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Somewhere West of the Rockies - -(AmmoLand.com)- AmmoLand.com’s featured Gun Blogger of the Month, for August 2009, is the SurvivalBlog.com. James Wesley, Rawles (JWR) is a survivalist author and lecturer. JWR is also the editor of www.SurvivalBlog.com. “I’m also a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, and now work as a full-time blogger and freelance writer. This blog reflects my interests. I’ve been an enthusiastic survivalist since my teenage years. I grew up in the Bomb Shelter era, and that mind set just never wore off” says James Wesley, Rawles. The first amazing thing about the SurvivalBlog.com is JWR has not...

I offer pure speculation. I wasn’t there. I don’t have the details. But much as others seem to believe the life experience that comes from being black qualifies them to opine without specific knowledge, surely my 30-some years as a police officer permits me to also guess at what happened when Cambridge, Mass., police officers arrived at the home of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates’ angst probably originated when he didn’t get the expected Harvard professor’s treatment, the absence of which he appears to have attributed to racism on the cop’s part. I’ll agree the cop probably...

CHICAGO (Reuters Life!) - Armed with pruning shears and a paper bag, Nance Klehm walks along a Chicago sidewalk, pointing out plants and weeds that can make a tasty salad or stir-fry. She snips stalks from a weed with downy leaves and white powder commonly called goosefoot or lamb's quarters. "I collect a lot of this," said Klehm, 43. "It's indistinguishable from spinach when you cook it. I never, never grow spinach or other greens except kale. Everything else I forage." Klehm is among a small group of urban foragers across the United States who collect weeds and plants from...

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.

Some see the current economic downturn as tough — but temporary — times to be endured. But others see it as a harbinger of even grimmer days ahead. So they’re preparing for the worst by stockpiling food: piles and piles and piles of it. Call them “suburban survivalists,” or call them, well, a little goofy. But they’re dead serious about being ready for a big crash … by making sure they have a nice little nosh in case of a catastrophe. Across the country, there are people preparing for the possibility that we will not have access to food by...

It turns out that last fall when our financial system was near a collapse, the Bush administration and Congress had discussions about a potential breakdown of law and order in our country. They also talked about how the nation’s people would be fed and how long the food supply would last. Scary stuff in this article. We’re not crazy after all!!! A major economic collapse is one of the things we SurvivalMoms are preparing for. I hope this article confirms what you already know deep down inside: if your family is to survive and thrive, it will be because of...

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...

Since 52% of American voters were foolish enough to buy the story that Barack Hussein Obama is some sort of "liberal messiah," I thought it would be interesting to compare the belief systems of America's father of liberalism and author of our Declaration of Independence, with the Marxist belief system of the false messiah. And since today's liberals have so much trouble properly interpreting our Founders' simple message to future generations, I am under no illusion that these facts will carry anymore weight with modern Marxists than Article II - Section I of the Constitution, which clearly states that Barack...

It's unanimous: We all want violence against women to stop. In fact, nine out of 10 women said that ending domestic violence and sexual assault should be the top priority for a new women's movement (according to the Center for the Advancement of Women) -- and also for every politician. There are ways you can make this happen -- for one woman, and for all.

A Virginia Republican's fierce call to resist President Obama's political agenda -- with bullets if necessary -- ignited an outcry on the Internet yesterday, and forced her to clarify that she was not looking to incite any violence. Appearing at a "Tea Party" rally on Wednesday to protest President Obama's expansion of government, Catherine Crabill, a political neophyte running for the House of Delegates in the Northern Neck, quoted from a March 1775 speech by Patrick Henry and then went further, calling on Americans to resist the course Obama has set for the country. "We have a chance to fight...

As a master zombie scholar it is my duty to fulfill the queries of the people, and I am happy to oblige. Mallory “Subsister” Morrow dropped me a line asking which is the superior weapon class for use in a zombie outbreak. An exhaustive number of factors must be taken into account when preparing for any life-threatening situation, and a war with the walking dead is no exception. First, some people hold to the notion that machine guns and shotguns will dominate when our fair planet is overrun. These pre-dead are notoriously difficult to persuade and must be denied entrance...

There are no layoffs, no furloughs and no signs of a recession at gun stores such as Barnwood Arms in Ripon. A spike in sales that began after Barack Obama won November's presidential election continued throughout the spring, with the FBI reporting dramatic monthly increases in the number of background checks it performed on would-be gun buyers. Although the Obama administration hasn't taken a strong stand on gun laws, customers are betting that a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic-controlled Congress will translate into stricter gun-control laws and perhaps the revival of a national assault rifle ban that...

President Barack Obama may never have fired a gun but he is turning out to be one of the best firearms salesmen in American history. I've sold probably four times as much in the last six months as I have in 20 years combined," said Cliff Hunter, owner of Tommy Bronson Sporting Goods in Memphis. "Hand guns and the tactical weapons, they're absolutely off the charts." Most of his gun sales used to be for hunting, or personal protection in a city riddled with crime. But just before the November election, anxiety that Mr Obama would win and enact a...

No matter how you approach it, summer grilling is a lose-lose situation for Mother Nature. Are you cookin’ veggie burgers over natural, low-impact lump charcoal that you fired up with a chimney starter? You’re still also cookin' up an ample amount of air pollution. Are you serving local veggie kabobs expertly grilled over a gas-powered flame? You’re generating less sooty particles but that gas, as you’re probably aware, is a nonrenewable resource. What about that free-range chicken cooked over an electric grill? If it's plugged in, you're generating greenhouse gases there, too. If you gotta grill, you gotta grill (but...

Recently I had a long lunch with an old friend. He sits on the board of one of the largest and most successful publicly traded regional banks in America. He got his seat when that regional bank acquired the very successful community bank he built from the ground up. I will not name him or this bank, but I will pass on a few things he said to me. He said, “Our bank’s leadership team and others I know at the local or regional level feel paralyzed and intimidated by the climate of fear created by the Obama administration. We...

Had a good turnout for the ultimate backwoods teaparty. It's raining right now in Indy and we had our teaparty/gun shoot yesterday. We knew it would be raining today so we had our event yesterday. Made some noise, shot some guns, set off some explosives in celebration of the the 4th at an undisclosed location in Indiana. Heard the news about Gov. Palin resigning, coupled with the Gov. Sanford self destruction, we feel there is no hope left. Powder is dry. For those who feel the need to point out that we are now on the DHS most wanted list...

HOLLYWOOD — Clearly the Obama administration needs to address the issue of teacher salaries and fast. On AMC's "Breaking Bad," Bryan Cranston is playing a science teacher making meth, and now we have Thomas Jane as Ray Drecker, a high-school basketball coach-turned-male prostitute in HBO's "Hung." Both are men of middle age who find themselves undone by fate — Cranston's Walter White has cancer, Ray's wife has left him and he's lost his home to fire — and a lack of ambition. Both are angry at a world that seems to have reneged on earlier promises so, with their personal...

We have accumulated probably 3-6 months worth of stuff thus far, a good chunk of it being dry and canned goods, but more and more I am eying that deep freeze and all the food in it, because although there have been discussions of a generator purchase, we still don’t have one and I am very wary of the possibility that a power loss will render most of it useless. Another motivation is the fact that dried food lasts for so much longer and loses far less nutrients than canning, and I would like to use or save every bit...

Have I told you about my Scarlett O’Hara moment? It was a couple of years ago when a hurricane was just hours away from coastal Florida. The news video showed a bewildered looking woman staring at empty grocery store shelves. At that moment I said, “As God is my witness, that will never be me!” I vowed to never be the woman on TV who hadn’t given a serious thought of preparing for a disaster and now stood, vulnerable, to whatever dangers lay ahead. Taking steps to be prepared for various emergency situations or a significant downturn in our economy...

Pat McHugh invented the Space Blanket, an amazing piece of survival gear that has changed the face of emergency care for decades. McHugh said millions of Space Blankets were sent to help victims of the Indonesian tsunami a couple of years ago. But such large-scale disasters form only part of the basis of survival and outdoors gear McHugh has designed and represented. One of my favorites is an MPI outdoors backpack with a single shoulder strap that allows shooting a rifle while wearing the pack. But, while he said hunters and fishermen usually possess all the gear they need to...