Jeff aka “The Berkey Guy” just informed me that he has a new shipment of Making the Best of Basics - Family Preparedness Handbook and that he is still offering free shipping while supplies last - on another note, CampingSurvival.com is giving away a free Nukalert every month!

I thought we would do something a little different on the blog today, it's been awhile since our last poll and I wanted to use the opportunity to gain a better understanding of readers.

It would also be great if you could use the comments below to elaborate on what motivated you to start prepping in the first place?

Interesting case out of Missouri. A man drunk at home is charged with having a firearms while intoxicated. It seems to me that the public has an interest in a person not carrying a firearm in public while intoxicated, but the state’s power to reach into the home ought to be considerably diminished.

Should someone be charged because they are intoxicated at home, but have a loaded pistol in the bed stand upstairs, or have a rifle in the closet? - I don't think so, but apparently the Mo. Supreme Court thinks otherwise...

I'm a big fan of the Swiss Army Pocket Knives, been carrying one everyday for the past several years without any problems. I've used it for everything from cutting and prying to gutting deer - for the price one would be hard-pressed to do better.

The Recession is Over - Has anyone touting this line actually walked around the real world? The next 7 million jobs to be lost are already in the pipeline.

States faced with three brutal options in 2010: inflation, high taxation or default
. - The West is being scuttled by leaders unable to face the reality of a post-crisis world, who keep resorting to methods from yesterday’s world despite their proved inefficiency.

US Wants China to Buy into Its Small Banks - Quan Qiu Jing Ji Shuai Tui, Chinese and U.S. regulators are negotiating a pact aimed at encouraging Chinese financial institutions to buy into small and medium-sized banks in the United States.

Get Prepared History is About To Repeat Itself - It's coming in 2012: Another, bigger meltdown of Wall Street's "too-greedy-to-fail" banks. No, this is not another fanatical warning about that Dec. 21, 2012 end-of-days prediction based on the Mayan calendar, though you may well ask "Who will survive?"

Arrogant and incapable of learning - Frederic Mishkin, a former member of the Fed's board of governors, wrote an article in last Tuesday's Financial Times that displayed that he, and presumably other Fed heads, have learned exactly nothing from the disastrous consequences of their activities in printing money over the past couple of decades.

Oil above $79 after US crude supply drop - Oil prices extended gains above $79 a barrel Wednesday in Asia after an unexpected drop in U.S. crude supplies suggested demand could be improving.

10 States Face Imminent Bankruptcy - California, Arizona, Rhode Island, Michigan, Oregon, Nevada, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois and Wisconsin. "California with 12 percent of the nation's population had a disproportionate 32 percent of the nation's welfare recipients, up from 22 percent only six years earlier."

Fear of an uncertain future, spurred by disasters protections put forth by interpretation of the ancient Maya cyclical calendar, have many people clamoring for answers and advice. For example; over the past several months, I've received over 100 e-mails from readers, seeking information on how to survive 2012.

The general consensus is that on Dec. 21, 2012, when the Maya's "Long Count" calendar ends, the world will be thrown into apocalyptic chaos. Predictions range from polar reversal, shattering earthquakes, massive tidal waves, simultaneous volcanic eruptions, sunspots and sun flares, to peaceful transition into 2013.

The truth is no one knows for certain what will transpire Dec. 21, 2012. Throughout history there have been many predictions of the end of the world, but the end hasn't happened - yet. I put little faith in doomsday predictions or dates - most are nothing more than guesswork motivated by the agenda of the prophesier.

Yet, doomsday predictions for the year 2012 do have at least some validity, backed by scientific evidence, for example; NASA published predictions of a new solar cycle in 2011 or 2012, that it (NASA) says could wreak havoc with the power grid and electronic medium during that time.

I don't know what, if anything, will happen on Dec. 21, 2012 - no one does. My advice is to plan and prep as usual and to be as prepared as possible for whatever the future may hold, whether it be economic collapse, tyranny, peak-oil, climate change, infectious disease or Mayan doomsday.

What do you think - will Dec. 21, 2012 usher in the end of the world as we know it, or just another day?

How could that have happened? Over 7,000 guns confiscated this year in Chicago. I thought they where banned there?