boss of the formerly independent 750k or more physicians.

This corporate practice of medicine has led to pressure on doctors to adapt protocols and submit to busybody hospital administrators to toe the line, or else find another job. In the worst cases, hospitals start sham peer review proceedings, a weaponized version of quality review and oversight, which can tarnish a doctor for life based on scurrilous and false evidence.

Doctors should not work for hospitals. It is an inherent conflict of interest, unethical, and it is the corporate practice of medicine. The doctor no longer works for the patient, but the hospital CEO, who has a fiduciary duty. This story is a good example. Unfortunately, the AMA is all in on it, and has not represented practicing physicians and patients for years.

You can see that however you wish.  But I’ll remind you of the quote attributed to Mussolini: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.”  A market void of righteousness is as much slavery as the state authority without righteousness.  You’re merely exchanging one wicked ruler for another.