Comments

Episode-993- Listener Calls for 10-05-12 — 47 Comments

  1. I tried the water on the roof technique on my house this summer. I worked great for cooling! However the high iron content water from my well made rust streaks on my roof! If you do this and you have iron in your water you will have rust streaks. I think next year I will collect rainwater and pump that back up to the roof… Not sure how big of a rain barrel I will need, but that should take care of the rust problem.

  2. Hi Jack – love the show 🙂

    I’d really like it if you could time stamp the bullet points in your show notes. I found myself skipping all around today trying to find some of these subjects.

    Thanks again for a superb broadcast.

  3. Re: Voting

    Isn’t it incredible that everyone gets worked up about the election? And every year the winner is the same (big money and control) and so is the loser (every common citizen and principles of Freedom), yet every year people get riled up into thinking that THIS is how you make a difference.

    Question for everyone who is concerned about voting: Was this country founded on a vote? Did the founding fathers send a letter to King George asking for the right to vote themselves a country? If first principles weren’t established on voting, why do you imagine that voting would lead a return to first principles???? There is NO EVIDENCE IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY for this premise. A vote at the end is merely a pacification, or emotional support after the struggle is over. If you think that voting is some replacement for living as best as you can and standing up for what you believe in, your cause is already lost.

    You survival podcast listeners hear this every day at the beginning and end of the show. “The Revolution is you”… not your vote.

    • Careful, Backwoods Engineer (above) has a link that says it really matters this time.

      2/3 of my state’s population live in Chicago. Anything I want (concealed carry) is crushed by their vote. Anything I don’t want is carried by their vote. Not that my presidential vote matters under the electoral vote. But, I probably should be more informed and active concerning local issues. I just need the president to do his part in ensuring the common defense and making sure we get a good deal on coffee.

  4. Great advice on the junk silver. I recently have gotten great deals on junk silver at local physical auctions and local online auctions.

  5. On the subject of butter:
    Good stuff, however the butter that you get from the store that is listed as sweet cream (basicly some milk has been left in it), will go rancid at room temps because of the cream. When my mother made fresh butter when I was a kid she washed all of the milk out of it with cold water and added some salt. Without the milk and being salted, it will keep well on the table in a butter dish with a lid and not develop that rancid taste.
    Best, Duncan

    • Sorry, it is the milk that is left in the butter that makes it go rancid.
      Best, Duncan

      • Um no butter is butter, only certain fat compounds in milk can form butter. No matter how pure the cream or not only certain components become butter the rest remains as “butter milk”. The other problem is you don’t seem to know what sweet cream is, cream skimmed from milk may be called “sweet cream” to distinguish it from whey cream skimmed from whey, a by-product of cheese-making. Whey cream has a lower fat content and tastes more salty, tangy and “cheesy”. So sorry you got this one wrong.

        • You are correct Jack, thanks for clarifying. I was just speaking of the difference between the butter that my mother made and the current store brands labeled as “Sweet Cream Butter” that still have some remaining buttermilk that seems to help it go rancid at room temps in my experience. My mother always removed all of the buttermilk. It seems to last longer without it.
          Best, Duncan

  6. Question on the roof insulation – what Steven described sounds great for keeping the house cool in summer and I’d love to try it, but I live in a high desert climate that has 300+ days of sunshine, is very cold in winter, and hot in summer. If I spray foamed the ceiling of the attic, wouldn’t that prevent the sun from helping to warm my house in the winter? Although I could see that it would also help insulate what heat is in the house from escaping out into the cold winter night sky. I guess I could just rely on sunlight through windows to help with warming in the winter?

    BTW also love the idea of timed water running on the roof! Will be a great project to try to implement next spring. Thanks!

  7. Concerning commonality of concerns.. (left/right/red/blue) no one is interested in being ground under the heel of a police state boot.

    Divide and conquer. Male/Female, White/Black, Union/Non Union, Red/Blue.. blah blah blah.

    Human beings are human beings, we all have the same motivations and desires. The only variation is in what we’ll trade for what we want.

    Here’s a simple Venn Diagram that kind of spells it out..
    http://maxkeiser.com/2012/10/02/whats-problem/

    Same difference?

    Here’s a link to the article the diagram originally came from:
    http://howconservativesdrovemeaway.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-vs-tea-party.html

    And I’m not saying ANYTHING about these two movements.. just mentioning something obvious.. if they came together on what they agreed on.. instead of neutralizing each others effectiveness (acting as a foil) the ‘powers that be’ would be crapping their pants.

  8. hey, Jack, another good show. Today you hit on five thing that I want to respond to: (1) thanks for the part about buying silver on line. I couldn’t make up my mind about that, but you made a lot of sense, so thanks. (2) as for leaving butter out, I do that and have for a long time. I hate trying to spread cold butter! I leave the box of quarters in the frig and take out one at a time. I eat it usually within the week and it never goes rancid. (3) I was one of the ones who gets upset to see my well educated intellectual friends defending Obama and who won’t even discuss the state of our world, but I think I can take a deep breathe and adopt your stance. lol (4)Water on the roof. I do that every year for my rabbit shed in temps of near 100 or more. I don’t have a timer, but used a sprinkler until this year when I added a drip line. It usually lowers the temp at least 10 degrees which saves the rabbits. I started doing that after I had left home one day and the temp. went to 105 and I returned to find sceaming, dying rabbits. I lost about 45 that day, so I never leave home on hot days anymore.I also hose down the rabbits if the temp gets too high. I capture the runoff to use elsewhere. I was wondering if a solar pump could circulate that for me.? and lastly, (5) I lived in QingDao, China from 2005 to 2008, working for a Chinese language school, living in a Chinese community, shopping in markets and traveling by myself, so I was in the heart of the culture, and can say that I felt more free there than here, and safer. I was impressed that a person could start a restaurant on the sidewalk with a piece of wood on a stool for a table, and stools to sit on, without a kitchen. I bought roasted corn ears, chesnuts, and sweet potoatoes baked on 55 gallon drums, and many other foods grilled on crude apparati. Carts packed with goods were wheeled out late in the afternoon for night markets. and business was robust. A favorite pastime for many Chinese is “shopping”. I loved that the people to free to do their best how ever they could without endless regulations. There are millions of millionaires and thousands of billionaires. Lots of success stories. The gov’t encourages foreign investments, and have few serious laws, which MUST be adhered too. I loved it so much I tried to get a green card, but they are so seldom applied for that the local authorities didnt’ know how to do it and just said “it’s very difficult”. I knew more about it from research than they did but wouldn’t make them ‘lose face’. lol While the country is run by the com. party, few people are members unless they want gov’t jobs. I discouraged my students from coming here when the their best chance for a good future is right there. I returned to so many new laws and regs. here it made my head swim. Just wanted to share that.

  9. The Chinese I’ve known have been very hard working. One of my best friends in college was Chinese (American). His father was escaped from mainland China (which included swimming across a channel), made his way to San Francisco penniless, worked, raised a family saved. Moved, opened their own family run restaurant business. Long hours they all put into that business, all so their son, my friend could go to college without borrowing.
    Knowledge is another thing they are buying into, learning all they can from other countries. My oldest son accepted an invitation to speak and share his expertise at a programming conference in Shanghai last month. Many weren’t fluent in English, and he didn’t know any of their language, they managed. But I was thinking how they go to great effort to bring experts from other countries in, or send their people out to learn.

  10. The Chinese I’ve known have been very hard working. One of my best friends in college was Chinese (American). His father was escaped from mainland China (which included swimming across a channel), made his way to San Francisco penniless, worked, learned English, raised a family saved. Moved, opened their own family run restaurant business. Long hours they all put into that business, all so their son, my friend could go to college without borrowing.
    Knowledge is another thing they are buying into, learning all they can from other countries. My oldest son accepted an invitation to speak and share his expertise at a programming conference in Shanghai last month. Many weren’t fluent in English, and he didn’t know any of their language, yet his presentation was well received.
    I was thinking how they go to great effort to bring experts from other countries, or send their people out to learn. Few of our schools teach Chinese, and I don’t believe we listen to as many experts from other countries as the Chinese.

    • I have read it and it does not effectively counter the objection nor the scientific fact. Nor does it counter the NASA study that proved the very models these people claim are accurate wrong. The fact is simply saying something doesn’t make it true and specifically saying something is fact but still doesn’t matter is really a weak argument.

    • Jack, the reason some people call you “schizophrenic” is that part of you is into permaculture, anti-GMO, anti-pesticide, anti-corporation etc, yet the other side of you is still attached to beliefs supported and disseminated by Big Oil and Big Coal, who have written the script for a lot of your ideas on this issue. You should delve into the issue, you’ll be shocked. A good primer is Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change (Amazon link) or alternatively Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change (Amazon link).

      If you can read either of those books and still be skeptical, I’ll eat my hat.

      • First I have been called many things, never schizo till now though.

        Second people like you are fools. First you trust the same scientists and government agencies that tell you GMO is good for you when they turn around and tell you global warming is caused by the air you exhale. Worse you are such a fool, don’t you know that the oil companies, the coal companies and the banks are all FOR cap and trade. If not where is all the BILLIONS of dollars they could be using to fight it?

        I have read enough, I know the source of this shit and I understand what blind men such as yourself refuse to see. When money moves banks and governments make money. When you create value in something that has no value and set up a market to trade it the people who get the biggest allowance for that phantom credit make the most money on it.

        Again believe what you want. But don’t expect me to drink the koolaid with you. Again, the same people that tell you GMOs are good, pesticides are safe, RoundUp won’t harm you and rGBH is good for milk your kids drink also tell you global warming is caused by the air you exhale.

        • Jack,
          At the risk of being lumped in with those evil scientists, the consensus on climate change is overwhelming and you might as well be arguing against evolution at this point.

        • Actually two points in counter to this,

          1. Consensus doesn’t prove anything. There are been many times where scientific consensus was proven totally wrong.

          2. No there isn’t a overwhelming consensus. That is a fricken LIE, many well informed scientific professionals do not agree. Many have been pushed out of their jobs, threatened, had grants revoked etc.

          If you want a well thought out counter argument based on facts read the two PDFs on this site. http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/ As for the evolution comment, great point. We seem to have two schools or thought, “god just said it” and “creation is an accidental assembly of parts”, I think both views are deeply misguided.

        • I don’t see it as schizo at all. It’s all about choice. If you want to buy GMOs, eat pesticides, go for it. But don’t tax me for not buying into them. Likewise, if you want to believe CO2 is causing global warming, fine – lower your carbon footprint or whatever – drive a car that runs on magic unicorn farts. Convince 99.9% of the population to do the same by their own choice if you want. But don’t tax me at the point of a gun (especially in some new global scheme), or throw my tax money at development of unicorn farts as a power source. Let the free market & personal choice & responsibility work.

        • Hey Jack — I’ve long disagreed with you anti-AGW stance, but that being said, I found your response on this show to be ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON. The climate change issue has become just another litmus test set up to divide us over a single issue instead of allowing us to see the myriad of other related issues that we can often find ourselves in significant agreement.

          Regardless of whether GW is partially caused by man or not, we should be doing the same things. Reforestation. Building soil. Increasing biodiversity. Aiding in the regeneration of natural systems. It’s all why I practice permaculture, and having listened to your show for the past 2+ years, I’m pretty sure it’s why you do to. Plus, of course, the awesome food that you can get out of it.

  11. Another “me too” on the butter. We buy it on sale in quantity and refrigerate, taking out one stick at a time and leaving it out. We use a stoneware butter dish with a solid fitting cover. Sits out all year and we just keep it out of the sun. Never had a problem, even in the middle of the hot summer.

  12. How’s this for a funny coincidence,
    Had been doing some stuff around the house listening to the show.
    Had to make a pitstop to the bathroom for #2. Don’t spend much time there.
    Just in that moment was the part near the end of the show where Jack mentions the future possibility of drones over your house taking images of you on the toilet taking a dump!
    Couldn’t help chuckle. Talk about the timing.
    Well just wanted to share that funny smidget.

    …btw, good show. Took several notes.

  13. Jack: I am sure it has been covered before and I am still scouring the podcast archives and forum learning about using whats their naturally to “culture” the soil. So pardon my ignorance I am learning all I can.

    Question is leaving leaves on the garden. Do I need to worry about certain trees over others? My wife is worried about the oak leaves in our yard messing with the garden. That said tilling it every year isn’t working out either. Looking forward to next Spring when we apply what we are learning. We are in SW Michigan so hoping to give the beds a start before our snow sets in. Thanks for another great podcast.

    • Nimrod, I have used oak leaves in the garden without any issues. We have very few deciduous trees on our property so I bring bags of them home from town when the city collects them in the fall. Every year, the residential core of town rakes their leaves onto the street and the city collects them with backhoes and dump trucks. I just cruise the streets with my trailer and grab the leaves that people have bagged up from their back yards. It will be a mix of species with some oak and black walnut but not enough to be a problem with tannins or juglone. One fall I didn’t get all the bags spread and had a pile of them sit all winter. In the early spring, I opened the bags and they were full of worms and worm castings even though the top bags were still frozen!

    • Okay here is the thing, many people are worried about many things but have no idea why. I mean everyone gets rid of oak leaves so they must be bad right? Then some “garden guru” in a local paper notices leaves can mold and figures that means leaves cause pest fungus in the garden, writes that up with no idea of said validity and it gets parroted by many others, now every person in America ends up “worried about oak leaves”, again they don’t know why.

      So I say take a walk in an oak forest and peal back the leaves. Look at the soil and ask if that is the kind of soil you wish was in your garden.

      The last thing we want to do is destroy fungal components of our soil. For every bad fungus there are 200 good ones. They form hyphae and create networks for nutrients and water. Many attach themselves to the plants roots and extend the plants reach, specifically for water and nutrients.

      As hard as it is for humans to accept at times, nature really does have this all figured out. With some very few exceptions organic matter is organic matter, oak leaves are not an exception.

  14. Yep, on the butter question. I live in hot, humid, Louisiana, and can vouch that butter does just fine on the counter, in our butter container for quite some time. If you ever have any doubts, just take a whiff.

  15. Jack,

    I will start buying butter. I do alot of camping with no electricity ..

    On the China thing. Alot of American’s are known for enjoying the outdoors, camping and hiking. People in other countries don’t understand that I’m told. I sleep on a mat on the floor and tak spong baths. Those Asians after they buy their house will stop sleeping on the floor I expect. I am not sure the economy is just based on hard work and who owes who what. I suspect London and Wall street consider they run the world and aren’t planning on letting China take over. It may be they want us to fear China. That may not be a good thing, but economics seems largely manipulation. The other thing, do people come here to make money or to find freedom ? Some people seem to think there is no connection any more between the two. There is no free speech, second amendment etc etc in China. I would also say alot of people who are so busy making money have no time whatever to do any research and understand how things really work so they may get a surprise someday possibly.

  16. Hey Jack, Thanks for taking my call about Gary Johnson. You answered my question in about the first minute. I probably could have been more specific in what I was asking. Basically I was wondering if there was any reason to not vote for him. For example something awful he had done that I haven’t heard about. Just the same, I think you made a lot of good points. Keep up the good work.

  17. The other thing on China is that it seems like what helps empower them are at least in part to a great extent forces outside the country. Part of this I wonder is also where I hear we enabled Mao by withdrawing support for Chiang Kai-shek early on and support for Mao and the communists may indeed go much deeper than that and into the present time.

    Consider however that we give China a free pass on environmental issues as well as their treatment of Tibet and other minority groups which I thing is absolutely a huge deal. If the US or the UN decided to put pressure on China for any of those issues, that could change alot of things. We also send our jobs and factories over there and we could change that. The fact the the forces that be allow or enable China in all those ways seems very significant to me. The fact that the Chinese people seem to have few rights and the point of control is very easy, that is the communist government.

  18. What I think is the threat maybe is that the elite powers that be would want to take away our rights and make us like China and use China to pressure us in that direction, however they themselves would want to maintain control in some way and not be controlled by China or anyone else. They are just using China in that whole game and part of the reason China may seem to have all this power is that they are trying to make that part of the plan. Either that or to try to use it as a conflict with China which conflicts can be used for other advantages

  19. I loved Steven Harris’ idea, but after looking into spray foam insulation a lot of people are claiming that both open and closed cell insulation is harmful. How concerned would you be about this? If the insulation is just in the attic where we barely go, would insulating it this way be an issue for our health?

  20. I’ve got a question for Jack or anyone else who has the answer. Jack, in several shows you’ve mentioned that the top political contributors donate nearly equally to each side. I’ve been trying to source this and haven’t been able to. I mostly believe you as I’ve heard the same thing myself, but I want to find a source I can show my friends when this comes up in debate. I’ve found this:

    but it doesn’t seem to support the idea that the top contributors swing both ways. Does anyone else have a reliable source that they can point me to, or are the figures in the link the ones we’re working with?

    Thanks to anyone and everyone that can help!

      • Look at the Big Bankers that funded Obama in 08 and look at who they are funding in 12. Jeez dude connect the dots and understand it is all but impossible to find who donated in the off years of 9, 10, 11. You stuff one assclowns war chest first, then fund the other in the election year, either way both are on the hook to you. Chess my man, not checkers.

        • To explain my thought process… in one of your podcasts I listened to recently, it had sounded like you had a source showing that top contributors had donated equally to each side in the same election cycle. I couldn’t find such a source, and so I was hoping you had reference to it… but I obviously inferred something from that podcast that wasn’t what you said or meant to say.

          Anyway, we’re on the same side in all this. Some of my friends who are close enough to talk politics with are still caught in the “lesser of two evils” thought process, and I sometimes try to open their minds up to voting their conscious instead of voting strategically. I figured that some contribution numbers would help with that, but I’ll have to wait for a day that they’re in the mood for more than a sound-bite and singe-graph argument.

          Keep getting the good word out Jack. Sorry I misunderstood you.

        • kyle, it is partly my fault, I know what you are talking about, I just stated it and didn’t explain it.

      • Sorry for asking such a stupid question… I guess I should’ve expected the smart-ass answer.

        • It wasn’t a stupid question and it wasn’t a smart ass answer it was and honest answer.