Free Republic

TALKEETNA — David Luntz grilled steaks Friday evening as the summer sun lit up a broad meadow fringed with canvas tents. A few people sitting in camp chairs sipped gin and tonics, getting to know each other before the weekend got started. Rick Ford and Jon Droska walked up with unloaded hand-built machine guns. Ford, in head-to-toe camouflage, shouldered an AK-47. Droska, a bearded, burly U.S. Navy veteran who now conducts emergency medical instruction, carried an AR-15. Around his legs rippled a charcoal-gray “Elkommando” kilt made by Mountain Hardware. Welcome to the fourth annual Prepper, Survivalist and Militia Rendezvous.The gathering...

End game Survivalist bunkers like this one are increasingly popular as Preppers await the next crisis. WTF is a prepper? You're probably asking yourself that right now, and I can't blame you. I posed that very question the first time I heard the word — shortly after determining it wasn't a euphemism for Sous Chef or a malapropism of "preppie." When the term was finally explained to me, I was, quite uncharacteristically, ecstatic that I hadn't previously had a clue. Believe me: like HarperCons™® (many of whom are also preppers — certainly in Alberta), these are people you don't want...

At the top of every prepperÂ’s list of nightmares is an EMP event. It ranks even higher than a power grid failure by sabotage or a coronal mass ejection. Those are almost as bad, but they would leave much of our transportation and other infrastructure intact. With an EMP, itÂ’s a different, scarier story. An EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, is a broadband burst of electromagnetic energy. This massively powerful wave has the potential to damage nearly everything electronic over hundreds of miles. The wave of electromagnetic energy would affect electric circuits throughout our transportation, energy, telecommunications, water supply, and financial...

To thwart a bear attack, make yourself look bigger and scarier.This is how you escape from a bear attack. Ralph Perrson was walking with his wife and dog in the woods when he noticed his dog was barking differently, the Swedish outlet The Local reported. Suddenly a large Eurasian brown bear ran out of the woods and charged at him.Fortunately for Perrson, he knew bears are much more scared of us than we are of them. Standing his ground, he raised his arms and let out a primal yell. The very startled bear spun right around and ran back into...

When a college student disappeared in Costa Rica last summer, his father — legendary Alaskan adventurer Roman Dial — went searching in Central America's deadliest wilderness. He's still looking. Early last April, a 27-year-old biology student named Cody Roman Dial set out into the remote jungle of northern Guatemala. Equipped with a crude map and a compass, he planned to traverse the Petén, a lowland rain forest teeming with snakes, illegal gold miners, and cocaine traffickers. His biggest concern, though, was dehydration — save for jeep-track mud puddles, the area lacks ready sources of freshwater. Cody had spent the previous...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - About 5,500 more people could survive a major tsunami hitting the Pacific Northwest if they just walk a little faster to higher ground after roads are knocked out, a new study shows. The report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at 73 communities along 700 miles of coastline in Oregon, Washington and Northern California. The area is considered most at risk from the next major earthquake and tsunami in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, where two plates of the Earth's crust come together miles off the coast. Emergency preparedness experts...

You might think you’re prepared to respond to any threats that might come your way — but the odds are, you aren’t prepared enough to satisfy Kyle Lamb. Lamb is a retired Delta Force sergeant major who served 21 years in the Army, mostly with U.S. Army Special Operations. He now runs Viking Tactics, which offers tactical firearms instruction and consulting. Needless to say, he knows “prepared.” Speaking to a packed room of gun owners at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting on Friday, Lamb offered a crash course in preparedness in the face of unexpected personal danger. The military...

The most important factor in determining when to plant a certain type of vegetable in your garden is the “Last Freeze Date” in the spring for your area...

Tomatoes - A complete planting guide including state specific planting dates and varieties, tips for soil preparation, planting, watering,fertilizing, insect and weed control...

In newly released emails from when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton sent business-related emails to her staffers. Not only do these new emails prove that Ms. Clinton used her private email address to conduct business, which she vehemently denied two weeks ago, but it also proves that she lied about whether her employees used private email. The emails, obtained by the House committee investigating the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, show Mrs. Clinton emailing aides about whether she would survive the firestorm surrounding the attack and her perceived responsibility. "Did we survive the day?” she wrote to a...

The U.S. is seeing a growing number of “preppers” or survivalists who prepare to live for months at a time in the event of a disaster. CCTV America’s Sean Callebs reported this story from Atlanta. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)There are those who believe you have to be prepared now, because the end will come in a flash. A pandemic flue nearly 100 years ago, for example, killed as much as five percent of the global population. Preppers say they’re ready to survive in the worst scenaro. “I had a friend who described it very well as — there’s those who prep because they...

How many times have you seen someone who survived with nothing more than their underwear? They had no "go bag" sitting inside their sleeping area they could grab that had a few basics in it -- like some sort of lightweight but effective means of preserving body heat. Now consider that if this occurs while in a place not so-populated in the winter time you might well be in serious trouble or even die of exposure! The other place that such disasters commonly happen is in our vehicles. Do you have a small, easily-toted "get me the F out of...

THE YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER 1816, IN MAINE By Lee-Lee Schlegel MONTHS THAT SHOULD BE SUMMER’S PRIME SLEET AND SNOW AND FROST AND RIME AIR SO COLD YOU SEE YOUR BREATH EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FROZE TO DEATH (An old rhyme) -------------------------------------------------------------1771 REUBEN WHITTEN 1847 SON OF A REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER, A PIONEER OF THIS TOWN, COLD SEASON OF 1816 RAISED 40 BUSHELS OF WHEAT ON THIS LAND WHITCH KEPT HIS FAMILY AND NEIGHBOURS FROM STARVATION ( Tombstone in an Ashland, N.H. cemetery) Imagine! It’s June. Or July. Or perhaps August in Down East Maine. In Milbridge. That’s easy enough to do,...

• Republicans are particularly confident in their ability to survive an apocalypse Many Americans have experience with natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes but each time that one hits an area of the country it is apparent that few people take disaster preparation as seriously as the government tells them to. When people are often so woefully unprepared for a hurricane or earthquake, what hope is there if civilization as we know it were to collapse? Research from YouGov shows that Americans are relatively optimistic about their fate in the event of an apocalyptic event. People tend to say...

Newly updated table with an alphabetical listing of many sources of Seeds, Transplants, and Bulbs for Vegetables, Herbs, Flowers, Grains, Grasses, Ground Covers, Vines, Fruits, Sprouting, Trees, Wildflowers, and much more..

**SNIP** Homelessness is a primary driver for LGBTQ teens turning to survival sex, according to the report. It cites national statistics showing that as many as 50 percent of homeless or runaway youth trade sex for shelter or for money to provide shelter for themselves, and that 48 percent of transgender people involved in sex work overall also report experiencing homelessness. A 2007 study of LGBTQ teens in New York revealed that LGBTQ youth were seven times more likely to have traded sex for shelter than heterosexual teens, and that transgender teens were eight times more likely. Researchers also found...

***SNIP***The researchers used a number of techniques that are used when modeling real diseases, and the abstract ends with this dismal line: "We build up to a full scale simulation of an outbreak in the United States, and discover that for 'realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed." But Phys.Org relays a glimmer of hope by way of Alex Alemi, a grad student involved in the research: He says those who want to remain safe from the undead for as long as they can should head to the northern Rockies. He explains that while books and movies typically show an outbreak...

CHICAGO (AP) — Frequent sauna baths may help you live longer, a study of Finnish men suggests. It would be welcome news if proven true — in Finland where hot, dry saunas are commonplace, and for Americans shivering in a snowy Nordic-like winter. Previous research suggested that saunas might improve blood vessel function and exercise capacity, and lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension. The new study links long, hot sauna baths with even more benefits, including fewer deaths from heart attacks, strokes, various heart-related conditions and other causes.

Here are a few of the basic items that you may want on-hand while in ‘survival mode’ during a winter snow-storm power outage situation. These are very minimal considerations, but they at least should provide a small amount of comfort inside your home, and will hopefully get you thinking about other items to have on hand.

The Department of Treasury is seeking to order survival kits for all of its employees who oversee the federal banking system, according to a new solicitation. The emergency supplies would be for every employee at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which conducts on-site reviews of banks throughout the country. The survival kit includes everything from water purification tablets to solar blankets. The government is willing to spend up to $200,000 on the kits, according to the solicitation released on Dec. 4. The survival kits must come in a fanny-pack or backpack that can fit all of...