Letter Re: Alternate Sources for Pharmaceuticals

Hello Mr. Rawles
Several years back, I would go with my church on mission trips to Northern Mexico, while there I would stop at the local Pharmacies and stock up on antibiotics. I bought several full treatment doses of Zithromycin, Cipro, and some Neosporin eye drops, and paid less than $50.00 American for all of it. It was not out of some dusty bottle off a dirty shelf, but boxed and in foil packs for long term storage in a clean modern Pharmacy with an English speaking pharmacist. They also had a more realistic shelf life than we have here in the U.S. The U.S. will allow you to bring back a three month supply for personal use and will let you import (Mail order) a three month supply for personal use. I have no interest in ordering “RED FLAG” items like narcotics, but I would like to restock my supply of antibiotics, and others may want to stock up on home meds. Do you or any fellow readers have any experience with dealing in this by mail order, and or have someone that they recommend? Thanks as always, – Rusty

A “Little Ice Age” Starting at Mid-Century?

The UPI recently ran a news story from the RussianNovosti news service about a Russian astronomer that has predicted that Earth will experience a “mini Ice Age” in the middle of this century, caused by low solar activity. See:  http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060207-041447-2345r. Here is an excerpt from the article: “Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory in St. Petersburg said Monday that temperatures will begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reaches its peak, RIA Novosti reported.  The coldest period will occur 15 to 20 years after a major solar output decline between 2035 and 2045, Abdusamatov said. Dramatic changes in the earth’s surface temperatures are an ordinary phenomenon, not an anomaly, he said, and result from variations in the sun’s energy output and ultraviolet radiation. The Northern Hemisphere’s most recent cool-down period occurred between 1645 and 1705. The resulting period, known as the Little Ice Age, left canals in the Netherlands frozen solid and forced people in Greenland to abandon their houses to glaciers, the scientist said.”

Letter Re: Defensive Shotguns on a Budget

Jim,
The Mossberg Model 500 has some very good safety ergonomics that make it a good choice for an “under the bed” shotgun for families with children. When it is stored with the action closed on an empty chamber, it requires several steps before shooting. While it is not difficult to learn to press the action release button behind the trigger guard, rack the action, and switch off the intuitive forward/rearward safety, before shooting, it is difficult for an untrained child or a miscreant to do this.

An uninformed/untrained burglar who finds a Mossberg in this condition, and who intends to shoot it, is likely to do the following: pull the trigger. Nothing. Slide the safety forward. Nothing. Try to rack the slide. Nothing. What is easy for the informed shooter is difficult for the uninformed, making the Mossberg an ideal choice. – Mr. Bravo

JWR Replies:  It is also noteworthy that the Mossberg 500 series is a very robust design with dual slide bars. It has proven much more reliable than some more expensive models, such as the Ithaca Model 37/87 series and the finicky Remington 1100. Don’t let the low price of the Mossberg 500 dissuade you. It is like buying a Chevy instead of a Ferrari.  Both will get you from Point A to Point B. But one of them will cost you a lot more for the fancy name. In many ways, I would rather have three Mossberg 500s than one Benelli.  (And the cash outlay would be about the same, either way.)

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Naturally, as with every opportunity, equally true is the fact that the country is standing on the edge of a cliff which threatens to take us downhill if we do not move boldly forward with speed to address most our shortcomings.” – Zimbabwean Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, describing Zimbabwe’s economy, in a speech on his monetary policy in late January, 2006. (This statement was a classic Freudian slip, since Zimbabwe’s economy is indeed “moving forward with speed” off  “the edge of a cliff.” The Zimbabwean dollar’s inflation rate recently jumped back up to 585%, and climbing.)

Letter Re: David in Israel on Fire Starting

Mr. Rawles:
David from Israel wrote in with some interesting suggestions on fire starting. The method that I use in severe weather conditions is to first dig a small hole, about 6 inches in diameter and about 8 inches deep. Facing into the wind, I dig a small channel into the side of the hole, about 2 or 3 inches wide and sloping up from the bottom of the small hole, about 6 inches long. Then I put tinder in the pit and arrange short twigs around the tinder so that the twigs look like a teepee. To make tinder you can use cotton balls dipped in paraffin wax, or take a small block of resinous wood such as yellow pine and cut slivers and shavings off of it, then cut the block making slivers still attached to the block. You can also use straw or dry grass for tinder – if the grass on top is wet usually you can find dry grass below. I cover the circular hole with twigs and tinder, leaving the channel open, and then put small (1 inch diameter) sticks on top arranged ends inward, in a circle. If the wind is blowing hard, it’s a good idea to make a windbreak so that the hole does not have wind blowing directly into it. Sticks, grass, and rocks make a good windbreak – place it about a foot away from the hole. Now take a match and strike it in the channel and put the flame on the tinder, or take a piece of flint and rub it against a piece of steel to produce sparks and make sure they land on the tinder. You’ll see the tinder catch, and then blow carefully on the tinder so as not to put it out. It takes a bit of practice, so try this when your life doesn’t depend on it (surely people camped out when they were growing up and know about all this?) When you see a flame, put sticks and dry grass in the channel, and soon you will have a good fire. I used this method to start a fire in a blizzard where the snow was blowing straight across (and made a six-inch layer on my sleeping bag in the morning) and the fire was really hot, but there was still six inches of ice around the fire, then snow. BTW, if you want to sleep soundly in such a situation, make sure your head is covered. – H.L.

Letter Re: Defensive Shotguns on a Budget

James:
For those that already own a sporting shotgun, you should know that riot-gun barrels can be had rather inexpensively used. Many people buy a 20-22″ cylinder bore barrel with rifle sights for deer season, then sell it later. eBay commonly has barrels selling for $100 or so, for common shotguns such as the Remington 1100, Mossberg 500, etc.

Add an extended magazine [tube] for $30, and you’ve got a pretty good tactical shotgun for about half the price of a new one. Plus you can switch it back for bird season, et cetera. – J.N.

JWR Replies: That is a great idea.  IMHO, it is best to find barrels that are threaded for screw -in choke tubes, to maximize their employment flexibility. OBTW, if you hunt around, you can even find used slug barrels that already have tritium front sights installed.  As they say on Firefly: “Shiny!”

Letter Re: Using Checklists as a Retreat Planning Tool

Hello,
Just a quick note to say Great Blog Column! Being prepared is important. Checklists help a great deal. We all need a little organization. Sometimes in our quest to prepare we forget about the immediate pressing details of ordinary life. Here’s an article I find helpful as they update with the seasons: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/homegarden/2002699796_checklistwinter24.html This last one is a little dated (Dec. 24) but still very much applies.
Regards, – M.R.

Letter Re: Link Correction –The Ultra Light Bug-Out-Bag By “Springmtnd”

Jim:
Sorry about an error in my previous e-mail. After the article went out a friend told me that he couldn’t find the pack plans on thru-hiker.com. I was mistaken about where I had seen them.

Gossamergear who the makes the GVP4 pack also posts plans for the pack on their web site. See the link. http://www.gossamergear.com/cgi-bin/gossamergear/myog.html

Ray Jardine also sells a pack kit for $49.95 on his site. http://www.ray-way.com/php/order-form.php

Ah, I found it!  See: http://www.backpacking.net/makegear.html. Check out the Lab 2300. The first two [designs] seem unnecessarily complicated. I would take a close look at the last one.

My pack is 37″ in diameter by 21″ tall. This gives it a volume of about 2300 cu. in. The top pocket is not included. After looking at mine it also looks complicated but I have added a lot of details that the basic design doesn’t need to be functional.

The top pocket the water bottle pockets and the main pack body were all made with a technique I call “boxing the corner”. If you take a pillow case a push the bottom corners to the inside and pin them flat so the bottom of the pillow case now looks square you will see what I mean. Sometimes you see sleeping back stuff sacks made this way. Anyway, it is a simple way to get a three-dimensional shape.

The gray on this pack is silnylon and the green is lightweight coated oxford nylon ( maybe 2.5 oz.) I hemmed the edges back on the silnylon before sewing the seams to make the seams stronger and to distribute the seam loading over more of the fabric.- Springmtnd

Odds ‘n Sods:

SurvivalBlog reader Warhawke mentioned that he recently downloaded an excellent book called “The Farmer at War” about the terrorist war in Rhodesia in the 1970s and how the farmers responded. Not a lot of detailed information but well worth the read.  See:  http://www.rhodesia.nl/farmeratwar.html

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In yesterday’s issue of the Defense Tech blog (http://www.defensetech.org/) our buddy Noah has a snippet and a photo about the U.S. military’s new facial armor. It looks a bit reminiscent of Star Wars storm troopers.

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Yahoo News reports: “Firewood in Vogue As Oil Prices Rise.” See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060205/ap_on_re_us/fashionable_firewood

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Cell phone tracking, for a fee: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/48872

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The editors of Slate have issued a summary of the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR.) The Slate editors opine: “The document envisions a world where the U.S. military’s main missions are homeland defense, the war on terrorism, and “irregular” or “asymmetric” warfare (i.e., wars against enemies that are not nation-states or that use weapons and strategies, such as roadside bombs, that make the most of their relative weaknesses). Much ink is spilled in discussing these new kinds of wars and the new kinds of soldier and command structures that they require. But look at what the Pentagon is really doing, how it’s spending its vast sums of money (close to $500 billion next year, not including the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). With a few notable exceptions (most of them inexpensive), you’d think that we were still fighting the Soviet Union and that the Cold War were still raging on… For the full text of the article, see: http://www.slate.com/id/2135343/fr/rss/. And if you are a more ambitious reader, for the full text of the QDR itself   (a 113 page PDF), see: http://www.defenselink.mil/qdr/report/Report20060203.pdf

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)." – Ayn Rand

Changing The Retreat Locale Paradigm: Cellular Phones and Two-Way Satellite Internet Systems

Whenever I talk with my consulting clients, the topic of retreat locales almost inevitably comes up. When describing their criteria for a new retreat property they almost always say something to the effect of: “The property has to have an existing phone line or one nearby, so that we can have Internet service.”  But these days, I’m now quick to point out:  “That shouldn’t be an issue.”  Why? Because things have changed. Lots of Asians, Europeans, and Americans now have no traditional “land line” phone service at all. They utilize the steadily expanding network of cellular phone towers. Even more crucially, reliable and affordable two-way satellite Internet systems are now available. Early in 2001, two companies, DirecPC (DirecWay) and Starband, began to fill the pent-up need for two-way satellite Internet systems. For a satellite dish to both send and receive signals, the alignment between the dish and the satellite must be precise. This can be a bit tricky. A few experimenters have put these same dishes atop RVs and fifth-wheel trailers.  (See: http://eduscapes.com/mm/motosat/.)
For more information on two-way satellite Internet systems, see these sites:
http://www.satsig.net/ivsat.htm
http://centre.telemanage.ca/links.nsf/key/Direcway

In essence, you can now put a survival retreat just about anywhere south of the Arctic Circle (or north of the Antarctic Circle) as long as there is a source of potable water. Thanks to photovoltaics and modern sine wave inverters (a la Xantrex), a connection to the power grid is not an issue. You can make your own power. The aforementioned factors open up lots of new retreat possibilities such as remote regions in the western U.S. or “The Wet” of northern Australia, and perhaps even lightly inhabited islands out in the South Pacific. Wait a minute. Do I hear ukuleles?

David in Israel on Fire Starting

James:
Here is a dry topic that most people have no skill in they just rely on the old Indian fire trick (liquid fuel on wet wood) which is wasteful, dangerous, and teaches you nothing. My school of thought is as follows:
Carry two major tools:
2 or more – butane/flint lighters
1 – Longer life flammable (such as Hexamine fuel tablets or bars and/or a 15 minute road flare)
The butane lighter can be quickly dried and burns for many minutes about as well as hundreds of strike anywhere matches in a match safe. The flint over
electrical ignition makes a bright spark which while not a real strobe is visible in darkness. Carry several they are super cheap and easily replaced.
Flame transfer can be a pocketful of tea-lites (candles in aluminum tins), oil and floating wick in jar, or a Hexamine Esbit stove brick. What we are looking for
is something which will transfer enough heat into your collected fuel to dry and ignite it.
American style road flares can not be carried in large numbers in your pack but in a real hypothermic emergency that pop-fizzzz and knowing you have enough
fire to light all but the wettest fuels is a comfort.
Another home brew gadget for lighting fires is carrying a short length of of brass tubing with several feet of surgical
tube (doesn’t get stiff when cold) to blow air to feed a small flame if you can get it started with matches/sparks. The Coleman battery-powered air mattress
inflaters also work for this application. Some aluminum foil can help concentrate heat in a tiny
incipient fire, practice using it.

Letter Re: HK USP .45 ACPs and the Belgian Malinois Dog Breed

Mr. Rawles
I’ve just finished reading the back blog and thank you for creating such a great resource! I haven’t read “Patriots” yet but it is coming on inter-library loan since it is out of print. After reading your thoughts on the .45 ACP I was wondering why I’ve never seen the HK USP mentioned. I own one and really like it quite a bit. It shoots straight and is soft in the hand. Plus it has the rail mount for weapons lights and comes in either stainless or the hard black. I keep mine in a Bianchi holster which will adjust for carry of the gun with a weapon light. I’d love to hear your opinion.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is dogs. I’m no expert but I’ve been around and training dogs all my life. Mostly for hunting but I am now moving up the food chain so to speak. My current dog is a Belgian Malinois and I am very impressed. These dogs are fast (30+ mph), hard hitting, have good noses and a strong protection instinct. Plus I have no worries letting him play with my three year old nephew–supervised, of course. He is absolutely gentle with the boy yet when I play with him he knows that he can get rough. Another thing is that when I take him outdoors he is attentive to me. Hunting dogs just want to hunt to the point of distraction, its in their blood. Malinois are protectors. When he hits the yard he stands up tall, head up, ears up and watches. I know that it’s often not good to take the military approach to survival but I want to point out that the U.S. government is going to Malinois and Dutch Shepherds. Also since you have so much livestock it would seem that having a natural herder would be advantageous. Don’t forget also that what is true for us is true for our dogs. I’m talking about training. It does no good to have a giant dog who doesn’t know how to bite or who isn’t obedient (which is dangerous). Thanks again for what you do and thanks for listening.  – A Hi-Plains Reader

Letter Re: Liquid Fuel Lanterns

Have a good supply of replacement generators (vaporization tube) gaskets and pump cups. In my experience leather is the best because it rots less than rubber. In my opinion Pellgunoil (intended for air gun lubrication) is the best oil for anywhere on your lamp.

I personally have run kerosene for several years in my Coleman dual fuel (unleaded gasoline/Coleman fuel)  lanterns, use this info at your own risk light is not as bright as the generator jet is optimized for gasoline/white-gas/Coleman fuel. Everclear/ethanol is good for cleaning out gunked generators, they can often be rebuilt. Coleman used to make a pin pricker tool for opening the jet orifice as well as unscrewing the generator, buy several wrap in foil and wire to the lantern. If running kerosene, diesel, or jet fuel in your lanterns (at your own risk) have a lighter or squirt bottle of alcohol to preheat the generator especially in very cold weather.

Most of this advice can be transferred to liquid fuel stoves.
You can make a replacement crystal from steel window screen. Proper sized jar can be etched and hot/cold cut if you break your lantern crystal.
Reinforce your mantle with a coil of steel wire anchored to the tubing or generator for longer life.- Anon.

Letter Re: Recommendation on Wind Generators Versus Other Power Sources?

Hi Jim,
I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who is considering purchasing a wind turbine to generate electricity for his house. He has a constant breeze at his hilltop location. I told him I didn’t think it would be a good idea because they require a lot of maintenance. Any input would be appreciated. Blessings, – Find 1

JWR Replies: I only recommend wind generators for locales that are both windy and cloudy, and/or that have minimal solar exposure. The cost per watt is so low for photovoltaic (PV) panels these days that they make more sense in nearly all areas. The maintenance for PVs is trivial compared to wind generators. Also keep in mind that there are safety hazards involved (tower climbing. lightning strikes, et cetera), and that wind generators are surprisingly noisy when in operation.