Legislative Alert!: Defunding NAIS — Please Call Your Congressman, ASAP

Please call your congressman today, encouraging them to support some immportant legislation! A vote is scheduled for tomorrow. Congressman Ron Paul has introduced an amendment (H.R. 5384) to the Agriculture Department appropriation bill that will defund the USDA’s proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS). This will effectively block the USDA from implementing NAIS. This vote is crucial because the USDA is giving Federal money to the states to fund the state level Premises ID and NAIS. For details, see the NoNAIS.org site. The NAIS scheme must be stopped! Make these calls!







Letter Re: Maggots for Wound Debridement

Sir: Has anyone, including you, ever posted information on your site regarding the application of maggots for treating/cleaning infected wounds and dead tissue? This topic ties in well with the subject of survival in worst case scenario situations. Thank You. – JD JWR Replies: I actually had that posted as one of my “Best of Readers Letters” and Replies. But so that it can be found via our search window or via search engines that employ Technorati tags, here it is again. (Scroll down to paragraph 22-3): ST-31-91B US ARMY SPECIAL FORCES MEDICAL HANDBOOK SEPTEMBER 1982 CHAPTER 22 PRIMITIVE MEDICINE …




Letter Re: Ten Cent Challenge

Jim, I have been reading SurvivalBlog from the beginning. I have made several contributions early on, and signed up for the 10 Cent Challenge some time ago. The real reason I am sending this email is to publicly ask everyone who is a regular reader of your blog to sign up now for the Ten Cent Challenge, if you have not already done so. I cannot imagine the huge empty hole that would be left if for some reason you discontinued your blog due to lack of support. I sincerely believe our country at some time will face one or …




Odds ‘n Sods:

Courtesy of SurvivalBlog readers Ben & Melanie, here are updated web links to the text of Where There Is No Doctor and Where There is No Dentist. Since web sites will of course be unavailable in a grid-down situation, be sure to order your own hard copies for your bookshelf, either directly from the publisher of from a discount book seller such as Abebooks.com or BooksAMillion.com    o o o I’ve again expanded my Links page.    o o o SurvivalBlog reader P.M. pointed out an error that I made in an old archived piece from 1997 (that I re-posted …







Three Letters Re: Survivalist Matchmaking?

Hi James, The [Survivalist Contacts] page is still there, just hidden away in the site. It was attracting some major spamming there for awhile, so I removed any links to it from the main page. You can find it at this unlinked page. Regards, – John (of www.SurvivalistBooks.com) Jim: I saw a post on Survivalblog today where someone was asking about whether there were any ’survivalist matchmaking’ sites out there. I don’t know of any such site either (I tried Match.com and eHarmony before I met Commander Zero, and neither was helpful) but it seems to me that the fastest …




Letter Re: Chlorine Bleach and Its Uses

Jim, Chlorine bleach is a great multi-use item to store.  It can be used to treat water, disinfect/clean, deodorize latrines, and probably lots of other things. Here are some quick numbers: Water purification: 16 drops (1/8tsp) per gallon/4 liters.  Let stand for 15 minutes, retreat if water does not smell of Chlorine.   CDC recommends a fresh 1:10 to 1:100 solution for cleaning up blood spills FEMA recommends 8oz of  bleach to 5 gallons of water for killing mold and 4 oz to 5 gallons for disinfecting flood-contaminated articles: (That’s 125ml / 20liters and 250ml / 20 liters for metric folks) …




Letter Re: Backup Generators and Well Pumps

James: With all the discussion lately about well pumps, and alternative ways to power them, and all the expense and complications, I just have to shake my head in wonder. There is a better way, but don’t tell anybody, it is a big secret. See: http://www.theferipump.com/ and http://www.cisolar.com/CatWindPump.htm. Regards, – Doc at www.bigsecrets.cc




Letter Re: Banking a House for Winter

Memsahib Rawles:: Banking a house for the winter is a fairly common practice where I grew up in Canada. Often the leaves were raked and bagged in the fall and placed along the house for the winter. Other times square bales were stacked against the house to insulate for the cold winter months. The only drawback from this way of insulating was the fact that you would often get a large amount of unwanted house guests (mice and voles) who were attracted to the warm shelter! Keep up the informative writing, – T.S.




Odds ‘n Sods:

One of our major advertisers is auctioning a very hard to find P-10 shelter on eBay, on behalf of an acquaintance. These rarely come up for sale in used condition, so don’t miss this chance to buy one for less than half of what it would cost to buy one new. It is being sold “on site”, so you would have to pay for hauling.    o o o As previously mentioned, Microsoft’s president Bill Gates has publicly declared that he’s Short the U.S. Dollar.   o o o From Steve Quayle’s Site: Scientists Warn of Immense Solar Storm Threat …







From The Memsahib: Alternative Home Heating Fuels and Banking a House for Winter

In the event of TEOTWAWKI, fuel will become very important in regions where the winters are severe and long. We can learn some survival ideas from pioneers in on the treeless prairies. Some used alternative fuels such as cow chips, corn cobs, ears of corn, twisted grass, or a mix of straw and manure manure called “mist.” (The German word for Schumer.) In 1881 the magazine Warren Sheaf said that three acres of corn would provide the average house of the time with fuel for the year. Straw burner attachments were designed for cook stoves. These were oblong tubes 18 …




Letter Re: Backup Generators and Well Pumps

JWR, The following is probably more than you want to know about pumps!!   There is a finite limit to how far one can “lift” water with a pump.  It is based on the fact a pump does not really “suck” a fluid but rather creates a vacuum and atmospheric pressure forces the water up the pipe.  On a standard day at sea level that pressure is equal to just under 34 feet of water column.  Therefore a PERFECT vacuum (which does not exist) could “lift” water a shade less than 34 feet.  At higher altitudes, or low atmospheric pressure …