Jon Voight's Letter for the American People

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Get Ready ... Seriously - http://www.safecastleroyal.com

Islamic Superpower on the Horizon

Intercontinental ballistic hope and change ...

Pentagon Says U.S. Could be Within Reach of Iranian Missiles in Less than Five Years
Apr. 20, 2010
(Excerpt:)
A U.S. Defense Department report released yesterday indicated that Iran could in five years possess a ballistic missile that could reach the United States, Reuters reported.

Read more.
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Heimo's Arctic Refuge

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Foreclosure Rates Surge--Biggest Jump in 5 Years

LOS ANGELES – A record number of U.S. homes were lost to foreclosure in the first three months of this year, a sign banks are starting to wade through the backlog of troubled home loans at a faster pace, according to a new report.

RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday that the number of U.S. homes taken over by banks jumped 35 percent in the first quarter from a year ago. In addition, households facing foreclosure grew 16 percent in the same period and 7 percent from the last three months of 2009.

Read more.

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US Military: Massive Oil Shortages Within Five Years

Well, we knew this was coming, but it still seems to be sneaking up on us ...

US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015

(Excerpt:)

The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.

The energy crisis outlined in a Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command, comes as the price of petrol in Britain reaches record levels and the cost of crude is predicted to soon top $100 a barrel.

"By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day," says the report, which has a foreword by a senior commander, General James N Mattis.

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Obama: U.S. Will Not Use Nukes in Self-Defense

I understand the engraved invitations to our old enemies are due from the printers any day now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/world/06arms.html
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Have a Blessed Easter

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Ground Zero - Nuke'Em and Learn

In the ongoing can-do "spirit of don't fear it," let's nuke our cities and see if we can't learn something about preparedness and survivability ...


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Nyquist: "The Final Treaty"

J.R. Nyquist has kept many of us honest through the years about THE giant threat most of those pulling the levers and pushing the buttons have been trying to stuff into the proverbial dustbin of history.

Unfortunately, the threat IS very much alive and real. J.R.'s latest essay is another jolt to the soft, quivering solar plexus ...

Excerpt:

Nothing can stop the disarmament process over time. It will advance, and will signify the weakening of the West as it signifies the strengthening of Russia and China. The final, predictable, and tragic result of all this was foreseen by James Burnham more than four decades ago. With all that happened during and after World War II, it seems that nothing has been learned about the essential nature of free society and the essential nature of societies that are decidedly not free.

Read it and marvel.
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Buchanan: "Ethnonationalism: The Wars of Tribe and Faith Return"

Excerpt from Patrick Buchanan's March 18 column:

Globalization is no longer on the march, but on the defensive. Economic nationalism is rising. Across the Third World, we see an upsurge of ethnonationalism and fundamentalism, especially among the Islamic peoples. From Nigeria to Sudan to Mindanao, Muslims battle Christians, as Christians are persecuted in Egypt, Iraq and Pakistan.

In India and Thailand, Muslims battle Hindu and Buddhists. In the Northern Caucasus, they fight Russians.

Ethnonationalism, that relentless drive of peoples to secede and dwell apart, to establish their own nation-state, where their faith is predominant, their language spoken, their heroes and history revered, and they rule to the exclusion of all others, is rampant.

In China, Tibetans fight assimilation and the mass migration of Han Chinese into what was their country, as do the Uighurs in the west who dream of an East Turkestan breaking away and taking its place among the nations of the world.

In speaking of the rising tribalism abroad, Schlesinger added, "The ethnic upsurge in America, far from being unique, partakes of the global fever."

Indeed, separatism and secessionism seem to be in the air.

Read it all.
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"Five Doomsday Scenarios for IT: Tech Apocalypse"

Can you survive without your telecommunicators, computational appliances, and domestic maintenance machinery?

Think about it:

Technology drives just about everything we do, and not just at our jobs. From banks to hospitals to the systems that keep the juice flowing to our homes, we are almost entirely dependent on tech. More and more of these systems are interconnected, and many of them are vulnerable.

Read the March 15 article at PCWorld.com.
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Get Ready ... Seriously - http://www.safecastleroyal.com

"Collapse of the American Empire: swift, silent, certain" - Farrell

Another necessary read, the March 9 column by Marketwatch's forthright Paul Farrell ...

Historians warning of a sudden "thief at night," an "accelerating car crash."

(Image here is Thomas Cole's "Desolation, the fifth in the "Course of Empire" series, referred to in the linked column.)
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Free Stuff in March!

Hundreds of Prizes Yet to Go! I will tell you what--giving stuff away is hard work. Giving away a total of 363 prizes (value of $6K +) in March is killer. I am busier than a tick in a tarbucket. All the best prizes are yet to be given away. Our random drawings are awarding 11 or more prizes daily. Are you in? If not, just go to the forum and register, then post to the contest thread ... http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=99422 See you there! . . Get Ready ... Seriously - http://www.safecastleroyal.com

The Slow, Gradual Descent into Doomsday

Most of us who have been around the preparedness movement for more than a couple of years have managed to escape the belief trap that TEOTWAWKI is a singular event that is about to befall us.

As an old intelligence-agency Cold Warrior, it's clear to me where that still very common doomsday outlook originated. That all-or-nothing, express-destruction thinking persists in popular culture.

After all, we have become creatures who prefer simple, straightforward soundbytes and executive summaries ... fast food, headline news, and no-sweat lawn care, not to mention telecommuting and all manners of instant gratification. That's life in the 21st century. Shouldn't universal death and incineration also be delivered "next-day, no signature required"?

We are talking of course about the Dr. Strangelove option--buttons being pushed across the globe, nuclear, biological, and chemical judgment uniformly bulldozing across what will become Earth's toxic gray wastelands.

Thing is, although we can't ever remove that bleak possibility from the palette of tomorrows, straight-thinking preppers today know our doom is in fact an ongoing work in progress ... a gradual, numbing process of political and social and economic transition, interspersed with occasional violent punctuation marks, both natural and manmade.

The truth that eventually dawns on you--preparedness quite simply means getting yourself squared away so that you cannot be dictated to by others or by circumstance as to what you must do next to survive. It's about creating options for your future. Its about being smart and not being herded into a box canyon.

The Good News

There is an obvious appeal to the idea that our ultimate doom could come overnight. You know--wake up and all the rules are changed. Or more to the point, all the rules are gone. You get to go "cowboy" or "Rambo" and remake your little corner of the world into whatever you want. Of course--that's a Hollywood imagining, but that's what many new survivalists have bought into.

If they stick with preparedness, eventually, they come around to realizing there's also a strong appeal to having time to adjust to and prepare for the unrelenting changing circumstances developing all around us.

Will there ever be a line in the sand you will cross that will delineate the sudden onset of major crisis? Maybe. But this much is a really good bet--whatever and wherever that line is, if it comes for you, is not going to be what you expect.

Thus, as the years and decades roll by, and you are systematically adjusting and preparing in increasingly generalized ways, you realize that true preparedness is about today's peace of mind. What will be tomorrow is probably not going to be a great deal different from what today is, but over time, you know you're probably going to be making the right moves since you are all the time working to give yourself future options.

Stay safe.
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Get Ready ... Seriously - http://www.safecastleroyal.com

Dr. Doom: "Buy Farmland and Gold"

The world’s most powerful investors have been advised to buy farmland, stock up on gold and prepare for a “dirty war” by Marc Faber, the notoriously bearish market pundit, who predicted the 1987 stock market crash.

The bleak warning of social and financial meltdown, delivered today in Tokyo at a gathering of 700 pension and sovereign wealth fund managers.

Read the entire timely article here.

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Get Ready ... Seriously - http://www.safecastleroyal.com

Preparedness is Mainstreaming through America

I look at how long it's been since I've posted to the blog here and I am reminded how totally swamped I have been of late.

I'll tell you what ... there was a bit of an ebb in the otherwise strong upward trend of preparedness buying later last year (though not much of an ebb) as the result of the deep economic trough. But at some point lately, it seems either happy times are here again for America or ... well I guess the alternative is the exact opposite, and more and more people are coming to realize it. At Safecastle, we are once again setting new standards for order processing and our buyers club membership rolls.

I've seen numerous sources over the last few months referring to the fact that crisis preparedness and stocking up for dark days is becoming "mainstream." Well--I'll testify to the fact, your honor, that it has been mainstream for quite a while now. The growth trend has been onward and upward since 9/11--goosed by Katrina, the Asian Tsunami, the 2008 election, and the ever-faltering economic fortunes of the West.

Come on--can the media be really so far behind the curve on this? Where else IS there for a thinking person to place available assets than into, well, assets that are real--that have and retain intrinsic value that simply cannot be lost ... things that preserve and sustain life, no matter what happens in Washington or on Wall Street.

Yes--preparedness is one of the hottest trends of 2010, according to Gerald Celente, among others. Safecastle and the enlarging bags under my eyes are visible evidence.

So if you think you are unique in your private pantry pursuits, think again--your next door neighbor, or maybe even half your neighborhood is secreting away storage food and ... gasp ... ammunition.

I guess, in Arlo Guthrie terms, we can now call this a "movement."
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Get Ready ... Seriously - http://www.safecastleroyal.com

MarketWatch: Prepare for an Apocalyptic Anarchy Ending Wall Street's Toxic Capitalism

Wow. Paul Farrell of MarketWatch (published by Dow Jones & Co.) has for quite a while been one of the straighter-shooting realists in the financial press. But in today's column, he has emptied his magazine and undeniably opened many eyes to the cruel fate looming directly ahead.

Read for yourself:

How to invest for a global-debt-bomb explosion
Prepare for an apocalyptic anarchy ending Wall Street's toxic capitalism
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Get Ready ... Seriously - http://www.safecastleroyal.com

"Surviving Disaster - Nuclear Attack"

Here is a good program with a lot of info to absorb or to be reminded about:

http://www.spike.com/full-episode/nuclear-attack/34350

This SPIKE TV series, Season 1, has covered a lot of different scenarios. At this linked page, you can jump to other episodes that are of interest.
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Get Ready ... Seriously - http://www.safecastleroyal.com

"25%-Off Mountain House Sale" Starts at Midnight!

It has been a while since our last Mountain House sale, so we are rarin' to go on this one. Starting at midnight tonight, all our U.S. listing MH can prices will discount at the maximum-allowed 25%! This sale lasts only for two weeks, so look at your situation and resolve to get into an improved position, readiness-wise.

It doesn't get any better than Mountain House freeze-dried food in cans, with a shelf life of 25+ years. Well, maybe it does get a bit better when you can add in some member rewards with qualifying purchases ... like a new 9-tray Excalibur Dehydrator and a QUEST Mission Rig.

Buyers tip--those who make their purchases early on in these sales, get their food shipped promptly. Those who wait till the end of the sale will often find that their order processing times by the factory may be more than a couple of weeks. Our sale orders tend to tax the factory and create a bit of a backlog of orders for them to work through.

Stock up and sleep well.

A Couple More Cool Survival Sites

We've recently stepped up our involvement in a few more survival-related websites out there.

Two of the latest are among the most dynamic I've seen:

www.survivalistboards.com - a lot of active members keep this joint hoppin'

www.survivalbound.com - this quality site is brand new and unique and already is getting a ton of traffic

Enjoy and stay safe!
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Get Ready ... Seriously - http://www.safecastleroyal.com

Our Saferoom Gets BLASTED!

Several months ago, The Weather Channel got a hold on one of our builder's saferooms for some heavy-duty abuse in the name of TV drama. It was actually pretty cool stuff.

At long last, the new program debuts January 24 on The Weather Channel. It's called "Weather Proof."

The "abuse" is documented in two stages ...

1. Our builder anchored the saferoom to
the ground as it is normally done. The show's producers acquired a rocket car and anchored that to the ground several yards away. The afterburners were fired up and produced a blast of wind exceeding 300mph. Boom!

See the clip here.

2. Then, a garage was built up around the saferoom. In an effort to simulate a worst-case scenario, a car was hurled into and through the front of the garage, into the side of the saferoom, igniting a natural-gas explosion and fire. Boom!

Here's that clip.

After all was said and done, the total damage to the saferoom, which is constructed the same as our shelters and saferooms--a few scorch marks on the outside of the shelter from the explosion and fire.

See our shelter site: www.safecastle.com

And, here's a link to some of our videos, to include a tour of a nice 700 sq. ft. NBC fallout shelter.
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