News posted on MSNBC about Google lifting the censorship bans on sites that revolt against China’s current governing tactics. “Web sites dealing with subjects such as the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, Tibet and regional independence movements could all be accessed through Google’s Chinese search engine Tuesday, after the company said it would no longer abide by Beijing’s censorship rules.” Read the full article.

Chinese news is reporting that Google is on the verge of shutting its China site, Google.cn, and some say it has stopped censoring results.

Google denies censorship lifted

However, a Google spokesman in the U.S., Scott Rubin, told the U.S. that censorship had not stopped and would not confirm whether Google.cn might close.

New Diplomacy

Google pulling out of China would suffocate business that is ultra reliant on Google services, and the citizens who’s communication and cell phones depend on Google services. Our technology corporations can aide us in forced diplomacy through technology suffocation. This is new territory in the history books.

special thanks to guest blogger Randy!

I wanted to share a quick update with all your survivalists out there.  For the last few months I have been in the pits of launching a new business (shameless plug…visit www.revolverboutiques.com).  The whole process really took and is still taking a big chunk of my time as we hone the model in, make changes and gain some traction.  This is why the site has been much less active…because a fellas gotta earn a living.  Stay tuned for more posts as time permits. Thanks!

I’m sure there are much tougher dudes walking around- although those who know me do know I am basically a totally bad ass.  That being said this bad ass lived through the swine flu with no shots, no nasal spray and only about 5 bucks worth of over the counter meds.  Take that flu!

I have been missing from the site for a few weeks while dealing with this flu, which was in fact H1N1.  I cant speak for kids or the elderly but i lived to tell the tale with no help but some good common sense, although I may be guilty of spreading the disease to about 5 of my close friends, but they are tough and should be ok.

As a normal healthy adult I can say this- get the vaccine if you really want, but chances are you will deal with this thing just like you would the normal flu (which kills all kinds of people every year as it is).  There are probably bigger issues to worry about unless you fall into the high risk groups.  There you have it.

So  after complaining into to ether about how the Becker BK-2’s stock grips suck, one of my 3 readers sent me a sweet link to aftermarket Ka-bar grips that look way better than the crappy stock set.

Disclaimer: I have not used or even seen these things in person, but I am very familiar with what I don’t like about my stock grips and from the look of it these are a big improvement, and for 30 bucks its probably worth the risk..maybe I will even order a pair and find out for my self

Check out these custom micarta grips at tomskabars.com.   Thanks to Jim for the heads up!

Google is great for all kinds of reasons, other than the fact if they ever go away I will basically loose all the information I have created or gathered in the last 8 years, but that aside….
Google has come up with google flu trends.  Based on google search criteria in different regions of the US google is attemping to predict the severity or flu infection across the world.   From Google:

We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries are added together. We compared our query counts with traditional flu surveillance systems and found that many search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in different countries and regions around the world. Our results have been published in the journal Nature.

Check out http://www.google.org/flutrends/ for more info and all kinds of cool graphs proving that you will get sick and that you will be googleing while in bed.

Just a quick note on the toughness and practicality of the Becker BK2 knife:

Recently I sold my car and was trying to remove the locked Yakima racks before the new buyer drove the thing away.  Well wouldn’t you know it, that after 4 years I had lost the keys to remove the lock cores needed in order to get the racks off.  My choices?

A. Buy replacement lock cores at REI and get ripped off.

B.  Call a locksmith and get ripped off.

C.  Break out the BK2 that’s in my car and see what kind of prying the thing will take.

Naturally I choise option C, and with in 45 seconds of prying a very solid lock and retaining plate, the plate had popped off, the lock had falln out, and the knife still looks like it did the day I bought it.  Yet another real world example of how durable this realativly low cost work horse of a knife really is.

Looks like I have been having an issues with wordpress and new posts for a few days now, I should have it resolved by days end…keep checking back…seriously.

So we have learned you can grow your body weight in potatoes in a few square feet of raised bed (or trash can, or old tires), but when all you have to eat is potatoes because your emergency food supply ran out you will be looking for something to liven those babys up.

There are all kinds of expensive prefab herb garden set ups that really only last one season and are just plain lame, so try this on for size:

Take that old shoe organizer some girl left at your house, or go down to big lots and buy one for 3 bucks, hang and plant. Not everything is difficult…its that easy. This planting solution takes NO floor space. If I maxed out my capacity on my balcony I could hold 4 of these growing 16 units of veggies each. Although the space alloted per plant is small, you can grow anything with a shallow root mass, including most herbs letuce, oinions and garlic.

Remember survivalism = multi use, modular, low cost, long life, easily availible. If all of your survival tools fit this criteria you are well on your way to being a well rounded urban survivalist….plus, gardening is fun.

the picture is from www.greenupgrader.com a great resource for alternative gardening ideas.

Being an urban survivalist can be tough, everything is expensive, there are people crawling all over each other, and the space we have to ourselves can be very limiting.  These factors make sustainable, food production very difficult.  However if you have a little open space and a little time you can build a garden that will give you much of what you need to eat.

My balcony is about 14×6, yet I grow tomatoes, onions, potatoes, avocados, asparagus, 6 types of peppers, lettuce, tomatillos, garlic, basil and house a rabbit, as well as bikes and patio furniture.  There are many ways to maximize small growing spaces for certain types of food, from training tomatoes to grow in an compact space to growing potatoes vertically to maximize yield. Below is a great how to link on growing potatoes in a self contained container with very high yields. If you are careful with your lay out you can grow a significant portion of your normal good stock for next to nothing in a very small space.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO GROW 100 LBS OF POTATOES IN 4 SQ FEET or see the info from the seattle times below

According to this article from the Seattle Times, potatoes planted inside a box with this method can grow up to 100 pounds of potatoes in just 4 square feet. All that is required:

• Lumber
• Seed potatoes
• Soil
• Careful attention to watering

The Times’ guide for building a potato growing box yields up to a 100 lbs. of potatoes in a mere 4 square feet is shown below:

Plant as early as April or as late as August 1, with an approximated 3 month till harvest turnaround time.

Here are some pointers from the article:

• Cut apart larger seed potatoes, making sure there are at least two eyes in each piece you plant.
• Dust the cut pieces with fir dust, which seals the open ends from bacteria.
• Fertilize with 10-20-20 fertilizer at planting and a couple of times during the season.
• Water so that the plants are kept at an even level of moisture.
• Don’t plant in the same area in consecutive years or use the same soil to fill your potato box, as potatoes can attract various diseases.

“To save space, Lutovsky recommends building a box and planting inside it, adding sides to the box as the plant grows and filling the new space with mulch or soil.

When the plant blossoms, it starts setting potatoes in this added soil. Soon after that, you can start removing the bottom boards from your box and “robbing” the plant, reaching in carefully and pulling out new potatoes.”

A while back I posted about how excited I was to see zombieland, because well it looked bad ass.  So last night I checked it out.  Here’s the deal:

I still don’t get the whole omission with Zombies attaching us,  maybe I have too many realistic things to worry about, or maybe im just not that easily scared (take that future zombies!).  The entire movie focuses on shooting zombies and that geeky guy from Adventureland in yet another amusement park trying to make out with yet another hot girl that wouldn’t ever talk to him in real life.

Like most Hollywood movies Zombieland is entertaining and totally ridiculous. no one ever gets hurt, no one reloads, no one stops to try to figure out how to eat or why everything is still powered or they are driving a cadillac instead of, I dunno, a tank or something…really thats as much as you need to know.

If you like a genuine portrayal of the human struggle or something with substance don’t watch this film, If you want to watch Woody Harrelson kick a lot of ass, then check it out, thats really all I got.