Year: 2007

Electric Golf Carts as a Retreat ATV Option

Jim, A good friend put a lift kit on an electric golf cart. It will go anywhere a 4-wheeler [all terrain vehicle (ATV)] will go; it is drop dead silent; and will go about 24 mph without alterations. I got to thinking: Why not retrofit a PV charging cell on the golf cart’s roof to trickle charge the batteries. An engineer buddy told me that it was very feasible to accomplish this with the additional thought that a redundant solar charger at ‘base’ would increase the time needed to maintain a full charge. I believe that such a unit would …


Letter Re: Advice on Security for Unattended Retreats

Mr. Rawles: I feel guilty about asking you this in an e-mail, since I should probably pay for consulting time to have you answer the following: I have a vacation/retreat house that is in another state, almost 600 miles from my home on the coast. I agree with your advice (that you’ve repeated gosh how many times) that someone should live at retreat year round. I tried renting it to an acquaintance that needed some “space” for a time following a divorce, but he eventually moved on. Now my retreat is vacant. All of my friends and me–including the two …


Letter Re: Veterinary Antibiotics

Jim, Thank you for responding to my e-mail. As a healthcare professional, many of us are going to have to make some really hard decisions in more difficult times when drugs will no longer be available. If it came down to having someone die or administering an out of date tetracycline, I would be happy to try the tetracycline out of date or not. Tough choices either way. The reason I continue this discussion is due partly to an article I read in The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, March 28, 2000, page A-16. ‘Many Drugs Prove Potent Long Past Expiration …


Odds ‘n Sods:

A new organization, dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear edged weapons: http://www.kniferights.org In my opinion knife ownership should have it constitutional protection recognized on an equal footing with gun ownership.    o o o USDA Announces An “Opt Out” Procedure For NAIS    o o o Montana and Maine move to reject the Federal Real ID requirements


Jim’s Quote of the Day

"It is an uphill struggle, but I wish that we could distinguish more carefully between freedom and liberty. These conditions are not the same, though they are certainly related. Freedom is the absence of restraint – a physical circumstance. Liberty, on the other hand, is a political situation denoting the lawful capability of the citizen to defend himself and his near and dear without interference from the state. Note that the Declaration of Independence forcibly and particularly establishes the blessings of liberty upon ourselves and our posterity. I like to carry a pocket copy of the Declaration, plus the Constitution, …


Note from JWR:

I recently spent an afternoon with The Memsahib at a COSTCO store. For our overseas readers: COSTCO is an American membership “warehouse” type grocery store chain that sells everything from canned hams to home computers. By the way, COSTCO is not to be confused with the Chinese shipping company, COSCO, although surely some COSCO goods end up in COSTCO stores. Just not to the same extent that they do at Wal-Mart. (Or, as my brother calls it: “Great Wal-of-China-Mart.”) We were at COSTCO primarily to stock up the Rawles Ranch on paper products, soap and cleaning supplies, and some staple …


The CDC’s New “Five Categories” for Pandemic Severity

Several SurvivalBlog readers mentioned an article that ran recently in the New York Times: U.S. Issues Guidelines in Case of Flu Pandemic. The article begins: “Cities should close schools for up to three months in the event of a severe flu outbreak, ball games and movies should be canceled and working hours staggered so subways and buses are less crowded, the federal government advised today in issuing new pandemic flu guidelines to states and cities. Health officials acknowledged that such measures would hugely disrupt public life, but they argued that these measure would buy the time needed to produce vaccines …


Three Letters Re: Pondering Some Personal Consequences of Global Climate Change

Dear Jim, In response to this: “(See the movie The Day After Tomorrow regarding tipping points). Discoveries of animals flash frozen solid with fresh grass their stomachs points to the possibility of a very fast onset to global climate change.” The Day After Tomorrow was roundly slammed by scientists and went beyond ludicrous, and the “flash frozen” animals are a myth that has never been documented. The recovered frozen mammoths have all been highly putrefied. At present, the evidence of warming is mixed, with glaciers in Europe, South America and Antarctica all increasing [in size]. Even with the current Northern …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Don’t miss the recent economic analysis from ContraryInvestor.com (by way of our friends at Gold-Eagle.com): We’re Swimming In Liquidity, Aren’t We? The charts say it all! We are about to experience the inevitable outcome of the liquidity bubble. Major market corrections are rarely fun. When market imbalances get way out of proportion and then markets do correct, it can get ugly. (For example the deflationary Great Depression of the 1930s, which followed the credit bubble of the 1920s.) Rawles Mantra mode on: Be prepared. Diversify out of the dollar. Get out of debt. Invest in tangibles.    o o o …



Note from JWR:

Today we present the first article submitted for Round 9 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The writer of the best non-fiction article will win a valuable four day “gray” transferable Front Sight course certificate. (Worth up to $1,600.) Second prize is a copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, generously donated by Jake Stafford of Arbogast Publishing. I will again be sending out a few complimentary copies of my novel “Patriots” as “honorable mention” awards. If you want a chance to win the contest, start writing and e-mail us your article. Round 9 will end on March …


Blue Water Sailing as a Retreat Option?, by CMC

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Coming from a Southern family and having hunted as a child and adult, and having backpacked the Smokies, I would not want to depend on a mountain man scenario for survival during TEOTWAWKI. I want to walk a bit further with this. Most particularly consideration of a sailing vessel and the ocean as a way of survival. I seriously question the concept of mobility, particularly mobility at sea. I remember Sun Tzu said something to the effect that “when the army of maneuver meets the army of the fortress, the army of the fortress generally looses.” But I think that …


Letter Re: Advice on Sawdust and Other Barn Waste as Fertilizers

Mr. Rawles: I thought I would pass on a valuable tip I learned thank goodness not the hard way. I have found that taking the bedding from the horse stalls, (manure and urine-soaked sawdust), composting it, and mixing into the garden has converted my hard pan top soil into a nice “loam” which tills and works so much easier (after working it with a tiller). We are going on year number 4 for our garden and have noticed a substantial decline in productivity and did not follow through with soil testing when I first noticed the “problem”. I attributed it …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Another derivatives debacle! At least I can say that I warned you. From Bloomberg com comes this story: Sallie Mae 4th-Quarter Net Falls on Derivatives Losses. The article begins: “SLM Corp., the nation’s largest provider of college-student loans, said fourth-quarter profit tumbled 96% because of a decline in the value of financial contracts it uses to protect against swings in interest rates.”    o o o Reader J.M. sent us a news story link and asks: “When will the ‘nanny state’ mentality ever end?”: California may ban conventional light bulbs by 2012 OBTW, I also read that in California the …