Day: February 22, 2011

Notes from JWR:

A Kindle-version of the SurvivalBlog.com Archives 2005-2010 is now available for $9.99, via the Amazon.com store. It is more than 7,000 pages long and text-to-speech enabled. It also has more than 20,000 links to external web pages from your Kindle reader. (Available only if you are connected to the Internet while reading.) Anyone with a Kindle can download a free 700 page (10%) sample of the archive, for a “test drive”. Meanwhile, for folks with laptops, we are nearing release of the 2005-2010 archive of SurvivalBlog on CD-ROM (in both HTML and PDF). Both file formats will have links to …


Affordable Preparedness, by Phil in East Tennessee

I enjoy reading SurvivalBlog each morning as I prepare for my day. I have only been a reader of the blog for six months, and enjoy all the varied insights. So I feel compelled to share some of my experiences. Let me start off by saying I was raised in a Christian preparedness household.  Both my parents suffered through the Great Depression as children and my mother was deeply impacted by the possibility of being hungry and cold again. As a teenager in the mid-1970s I remember we had a basement full of Neo-Life brand long term storage food, thousands …


Letter Re: Funding Your Preparations with the Underground Economy

For many people funding your survival cache/ preparedness stockpile has to come out of your budget. Whether you work for someone every day, draw a pension check or work for yourself you have to find a way to fit your projects into the limits of your paycheck. And with Uncle Sam taking a larger share at every turn it seems to be getting harder to find those extra nickels to put to use. Once most of us pay a house and car payment and then monthly utilities and food there is hardly enough left to worry about buying ammo, additional …


Letter Re: List of Countries by Real Population Density

James, I have been playing with the numbers based on the population figures and wanted to give you this update. I did a study of the total land under cultivation in 2002 (rather than just the potentially arable land, and not including grazing land).  42 of the 50 states exceed the figure of 245 people per square kilometer. [JWR Adds: States with less than 600 people per square kilometer of active-worked farm land might pull through a societal collapse, with plenty of sweat and by God’s grace. But anyone who is planning to survive whilst living in a state with …


Letter Re: Investing in Nickels, in Quantity

Dear Mr. Rawles, Regarding people eventually mailing U.S. nickel [5 cent coins] in bulk, you had asked: “Is there a box manufacturer that makes a sturdy corrugated cardboard box that fits tightly into a Medium size Priority Mail Flat Rate corrugated cardboard box?” At ULINE you can get a box to fit nicely inside the corrugated Medium Flat Rate Box (“FRB1″, with dimensions 11″ x 8-1/2″ x 5-1/2”). It is item #S-4517. It measures 10″x8″x5″. These boxes cost 54 cents each in lots of 25. (OBTW, leave it to the government to make two “medium” flat rate boxes. The longer, …


Letter Re: Legalities of Prescribing Long-Term Antibiotics

A reader wrote to ask: “I have talked to a local doctor who is sympathetic about giving prescriptions for antibiotics but he is concerned about the legalities of supplying anyone with excessive amounts of any drug.  Does anyone out there know the proper process to undertake this acquisition?  I’m not worried about buying stuff outright and am willing to use multiple pharmacies but he is worried about getting in trouble and wants to know the legalities.  Any wisdom you or your readers can share? “ Doctor Koelker Replies: Doctors prescribe long-term antibiotics for many different problems, including conditions as simple as …


Economics and Investing:

The short squeeze in silver that I recently mention seems to be on, in earnest. Check Monday’s spot silver chart. That is a 31-year high. KAF sent us a link to a great piece by Patrice Lewis over at WorldNetDaily: Connecting the dots to anarchy. (SurvivalBlog readers will recognize Patrice Lewis as the editor of the excellent Rural Revolution blog.) Companies Raise Prices as Commodity Costs Jump. (Thanks to Daniel S. for the link.) Anthony S. sent this sign of the times: Pan American Silver Shifts Assets to Canadian Dollars John R. suggested this: Six Charts Which Prove That Central …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Josh M. pointed us to a piece of hydrogen fuel cell technology that has finally made it to the consumer level: Powertrekk.    o o o Egyptian ‘Net Killed By Intimidation, Not a Switch. (A hat tip to Wade B. for the link.)    o o o C.D.V. sent us this dire prediction: Scientists Warn of $2 Trillion Solar ‘Katrina’.    o o o Reader J. H. forwarded: Reports coming out of Christchurch, New Zealand, following a magnitude 6.3 temblor are thusfar a bit confused. Please keep the folks there in your prayers.    o o o Troubling news: Florida …