Day: September 24, 2008

Letter Re: My Preparedness Measures Pay Off During Fuel Shortage

Mr Rawles You mentioned the current gasoline shortage in the southeast. The local news media reported that 70% of the gas stations are empty and have been for three days. To me it seems closer to 95%. Here is example: In south Nashville, there is a major road called Nolensville Road. In a five mile mile stretch from Thompson Lane to Old Hickory Boulevard there are 26 gas stations. Not one of them has had gas for several days. Within a two mile radius of that stretch of road there are 55,000 residents. That is a lot of people without …


Letter Re: Home Canning and Stocking Up

Dear Sir, I would like to thank you for your time and effort in providing a “one stop shop” for such a large volume of information. Principally due to your site, my family and I have begun to increase the size of our pantry with both purchased food/supplies and other materials as well as increase the amount of food we are home canning. One observation I have made in all our preparations is the amount of food (from local gardens, backyard fruit trees, farmyard orchards) that goes to waste in our area. It is amazing the amount of produce on …


Letter Re: My Hurricane Ike Experience

Dear Mr. Rawles, First of all, my heart goes out to all those who truly suffered with loss of life or property as a result of Hurricane Ike. I only had the minor inconvenience of being without electricity in Houston for five days. (There are still over one million in Houston and the surrounding area without power.) So I had a taste of what it is like to be off-grid and learned a few things to share with your readers. It seems a lot of people here had generators which burn lots of precious gasoline. But after a few days …


A Girl Scout Troop Leader Wants to Get Her Girls Prepared

We recently got an e-mail from a Girl Scout troop leader, describing how she wants to start a project making 72-hour “bug out” bags for the troop members. Her goal is to get her troop members better prepared, yet not tip-off their parents to her own level of preparedness. She wants to avoid making herself look like some sort of “preparedness nut” or “whacko”. The important thing to keep in mind is that terminology and phrasing are crucial to how people form opinions. Do not use terms such as “Bug Out Bag” or “Get Out of Dodge Kit” or “Survival …


Letter Re: A Suggested Reading List

James: Thank you for all of the work that you put into your web site. I have been reading your site and preparing for the last couple of years. I thought you might be interested in the Bibliography to my [retreat] group’s operations guide. Fiction Adams, John Joseph. Wastelands. San Francisco : Night Shade Books, 2008. Alten, Steve. The Shell Game. Springville , Utah : Sweetwater Books, 2007. Brin, David. The Postman. New York : Bantam Books, 1985. Budrys, Algis. Some Will Not Die. New York : Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1961. Card, Orson Scott. The Folk of the Fringe. …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Norman in England suggested a piece of commentary about the Mother of All Bailouts: The Rescue of the Wealthy    o o o Brad E. and Kevin A. both forwarded some bad news from Forbes, that confirms what the Peak Oil crowd has been telling us: Here comes $500 oil. The law of supply and demand is inescapable. I do, however, have my doubts about the supply side of the equation. (See, for example, the arguments presented by the Abiotic Oil proponents.)    o o o More Odds ‘n Sods gathered by Cheryl N., our Economic Editor: Dow Down 373 …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

Every economy in the world has experienced booms and busts, but somewhere along the line someone came up with the bright idea of eliminating the busts. Throughout the 1990s the world experienced a series of economic crisis in Asia, Mexico, Russia, and even in the US markets that would have been enough to cleanse the system and restore equilibrium. On each and every occasion the Fed met the problem head on with the printing press, so a full blown reaction was avoided thereby creating what I call a “distortion” in the financial system that would eventually have to be sanitized. …