Letter from Goatlady Re: Miniature Goats and Canning Meat

Seems to me you would need quite a large herd of miniature goats to have chevron throughout the year using minis considering three meals per butchered animal, once a week = 52 goats just for butchering which means at least 26 females producing twins once a year plus being sure you have two bucks for service those females, plus enough browse for them to thrive on. Seems to me you would be much better off having two to three full size meat goat does to produce 4-6 butcher goats at (depending on the breed) 50-100 pounds of meat per animal. …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from …


Ten Cent Challenge

Today, I’m starting the SurvivalBlog “Ten Cent Challenge.”  If you value what you read on SurvivalBlog, then please help support our efforts, and help pay for our ever-growing bandwidth costs. (We recently had to upgrade our ISP account again, this time from a “Gold” to a Platinum” bandwidth plan.)  I challenge every regular reader to donate just 10 cents per day to support the blog. ($36.50 per year.)  If you don’t feel that you don’t get 10 cents worth of  information and entertainment out of the blog each day, then you can pass and forget that we ever asked–donations are …


The Silver and Gold Price Spikes

Silver closed at $8.07 per ounce on Thursday, and gold closed at $485.70. Pardon me for rubbing it in a bit, but I told you so. (See my August 6, 2005 post.) Since $8 is a psychological barrier, there will likely be some profit taking for the next few COMEX market days, so if you missed the boat, you may be able to buy on the dip. But then get ready for the bull to resume his charge. I am still convinced that the metals are just a few years into a long term “secular” bull market. NewsMax reports Gold …


Letter Re: South African 155mm Shells in Iraq–The Gerald Bull Connection

Jim: The South African arms industry was supplied shells and technology to produce the advanced 155mm during the Angolan Wars, by Space Research Corporation (SRC) of Canada/USA. This landed Gerald Bull in prison for illegal export.(The PBS Frontline episode on same, or less-so the “Doomsday Gun” has some pretty general information on the subject.  See:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/transcripts/911.html They got technology to produce Bull’s more up-to-date gun too (and produced two types: one a 155mm, the other a 210mm). It wasn’t necessary to have to use Bull’s 155mm base-bleed shells in his GC-45 as they could also be used to great effect …


Letter from Lyn: Lessons from the Siege of Leningrad

James: This is an interesting link. See:  http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/siege_of_leningrad.htm  A city of 2.5 million ( about the same as Philadelphia and immediate suburbs) cut off from food deliveries. One big difference from today was the general patriotism and social order. The magnitude of deaths is ominous for those of us aware of future scenarios disrupting the grid and/or trade. (I was going to write up a historical essay for the contest from a lot of material on this, but alas, too busy. But this link is one good article). – Lyn Excerpt: When the Germans invaded Russia in June 1941, the …


Letter from Afghanistan Re: SOCOM’s ATVs

Mr. Rawles, I saw your posts about ATVs and your question about the John Deere Gator. I am a former soldier and work with SOCOM troops in Afghanistan. My experience is they use the Gators only on main bases. The workhorse ATVs in the field are Polaris MV 700s or Sportsman 500s. They are gas powered and very tough. The MV 700 is heavily modified and is bulky and rather heavy, but can haul a lot of gear, etc. The Sportsman 500s have some modifications from the standard version, but are largely the same as you can buy from the …




From David in Israel Re: An American Ex-Pat Community in Israel, and CONEX House Conversions

Jim: Here are some links that you might find of interest, regarding Karnei Shomron. [From the web page: “Atop Ginot Shomron is a charming neighborhood known as “Neve Aliza” that has one of the largest concentrations of North American olim in all of Israel.”] See: http://www.nbn.org.il/community/community_karneishomron.htm and http://www.tehilla.com/aliya/places.asp?id=38 I wish it had pictures of Ramat Gilad it is the three year old hilltop Yeshuv with the caravans (single wide and double wide mobiles) and container houses. And here is a story with a little history of Ramat Gilad written by a lefty (an anti-settlement type):  http://www.israelblog.org/Articles/The_Unsettlers.html


Letter Re: Doing Business in Urban California

Mr. Rawles: Your book has been highly recommended to me by an acquaintance in another state. He asked if I’d read your book because you and I seem to have the same opinions on being in a large city (like Oakland, California where I live) when any kind of disaster strikes. These people rioted when The Raiders [JWR adds: For the benefit of our overseas readers, The Oakland Raiders are the local professional football team] made it to the super bowl and rioted again when they lost. A good friend of mine lost his thriving auto body business because his …


Letter Re: A Flock of Miniature Goats?–Canning Meat

Memsahib: Just wanted to mention…..it really is not too hard to can meat with a pressure cooker. If you stock up now on mason jars and a good pressure cooker ( get an extra gasket) you can raise elephants for meat! Just have a feast for all the neighbors and can the rest. It is nice to have little jars of cooked meat around to dump over rice or throw into a stew. Frankly, it’s easier IMO than plucking or skinning family size animal meals every day, to just cut up one big one and can all day, and then …


From Dr. November Re: Useful Medical References on the Web

Jim, good point about those two ‘Where There is no…” books. Here’s another, which I’ve had a small part in: http://www.aussurvivalist.com/downloads/AM%20Final%202.pdf The download is free. A printed and bound copy is also available for $13.60 at http://www.cafepress.com/austeremed. The cost covers the printing, nobody is making a dime off of it. This is a work in progress, and the April 2005 revision of the original misc.survivalism medical faq. Highly recommended. Here are a couple of sites that have more medical info on them: http://www.burmalibrary.org/show.php?cat=1582&lo=d&sl=0 A link to the online 1918 version of Gray’s Anatomy (no, not the insipid TV show) is …


Odds ‘n Sods: Walter Williams on Understanding Inflation

Noted economist Walter Williams (who sometimes substitutes as the host for Rush Limbaugh’s talk radio show) just wrote a concise little piece on understanding inflation. See: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/walterwilliams/2005/11/16/175724.html Williams is one of my heroes because he is a true conservative and he doesn’t mince words.