Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I was at REI a few weeks ago and they had some small windup radios on sale. I’ve been wanting a small radio for my everyday bag. The particular one I picked up was a Eton FR150. Its your typical Baygen-style windup radio with AM/FM, weather band and an LED flashlight. Its about the size of an AR mag, although a little thicker. Sound quality is about what you expect..a little tinny…but its information, and information in a time of crisis is always valuable. I think this thing was marked down 50% to about $15. In addition to the handcrank, theres a small solar panel on the radio. These sorts of things will work on sunlight but the catch is that you have to keep the energy demand as low as possible. That means if youre going to sit this thing in the sun and listen to it you need to keep the volume as low as possible to keep the power requirements down. The optimum arrangement is to use an earpiece so you can keep the volume down yet still hear things clearly. Under what circumstances does this sort of thing come in handy? Well, you don’t have to be too imaginative to figure that out. An unexpected power outage is the first thing that comes to mind. It’s good to be able to check the local radio stations and see if things are just localized to a couple of blocks or is something more dramatic. I remember reading about people who died in the World Trade Center when they were trapped in the elevators and, not knowing what was going on, waited patiently for rescue until the buildings collapse around them. (This does not mean that they were without recourse. Another survivor story from that incident recounts how the elevator occupants forced the doors open and found themselves facing the wall of the elevator shaft. As fate would have it, one of the people in the elevator was involved in the construction of the building and knew that the wall was simply sheetrock. They punched a hole in the wall and found themselves in an empty washroom. They escaped to tell the tale.) I think that if the occupants of those elevators had known what was going on they might have been spurred to more dramatic ‘self-rescue’, as the term is now called.) There are smaller radios out there..the folks at CountyComm have one that I’d very much like to have but it runs on AA batts and I rather like the notion of not having to worry about batteries. On the other hand, a smaller, lighter, radio that provides the same functions would be nice to have. Still, for fifteen bucks I figured I couldn’t go wrong.
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It seems pretty hard to look at the current political wrangling going on and not think that battle lines are being drawn. What I mean is, the national health care debate, such as it is, seems to be galvanizing the public into choosing sides and those sides are getting pretty unfriendly in their attitudes towards their opponents. Personally, I think that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This new trend towards unambiguous partisanship is clearing the fencelines and people are choosing the camp they want to be in. This is good. When your opponent comes out and states clearly that he opposes you, regards you as the enemy, and will work actively and purposefully against the things that are important to you…rejoice! He has made your decisions easier. The ambiguity and grey areas are swept away. You now know who your enemy is and can move on to the battle. It’s much easier to deal with people who you know are against you than it is to deal with people whose sympathies and loyalties are unclear or murky.
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My peppers are coming along nicely. I’m something of a fan of container gardening and used two different size containers this year. For some plants, I used regular 10” flower pots. For a few others I used old 5-gallon buckets salvaged from the trash. The plants growing in the buckets are growing bigger than the ones in the flower pots. What I like about the buckets is that I can move them in/out of the sun as needed and by leaving a few inches of space at the top of the bucket watering the plant is simply fill to the top of the bucket. The water doesn’t spread out, it has nowhere to go except to percolate its way down through the bucket.

I think next year I’ll be doing almost everything in 5-gallon buckets. It’ll be especially nice for the tomatoes since I can just screw some scrap lumber onto the side of the bucket to form a cage/trellis for the tomatoes. Plus, if the weather turns sour I can always move them to a more sheltered location.

My basil, by the by, is doing exceptionally well. It’s a huge bush-like mound of greenery that can easily be thinned down to make pesto (or pistou) and still have an abundance of leaves.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Here we go again. The race baiters at the Southern Poverty Law Center are wringing their hands over the revival of interest in ‘militia groups’.

:::sigh:::

You know, I live in western Montana, a place thats had more than a little connection with this sort of thing. Heck, I see Militia of Montana honcho John Trochmann at pretty much every large gun show ( he sells useful geegaws like Israeli trauma dressings, parachute flares and the like), and have met more than a few people who, even by my standards, might be ‘out where the buses don’t run’ in terms of their tinfoil-hat quotient. I’ve met militia types, white separatists, white supremacists, and religious zealots….so I think I have a little bit of credibility on these matters.

Militia? Eh. I would bet you some serious coin that there are far more armed paranoiacs out here with non-political motivations than there are wannabe revolutionaries. What I mean is, you show me a guy with a safe full of AR’s, a couple thousand rounds of ammo, a shortwave radio, a basement full of food, a library on improvised munitions and a handful of like-minded friends who get together once a month to go shooting and I will bet you some pretty heavy odds that their motivation is to protect themselves and their families…not to storm Washington DC or foment a race/class war.

Truth is, for better or worse, most folks worry about number one first. Sure, there’s plenty of whackos out there with a head full of bad wiring, a pistol, a grudge, and a plane ticket to wherever they think the voices/aliens/mindcontrol chip/deity  in their head says to go. But, so what…theres always been screwed up people out there. Are they forming militias and plotting to overthrow the .gov? Maybe. I’m sure theres a buncha guys in a basement somewhere plotting this sort of thing. But theres always been that element, regardless of the party in control of the .gov. Heck, in the Bush years the Democratic Underground weenies were always talking ‘revolution’ but no one paid them any mind. Funny how its only the right-wing militias that get the press.

But, lets read between the lines. Which is more alarming – the notion that theres folks who are so dissatisfied with the government that they think theyre willing to take up arms against it..orrrrrrrrr….the notion that a government has gotten so out of touch with its people that those same folks are pushed towards these extreme actions? Or, put another way, whose behavior is more disturbing …. the woman with the black eye and swollen lip going to karate class or the drunk abusive husband that slaps her around? Really, rather than looking at these ‘revived militias’ and clucking about how terrible and dangerous they are maybe the better question is what could .gov possibly be doing to drive this sort of behavior?

But to the goons at the SPLC, if you disagree with the current administration (which automatically means youre a racist, in some circles), live outside of New England, own guns, listen to talk radio, and sock away food, fuel, ammo and metals…well, youre probably one of those militia nuts.

This is classic…classic, I say…dehumanization and proaganda tactics straight out of pretty much every horribly oppressive and repressive regime thats been around. You target dissenters, get the public to identify them as belonging to a class or group, demonize that group as convincingly as possible, propose measures to ‘reign in’ that ‘outlaw group’, get rid of your opponents while getting lauded for having ‘done something’ about that evil group.

So, like it or not, the odds are pretty good that you and I, regardless of if we actually are in a group of some kind, are going to get labelled as dangerous right-wing militia nutjobs. Not much we can do about it. I suppose we could sink beneath the radar and be pretty low profile. Its already established that the whole ‘if youre not guilty youve got nothing to fear’ thing ain’t gonna work.  Besides, didnt the lefties during the Bush years tell us that dissent was patriotic? Funny how that tune changes once theyre in the White House, innit?

So, lemme recap:

Sure, theres probably self-styled militia groups forming around the US. And theres probably a few that have been around since the ’90s and have just been keeping a low profile. And 95% of them are concerned with protecting their own very local interests.  A half-dozen guys who get together to stockpile food, practice shooting and tactics, and  bitch about the government are not a militia.

But most importantly, look past the news hype and ask yourself  “What is the government doing that is so bad that has all these people up in arms?” and then examine the issue(s) for yourself.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

The big Missoula gun show was this weekend. Its the largest show in the great state of Montana and brings in dealers from far and wide. Observations from this show:

• AR’s are back in a big way. There were plenty of them, from pretty much every manufacturer. Plenty of sub-$1000 AR’s if you don’t mind lesser known manufacturers. However, AR parts kits and some parts were still scarce.
• AR magazines are also back and in quantity. Even the Magpul PMags were less than $20. Plenty of AR mags. Oddly, its all the other magazines that were a little light.
• While AR and AR-materials were in abundance ammo was still short and way overpriced. Not sure what planet youre on where you think $0.44 per round for 55 FMJ .223 is a ‘good deal’.
• Primers fell back to about $35/m when you could find them.
• Oddly, this was the first show I didnt see a buncha FAL’s floating around. Either theyre all sold or folks are holding onto them.
• Only a handful of vendors (out of around 800 tables) had Glock mags in any quantity. AK mags were around $20. Some people thought they could get $5-10 for HK91 mags….theyre delusional. CTD had them for a buck each last time I checked.

I saw very little at the show that I wanted. I missed a HighPower at $350 by just a few minutes, but I have a bunch of them so I don’t feel too bad. In other gun related news, a buddy of mine is paring down his collection and has made me an offer for a few guns I want – an FR-8, a Redhawk in .44 and a Siamese Mauser .45-70. The FR-8 fills a niche as a nice beater truck gun in .308, the Redhawk satisfies the itch I’ve been having for a big bore double action magnum, and the .45-70….well, I dunno about that one. Might use it as a test platform for my cast bullet experiments.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Gun owners are packing heat in record numbers, fearful of stricter gun control under the Obama administration and higher crime in a sour economy.

Some states and counties report a surge in applications for concealed weapons permits since the November election. All states but Illinois and Wisconsin allow concealed weapons, but requirements differ.

Applications already have hit a record this year in Clay County, Mo., where the sheriff’s office received 888 through June, compared with 863 in all of last year, Sheriff Bob Boydston says.

In the past, applicants tended to be middle-aged men, he says, but now include “grandmothers, older folks, young women, young men.”

Where lay a man’s fortune, there lay his heart….or some similar maxim…comes tumbling to the fore. Essentially, it means ‘put your money where your mouth is’. Thats what you’re seeing here. Pundits may say that Obama doesn’t want those guns that youre ‘clinging’ to but, as we see here, not everyone is buying that line. Same for the economy…people may want the economy to get better but they’re not taking chances. It is hoped that these people, in addition to getting their guns, are also getting all the other accoutrements and supplies that they’ll need to ride out this ‘bumpy’ economy.

Montana is kinda weird about concealed weapons. You only need a permit if youre within city limits (or a railroad or logging camp) and if youre engaged in an “outdoor activity” you dont need one at all. (I believe they intend that to mean hunting, fishing, hiking, etc. but Im sure a clever person could stretch that to include things like jogging, bicycling or something equally mundane.) I got mine years ago so I wouldnt have to go through the hassle of the NICS background check every time I wanted to buy a boomstick.

I don’t know why anyone is surprised at an increase in ‘pistol packing persons’ these days. Only the hopelessly short-sighted and the delusionally naive would think that the economic slide isn’t going to have violent and/or criminal implications.

Of course, little matters like armed security and situational awareness were sorted out in this household a long time ago. The NPR crowd would look at us and cry that “I won’t live in fear!” which is kinda funny since, by virtue of our lifestyle, we’re not really in fear of much of anything.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

The dichotomy of being prepared is that one the one hand, you prepare for the Big Events…Katrina, zombie uprising, 9.0 earthquakes, comet strikes, civilw ar, etc., and on the other hand you prepare for events that are really only Big to you – job loss, house fire, extremely localized disaster, etc, etc.

Mathematically, the ‘mundane’ and small personal disasters are probably more likely. I’m not saying that someone isn’t going to trip a small nuclear device off in Washington DC…Im just saying that, in my opinion, its more statistically likely that I’ll have a localized blackout, severe winter storm, or personal financial crisis before that happens.

I mention it because its very, very easy to get caught up in the preparations for ‘the big one’ and ignore the preparation for the smaller events. While its true that if youre prepared for the Really Big Stuff youre probably going to be de facto prepared for the small stuff, that isn’t always the case. For example, if youre preparing for the zombie apocalypse the odds are pretty good youre not thinking youre going to need a lot of cash to get through it…whereas if your employer shuts down on two weeks notice, the really cool water filter you have may not be as valuable to your situation as a bundle of cash you’ve stashed away for emergencies.

So, the point for today is don’t overlook the more likely small personal disasters. Shift gears for a while and give “what if an EMP strike destroys our infrastructure” a rest and spend some time working on “what if I can’t get a job for six months”.
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My birthday is coming up (August 7 for those of you who might be curious) and I received an early birthday gift today from my dad. I received the uberhuge Dillon brass tumbler. My old tumbler finally gave up the ghost last week and I have thousands and thousands of cases here that need cleaning before I can load ‘em up and squirrel ‘em away against Der Tag.

The Dillon tumbler isn’t cheap, which is why I wouldn’t buy it for myself, but I have no doubt that it is probably right up there at the top of the list for quality and performance. My experience with Dillon stuff has been good and their famous customer service has never let me down. To be fair, all the major reloading equipment manufacturers have outstanding service (esp. RCBS) but none of them make a tumbler anywhere near the size of this Dillon birdbath.
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Somebody I know had the good fortune to come across an eBay auction for a pile of surplus police radios (and chargers, belt pouches, spare batts, microphones and even a few car units). The good fortune continued in that this person also knew someone who could program these radios to operate on other frequencies than the ones they came programmed with. Well, when you put those two things together wouldn’t you have gotten a few as well?

These are, apparently, police Motorolas that the folks in NY decided they didn’t need anymore. I had them reprogrammed to operate on local police, fire, and medical frequencies as well as on MURS and other common frequencies. The radios have a scan function so I set it up to scan the commonly used local frequencies. The upshot is that each radio acts as a scanner and, if need be, can transmit on those frequencies as well.

I think that having the ability to eavesdrop on local radio traffic is a useful thing to have. Although many departments and agencies have switched to communications that are a bit more secure and less open to interception, here in podunkville those sorts of advancements in local agency technology come rather slow, if at all.
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I continue to feel unease and anxious about, well, pretty much everything in general these days. This Obamacare debacle, if it comes to pass, will be undoubtedly a bad move. The economy is or is not doing well, depending on the news media reporting it, swine flu is or is not going to kill all of us, depending on who is reporting it, we are or are not going to go to war with Iran, depending on who is reporting it…well, you get the idea. There’s almost no certainty in anything. There’s very little that would surprise me these days. I can’t think of any headlines that would surprise me these days.

So what can I do to make myself feel at least a little more at east about things? Well, the usual, really….stocking food, fuel, ammo, cash, and information.

I did get an interesting phone call the other day. A fella I’ve casually known for about twenty years called me asking about 5-gallon buckets. He’s a disabled Vietnam vet who lives with his wife in a nice doublewide trailer outside of town here in one of the little outlying communities. He and his wife live rather comfortably on his VA 100% disability and both their Social Security checks. Between the two of them, they knock back about $3-4k a month…good money for out here, esp. when all you have to do to get it is not die. (Well, that and have some unpleasantness occur in Southeast Asia forty years ago.)

Anyway, once in a rare while we’ll talk about how things are just going to hell in a handbasket and isn’t it a shame blah blah blah. He had mentioned that he and his wife had been, over the last few years, putting away money and, as of late, putting away food. He knew that I socked away food and asked me about the best way to do it. I gave him a few GammaSeal lids and told him that if he was going to be storing stuff in buckets these things made storage a lot easier and more convenient. Anyway, he called to ask me where to purchase buckets and what kind to get. I told him most any paint store would have them, that I preferred the .090 mil thickness buckets but if you can’t find them the more common .070 mil ones will do. Told him that the local Sportsmans Warehouse (now rebranded as Wholesale Sports) had .090 mil buckets for about $5 each in the fishing section if you didn’t mind the SW logo on the side.

I think what I find interesting here is that this guy is the first ‘old’ person I’ve dealt with who is thinking along these lines. Almost everyone I deal with who is, to varying degrees and for varying reasons, into preparedness is usually within a few years of my own age. (Part of this, reasonably, is because people just naturally gravitate towards others of their own age group, I think.) Back when there were still plenty of people around who were old enough to have been through the Depression as adults it wasn’t uncommon to meet folks who had developed lifelong habits of thrift and preparedness from their experience. Old men who never threw away anything and never spent a dime more than they had to, old women who saved their coupons and green stamps long after the stores that redeemed them had closed, etc, etc. But I’ve met very few older (60+ years) people who take it seriously enough to stock food, ammo, metals, etc, etc. That doesn’t mean theyre not out there, it just means I haven’t met them yet.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

You know, you’d think I’d remember that the domain registration falls a few days before my birthday every year.

You’d think.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Ah, so its just not me. Hollywood is indeed pushing out more apocalyptic fare.

Read the list in the sidebar of various apocalyptic movies that have come and gone. Kudos to Chuck Heston for making the list twice.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Military planning for possible H1N1 outbreak

The U.S. military wants to establish regional teams of military personnel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, according to Defense Department officials.

Hamthrax comes out and its the end of the world, then we’re told that regular flu kills more folks than swine flu so stop worrying, but, apparently, in the background theres a quiet undercurrent of concern at the higher levels. Interesting.

Be interesting to see what happens this winter as flu season rolls around.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I haven’t been to the LDS/Mormon cannery in a while.Thus, I haven’t posted anything about the cannery lately. However, just because I haven’t gone lately doesn’t mean I should let the topic fall off the radar. The LDS cannery is probably the single most useful resource anyone who is into preparedness could have. They sell the stuff at cost, which is mighty cheap, and sell it in a form that is designed for long term storage. Remember, you cant just go in and buy stuff off the rack and walk out the door…you have to put in some ’sweat equity’. That means you have to take part in the packaging process which, really, you should do anyway so you’ll know how to do it yourself if the time comes. Maybe you’ll be on the little assembly line slapping labels on the cans, or running the can sealer, or putting the oxygen absorbers in the cans, or some other simple task. But work you shall. And its worth it. It is my understanding the canneries are open to non-members these days so don’t worry that you have to sniff out a Mormon co-worker or golf buddy to get you in the door. Even if its an hour or two drive from you, it’s worth the trip.

Finding a local cannery can be done with this link.
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It’s interesting, when it comes to preparedness I think almost entirely in terms of food, money and fuel (in that order). The guns part of the equation has virtually dispappeared. Sure, I still pick up some .22 ammo and that sort of thing, and if a good deal walks in front of me I take advantage of it, but theres virtually no urgency anymore. I dont have everything I want but I do have everything I need. Several layers of redundancy. I can focus on other things, and thats kind of nice.
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Speaking of redundancy. Our good friend ,Rawles over at SurvivalBlog boiled it down rather neatly and came up with these guidelines regarding gear, tools and equipment. Not too much in there to argue with.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Yup, its a Woobie.