Here are a few links to articles and videos I found interesting this week. Some are intellectual. Some are informative. Some are just fun. If you have some free time, check them out this weekend.
Resilience: 7 Tips for Bouncing Back
Laurence Gonzales has made a career out of studying people who have survived adversity. His books Deep Survival and Surviving Survival are must-reads if you want to figure out the difference between who lives and who dies in adverse conditions.
What’s in Your Fish Oil Supplements?
Some information for those of you who take this useful supplement.
More On Long-Range Shooting
A compilation of long range shooting and sniping resources.
40 more maps that explain the world
Understanding these 40 maps is like having masters’ degrees in history and geography.
Get Your Prepper Score
Take this quiz to see how prepared you are. Apparently, I would survive 4-8 months in a Zombie Apocalypse! This quiz asks lots of personal questions about supply stockpiles. If you are worried about giving up such info, divide your supplies by a set number (say four) and answer with that. At the end, when you get your score, multiply the number of weeks by that same number and you’ll get a good approximation.
Thoughts on Instruction and Conflict
Dave has some great thoughts about what to look for in a combative firearms instructor.
Operation Gargoyle: Pursuit, capture and confessions of El Chapo
A fascinating and detailed article about the recent capture of “El Chapo”, the head of the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel. Why do you care? The Sinaloa drug cartel provides about 90% of the heroin sold in Ohio. El Chapo’s capture will likely shake up the drug market and create more violence (even in the USA) as the other cartels struggle to take over.
Real-World Urban Survival Skills
I enjoy learning and training wilderness survival skills, but they aren’t as important as most think they are. This is a true list of skills necessary to survive an economic collapse. The author’s book The Modern Survival Manual is a useful addition to your library.
Thank God I wasn’t college material
“This is my story. There are millions just like it. Sadly, some of these tales follow a slightly different path. Many times, that kid who’s being choked to death by “formal education” will eventually get suckered into going to college. He’ll go, not because he needs to be there, nor because it’s the best thing for him, but just because. Because because, and that’s all.
So he’ll amass a gigantic debt, miss out on four or five years that could be spent honing his specific skillset, and end up exactly where he could have been, and would have been, without college. Only now he’s 28 thousand dollars in the hole and half a decade behind the curve.
Something has to change. Listen to me on this one. Something HAS to change. This can’t continue. It is not a sustainable model. There are millions of kids with no assets, no plans, and no purpose, taking out enormous loans to purchase a piece of paper they’ll likely never use. It can’t go on this way.”
John Robb’s Blog has another informative take on this issue.
Maximal Fat Loss, Minimal Equipment
Dan John gives us some excellent kettlebell swing/pushup/plank workouts for anyone who doesn’t have time to exercise. Do yourself a favor, if you try these, go heavy on the swings. Women should be using at least 35 lbs. and men at least 53 lbs. This isn’t a workout for pink 10 lb. kettlebells.
Just in Case
Have you ever considered that you might suffer an injury to your dominant hand/arm requiring you to carry your gun on the weak side? Do you have a selection of weak side holsters for your carry gun in case this happens?
There’s something wrong.
“I used to care, probably too much. And it was driving me crazy. So I did what any sane person would do, I quit caring.
It’s quite liberating actually to quit caring about the world around you. I know I live a much happier life since I quit caring. It’s also given me a perspective I didn’t have when I was younger. I’m able to disassociate myself from what is happening around me and look at it much clearer than I used to. I see that the world is heading at breakneck speed towards a paroxysm of turmoil the likes of which have never been seen in human history. It’s been planned. And there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it.”
The Child Trauma Kit
Melody talks about modifying your trauma medical supplies so that they can be used on children as well. That’s something that is often overlooked in the tactical medical community. While I don’t think the TK-4 tourniquet is the best choice for adults (especially considering the relative difficulty of self application), it would probably be an excellent choice for a child.
The Conspiracy Behind Government Ammunition Purchases
There is no conspiracy. The government isn’t “stockpiling” ammo to keep you from getting it. The reality is that we have a lot of federal law enforcement officers. They need practice and carry ammo. End of story. When I bought ammo for my 50 officer police department, I usually purchased between 100,000 and 150,000 rounds a year depending on my budget. The Federal Government buying a couple million rounds is really not a conspiracy.
Zeph Thull interviews me about some of the issues I brought up after teaching my “Armed Citizen Response To Terrorist Bombings” class.
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