It’s mentioned a time or two in the past, but I thought it might be timely to post a reminder about Sparks31 blog. Pretty much everything you want to know about ‘grid down’ communications, and even some “What to buy if you don’t want a lecture on radio theory and just want a shopping list”.  A guy who is on the same page as most of us in terms of mindset, and the technological experience and know-how to be an excellent resource. Go check him out.

And, in case he happens to check his logs to see where his referrals are coming from – Dude! Email me sometime and say hi.

Was playing with some old money today. Notice anything interesting (other than the obvious) about these?

Well, lets look a tad closer:

The $1000 bill was printed after Roosevelt’s little stunt. Notice that the newer bills says nothing about redeeming for gold..only ‘lawful money’. Oh, those crazy liberals!

Anyway, it was interesting to see that little reminder of some weird times. The Metals Pimp tells me that there are still plenty of customers who only buy their gold in ‘colectible’ form because they think that if this sort of thing happens again, Uncle Same will , for some strange reason, use the exact same wording of the orginal Act and exempt collector coins. Really? Does that make any sense at all? I didn’t think so.

Speaking of the Metals Pimp, he dropped off a nice shiny Silver Eagle that he said one of his customers asked him to pass on to me. So, generous benefactor, when the zombies are roaming and the apocalypse is nigh I will be purchasing my lapdances with silver and raise a toast of home-distilled brain-eraser to your generosity. Salut!

One of the staple topics that gets beaten to death regularly on survival forums is the “guns to keep caches at your [BOL/BOV/cabin/cache].” The post usually starts of with someone saying how their normal end of the world gear is a nice Rock River AR, a tweaked out Springfield 1911 and maybe a nicely appointed 870. Then they’ll start talking about the guns they have hidden away ‘just in case’…and it’s an SKS, Mosin Nagant, and maybe a HiPoint or two.

How does this make sense? Yes, anything you store off site is going to be at risk for loss and you want to keep potential losses low. BUT…think about it: if you have to resort to the guns at your cache or family hunting cabin then you’re life has hit a point where you want the best you can get, right? I mean, if those guns are good enough for your offsite stash then shouldnt they be good enough to be your primary guns?

I bring this up because I love the notion of disposable gear but with a high quality to price ratio. On a good day I can buy a used Glock for $300 but thats still more than I want to risk losing on a ‘truck gun’ or ‘stash gun’. At the same time, I am not going into Katrinaville with a HiPoint pistol. But…there is a gun out there that is high quality, reliable, and cheap enough that if you lose it you don’t really cry….and is far more confidence inspiring than any Bersa, Taurus, or HiPoint.

This is a Ruger P95. It is supremely rugged, and I’ve yet to pay more than $200 for a used one. It’s a gun I am perfectly comfortable leaving under a car seat or in an ammo can under the porch with no real concern if it gets stolen, at the same time it is a gun I’d feel totally comfortable facing hordes of zombies with. These guns are ridiculously cheap on the used market, are built like tanks, have as few parts as the Glock, are lightweight, and run about as reliably as anything costing three times as much.

While I tote the Glock around day to day, I’d have no reservation carrying the Ruger. Although Ruger orphaned the P-series pistols two generations ago (the Ruger SR and Ruger American are Rugers latest failures at capturing the police/military market) they are still plentiful because they were inexpensive. Need proof? Go look at photos from ‘gun buybacks’….there’ll always be a P-series in there somewhere.

This one rolled across my desk when someone said I could have it for $200. It’s an outstanding choice for a gun you don’t care what happens to but it still worthy of carrying through an episode of The Walking Dead.

So, before you spend money on a HiPoint or Bersa, go look around and see if you can’t find one of these.

Remember that old headline?

The paper was so certain that Truman would lose they went ahead and set the type and printed the paper….assuming it was a done deal.

Behold:

So certain was I of a Clinton victory, I ordered these at the last minute. But..since Trump won does that mean this was a bad purchase? Nope, not in the least. They will cost more later. And someday they will be unavailable. All Im losing here is opportunity cost.

I am at a loss to explain why so many people in the blogosphere seem to think we dodged a bullet. We didn’t dodge a bullet, we just got a different finger on the trigger.

Yes, Trump did say that he supports the Second Amendment (whatever that means), but he kinda has a history of saying and doing whatever needed saying/doing to achieve his desired result. There are pictures of him smiling happily with the Clintons, and there are quotes of him glowing about Hillary. Clearly, he ‘goes along to get along’ at times.

How many people in this picture are you certain about in regard to their dedication to your gun rights? The correct answer is: Two. The one on the left is unproven, the two on the right are proven in their lack of dedication.

My point is, you don’t know with any certainty what he’ll do. When some Prozac warrior shoots up a schoolbus and Feinstein/Schumer are dancing in the blood as they work on their ‘commonsense, reasonable’ legislation can you really say with 100% certainty “Ahhh, he won’t sign that!”?

Look, I hope like hell that Trump has a pro-gun position on things and sticks with it. But I don’t know that. And I (and you) won‘t know that until it’s put to the test. So for that reason, I think anyone who thinks “Oh, I’ve got plenty of time to gear up now that the election is over” is taking a big risk and being foolishly short-sighted.

Evernote tells me that I’ve been a bad survivalist – I haven’t run the EU2000 since June. June!! Well, I have had a lot on my mind. Anyway, I needed to run the generator for a while, run it under load, and I needed to get the leaves blown out. So…..

Let’s kill two birds with one stone.

Took about five pulls for the EU2000 to start up, but then it ran like a champ. Moved the leaves around for about a half hour and called it good. Note to self – once a month, stupid!

Some of you may wonder why the electric leaf blower rather than gas. Honestly, it’s one less engine for me to have issues with later. Plus, in this case it was a great way to run the generator under load. For those who are curious, that’s a run/hours meter on the case of the EU2000. I also keep a copy of the startup/shutdown directions fastened to the generator.

So…genny works and is ready for whatever comes. One less thing to deal with.

The general consensus of the survivalist community is that the EU2000 and the rest of the EU series from Honda are the go-to choice for small quiet generators. Indeed, I would say that whenever I read posts about people using their generators in an emergency, 90% of the time the generator they are using is the Honda. Highly recommend.

As usual, Cracked.com nails it……..

I’m going to explain the Donald Trump phenomenon in three movies. And then some text.

An excellent job explaining that this previous election was the Democrats Dien Bien Phu in the Culture War.

However, much like the Versailles Treaty, Dien Bien Phu set things up for a larger conflict later.

One of the more justifiable Federal holidays. Go take a vet to dinner or a lapdance, depending on their age.