Day: August 12, 2013

Notes from JWR:

I was sad to hear that Eydie Gormé passed away on August 10th. Though her talent was often wasted on ballads with sappy lyrics, she had an amazing voice. Now she is singing with the angels. — Two readers wrote to ask me about an e-mail that they had received from one of my publishers. This was a legitimate e-mail, and it had my blessing. The e-mail offered a free mini-report about water storage, which is available to everyone. (You don’t have to be a subscriber to Sarah Stafford’s site or be a buyer of the Rawles Gets You Ready …


Pat’s Product Review: Removable Operator Pack

I have to confess, at one time, I had a huge CFP-90 pack, that was my own personal BOB, and I had so much stuff in it that I could hardly get it on, much less hike any distance – it probably weighed in at 50-pounds or more. But I was good to go, for a week or two without having to resupply, except for a source of water. What was I thinking? My only excuse was, I was young and dumb, and I was actually a lot younger, but a lot stronger back then, too. Today, I have a …


John Hawkwood’s Book Review: A Failure of Civility

Back at the dawn of time, when I was commissioned in the Army Infantry, I reported to Fort Benning, Georgia for my officer’s basic course. As part of our processing, each lieutenant received two large boxes of books. There were many books on weapons systems; from the M16 and M1911 to the .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun. Not forgotten were mines, demolitions, and rocket and missile systems. There were also manuals for vehicles and maintenance, first aid and hygiene, and books for subjects I no longer can recall. Most interesting to me were the Field Manuals (FMs) for tactical operations. …


Letter Re: Tor and the Illusion of Privacy

JWR; I had noticed some mention of Tor and I believe there was some mention of alternatives to Tor as well, to better protect one’s privacy on the web.  I really hate to say this, but, anonymity on the net really only exists as fiction these days.  Tor has had problems with it’s exit nodes for a very long time and there was a lot of talk in the “penetration testing” community about the FBI using Tor to set up stings last summer.  One can use a VPN (virtual private network) that claims to keep it’s users secrets secret, but …


Recipe of the Week:

H.D.’s Homemade Bannock Bread Dough This is for a flour-based equivalent of traditional Bannock. Ingredients: 1 cup flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 tablespoon sugar (or any other sweetener from honey to Splenda . . . ) Pinch of salt 1/2 to 3/4 cup water Oil Mix the dry ingredients together. You can put them in a Baggie (or I put them in a crystal light container after I’ve used up the packets that come in it). Add 1/2 cup water and mix well. You should have a very stiff mix. Slowly add the remaining water until you get a …


Economics and Investing:

Ding, ding! It is noteworthy that Spot silver spiked to $21 per Troy ounce at the opening of the NY Globex market at O-dark-hundred, GMT on Monday morning. Perhaps the summer doldrums will end early, this year. G.G. suggested: Food-Stamp Use Rises; Some 15% Get Benefits Also from G.G.: Bank of Wausau, WI, Closed by Regulators – 18th Bank Failure of 2013 Peter Schiff – FED Will Continue To Ruin And Cause The US Economy To Collapse! Items from The Economatrix: Here’s The Real Unemployment Rate The American dream myth: Income mobility; 4 out of 5 Americans struggle with poverty, …


Odds ‘n Sods:

The political realm is not that different from my horse corral or my hen house. Periodically, the Schumer gets so deep that you can’t just continue shoveling a bit off off the top or around the edges. Merely covering it up with straw is no longer sufficient. The smell becomes too much to bear. What you really need to do is to roll up your sleeves and start shoveling, and do not stop until you’ve scraped right down to bare soil or bare wood. Une zone totalement dépeuplée. To do it right, you leave no media for the germs to …