Odds ‘n Sods:

Hawaiian K. pointed us to an article by Robert Silverberg, over at Asimov’s: The Death of Gallium. The Peak Oil crowd may be interested to hear about disappearing elements. The crux of the problem: Infinite demand, and finite supply. Reading this makes me want to go out and invest in Gallium, Hafnium, and Indium–the elements themselves, or mining companies.) Or perhaps I should go for the speculative gusto and invest in a deep sea vent mining company.    o o o Tim P. mentioned this piece over at WorldNetDaily: Congress examines EMP threat–Iran believed to test missiles for attack on …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." – Henry Kissinger, …


Note from JWR:

The high bid in the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction is at $370. This auction is for two cases (12 cans) of Mountain House freeze dried foods in #10 cans donated by Ready Made Resources, valued at $260, a course certificate for a four-day Bushcraft & Survival Course valued at $550, 25 pounds of green (un-roasted) Colombian Supremo coffee courtesy of www.cmebrew.com valued at $88.75, and a set of 1,600 U.S. Military Manuals, Government Manuals, and Civil Defense Manuals, Firearm Manuals on two CD-ROM disks, valued at $20. Please e-mail us your bids, in $10 increments. The auction ends on July …


Letter Re: Some Transceiver Antenna Questions

Jim; By purchasing a 60-inch collapsible antenna, I was able to get a lot more range out of my hand-held transceivers, but that’s all I know. Can you give a short tutorial on antennas? What is a ground plane, when is it necessary? Would full wavelength be better than 1/4 wavelength? For a base system, would you recommend Yagi or something else? Thanks, – SF in Hawaii JWR Replies (Updated): To begin, one-half wave antennas are theoretically the most efficient. Shorter fractional wavelength antennas (quarter-wave, 1/8th-wave, et cetera) are used primarily for compactness and lower cost. I was told by …


Letter Re: Roger Mills County, Oklahoma as a Retreat Locale

Hello Mr. Rawles, I live near the town of Cheyenne, in Roger Mills County, which is in western Oklahoma. For your information: Roger Mills County has a population density of just .75 people per square mile. Not a single stop light in the county. Not a single major franchise business in the county. Local pharmacy, bank, motels and restaurants. A very high percentage of the county are what you call “millionaires” because of the production of natural gas wells. We have a very low crime rate. There are people in this area who have not locked a door nor removed …


Odds ‘n Sods:

A consulting client asked me what brand of AR-15 or M4gery that I’d recommend he buy as a secondary weapon. By coincidence, I had earlier that same day received a link from reader Bill N. that features a chart that shows which AR makers use full mil-spec parts. Before seeing that chart, I would have recommended Lewis Machine & Tool (LMT), but now it looks like Noveske Rifleworks has the edge. You may ask: Why not Colt ARs? I despise their concessions to political correctness–namely their over-grown lower receiver pins, weak chopped-out (half circle) bolt carriers, and their now perennial …



Notes from JWR:

I’m scheduled to be interviewed this evening on the Fox News network, at around 5:40 p.m., eastern time. The subject will be the 2012 preparedness movement. Kathy McMahon (aka “PeakShrink”) penned an excellent piece over at The Energy Bulletin web site that summarizes the varieties of Doomer psychological types: Three types of doomers and fantasy collapse. In the article, she gently pokes fun at my novel “Patriots” and at those of us that fall into what she calls the “Do-More” preparedness mindset.


Letter Re: Thoughts on Static Retreat Defense

Mr Rawles, Before I start, I must congratulate you on your remarkable and down to earth approach to informing your audience of both the practical ins-and-outs and theory of preparedness. I’m a mid-20s town planner with a minor in building design, living in Western Australia. I share many of the same concerns regarding the status and direction of society as your audience. I came across your site in the last four months, and have then spent a great deal of time searching your archives. I recently ordered your “Rawles on Retreats and Relocation” book, and await it eagerly. My town …


Letter Re: Biofuel Problems and Sustainability

Hi Jim, A recent article in Der Spiegel gives us some real insight into food prices. My guess is that if we continue down this path we will see some important events start taking place in Third World nations that cannot afford high food prices. Here is how this can effect us here. It takes 400 pounds of corn to make 25 gallons of ethanol. This might be a weeks worth of fuel for a person commuting to work. It could be many months worth of food for that same person. You may say that you don’t eat that much …


Letter Re: The Handwriting is on the Wall for the Big Three Auto Makers

Mr. Rawles, Anyone who is paying attention would have seen the mess that America’s “Big Three” auto makers are in. A smart Peak Oil [market] player would have shorted them a while ago. But consider this little fun fact – As of this last Friday, the market capitalization of General Motors (GM) was just over $5 billion. That’s all. Toyota has about 25 times that. So are several other healthy auto makers and they all know that times are tough yet GM expects sales to pick up later this year? But consider that $5 billion. It’s cheap yet no one …


Odds ‘n Sods:

I recently had a consulting client ask me if I thought the credit crisis was over. Over? No way. Even after a year of credit contraction, we’ve only seen the first wave of the credit crisis. The entire global credit market is still spiraling into the abyss. The recent steep downgrades of MBIA and AMBAC (the folks that insure municipal bonds) are the latest red flags, showing another aspect of the problem. MBIA has been downgraded five grades to A2, and they are on “negative watch”. That is the term used when a forced liquidation is expected! The bottom line …



Letter Re: Securing Needed Prescriptions for Family Preparedness

Dear Mr. Rawles, First, I must thank you for the great service that you provide to society. I simply can’t tell you how much I have learned since beginning to read SurvivalBlog daily. I’ve decided that 10 cents per day is not enough, and plan to double it soon. Though I pray that I will die peacefully at the age of 98 without ever having to activate my prep plans, the feeling of security that comes from preparation will make my remaining years much more pleasant! As a pharmacist, I wanted to make a few additional comments regarding Matt R.’s …


Letter Re: California’s House Prices Plummet to Surprising Depths

Hi Jim, We’ve been good about our refinancing. As the house appreciated, we took a little here and there on two re-fi[nancing]s, to pay off most of our credit debt, and to start a business. At this time a couple of years ago, the house was worth $440,000, conservatively. In January, $351,000. Just last night, using a very good evaluation tool called Zillow.com, we were surprised to find that in the last six months, the house’s value dropped [still further,] to just over $250,000. That was a shock. Almost [a] $190,000 [on-paper loss] in less than two years, in an …