Author Archives: Rob Taylor

Ruger Stops Taking New Orders Because They Can’t meet Demand

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Good news for Ruger stock owners but maybe bad news for America as it implies many are stocking up and ready for civil unrest. I guess the mood of the country is apocalyptic. Here is an excerpt of their press release courtesy The Firearm Blog:

SOUTHPORT, CT –Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE-RGR), announced today that for the first quarter 2012, the Company has received orders for more than one million units. Therefore, the Company has temporarily suspended the acceptance of new orders.

Chief Executive Officer Michael O. Fifer made the following comments:

• The Company’s Retailer Programs that were offered from January 1, 2012 through February 29, 2012 were very successful and generated significant orders from retailers to independent wholesale distributors for Ruger firearms.

• Year-to-date, the independent wholesale distributors placed orders with the Company for more than one million Ruger firearms.

• Despite the Company’s continuing successful efforts to increase production rates, the incoming order rate exceeds our capacity to rapidly fulfill these orders. Consequently, the Company has temporarily suspended the acceptance of new orders.

• The Company expects to resume the normal acceptance of orders by the end of May 2012.

Rugers are good guns but there are plenty of companies out there that make fine products so don’t wait for them to resume taking orders if you are looking to make purchases. Trouble is brewing.

Review of Selco’s One Year in Hell Course

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It is my firm belief that a civil war similar to the one that happened in the former Yugoslavia will happen in the United States within the decade. Similar but not exactly. It is an extremely unpopular and politically incorrect thing to say but political tensions, peak oil, food shortages, economic collapse and a world rapidly racing toward another world war will all conspire to cause civil unrest then open warfare in an increasingly fractured United States. It is hard to imagine how to prepare for such an eventuality when almost all books, websites and television shows geared toward “survival” are completely devoid of grim reality – many so-called preppers seem to look forward to the coming dark ages that will sweep our planet.

That’s why I was excited to see the legendary Selco offering a course of study called One Year in Hell which thoroughly describes his experience in a failed war-torn state and how he survived living in a city under siege by an army bent on mayhem. He deals with the nitty-gritty of day-to-day survival in a real TEOTWAWKI situation with minimal or no preparations in place. Juxtapose this to the post-Apocalypse fantasy stories that are presented as advice that informs so much in the prepper movement. Everything from procuring supplies to the psychological and physical toll of surviving in a TEOWAWKI environment is covered in a series of audio interviews that are as enlightening as they are soul crushingly depressing.

This audio presentation is the heart of the course and it is an innovation that makes absorbing the information much easier. The audio presentation is done in the form of an interview between Selco and a friend rather than a prepared lecture which allows more in-depth analysis as the interviewer stops Selco to ask questions that would perhaps remained unanswered in a more traditional presentation. It also allows you to “take” the course while doing other things – in my case I listened to the audio while starting seeds for my garden and doing other projects around the house.

The audio is broken down into 30 sections covering a wide range of topics. The first few clips will be of especial  interest to American course takers – this is where Selco talks about life and events leading up to the chaos. I was uncomfortable and saddened to see that many of the things he now knows were warning signs of the coming conflict are happening here.

There are also video presentations for subjects that may need visuals to be fully explained. There’s an excellent video of his home fortifications for example that gives you ample information for how a home should be secured against realistic threats. Reading materials are also provided that give even more detail but frankly the audio portions alone are well worth the $29.95 you pay for access and the course is being added to all the time.

I highly recommend this course to everyone. Preppers are not the only people who would benefit, but those interested in politics and history will find this material eminently useful. Academics, especially those in areas that collect oral histories, will want to add this to their collections as it would make a wonderful teaching resource under the right circumstances.

This is the one site I have found online that is actually worth paying for. Join up now.

Meredith Whitney About to Say I Told You So

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When Meredith Whitney predicted a muni bond meltdown people said it couldn’t happen even though many of our city and state governments are broke. When it didn’t happen in the time frame Whitney predicted people decided she was full of it. But she’s about to have the last laugh:

A “tidal wave” of defaults in the municipal bond market is still building and will eventually hit the United States, says Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney.

Many U.S. cities, towns and municipalities are insolvent but are treading along similar to how Greece did for years before officially defaulting.

In late 2010, Whitney told 60 Minutes that municipal defaults could run up into the hundreds of billions of dollars although that hasn’t happened. Maybe not officially, but insolvency is a deepening problem, and defaults are still on the way.

“You have Stockton (Calif.) that is on the brink of bankruptcy. You have five cities, including Detroit, which is on the brink of insolvency. It’s fascinating, because there’s been so much back-room political maneuvering to keep these cities from going bust,” Whitney tells CNBC, pointing out how California is trying to pass legislation to prevent municipalities from declaring bankruptcy.

“So there’s been every effort on the part of the states to prevent this tidal wave of defaults, which is going to happen sooner or later. It’s happening at an accelerating pace.”

Taxes are rising, social services are being cut and fiscal shortfalls will keep widening.

“They’re not called technical defaults. It took how long for Greece to become a technical default, so they’re insolvent, they’re not paying their bills,” says the founder of the Meredith Whitney Advisory Group.

“You’re either willing to see it or you’ll shut your eyes, and if people want to tell me, ‘Oh, I was wrong,’ because this hasn’t played out, stay tuned.”

Get ready for America to look like a giant Detroit.

 

WW III Watch: Russian “Anti-Terror” Troops Land in Syria

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Not of course to be confused drunken barbarians Russia sent into Georgia a few years ago specifically to spread terror. These Russian troops are anti-terror specialists which is convenient since Assad is saying he’s fighting terrorists.

Which is of course true since the insurgency is a Muslim Brotherhood/Al-Qaeda supported government overthrow. But Syria is a Baathist (National Socialist) dictatorship so either way the victor will be an enemy of the West. We should be staying out of this one and building up our forces for the inevitable world war that will start once the MB announces the formation of a new caliphate, but we’re apparently pursuing a policy that would require sending 300,000 troops in. Smart power!

From The Blotter:

A Russian military unit has arrived in Syria, according to Russian news reports, a development that a United Nations Security Council source told ABC News was “a bomb” certain to have serious repercussions.

Russia, one of President Bashar al-Assad’s strongest allies despite international condemnation of the government’s violent crackdown on the country’s uprising, has repeatedly blocked the United Nations Security Council’s attempts to halt the violence, accusing the U.S. and its allies of trying to start another war.

Now the Russian Black Sea fleet’s Iman tanker has arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus on the Mediterranean Sea with an anti-terror squad from the Russian Marines aboard according to the Interfax news agency. The Assad government has insisted it is fighting a terrorist insurgency. The Russian news reports did not elaborate on the Russian troops’ mission in Syria or if they are expected to leave the port.

[…]

RIA Novosti, a news outlet with strong ties to the Kremlin, trumpeted the news in a banner headline that appeared only on its Arabic language website. The Russian embassy to the U.S. and to the U.N. had no comment, saying they have “no particular information on” the arrival of a Russian anti-terrorism squad to Syria.

Moscow has long enjoyed a cozy relationship with the Assad regime, to which it sells billions of dollars of weapons. In return Russia has maintained a Navy base at Tartus, which gives it access to the Mediterranean.

Last week Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia had no plans to send troops to Syria.

[…]

Russia’s Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov denied reports that Russian special forces were operating inside Syria. He did say, however, that there are Russian military and technical advisors in the country.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the U.S. government had not heard of the reports of Russian troops in Syria and declined to comment.

This is an escalation of the situation in the middle east. With Obama firmly in the corner of the Brotherhood/Al-Qaeda take over of the region it will be a matter of time before the “revolutionaries” ask America for support against the increasingly belligerent and imperialistic Russians. Then all hell will break loose.