Letter Re: Preserving a Digital Library

James, Concerning the recent posts (all good) about a digital library: I admit I didn’t read every word, but as a fairly long time (23+ years) IT professional for the same company, I would be remiss to not identify the problems we have had. First off understand, technology always marches on! And whiles many times I have successfully restored rewritten 20+ year old data, there have been many failures. As densities of storage medium grows the physical size of the actual stored information shrinks! So the actual stored magnetic 1’s and 0’s are written is in smaller and smaller spaces, …


Recipe of the Week:

Naomi’s Chili With Fresh Tomatoes I don’t use tomato products that are in cans because of my concerns about BPA, an endocrine disruptor found in the plasticized lining of canned food cans, which is particularly bad in tomatoes.  However, this poses a problem when making chili, because most recipes call for canned tomatoes or tomato paste. I developed this recipe to use fresh tomatoes in making chili.  It does involve a jar of salsa (which is in glass) and frozen veggies, but those can easily be substituted for fresh stuff or omitted all together. Chili from fresh tomatoes Ingredients 2 …


Economics and Investing:

Fed set to unveil tapering of asset purchases next week. [JWR’s Comment: Don’t be surprised if you hear that this decision is quietly rescinded, just a few weeks from now. Free money is more addictive than crack cocaine. And I’m sure that TPTB realize that any substantive “tapering” would throw the credit market into a tailspin. Merely talking about tapering is much more comfortable to the banksters. This is something akin to your local crackhead talking about gradually giving up his addiction–and just as likely.] G.G. suggested: More Americans Struggle to Afford Food Reader “Dollardog” recommended this: An empty storefront, …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Pre-1899 and replica gun law tested in Texas.    o o o On November 16, 2013, I will be a featured guest speaker (via teleseminar) at the Charlotte, North Carolina Back To The Basics convention. (Formerly known as Charlotte PrepCon.)    o o o Some redoubtable folks: Maryland counties join movement to secede from largely Democrat-run state. (Thanks to S.R. for the link.)    o o o Killer robots and crippling cyber attacks: How the world is going to end – according to super brains such as Stephen Hawking    o o o Robert L. wrote: “I recommend Royal Bag …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good …


Notes from JWR:

Please keep the folks in the flooded valleys in and near Boulder, Colorado in your prayers. — Today we present another entry for Round 48 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: A.) Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or three course. (A $1,195 value.) B.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze …


Getting Real About Bugging Out, by R.G.

Ragnar Benson wrote the book “The Survival Retreat: A Total Plan For Retreat Defense” many years ago, but one of the things he discussed has stayed with me for a long time.  Reading this blog influenced me to read it again recently.  A great many of the things in the book don’t apply to my situation, but his discussion of the insights into the conditions during a disruption of normal society influenced my decision to “bunker in place.”  His descriptions of the situations of refugees especially affected me.  Refugees are basically at the mercy of whichever authority is controlling the …


Letter Re: The Importance of Food Procurement

  Captain Rawles, I just saw a very shocking statistic from the USDA: 50% of the US population resides within two miles of three different grocery stores. There are 150,000,000 people in this country who have never been more than two miles away from three different sources of food. I have made a career out of the food industry, most recently in the grocery sector. I know first hand how oblivious people are to where food actually comes from, what unsightly things go into the food supply to produce a sufficient volume to keep the shelves of Wal-Mart stocked (think …


Letter Re: Microwave Oven Method for Decontaminating N95 Face Masks

Dear JWR: I had an interesting conversation with a member of the CDC about decontaminating N95 face masks. The study results can be found here. You’ll notice that the test gives positive results but more research is needed. Here was the conversation I had with Edward Fisher after reading it. Here are some snippets from our exchange: Me: 1. Did you remove the metal nosepieces from the masks before sterilization? 2. Any updates to this study? Edward: We did not modify any of the tested filtering facepiece respirators before decontamination. If the masks had metal nosepieces, they were not removed. …


Letter Re: Wool Carding Questions

Avalanche Lily & Mr. Rawles – Just wanted to say that Survival Blog  never ceases to amaze me!  As you may know I’m not a fan of the entire survivalist or “prepper”  craze, but I have to admit the drum carder and angora bunny advice posted today was spot on.  I would not have guessed that SurvivalBlog [readers] would have been as knowledgeable about home textile production. (However I did  take exception to the sheep recommendations.) You may be interested in my “dish towel” project.  Sometime within the next couple of weeks the flax straw from this summer will be …


Economics and Investing:

CFPB’s data-mining on consumer credit cards challenged in heated House hearing Gainesville Coins has produced a handy infographic on how to spot circulating silver U.S. coins. (Statistically, your best bet is to search rolls of half dollars. Ask for a few rolls, the next time that you go to your bank.) Items from The Economatrix: US Income Gap Soars To Widest Since “Roaring 20s” August Jobs Report:  Hiring Continues As Unemployment Falls An Alarming Jump In “Job Losers”


Odds ‘n Sods:

Here at the Rawles Ranch, I use ratchet wire tensioners for building building fence corners and H-braces, as well as for tensioning our solar-charged electric fences. I was recently bemoaning the fact that the only tensioners that I could find at my local feed store and hardware store were made in China, and priced at nearly $4 each. So I did some searching and found a mail order company called Zeitlow Distributing Company in McPherson, Kansas that specializes in electric fence products. They sell the Tru-Test Strainrite tensioners that are made in New Zealand. They had these sale priced at …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good …


Notes from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 48 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: A.) Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or three course. (A $1,195 value.) B.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 …


How to Budget for TEOTWAWKI, by Louie in Ohio

Prepping is never far from my mind. A few months ago I was talking with a friend and the subject of TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We know It) came up. Tom (not his real name) said that he would like to prepare for upcoming emergencies but didn’t know where to start. The answer was simple; start where you are. Obviously most people cannot start with a full larder and weapons/ammunition cache. That is of course, unless you really do have all of that, in that case…well, that’s where you are. I asked Tom what scenarios he wanted …