Free Republic

We've found a fabulous place that sells dented canned veggies. I've got a pantry filled. A case of 24 cans is 4-5 dollars. We've got the weapons and ammo stored. We live next to a farm, and can get meat and veggies, either deer, turkeys (a milk cow, did you ever try meat from a milk cow?) or bartering with the farmers for corn and tomatoes. We live on a well and septic, and have a great generator. We also have wood, Can we live without power? We're 90% there. What are you all doing to prepare for this? You...

Sabi a sniffer dog who went missing in action after a battle in Afghanistan has miraculously been found safe and sound after more than a year in the desert reports the Associated Press .

SYDNEY – In the world of fiddler crabs, the best form of protection for females is, apparently, having sex with the neighbors, according to an Australian study published Wednesday. Researchers from The Australian National University in Canberra found male fiddler crabs will happily defend a nearby female against intruders — partly because the females will dole out sex in return. "The fact that the neighbor comes over and helps to defend another territorial individual is pretty unusual," said Michael Jennions, who helped conduct the study, the results of which were published in the journal Biology Letters. "This study shows, for...

I've read dozens, and I mean dozens, of lists telling me everything I need to have with me to survive. Usually there are no surprises. I know a flashlight, pocket knife, and water are musts, but every now and then I come across something that makes me say, "a-ha!" Here are thirteen of my favorites. Lightsticks. You can pick up one of these every time you wander into a Home Depot. They don't need batteries and can be hung around the neck with a string making it easier to spot everyone in your party when it gets dark. Wool socks...

I, for one, will not go down without a fight, nor will I go quietly. Last January, I lost my middle-management position in an importer which sold goods to television networks. I had to apply for state aid by going to the New York State Department of Labor to collect unemployment insurance. My weekly benefits were approved, but I frowned at the fact that they would be less than one third of my regular salary. I began my job search two days after being let go. Fast forward to March. After submitting close to fifty résumés and not receiving even...

We have had a number of open discussions here at FR for quite some time about the importance of personal emergency preparedness. Many of us have taken an interest in this subject for a long time, and have been working steadfastly toward being prepared for a real emergency, and this evening I thought I would share my progress on one phase of our plan, food. Anyone who knows anything about preparedness will tell you that the first thing you should do is make a plan that fits your personal needs. A bachelor has much different survival needs than a family...

Survival methods and military techniques that can be used during an a nuclear attack.

terrorist takes over a shopping mall in this scenario, and the host gives tips on taking down a well-armed foe.

Ron DiFrancesco was at his desk at Euro Brokers…on the 84th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center…when the plane struck the North Tower...It was 8:46 am on September 11, 2001… A few minutes later...the second plane struck… DiFrancesco is normally unflappable. He is a broker in a high-stakes business that demands steel nerves. But he is also slightly claustrophobic, and with the intensifying smoke, he began to panic…Then, something remarkable happened: “Someone told me to get up.” Someone, he says, “called me.” The voice, which was male but did not belong to anyone in the stairwell,...

Three Government Reports Point To Fiscal Doomsday by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. 10-05-09 When our leaders have no awareness of the disastrous consequences of their actions, they can claim ignorance and take no action. Or when our leaders have no hard evidence as to what might happen in the future, they can at least claim uncertainty. But when they have full knowledge of an impending disaster … they have proof of its inevitability in ANY scenario … and they so declare in their official reports … but STILL don’t lift a finger to change course … then they have only...

James Wesley Rawles is probably one of the foremost survival preparation experts in America today. His survivalblog.com website has more than 135,000 readers, he is frequently a guest on national radio shows, and he has been interviewed in many influential newspapers and magazines. The new reprint of his novel “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” has been hovering around the #100 mark on the Amazon ranking list for many months, which is a remarkable record. “Patriots” is a combination of a novel and a survivalism textbook, which made it difficult for the book to excel in both directions at the...

What kind of survivor and thriver are you? Discover your Survivor Personality with this fast quiz...

Getting your ham radio license is an idea well worth considering if you think comunications might be restricted under some circumstances.

I have just finished reading William R. Forstchen's new novel One Second After. Briefly, it is about the instantaneous breakdown of American way of life as the result of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which disables the nation's electrical grid as well as all sophisticated electrical components in cars (they stop), planes (they crash), telecomunications of every sort, etc. leaving the population in a world similar to that of the Eighteenth Century. Shortages of every variety create societal strains, chaos, death and destruction in a matter of weeks and months. Forstchen's book (with a forward written by Newt Gingrich), while fiction,...

QUESTION: What mistakes do you think most people make preparing for what you and your countrymen have gone through? I wouldn’t call them “mistakes”, I don’t hold the SHTF Bible so all I can give is my humble advice which may be correct or not, so all I can tell you is “ I wouldn’t do that if I were you”, and depending on how sure I am , add a smartass grin smiley. There’s simply some preparations that make little sense if you think about it, others that I’ve seen that just wouldn’t work, in spite of all the...

A Shanda! By Norma Zager Childhood memories of my grandfather remain bright. So often he’d watch the handful of television programs offered. Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle were among his favorites. From time to time he’d turn to my grandmother, point to a singer or comedian performing on the ancient black and white screen and announce proudly, “Yidden.” She would nod and answer, “yes?” He’d nod the affirmative and return to his program. I failed to understand then the importance of these “outings,” but now it is clear. There is a sense of pride for any minority when one of...

“The People” are speaking up like never before. Town halls, protests, Tea Parties; the American people are voicing their displeasure with the way things are going in Washington. We do not want government run health care, cap and trade, exorbitant spending and a host of other things this current crop of statist politicians are attempting to impose on us. We assume that because we have voiced our opposition so loudly and we live in a representative republic, our representatives must listen to us. After all, they work for us, right? Not really. We know that the vast majority of politicians...

You like living out in the country. Living away from smog, noise, and crowded streets suits you just fine. But there's no reason to forgo some of the nicer things associated with civilization. This gadget guide for country folks offers some nifty items for off the grid living, or for those just outside the city limits. There's enough here to whet the gadget lust in any survivalist's heart. So let's take a look at some technology that will make that little cabin in the woods a lot more fun.

Advice on Being Prepared for BugOut National Guard forced all people out of their grid locked vehicles and put them onto buses which took them to the airport for transport. Gone were all the survival goods that the family had packed. Granted, they were not survivalists and only packed family mementos, but if they had, the survival goods would have been forced to be left behind in the car. The National Guard were armed and ready to shoot if the people did not comply. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." If there is a...

[Quix color emphasis added; with standing permission to post ATS docs here with URL refs.] A severe storm came through my town last night and it knocked out power in my local grocery store for a bit. This was no big deal, as it has happened before. There was, however, a bigger problem we discovered very quickly: The credit and debit no longer worked, and checks couldn't be used. Foodstamps and WIC did not work either. Coincidentally, there was a rush of people in the store at this same time, and the lines began to clog very fast. People...

Heat kills boy, 11, lost with his mother in Death Valley The two were stranded for days in a remote area. The child's mother is being treated for severe dehydration. Associated Press August 7, 2009 An 11-year-old boy died in the intense heat of Death Valley National Park after he and his mother became stranded and survived for several days on bottled water, Pop-Tarts and cheese sandwiches, authorities said Friday. Alicia Sanchez, 28, of Las Vegas was found severely dehydrated and remained hospitalized in that city a day after being found with her dead son, her dog and a Jeep...

<p>An 11-year-old Las Vegas boy died after his mother's car got stuck in sand for five days on their way to Death Valley for a camping trip, officials said Friday.</p> <p>Carlos Sanchez and his 28-year-old mother set out for an overnight trip to the area Aug. 1, but were stranded when their car got stuck about 20 miles east of Trona. The mother's name has not been released.</p>

What to do to prepare for a Presidential declaration of a Bank Holiday Several things have been going on that have really been bothering me. The first item is the fact that many US Embassies have been issued a yearÂ’s worth of operating expenses in US currency and told to convert it to the currency of the country in which they are located (except for the US Embassy in the UK). They have been told to do this right away. The second item that concerns me ties in with the first and comes from various underground news sources that the...

I'm looking into making expedient water filtration (i.e., with found materials) under emergency circumstances. Would crushed hardwood charcoal –– the real stuff, not "briquettes" like Kingsford –– make an acceptable filtration material, if one doesn't have access to activated charcoal? This assumes, of course, that other rules of water filtration are followed –– straining out debris, boiling after filtering, etc. I know there is a difference at the molecular level -- activated charcoal is highly porous, creating a huge surface area. But in an emergency, hardwood charcoal might be all that's available.

The sight was not that unusual, at least not for Mosul, Iraq, on a summer morning: a car parked on the sidewalk, facing opposite traffic, its windows rolled up tight. Two young boys stared out the back window, kindergarten age maybe, their faces leaning together as if to share a whisper. The soldier patrolling closest to the car stopped. It had to be hot in there; it was 120 degrees outside. “Permission to approach, sir, to give them some water,” the soldier said to Sgt. First Class Edward Tierney, who led the nine-man patrol that morning. “I said no —...

Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition Category: Roundups | Comments(15) Did you hear about the guy that lives on nothing? No seriously, he lives on zero dollars a day. Meet Daniel Suelo, who lives in a cave outside Moab, Utah. Suelo has no mortgage, no car payment, no debt of any kind. He also has no home, no car, no television, and absolutely no “creature comforts.” But he does have a lot of creatures, as in the mice and bugs that scurry about the cave floor he’s called home for the last three years. To us, Suelo probably sounds...

"The end of the world as we know it" scenario. Might be worth watching. Starts tonite.

The first 72 hours following any disaster are the most critical, but it's also during those intial hours that emergency services and personnel are stretched to the limit. With a system of carefully planned 72 Hour Kits, your family can be self-sufficient until help arrives. 72 Hour Kits, or Bug Out Bags, are those handy-dandy, all-in-one grab bags that, theoretically, could keep you and your family in good shape during a three day emergency. How well they do their job depends on how well-equipped they are for your family's particular needs. Think of your 72 Hour System as three layers...

Ever since he learned how to walk, three-year-old Demetrius Jones's family has had to keep a close eye on the toddler when there are cars nearby. The boy's fixation with anything on four wheels earned him the nickname “Tire Man” among relatives, after his habit of carefully inspecting rims and tread. And his curiosity occasionally gets the adventurous roamer into trouble. “If a car's unlocked, it's fair game to him,” says his grandmother, Anita Neudorf. And on Sunday morning, Demetrius's fondness for cars got him into some very deep trouble. The boy wandered off from his parents' campsite near Taylor,...

<p>We all know where Obama’s Marxist policies will lead. Higher and higher taxes, higher and higher debt, higher and higher inflation, higher and higher costs, higher and higher unemployment, higher and higher crime and corruption.</p> <p>This will soon lead to major shortages and rationing of all goods and services, including basics like food, water, shelter. Gasoline will soon be impossible to get.</p>

Life has been a little too cozy for me lately. Too cozy in the sense that I have been living in about 500 square feet for the past two months. No, we're not hunkered down in a bomb shelter nor has a hurricane hit the Phoenix area recently. Rather, it's a large home improvement project that has caused me to become a refugee in my own home. Basically, I live in a bunker with windows. Trying to maintain some level of quality to our lives in spite of cramped quarters and numerous inconveniences is something many of you have experienced....

Sometimes a Survival Mom has to look around to see who might need some extra help in an emergency. Young children, invalids, and the elderly are especially vulnerable during tumultuous times. In 1995, I was in Chicago during one of their biggest and deadliest heat waves ever. Of the 600+ people who died, most were elderly. I remember thinking, "Why didn't their families or neighbors check on them and help?" Who in your life is elderly and/or sickly and might need some help during an emergency? A game plan needs to be put in order right away to provide a...

Single-handedly, my husband, the Paranoid Dad, has kept our local Home Depot in business for the past decade. He owns just about every type of tool and home project supply imaginable . That collection of tools could make a huge difference in our very survival if we ever had to leave the safety of our home in an emergency. Often, however, hand tools are overlooked when families have to quickly bug out. In our home, my husband is the pro when it comes to his tools, so he is the one to determine which tools to pack up in an...

[H]am radio operators will test their emergency communications capabilities with amateur radio clubs across the nation this weekend. The field day, the culmination of National Amateur Radio Week, known as the Nationwide Emergency Communications Drill, is intended to give the public a glimpse of the services amateur radio operators provide and a chance to meet the operators themselves. "In a disaster, when phone lines, cellphones and the Internet are all down, ham radio operators will be on the job," said Jon Clark, president of the Antelope Valley Amateur Radio Club. The club will set up at the north end of...

Cash injection has failed to have impact, study shows The government's national cancer plan, backed by a massive injection of cash for cancer services in England, has failed to boost survival rates substantially, a major study shows today.The findings will dismay government ministers, who have secured a tripling of spending on cancer over the last decade with the ambition of bringing the UK from among the worst countries up to the standard of the best in Europe. But the authoritative study, from a team led by Professor Michel Coleman at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, shows that...

Thousands of cancer patients aged over 75 are dying sooner than they should, it has been reported. Research by the National Cancer Intelligence Network suggests up to 15,000 people a year are not living as long as they might after developing cancer. Cancer survival rates in the UK are lower than the average in western Europe or in the US, with one possible explanation being that people in the UK are diagnosed later. Survival rates are calculated on the number of people alive five years after diagnosis. Dr Tony Moran, from the North West Cancer Intelligence Service, said if the...

Some low-moisture foods such as dried apples can be safe to eat even years after their expiration date, if properly stored, food chemists say. They verified this in a tasting experiment of 28-year-old rolled oats. Heat, moisture and light can degrade food's nutritional value. The next time you find forgotten food in the pantry, don't just toss it. Keeping food past its expiration date may not seem like a good idea, but certain foods last a lot longer than you think -- years longer.

I think as a boy my favorite stories were always about epic journeys or quests. I always saw myself as the lone hero; bravely making his way through a barren landscape overcoming impossible obstacles and having fantastic adventures along the way. As preppers I think many of us still believe that WTSHTF our trip to “Get out of Dodge” will be an adventure such as those we read in books. I’m afraid however; the reality will be much grimmer than we can imagine. I fear that it will be more like The Road by Cormac McCarthy or the recent novel...

<p>The US’s economic shift from manufacturing to services The massive drop in US incomes The beginning of the debt bubble If you missed that essay, you can read it here. Today, we’re addressing how the debt bubble encapsulated the US government as well as why Obama’s Stimulus Plan won’t fix anything.</p>

In a panic situation, which happens around my house quite often, actually, people lose their wits. The extra adrenaline produced by the human body at such a moment causes confusion and the sense of events happening in slow motion. It can even cause some of the same symptoms as a heart attack. Can you imagine the level of adrenaline in your body if you suddenly got news of a dangerous chemical spill in your area or of a wildfire that had taken an abrupt turn toward your neighborhood? Officials tell you to evacuate now. Where on earth do you start??...

Store food and water. Avoid debt. Build up savings. Sound like a plan for these tough economic times? It's actually the longtime teaching of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "For many years the church has taught the principle of provident living and self-reliance," said Bruce Priday, president of the Lenexa Stake and Mormon church spokesman for the Kansas City, Mo., area. "With growing unemployment, this is becoming increasingly important," he said. "I have visited several families who lost work and were able to get through months of unemployment without having to go to the government or agencies...

Ok ya'll. Let me start this off by saying I was raised in the south. A Pure Bred Dust Bowl Okie. My entire family has been fishing for food as long as I can remember and for several generations. Needless to say, we can catch enough as to feed a whole gaggle of family. So in 2000, I got to move up to the Blue state hell of Minnesota. Lots of fisherfolks up here...but they don't fish for catfish...in fact they turn their noses up at the humble whiskered beast. Thus, you can go to just about any body of...

Six months ago, Jim Wiseman didn't even have a spare nutrition bar in his kitchen cabinet. Now, the 54-year-old businessman and father of five has a backup generator, a water filter, a grain mill and a 4-foot-tall pile of emergency food tucked in his home in the expensive San Diego suburb of La Jolla. Wiseman isn't alone. Emergency supply retailers and military surplus stores nationwide have seen business boom in the past few months as an increasing number of Americans spooked by the economy rush to stock up on gear that was once the domain of hardcore survivalists. These people...

TONALEA, Ariz. (AP) -- Talk at the community center in this small Navajo town isn't as focused on the economy as it is in many places off the reservation. That's because the people living on the largest American Indian reservation have been largely unscathed by the recession.

Browse More Listings West Virginia Upshur County Hodgesville, WV Land for Sale West Virginia Land for Sale Hodgesville Land for Sale Hodgesville Land for Lease West Virginia Coal Mine Randolph and Upshur County Hodgesville, West Virginia 26201 County: Upshur

FORT WORTH — Jack Spirko owns a media company, is married to a nurse and has a son in college. He has two dogs and lives in a nice house with a pool in a diversified neighborhood in suburban Arlington, Texas. Spirko, 36, considers himself an average guy with a normal life. But for the past few years, Spirko has been stockpiling food, water, gas, guns and ammunition. He also has a load of red wine, Starbucks coffee and deodorant stashed away. “I refer to myself as a modern survivalist, which means I don’t do without,” Spirko explained. “I have...

A grinding depression. Wild inflation. Endless unemployment ... How to deal with what could go very wrong. So is this just a really, really bad year? Or the end of capitalism as we know it? These days it's all too easy to imagine almost anything happening to the economy. And to you. You've probably already run the movie in your mind about the day you get the ax. Maybe you've even wondered if there's a point at which you'd just mail your house keys to the bank. And then there's your portfolio. The words "great" and "depression" seem to be...

A veteran soldier who became trapped in a ravine for two days after a 250ft fall has survived, thanks to skills learnt 65 years ago during World War II. Great-grandfather Daniel Currie broke his elbow and shoulder after slipping during a walk at Fiddler's Elbow, near Abercynonon in Wales on Good Friday.Unable to move, and without food or water, Mr Currie protected himself using survival skills learnt while serving in the Army 65 years ago.The 87-year-old covered himself with leaves as temperatures plummeted to 3C overnight, and cleared surrounding undergrowth in order to make himself more visible to rescuers.Speaking...

Grandmother cooks snails from garden to beat credit crunch By Neil Sears 13th April 2009 Credit crunch: Oriole Parker-Rhodes has turned her garden snails into a tasty French feast When snails besieged Oriole Parker-Rhodes garden and began eating all her potatoes, she came up with the perfect credit crunch solution. If you can't beat them - eat them. For although the grandmother was unwilling to trample on or poison the troublesome creatures, after discovering they could make a tasty snack she decided to tuck in. Now she regularly feasts on their meat, claiming they are higher in protein and lower...

Art as Propaganda for Evolution April 10, 2009 — Should a scientific theory be propagated by appeal to scientific evidence, or by appeal to emotions through visualization?  Nature this week contained two articles that shamelessly praised art as propaganda for evolution.  Surprisingly, one of them mentioned Charles Darwin as someone “at the cutting edge of visualization.” Endless Forms:  Carl Zimmer reviewed an exhibit currently at the Yale Center for British Art, Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts.1  The title is taken from the last sentence in the Origin where Darwin said that endless forms most beautiful...