Day: March 6, 2008

Notes from JWR:

The folks at Ready Made Resources have kindly added two books to the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction. They are: “Healing Oils of the Bible“ by David Stewart, Phd., and “When Technology Fails“, by Matthew Stein. These will be added to the existing lot of auction items: a 120 VAC/12 VDC BedFan Personal Cooling System (a $99 retail value), kindly donated by the manufacturer, a Thieves Oil Start Living Kit (a $161 retail value) donated by Ready Made Resources, and a copy of the latest edition of “The Encyclopedia of Country Living” by the late Carla Emery (a $32 retail value). …


The Elephant in the Room, by Norman Church

“I’m right there in the room and no one acknowledges me.” “We must face the prospect of changing our basic way of living. This change will either be made on our own initiative in a planned way, or forced on us with chaos and suffering by the inexorable laws of nature.” – President Jimmy Carter (1976) Before we discuss this Elephant in the Room we must first briefly consider the notion of ‘sustainability’. Too often people debate sustainability issues from an understanding that is vague, incomplete or frankly flawed. “Just exactly what is meant when the word ‘sustainable’ or ‘sustainability’ …


Letter Re: Spot Shortages at a COSTCO Store a Portent of Things to Come?

Jim: I stopped by COSTCO tonight to pick up some items and they had signs limiting people to two containers of soybean oil and two bags of flour. They were completely out of flour. And they had no 50lb sacks of rice either. So its starting to hit home. This was the case in the West Springfield, Massachusetts store anyway. – John E.


Letter Re: Sizing a Retreat AC Power Generator

Jim – Great blog! I wanted to point out an important calculation everyone missed – internal combustion engines produce less power at higher elevation. Generators are (of course) rated at sea level. It’s important to de-rate generator capacity by 3.5% per 1,000 feet of elevation or your generator will be undersized. (A 5,000 “label watt” generator is [effectively] only a 4,000 watt generator where I live at 6,000 feet.) Density altitude on a warm summer day can easily be 2,000 feet higher than that. My rule of thumb: after sizing for load, size generously for elevation or you’ll be buying …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Fraud compounds woes of housing crisis. (Thanks to Heghduq for the link.)    o o o A reader in South Florida wrote to ask me why I had “an unrealistic view of the [investment] potential for farmland” and why I “such a strong emphasis on buying farm ground” when coastal and resort properties “have appreciated so well for more than 30 years.” I have a news flash for her: For the next 5 to 10 years, coastal and resort property will probably go substantially go down in price, but good productive farm ground is going to go up in price. …