Monday, October 31, 2022

Books for Your Basic Training

Some more e-books I came across that I thought might interest my readers who believe that we are facing a civil war and/or large scale social unrest beyond just protecting your house or neighborhood. The first-aid/medical manuals are of interest because they also include information on NBC related injuries or treatment that you won't find in a civilian manual. Please note that I've only perused or read a couple of these books/manuals, and I haven't served in the military, so please don't take this as my recommendations as to any particular book or course of training:

  • The Official U.S. Army Combat Skills Handbook (PDF) by Matt Larsen. This is a compilation of material from numerous Army manuals and publications including but not limited to STP 7-11B1-SM-TG, Soldier's Manual and Trainer's Guide MOS 11B Infantry, Skill Level 1 (Aug. 6, 2004) and STP 21-1-SMCT, Soldier's Manual of Common Tasks, Skill Level 1 (Sep. 11, 2012). Covers first aid and preventative medicine, environmental conditions (desert, jungle, arctic), combatives, cover and concealment, fighting positions, general movement, movement and techniques for the urban environment, observation and reporting, combat marksmanship and weapons, communications, SERE, mines and demolition, and explosive devices.
    • Alternate Selection: STP 21-1-SMCT, Soldier's Manual of Common Tasks, Skill Level 1 (Jun. 18, 2009) (PDF). Basic first aid, NBC training, basic movement and drills, navigation, communications, weapons, and miscellaneous defensive skills.
  • Light Infantry Tactics For Small Teams by Christopher E. Larsen (PDF). Basic individual and leadership competencies, patrolling methods, defensive procedures, and offensive operations oriented. You might want to pick up the print version of this as it would be easier to use.
  • SH 21-76 Ranger Handbook (Feb. 2011) (PDF). This is a very clear and clean copy unlike many other PDFs you might find.
  • The Home Schooled Shootist: Training to Fight With a Carbine by Joe Nobody (epub). I have the print copy of this book as well as downloading this copy. It would probably be best to have both. The print copy is easier to use but the photographs and illustrations are black and white, whereas the photos in the e-book are in color with higher resolution.
    • Alternate: FM 3-22.9 Rifle Marksmanship M16-/M4-Series Weapons (Aug. 2008) (PDF).
  • U.S. Army Combat Pistol Training Handbook (epub). Not my first (or even second) choice for a pistol training manual, but since this post is primarily oriented around military manuals or military style training, here it is. 
  • UNITED STATES ARMY COMBATIVES SCHOOL Basic Combatives Course (Level I) Handbook (PDF). If your background is civilian marital arts or self-defense classes, this is useful because it illustrates defensive concepts while carrying/using a rifle or carbine.

And for some advanced or specialized training:

  • U.S. Army Survival, Evasion, and Recovery (epub). This appears to be a commercial printing of FM 21-76-1. Consider this additional information on field craft and first aid.
  • U.S. Army Map Reading and Land Navigation Handbook (PDF) by Department of the Army. This appears to be a commercially published version of FM 3-25.26 (FM 21-26).
  • U.S. Army First Aid Manual (epub). This appears to be a compilation of first aid materials from various Army manuals and publications.
  • TM 9-1005-319-23 M16 Maintenance Manual (Dec. 1996) (PDF). Not an armorer's manual but goes over maintenance, including preventative maintenance. 
  • MCTP 3-01C Machine Guns and Machine Gun Gunnery (May 2, 2016) (PDF).
  • FM 5-250 Explosives and Demolitions (Jul 30, 1998) (PDF)
  • FMFM 0-7 Close Combat And Hand To Hand Fighting (Jul 9, 1993) (PDF). This is the Marine Corp manual.
    • Alternate selection: FM 21-150 Combatives (Sep. 30, 1992) (PDF).
  • U.S. Army Guide To Military Mountaineering (epub). Includes first-aid/medical topics related to cold weather and high altitude.
  • Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook (Jun 1, 2001) (PDF). Browsing through this, I was very impressed. It appears to me that this is probably as close as you will come to a complete course in medicine and surgery short of going to medical school. Much more detailed than Where There Is No Doctor while still covering a wider range of topics. Even includes sections on podiatry, dentistry, and basic veterinary medicine.

Friday, October 28, 2022

E-Book: "The Russian Way Of War"

The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces (PDF) by Dr. Lester W. Grau and Charles K. Bartles (Foreign Military Studies Office, 2016).

Thursday, October 27, 2022

E-Books: Medical Treatment of Radiological Injuries

 

Hiroshima burn marks
For the medically inclined, here are links to some books and articles on treating radiological injuries:

  • FM 4-02.283 Treatment of Nuclear and Radiological Casualties (PDF). See also this April 2000 draft FM 8-283 Treatment of Nuclear Warfare Casualties and Low-Level Radiation Injuries (PDF).
  • Medical Management of Radiological Casualties (Online Third Edition, 2010) (PDF).
  • Medical Consequences of Nuclear Warfare (PDF) (epub)
  • "Radiation Injury After a Nuclear Detonation: Medical Consequences and the Need for Scarce Resources Allocation," Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2011 March ; 5(0 1): S32–S44. doi:10.1001/dmp.2011.17. (PDF). From the abstract:
A 10-kiloton (kT) nuclear detonation within a US city could expose hundreds of thousands of people to radiation. The Scarce Resources for a Nuclear Detonation Project was undertaken to guide community planning and response in the aftermath of a nuclear detonation, when demand will greatly exceed available resources. This article reviews the pertinent literature on radiation injuries from human exposures and animal models to provide a foundation for the triage and management approaches outlined in this special issue. Whole-body doses >2 Gy can produce clinically significant acute radiation syndrome (ARS), which classically involves the hematologic, gastrointestinal, cutaneous, and cardiovascular/central nervous systems. The severity and presentation of ARS are affected by several factors, including radiation dose and dose rate, interindividual variability in radiation response, type of radiation (eg, gamma alone, gamma plus neutrons), partial-body shielding, and possibly age, sex, and certain preexisting medical conditions. The combination of radiation with trauma, burns, or both (ie, combined injury) confers a worse prognosis than the same dose of radiation alone. Supportive care measures, including fluid support, antibiotics, and possibly myeloid cytokines (eg, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor), can improve the prognosis for some irradiated casualties. Finally, expert guidance and surge capacity for casualties with ARS are available from the Radiation Emergency Medical Management Web site and the Radiation Injury Treatment Network.

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

E-Book: "Atomic Bombing: How To Protect Yourself"


I saw the pictured book cover at Western Rifle Shooters Association and thought I would track it down for those interested in a PDF copy. You can download a copy here. The book was published in 1950. The topics covered include:

  1. What an A-Bomb will do
  2. What you can do in civil defense
  3. Organizing against A-Bomb attack
  4. Keeping A-Bombs away from America
  5. Kinds of A-Bomb Radiation
  6. The danger of radioactive poisoning
  7. How to detect radiation
  8. Decontamination
  9. Preventing panic
  10. Protection is possible
  11. Medical first aid
  12. The treatment of burns
  13. The treatment of shock
  14. How to fight a fire
  15. Preventing sabotage and looting
  16. The history of atomic energy
  17. Peaceful uses of atomic energy
  18. The hydrogen bomb--can it be made?
  19. Can A-Bombing be prevented?
I've only glanced through the book so I can't give a full review but here are a few things I noted. First of all, having been written in 1950, the book is obviously dated--there was a significant amount of testing and research on nuclear weapons and their effects that followed the publication of this book, the dangers of EMP had not yet been realized, and there have obviously been advances in technology and medicine (even first aid) since its publication.

    Second, there is a heavy emphasis on civil defense and being working in conjunction with a federal or state civil defense plan. Thus the information presented is a mix of information intended for civil defense officers and other planners, as well as for the individual. Much of the preparation information deals with community response rather than on how to save you and your family while the world burns. The book also takes the perspective of not just surviving a nuclear attack, but that we would, at that point, be at war with another country (i.e., the Soviet Union), and so it addresses concerns about sabotage and working with the FBI. 

    Third, notwithstanding the foregoing, it does have some good information. It includes a detailed description of what an atomic blast would be like, an simple and basic description of radiation and radiation sickness (poisoning), and delves into decontamination than other books. Although some of the information is obsolete, it has a fairly comprehensive section on first-aid for common injuries after a nuclear attack with an emphasis on treating burns and injuries from blast and debris. It discusses preventing and fighting fires that would result from the thermal flash or other causes. 

    I would not depend solely on this book for my preparations for a nuclear attack, but it has some valuable information and appears it would be interesting from a historical perspective, if nothing else.

Friday, October 21, 2022

E-Books: Additional Fallout Shelter Designs And Information

 Your best bet for constructing a basic shelter from radiation and fallout for a modest budget is if you have an unfinished basement and then converting a section into a fallout shelter. This can be as fancy as building the equivalent of a thick walled "safe room" in the basement or as simple as constructing an expedient lean-to type shelter in a basement corner. The booklet, "Fallout Protection for Basements" contains ideas for in-basement shelters, although it does not have specific plans. It is more of a book on available options.

    The booklet, "Family Shelter Designs" has plans for 8 types of shelters, including three in-basement shelters. The designs included are:

  1. Basement Sand-Filled Lumber Lean-To Shelter
  2. Basement Corrugated Asbestos-Cement Lean-To Shelter
  3. Basement Concrete Block Shelter
  4. Outside Semimounded Plywood Box Shelter
  5. Belowground Corrugated Steel Culvert Shelter
  6. Outside Semimounded Steel Igloo Shelter
  7. Aboveground Earth-Covered Lumber A-Frame Shelter
  8. Belowground New Construction Clay Masonry Shelter


    
The booklet, "The Family Fallout Shelter", covers in more detail the construction of the concrete block basement shelter and underground concrete shelter, as well as some additional detail drawings for some of the shelters described in the "Family Shelter Designs" booklet discussed above. It also has a list of suggested items to have stocked in your shelter. 

    If you farm or raise livestock, this one is definitely for you: "Protecting Family And Livestock From Nuclear Fallout." This has information on radiation and the dangers posed by it, as well as a discussion of shielding requirements and what existing structures would be adequate. It also discusses calculating the amount of feed for animals and, since it may not be possible to shield all the animals, advice on what animals to protect and which to abandon. Another section lists specific items to store in a shelter (for humans) and addresses common issues for shelter including waste management and air circulation. Finally, it has a section on shelter construction. 

    Another for farmers and ranchers is this one: "Fallout On The Farm" which discusses dealing with fallout both as to crops and as to livestock. 

    Although not on building shelters, "Guidance for Development of an Emergency Fallout Shelter Stocking Plan" has information on stocking food and supplies, including a list of foods showing the amount for a single serving and for 100 servings, and information on the amount of water that you would be able to collect from water heaters, pipes in buildings, and similar. 

    Finally, you should be sure to read the booklet, "You Will Survive Doomsday" because it covers some "myths" regarding nuclear survival, including some misconceptions relevant to shelter construction and surviving in one.

Thursday, October 20, 2022

E-Book: Nuclear War Survival Skills


Continuing with my recent posts on books and pamphlets relevant to prepping for a nuclear war is the big kahuna: Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearny (1987 edition). This book is very focused on surviving a nuclear war over any other disaster. Moreover, because of this focus, it primarily focuses on surviving the initial nuclear attack and the initial couple of weeks when fallout will be the most dangerous, although the discussion on food storage and preparations covers a longer time frame. 

    The contents of the book include some preface sections, including an introduction, followed by the following chapters:

  1. The Dangers from Nuclear Weapons: Myths and Facts
  2. Psychological Preparations
  3. Warnings and Communications
  4. Evacuation
  5. Shelter, the Greatest Need
  6. Ventilation and Cooling of Shelters
  7. Protection Against Fires and Carbon Monoxide
  8. Water
  9. Food
  10. Fallout Radiation Meters
  11. Light 
  12. Shelter Sanitation and Preventive Medicine
  13. Surviving Without Doctors
  14. Expedient Shelter Furnishings
  15. Improvised Clothing and Protective Items
  16. Minimum Pre-Crises Preparations
  17. Permanent Family Fallout Shelters for Duel Use 
  18. Trans-Pacific Fallout
In addition, there are the following Appendices:

    A.    Instructions for Six Expedient Fallout Shelters

    B.     How to Make and Use a Homemade Shelter-Ventilating Pump, the KAP

    C.    Instructions for a Homemade Fallout Meter

    D.    Expedient Blast Shelters

    E.    How to Make and Use a Homemade Plywood Double-Action Piston Pump and Filter

    F.     Means for Providing Improved Ventilation and Daylight to a Shelter with an Emergency Exit

Finally, the book as a selected index and a list of selected references.  I don't have an older copy, but, due to differences in fonts, it appears that Chapters 17 and 18 and Appendices E and F are new to the 1987 edition. It appeared to me that portions of the chapter on food had also been expanded. 

    You will probably notice right away that the Life After Doomsday book incorporates information from this book on expedient shelters, instructions for the fallout meter and ventilation pump design, but not to the detail in this volume. For instance, Life After Doomsday had two trench style expedient shelters, while this has instructions on six styles of expedient shelters. 

    If you are like me, you probably don't have the space or money to add a permanent shelter and would have to rely on an expedient shelter. However, expedient in this case does not mean that you can simply throw it together with whatever you have hand. The designs take a substantial amount of wood for framing and supports and, presumably, fasteners of some sort. I would expect that in the event of an impending attack, you would not have the time to go and shop for all of this, and panic buying might result in the materials not being available even if you had the time. Thus, if you believe that you might need a fallout shelter, you would want to purchase and store the materials beforehand. 

    But before all of that, take a careful look at the fallout maps to see if you will need a fallout shelter. Although there are some scary looking maps, the reality is that the fallout will either be heavier material that will fall out of the atmosphere within a relatively short distance--several tens of miles--or be lighter dust that will be swept high into the atmosphere and probably take years to settle out. And, remember, that we are looking at warheads of less than 1 MT yield each. Thus the map at p. 36 of the PDF, which assumes ground bursts from multi-megaton yield weapons, shows a heavier fallout pattern than what is probably realistic. If you go to p. 29 of Life After Doomsday (p. 34 of the PDF) the author there offers what he considers a more realistic fallout map, reflecting that most of the heavy material will be from surface detonations to destroy hardened facilities such as missile silos. Similarly, on page 46 of the latter volume (p. 51 of the PDF), he shows areas that will likely be fallout free under even a worst-case scenario. Thus, I believe that unless you are downwind of hardened facilities (several hundred miles) or downwind of an airburst of a major city (40 or 50 miles), fallout will probably not such a risk to necessitate a special fallout shelter. Study up on the topic, but I think that you will most likely come to the same conclusion. For most of us, the danger will be radioactive particles building up over months or years from the stuff swept into the upper atmosphere and entering the food chain.

New Bombs & Bants (Streamed 10/19/2022)

 

VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 57" (59 min.)

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

E-Book: Life After Doomsday by Bruce D. Clayton, Ph.D.


You can download this book here. In my mind, this is THE classic book on survival and prepping for those concerned with surviving a nuclear conflict. For while the author considers other types of disasters--local, regional, or national--the emphasis in the book is on convincing the reader that they could, indeed, survive with proper planning, and then goes about the basics of that planning. An running approximately 180 pages, it isn't a long read, either.

    The book is split into a Preface, in which he explains what motivated him to write the book, followed by 8 chapters and several appendices.

    Chapter 1, "It's a Disaster!" goes over several historically common types of regional or national disasters--famine, pandemic, natural disasters--religious disasters (i.e., the Apocalypses), man-made disasters, resource depletion, political unrest and terrorism, and, finally, good ol' "shall we play a game" thermonuclear war. Chapter 2 delves more deeply into nuclear war and its effects, and is probably as good a primer on the topic as you will read.

    Chapter 3, "To Flee or Not To Flee" discusses likely targets during a nuclear war as well as going into a greater discussion of fallout and some general patterns of fallout so that you are aren't fleeing one area only to move into another that is going to be heavily impacted by fallout. He finishes a chapter with a series of questions to help you decide if you need to move and where to move based on your assessment of what type of disaster you face, your willingness/ability to move, and so forth. This latter portion is not just for nuclear attack, but also covers hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquake risks, and so on. One thing to keep in mind when reading this chapter is that the stocks of both Russian and American missiles and bombs are much smaller today than when the book was written, and the yields have also fallen. The Russian's primary ICBM today is the R-36M2 Voevoda (SS-18 Mod 5) which can carry up to 10 MIRVs with yields of 500 to 750 kT each. Basically, it was determined that it was more destructive (at least against cities) to use multiple smaller warheads impacting in overlapping patterns than to use one giant multi-megaton warhead. Consequently, the blast, radiation and thermal effects will be over a larger area than would be predicted with a single megaton detonation. 

    Chapter 4, "Home Sweet Hole" is all about protection from the initial gamma radiation blast, thermal effects, and overpressure caused by a nuclear explosion, as well as the subsequent fallout. It has some basic ideas on shelters from expensive, purpose built shelters, to expedient blast and fallout shelters. It also discusses using an airplane or sailboat as a refuge during the attack and afterward. Finally, it addresses some special considerations as far as clothing, gas masks/filters, etc.

    Chapter 5, "A Loaf of Bread, a Jug of Wine, and Chow", is all about storing or growing food and storing and purifying water, and related topics. Not much has changed here other than there are lot of specific prepper oriented products available today. 

    Chapter 6, "Nobody Makes Housecalls Anymore", is on first aid and self-help medical care, including supplies to stock up. Remember, even if you don't know how to use them, they are at least there should you find a doctor that could provide assistance to you or your family. Obviously a lot has happened over the past 20 years to address gun shot and other penetrating wound treatment in the field, so you definitely would want to augment what is in this book with some IFAK trauma kits.

    Chapter 7, "To Have and to Hold", is a very basic review of how to make sure someone else doesn't come along and take what you have. This chapter is not intended for the gun geek or the person with combat experience, but a complete newbie. It was also written in the early 1980s. So his advice and recommendations may not match what you would recommend today. However, for a newbie, it is a good starting point. Also, he doesn't dance around with debating the different types of firearms: he has specific brands and models that he recommends. If I were to update the list today, I would probably suggest replacing the HK91 with a scoped AR10/AR308 from a reputable manufacturer, and the AR-180 with a 16-inch AR-15 style rifle from a reputable manufacturer and/or a bullpup in 5.56 with a red-dot and magnifier as well as a weapon light. I would ditch the folding stock and pistol grip on the shotgun and go with a standard stock, but stick a red dot and weapon light on it. And, much as I like the 1911 in .45 ACP, the handgun recommendation should be updated from a compact 1911 Commander to a Glock 19 in 9mm.  

    Chapter 8, "Wake Me When It's Over", is about what to do after the blast: leadership, shelter schedules, decontamination, sanitation, illumination and power, communication, etc. 

The appendices are as follows:

  • Appendix A: Nuclear Target Areas within the United States
  • Appendix B: Fallout Pattern Data
  • Appendix C: Expedient Shelter Construction (showing a couple trench style shelter that can easily constructed).
  • Appendix D: The Kearney Air Pump (for ventilation in a shelter)
  • Appendix E: Supplementary Medical Information (medical information specific to a nuclear attack)
  • Appendix F: Special Radiological Information (radioactive decay and some methods to calculate how long to stay in your shelter)
  • Appendix G: The Kearny Fallout Meter (plans on constructing an expedient fallout meter to measure radiation).

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

E-Book: "Food Storage Recipes"

Link here. This 36 page booklet was published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Home Storage Center in Lindon, Utah. As the booklet explains, the recipes use only the ingredients contained in the One-Month Basic Food Storage Kit. The contents for that kit are in the image below:


    In addition to the recipes, it has sections dealing with food safety, water and water storage, using wheat (including methods of cracking the wheat for cooking or grinding into flour), gluten free flour, and more. This link goes to a Church website with information to find the location of food storage center near you or to order online. 

Monday, October 17, 2022

E-Book: "Safe Home Food Storage"


    This booklet is similar to the one I linked to last week from Utah State University, but this one is from the extension office at Texas A&M. Link here.

    The first several pages are on pantry, refrigerator and freezer conditions (temperatures, containers to use, other suggestions), a discussion on food freshness and "use by" labels, and comments on left-overs. The bulk of the document is a detailed table setting out how long food can safely be stored in a pantry, refrigerator, or freezer, respectively, with notes about any special handling instructions. 

Friday, October 14, 2022

"Food Storage In The Home"--University of Utah Extension Office

This pamphlet, Food Storage In The Home, is a short (21 pages) guide to what to store and how to store it to protect against degradation or infestation.

A Couple More For My Idaho Readers: An Atlas Of Idaho's Wildlife and Idaho Wild Trees

The Atlas of Idaho's Wildlife was published by the Idaho Department of Fish & Game.  Unfortunately, it lacks photographs or drawings of the animals, but includes information about each animal as well as a rough map showing the area in which it can be found.

The Wild Trees of Idaho by Frederic D. Johnson employs black and white line drawings.

For My Idaho Homeschooler Readers: "History of Idaho" by Leonard J. Arrington

Like most states, Idaho requires K-12 students to have at least one year of Idaho history classes. I don't know in what year it is taught now, but when I was a kid, it was the Fourth Grade. We spent some time learning a bit about pre-history Idaho before moving on to the exploration and settlement of Idaho--most of which was spent studying about the Lewis and Clark Expedition--before finishing with the gold and silver rushes and statehood. This was interspersed with a field trip to the Idaho Historical Museum (as it was called then) and another to Idaho City where you can still see some of the old mining equipment in one of the parks and tour the original Territorial Prison. We probably also toured the Old State Penitentiary and the State House

    But it is hard to find a modern textbook version of Idaho history, or even any sort of comprehensive history of Idaho at all. I recently came across a free to download PDF of the two-volume History of Idaho (Volume 1) (Volume 2) by Leonard J. Arrington which apparently was commissioned as part of Idaho's Centennial in the 1990s. The first volume traces Idaho's history up through the gold and silver rush period, statehood, and into the 1920s. The second volume takes the reader from the 1920s and into the 1990s when the book was published. 

    These books are probably too detailed for a fourth grade class, but I'm sure that lessons could be developed from these books suitable for an elementary age student.

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Another For My Idaho Readers: Forest Service "Field Guide to Forest Plants of Northern Idaho"

This is available as a download from PDFDrive. It is dated 1985 and is 252 pages. It uses black and white drawings.

For My Idaho Readers: U of I "Master Gardener Program Handbook"

This is a course book for a course on gardening. This is the link to a PDF of the whole book. For information on ordering a physical copy of the book or to download individual chapters, go here. The basic sections are as follows:

Chapter 1 — Introduction and policies 

Chapter 2 — Introduction to horticulture and plant physiology 

Chapter 3 — Basic botany 

Chapter 4 — Plant propagation 

Chapter 5 — Soils and fertilizers 

Chapter 6 — Horticultural equipment management 

Chapter 7 — Plant management 

Chapter 8 — Backyard composting 

Chapter 9 — Pesticide management and safety 

Chapter 10 — Basic entomology 

Chapter 11 — Insect management 

Chapter 12 — Rodents, birds and other pests 

Chapter 13 — Plant disease diagnosis and management

Chapter 14 — Weeds

Chapter 15 — Turfgrass establishment and management

Chapter 16 — Landscaping

Chapter 17 — Landscape plants

Chapter 18 — Woody Landscape plants

Chapter 19 — Herbaceous ornamentals

Chapter 20 — Principles of vegetable culture 

Chapter 21 — Vegetable crop recommendations

Chapter 22 — Fruit trees

Chapter 23 — Small fruits

Chapter 24 — Houseplants and home greenhouses

Chapter 25 — Organic gardening

New Bombs & Bants (Streamed Oct. 12, 2022)

 

VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 56" (47 min.)

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Prepping And Women: Is There A Schism Between Male and Female Preppers?

(Source)

    I occasionally will just do searches about prepping and survivalism on Google News to get a perspective on how the topic or people are being treated in main stream media, get a sense of developing issues, and because sometimes there is good advice or tips to found or new sources to explore (if you haven't noticed, small prepping blogs tend to pop up for short time and die with some frequency).

    My most recent search yielded an article titled "The Schism Breaking Apart the 'Prepper' Community" by Lili Loofbourow at Slate. I don't follow Reddit’s r/preppers board, but according to this March 2022 article, there was a revolt among some of its members over the alleged exclusion of female-centric posts leading to the formation of new Reddit boards that are more female oriented; although from how it is described in the article, I wonder if the real schism is between the "woke" and those that are not. 

    From the article:

    In late February, a post on r/preppers titled “Will the female preppers please stand up” lightheartedly complained about how equipment necessary for survival was aggressively gendered male. Some of the responses from female preppers evolved into a more general complaint about how the community discussions had a masculine cast to them: “Lol one time I made a post on here about stoking birth control and plan b and it got taken down,” a user replied. “I don’t think getting pregnant would help me survive when SHTF but what do I know?” Another user replied: “I remember that post and yes it got taken down by mods who felt that advice relevant to half the country isn’t actually relevant to prepping and we apparently aren’t allowed to talk about things like birth control and preventing yourself from sexual assault without it triggering some people.”

    A debate ensued about whether posts were really being removed—that is, downvoted or reported by members, resulting in their removal by the auto-moderator. Some moderators expressed concern, saying that removing posts about female concerns went against the very spirit of the community. Another moderator claimed it hadn’t happened; only one post he could find in the logs (about “bugging in” with a baby) had been removed by an auto-moderator. He claimed no one had appealed the removals of any posts and complained that the subreddit was needlessly hemorrhaging women over one post no one had complained was gone. Skeptical members requested proof that the removals had actually happened. In the middle of the debate, a user replied with an innocuous announcement. “I just made r/TwoXPreppers,” she wrote. Hundreds of users immediately started subscribing.

    The subreddit description reads: “A place where women can talk about prepping for their specific needs. Even though I used XX in the name this sub is trans inclusive and pro LGBTQIA.”

    It wasn’t a hostile secession. In fact, evidence that female-centered posts on r/preppers had been removed was shared on r/TwoXPreppers at the request of r/preppers moderators, in the hopes of addressing the problem. “The report button is there for a reason,” a screenshot showed a moderator saying, “and if so many members Reported your post that it got removed then I would have to say that the community has spoken.” When this screenshot was posted, another r/preppers moderator wrote: “I am sorry that this happened and am trying to fix the issue. We in no way want to exclude women topics and I really have no idea if the other mods are male or not, but I do assume that they are.”

    It was telling, however, that this conversation was happening on the new, spun-off sub. The cat was out of the bag. Right now, about a month after its creation, r/TwoXPreppers has 7,500 members.

It notes that this was followed by a prepper board for queer preppers and another female board that expressly forbids men. 

    The Reddit post that started it all is here. The original poster, the_queen_of_nada, wrote:

    I'm mostly posting this because I find it humorous, not here to offend anyone.

    We're just one month out from the spring solstice so I've been thinking about updating my bag & getting a few incidentals. I'm only 22 and have only had the money to do this for a year, so up until today, I haven't even had a first aid kit. And for some reason neither do my parents.

    Anyway, I hike as well and plan on taking the kit with me for that too (it's very compact) but while I was browsing other supplies, I couldn't help but notice the bizarre way ALL of this stuff is gendered.

    Multitools? Knives? General survival books? First aid kids? Lanterns?

    Oh no. These aren't just products. They're for HUSBANDS BIG DADDY MANLY MAN STOCKING STUFFER BIRTHDAY PRESENT.

    Like...what? I get this is a male-dominated pursuit but Amazon is just so heavy handed with it, it's hilarious to me. I'm surprised there isn't some company just making all of this shit in pink and then marketing it to women because lord knows that's the only way we'll take responsibility for our own survival /s

So, we have someone that is young (immature) with obviously very little experience with prepping (she still working on a first aid kit for goodness sake!) who doesn't like how Amazon (not the prepper community, but Amazon) had marketed some items to her. She obviously must be referring to an advertisement or email that she received because if you go to Amazon (which I did to make sure) it doesn't specify that multitools or knives, for instance, are just for men. 

    Even looking through the product photographs and videos I didn't see it. Perhaps because some (and I emphasize "some") of the photographs showing someone using the products show men's hands, that somehow communicated to her that women aren't allowed to use the product? Because, if so, it seems a little deranged. I can guarantee that just because a vacuum cleaner box or hair dryer box shows a woman using the product I never think: "I can't use that because it is only for women." 

    There are literally hundreds of responses to queen of nothing's post, some of which spawned their own long series of replies and comments, so I obviously have not been able to read all of them. But I got the general sense scrolling through that most of the responses and comments fell into four main groupings:

1.     Those, like the author of the original post, that are triggered because the product advertisements or marketing material are not specifically tailored to women or POC. 

2.     Those that are just bitter that they are women and so feel compelled to complain about men and argue why women are better than men. 

3.     Those complaining that the men in their lives are not supportive of their prepping.

4.     Those wanting to discuss issues specific to women such as dealing with menstruation, stockpiling birth-control and abortion drugs, and so on. 

    I think you can see why many of the women that had read or contributed to the thread were eager for a space away from prying eyes that might see how they really believe.

    Being a good sport, I decided to find some articles on female prepping to see if there was something inherently different between how men and women should approach prepping. The top ones offered up by Google were:

    To be blunt, most of the seven articles above, four were just about skills and mindset and gear that could have been lifted from any article or book on prepping: there was nothing specific to one sex or the other in them other than the obligatory "you're special" or "go girl" comments. That is, everyone needs to learn to start a fire, how to filter water, how to use a knife or ax, how to defend themselves, etc. I suppose that the main benefit of such articles is that they appeal to women that, for whatever reason, object to being instructed by men and would rather listen to (or read) something from a woman.

    Another article--the first one above, from SHTF Blog--merely lists female bloggers with a short blurb about each. 

    The last two articles from Primer Peak and Survival Frog were the only ones that focused on issues that really are unique to women: dealing with periods, surviving while pregnant, how to avoid getting pregnant, and tips on how to avoid having to engage in the sex trade to survive after a collapse. All useful topics. And the Survival Frog article included links to videos on those topics as well if you learn better that way. 

    But other than the last point on trading sex for food or supplies, which is strangely ignored by most books on prepping, most of the comprehensive books on prepping that I've read (i.e., those that try to cover, however briefly, all aspects of prepping) will typically at least mention feminine issues, even if it is just to refer the reader to other sources. So to the extent that the queen of nothing and those that responded to her post are suggesting that the prepping community has historically not been concerned with prepping issues unique to women, I would say that is incorrect: there has been a concern even if the author did not delve into it in great detail. Which makes sense if the writer is male because there are some topics that men simply can't cover and where the input of women is critical. For instance, even if I wanted to personally test and review a menstrual cup, I would not be able to do so. 

    In the end, I suspect that this is less a schism among the Reddit board members and more just a very small, unpleasant group that simply dislike men. With the exception of a few female specific topics such feminine hygiene and birth control, the advice women are giving to other women do not appear to be different from the prepping advice from men. 

Friday, October 7, 2022

The Galco Fletch High Ride Belt Holster: A Contrast And Comparison

Back in July 2021, I posted a review of a holster for a 1911 which I had received for review from Craft Holsters: the Falco Outside the Waistband Holster With Belt Studs. My acquisition of a Remington R1 included another holster for a 1911: a Galco Fletch High Ride Belt Holster (Model FL212). If you want a review of the Fletch holster, there is a nice writeup at Shooting Illustrated from 2020. I thought I would do a side-by-side comparison between the Fletch and the Falco holster. MSRP on Galco's Fletch Holster is $138. Craft Holster's current price on the Falco OWB holster with belt studs is $99 (it was $89 at the time of my 2021 review).

Falco holster on top; Fletch holster on bottom.


Back of the Galco Fletch holster--note the external reinforcement on the thumb break. I don't know if the right-hand 1911 marking was from the factory or the store or the original owner.


Back of the Falco holster from Craft Holster--note that the reinforcement for the thumb break is stitched into the thumb break.

    The two holsters are similar in that they are both pancake style leather holsters designed for outside the waist band carry and using a thumb break retention system. The quality seems about the same, although I would give a slight nod to Galco for a little bit cleaner stitching and the wider thumb break straps. Both have reinforced thumb breaks, although I like that the Falco holster has it concealed inside the leather instead of a riveted piece of metal. Both appear to be set up to carry a 1911 cocked and locked. The Galco has a reddish hue (they call it "tan") compared to the darker brown ("mahogany") color of the Falco holster. I don't know enough to tell you about the quality of the tanning, other than the tanning appears to be evenly applied on both models.

    I like that the Falco holster has belt loops consisting of straps that can snap open which makes it easier to remove the holster--i.e., you don't have to remove your belt to remove the holster. But it is bulkier system and, as far as I can tell, the strap/loop system appears to be for 1.5 inch belts while the Galco holster fits up to 1.75 inch belts. My two EDC gun belts are both 1.5 inch so that is not an issue, but if you are running a wider belt it might be something to consider. 

    I haven't had a chance to use the Galco holster yet so I can't really speak to differences in carrying comfort or draw, although I don't see why there would be any significant differences.

Thursday, October 6, 2022

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Active Response Training: When Did The US Become A Third-World Country?

 In his post, "Developing World Problems in the USA," Greg Ellifritz relates how his recent travels within the U.S. has shown him a multitude of problem that he used to only experience in developing countries: broken down equipment such as inoperative coffee makers and card readers (with no set date for repairs), unprofessional looking police, sewage and plumbing issues in businesses, hotels using tricks from the third world to save money, stores regularly out of items, shortages of coins to make change, constant airline cancellations and delays, and heightened security such as locking products up because of increased shop lifting. "I’m starting to think that the United Sates is rapidly becoming a third world country," he writes. "The things that once 'worked' don’t work the same way anymore.  The decline is stunningly similar to what I’ve experienced in my travels in the developing world."

    He concludes:

    I don’t know what to think of these disturbing changes.  I don’t know how to fix things.  I think it’s only going to get worse in the future.  Within the next decade, it’s possible that the United States will be downgraded to an economic “second world” nation.  All the signs are here.  Pay attention and have a plan to live a far less luxurious lifestyle in the future.

    I never thought I would be considering my travels in the developing world as critical training and experience for navigating everyday life in the USA.  I predict a rough ride ahead.

    You know that saying about bankruptcy: it happens slowly and then suddenly? Well, the U.S. has entered the "suddenly" phase.

    And I don't believe this is a transitory phase. The reality is that we are becoming a third-world country. There are many interrelated reasons why this is happening but the following are probably the main reasons:

    1.     Due to Covid lockdowns and the resulting supply chain disruptions (and I would note that China is still periodically locking down portions of its country), the profligate spending by the Federal government over the past two years, as well as the energy policies pursued by the Biden Administration, we are seeing unprecedented inflation. While the official version is that inflation is running about 8%, I have seen other measures of inflation (including methods which would have been used prior to the 1980s) putting inflation at twice that. Consequently, business are tightening their belts even if that means putting off maintenance or cutting back on services or perks.

    2.     The people that keep this country running (and I'm mostly looking at men) are dropping out, whether it is retiring or quitting jobs, "laying down" on the job, or never showing up in the first place. 

    One of the things that the Covid lockdowns and forced unemployment showed people was that there was more to life than working in a thankless job, and so many never went back to work mentally or physically. Older workers have retired, became "disabled" or cut back on work. Old and young workers just aren't putting in the effort. And younger men are increasingly just dropping out of society--something that Glenn Reynolds has explored at length at Instapundit. 

    Don't believe me? The Richmond Federal Reserve Bank reported last year that "[o]ver the past 50 years, male labor force participation in the United States has fallen over 10 percentage points, from 80 percent in January 1970 to 69 percent in January 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has fallen further." You might want to click over and read what they have to say about declining labor force participation among young men due to declining marriage rates. See also this article at the New York Post on "Why American boys are failing at school—and men are losing in life." 

    3.     Longer term, we are replacing our first-world population with a third-world population and, as a result, getting a third-world society. As Joseph Henrich's research has shown, there are certain cultural and psycho-social traits that distinguished the first-world from the third-world; traits which led to the prosperity and success that the West has enjoyed. Steven Pinker, in his book, The Better Angels Of Our Nature, also describes processes, most of which occurred exclusively in Western societies over the last several hundred years, that made us less criminal and violent. So, no, notwithstanding what the talking heads tell us, we are not all the same.

     And the problem is that things are just going to get worse. Our immigration and border polices are broken because employers want the cheap labor and our ruling class seriously believes that people are fungible. The war on men, as Glenn Reynolds has called it, would cause all sort of outrage if it were impacting any group other than men (and mostly white men)--similar declines in graduation rates or in college enrollment among women or racial minorities would lead to howls of outrage from liberals and elites everywhere, but instead we hear crickets. Because our ruling class doesn't care. 

    In fact, our ruling class not only doesn't care but it appears to be actively trying to destroy our civilization in every way it can. It's not just grooming of children in school and brainwashing them into believing that boys are girls and girls are boys, the "anti-racism" racism against white people (as Michael Walsh explains, those pushing diversity, inclusion and equity really do want you of a pasty complexion to die), but also the deliberate destruction of our economies and infrastructure starting out in the hollowing out of our manufacturing sector by outsourcing jobs to the Far East and Central America, but the blatant acts intended to destroy our energy sector under the excuse of global warming. As the author of the Burning Platform blog puts it:

It isn’t a coincidence that hundreds of food processing plants have been burnt to the ground in the last year. The shutting down of nuclear power plants across Europe, with no replacement energy sources is madness, but is being done by globalist puppet leaders across the continent. Biden and his handlers have banned pipelines, fracking, drilling and anything designed to produce more fossil fuel energy. The green energy lies are spewed 24/7, based upon fantasy thinking. These evil acolytes of Satan want you to starve and freeze and then beg them to save you by surrendering your freedom, liberty, and lives to their totalitarian whims.

And from another author:

    In recent years, we have found gigantic copper deposits in Minnesota and a large lithium deposit in Nevada. Both are needed for an on-demand energy information economy. Will environmental wackos let them be mined? No.

    California really needs a lot of fresh water. If you think that global warming is happening, they really need a lot of fresh water. Will they build desalination plants along the coast to pump water to farmers in the Central Valley that need it? No. The environmental wackos are against it and people that live on the coast think they will be eyesores.

    Instead, no one does anything. Politicians score political points. The problems remain and the citizens get screwed. How do you like paying your taxes now?

      And now, as Philip Pilkington, writing at The Spectator, warns, we are facing an impending global depression. He writes:

    The rapid economic collapse that Britain is facing is simply an accelerated version of what the whole of Europe is about to go through; unsustainable borrowing to fund the gap between high energy prices and what households can actually afford. With the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, there is now no feasible way back. Europe can no longer physically import Russian gas – prices will remain high until Europe builds more energy capacity, which could take years.

    What is likely to come of this? High energy prices will render European manufacturing uncompetitive. European manufacturers will be forced to pass through the higher energy costs in the form of higher prices and consumers will find it cheaper to buy products from countries with normal energy prices. The only logical European response to the threat of widespread deindustrialisation is to raise tariffs. This is the only way to equalise prices between more expensive European goods and cheaper foreign goods, therefore artificially supporting European manufacturing. This strategy will lower living standards, depriving Europeans of cheaper goods, but it will at least preserve some manufacturing jobs.

    This process looks remarkably like the start of the Great Depression. In the 1920s, due to lopsided financial arrangements initiated in the Treaty of Versailles, western economies accumulated enormous amounts of debt. In 1929, the collapse of the American stock market removed one of the key remaining props and the western economies collapsed. Europe went first and, as trade dried up, America followed it down the hole.

    Modern western economies have been accumulating debt for decades. But since the lockdowns in early 2020, this debt accumulation has gone into overdrive. In 2019, Eurozone government debt-to-GDP was 83.8 per cent. In 2020, after the lockdown bailouts were unveiled it shot up to 97.2 per cent. In the same period, Britain’s debt-to-GDP ratio went from 83.8 per cent to 93.9 per cent. These are the largest single increases in history. The run-up in debt during the lockdown was probably unavoidable. But it certainly triggered the beginning of the inflationary pressures we now see everywhere, especially because the lockdowns themselves completely demolished supply chains. So, more money chasing fewer goods. But what has happened since the start of this year is something else entirely.

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered an energy price war in Europe that is forcing even higher levels of government borrowing to cover energy costs. Unlike the lockdowns, these energy price increases are putting direct pressure on both prices and the trade balance between countries. Higher energy prices mean that Europe must send more euros and pounds abroad to get energy and so the value of imports rises and these higher import costs are fed through to consumers as businesses try to offset rising energy costs by raising prices. The situation is no longer remotely sustainable. This is almost certainly our 1929 moment.

    In the 1930s, Europe fell into an economic black hole. Its economy collapsed and so all the trade that it did with the rest of the world was sucked down the hole with it. Europe then turned in on itself and started raising trade barriers to eke out some semblance of economic normality. This was a classic case of what economists called the ‘fallacy of composition’: what was good for Europe in particular, was bad for the world economy and since Europe was part of the world economy, it turned out to be bad for Europe too. The world slipped into depression.

    Could the same thing happen today? The Office of the United States Trade Representative estimates that the United States engaged in over $5.6 trillion of trade – roughly 26 per cent of GDP – in 2019. In the same year, trade with the European Union was estimated at $1.1 trillion – that is approximately 20 per cent of total trade. As European falls into the hole, this trade will fall with it. The American economy, already frail, will likely fall too.

    One key difference this time around is that there is a rival economic bloc that could be insulated from these dynamics, the emerging Brics+: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Argentina – with Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia also joining the queue. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Brics countries have been solidifying trade and financial ties and adding new members. It appears that the goal is for these economies to decouple as much as possible from the West. If they are successful in doing that – and it looks like they may be – they may avoid the depression. The Nord Stream sabotage could be the point at which future historians mark the end of western dominance.

Well, we will see. While experts believe India will weather a coming global recession, this is because it is truly decoupled from other economies. China is not as its economy depends on foreign trade. In fact, declining trade is already taking a toll on the Chinese economy as the yuen has fallen far enough in value that China is preparing its banks dump dollars in order to buy foreign held yuen in order to try and boost the value of the Chinese currency and probably to offset depreciation pressure due to the People's Bank of China (it's central bank) is pumping money like crazy into the economy.

    Getting back to the point of this post, a declining economy means that businesses have less money to spend on things like fixing toilets or running the air conditioning in hallways. But don't worry because soon you'll own nothing and you will be happy.

Paul Joseph Watson: The Truth About The Baltimore Bridge Collapse

In this video, Paul Joseph Watson points out why some of the conspiracy theories concerning the collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge in ...