Comments

Episode-904- Listener Calls for 5-18-12 — 27 Comments

  1. Jack, I’m a woodworker and also have an AAS in Food Science. I just wanted to let you know that CCA is no longer used to pressure treat lumber. (ACQ)Alkaline copper quat is what’s used now. If my memory servers me right, CCA has not been used since 2004 or 2005. So Arsenic is not an issue unless the boards are really old. Arsenic occurs naturally in soil and who knows how much or what else is in the soil people grow their food. There is way too much faux science out there when it comes to food but I digress!

  2. FHA loans might be an option for someone who’s dealing with a bankruptcy. When we bought our house in 2009, to qualify for our loan, we had to have the income, a minimum credit score of 620, and we had to be at least 2 years out from our Chapter 7 bankruptcy. We had to write a letter to explain every ding on our credit (including the bankruptcy), but it was relatively painless.

    According to FHA.com, one who’s in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy can qualify for an FHA loan if they’ve been making the bankruptcy payments for at least a year AND meet the other credit guidelines.

    One of the things that helped us after we filed Chapter 7 in 2003 was the purchase of a car. We paid a hefty premium (18% interest), but our old beater had died and it was easier to qualify for a new car purchase just having had a bankruptcy discharged. Why do I mention this? Well, a car loan can be a decent way to help rebuild credit after bankruptcy. If I had the cash to buy a car, we would have, and then it would have been a lot harder for us to buy a house, but I just wanted to put that out there.

    I know from experience. It’s hard to pay rent when you feel like you could build wealth for yourself with that same money each month. There are definitely options though.

  3. to help with the arsenic leaching into the soil, plant some cilantro but don’t eat it. Cilantro pulls out heavy metals from the soil. Just something I have read on the internet, but if your situation involves heavy metals, you might want to do your own research.

    Jack, keep on keeping on.

  4. Re: CCA Lunber

    I have no direct experience but it seems there are “organic/non-toxic” treatments the gardener can add to their otherwise untreated lumber to get the extended life cycle. Not so much about saving money, but labor over repeated construction of beds. Might be sensible if you have bunch of them. Maybe it’s been around for a while but I just heard of it for the first time yesterday.

    http://www.gardeners.com/Eco-Wood-Treatment/RaisedBedAccessories_Cat,39-730,default,cp.html?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=Google&utm_term=eco_wood_treatment&utm_campaign=20offcontrol&SC=XNET8019&kwid=c2d9b2e1971a49caa6de7d302f915c2f&SKU=39-730

    PS I got my Berkey through a friend in AZ to bring in here to the People’s Republik. 🙂

  5. Jack,
    Thanks for taking my question about the way you think, and pointing me to the previous podcast. I’ve only been listening regularly to the show since about 860, and I listen to back episodes when I get the chance…. but as you know, it’s a lot of content. Listened to 521 tonight as well. Good stuff.

    I completely agree about the slavery of the mind (which then leads to the slavery of the body and your being) in modern society. Hence my new website and many new things I am working on. There just isn’t enough time in the day to learn everything… if only I didn’t spend 12 of the first 18 years of my life learning completely useless bullshit… I digress.

    Have you ever read “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn? I am halfway through right now, and pretty blown away. I would be interested to know what you think about the book, if you’ve checked it out.

    Keep up the good work. I really enjoy the show. Thanks,

    M

    • @Michael I will have to add it to the list of books to read, should I ever get the time.

      • One thing that has come into place for me (in relation to your analogy on today’s show about the kid sitting on the curb waiting) in reading the book, happened back in the late 1800’s. There was many a violent labor movement. The author shows how, in just a natural way, the two parties at the time (republicans and democrats) would absorb different parts of movements as they were struggling to get their problems solved. First, they would strike violently. Then the government would use escalating force until they couldn’t strike any longer. They would turn to voting, and politics to have their issues heard. Ultimately, the two parties would absorb different parts of the movement and pit them against each other.

        As a simplistic example, all iron workers would strike. After they were beaten down, one party would get behind the cause of “black” ironworkers, the other behind the cause of “white” ironworkers. Then you have the iron workers fighting each other across the party aisle, rather than having their complaints about the monopolies in the iron business redressed.

        When the internal struggle becomes too much, the government manufactures a national cause for everyone to set aside internal matters for, in the name of the national interest. Mexican American War. Spanish American War…

        If you get a chance to check out the book, I would highly recommend. It’s been amazing, and I’m halfway through.

        Thanks again. Keep up the good work.

    • I would really recommend going back and listening to most of the early shows. You can kind of feel the stage Jack was in by the content, and if you are looking for transition type material where you can feel the need to get to a better place, the earlier shows are where you will find that stuff. I still like the shows coming out, but I think I got a lot more out of the earlier shows when Jack was still dealing with commuting, life in suburbia, land hunting, etc.

      • InBox485,

        Well said, and I agree.

        Much of what Jack covers now leans toward the ‘more prepared, and wide awake listeners’- Don’t get me wrong, I still love to listen to current content- it’s all good.

        But the older ep’s seem to have a special – and different feel to them.
        … perhaps they hit a little closer to home for those people who are still groggy from waking up so late in the game.

  6. Jack, I likewise have pondered (in utter dumbfoundedness) WTF is up with the bizarre choice to combine alcohol, tobacco and guns under the authority of one department.

    But y0u have again proved that money tends to be the answer to most mysteries in life.

  7. Jack, while I agree with your statement about a non-“Mad Max” environment in the event of an economic collapse, the end of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, I do not agree that there would not be a meltdown of society and a mass die off in the event of an EMP or CME. I was surprised that you did not mention one of these events.
    I recently saw Dr. Bill Forstchen, of “One Second After” fame. At the end of his talk, he mentioned that his contacts with NASA and other EMP experts state that a CME in the next few years is “highly probable”. I could add another source to this high probability of a CME but, back to the point, I’m surprised that you would not account for this in your predictions for what the prepper might be having to endure in the coming years.

    • @Brewer55

      I don’t always mention everything or the show would be on 24 hours a day. I also want to point out Bill Forstchen is selling books that is his credential. CME threats are LARGELY over blown, like as in big time. As are the long term effects to the grid by one. Can the 1 in a million shot happen, yep but it is one in a million.

      Simply put some days we don’t cover every possible disaster, we call those days week days. There has been plenty on solar threats in the past and there will be plenty in the future.

  8. Gun Clubs: We’re fortunate here in Idaho to have lots of public land where we can shoot. Unfortunately, the low-brain-cell-count results in ID-10-Ts using public lands for their targets/refuse disposal. Even worse is the non-safe behavior, for example: setting-up to shoot down-range of someone who is already shooting, or driving in front of someone who is VERY OBVIOUSLY shooting… rounds zinging over your head from someone that set up on the other side of the backstop you’re using.

    Here in the Boise area, we have at least 6 fairly major gun clubs/ranges (not counting the dedicated trap & skeet ranges). I believe they are set up as non-profits, with open membership (subject to the mere formality of B.O.D. acceptance in some cases). Dues are $50-80/year. One is a fairly large complex with pistol pits, rifle lines out to 800M (1000M possible), combo pits, trap range, rappelling/zip line tower, catered clubhouse during matches, and more.

    It is great to go out and shoot where you can do so safely, and the gun clubs seem to be the best way to do that. I’m not exactly ‘mister social’ when I go shooting, but the few people that you do encounter at a club range are typically somewhat like-minded and a pleasure to converse with. It took me years to finally break down and join a club, and I wish I would have years ago.

  9. Follow the money to the answer. Money motivates many. When ‘odd’ things happen consider the motivations to help find the ‘answer’.

    • @Brewer55, You stated

      “He predicted in 2003 the Fukishima disaster on ‘Coast to Coast’ AM radio”

      Really? Prove it please, get me the exact quotes, I so ever loving doubt this. Sounds like typical revisionist prediction to me.

  10. First, let me state that my intention is not to go off into left field with predictions by physics, Remove Viewers, ESP specialist, etc. My only point was to say that more than a few agencies and scientists are stating that the 11 year cycle of solar activity that we are in right now is more active than other periods in the recorded past. In the last 18 months we have also had ~6 near misses. In 2003, the strongest flare ever recorded occurred. That being said, here is one video where he stated his prediction prior to the Fukishma disaster:
    http://www.learnrv.com/pop_videos/japan.cfm

    In the link I posted previously, at the 13:27 mark he begins to discuss this prediction of an earthquake that will cause the ‘chernobyl like’ nuclear disaster. At the 14:35 mark, the recording from ‘Coast to Coast’ radio is broadcast with the interviewer on the station, Art Bell. Now, if this has been faked, I have no way of confirming. I’ll continue to do some research on this.

    • @Brewer55, Watch me do some disaster predictions.

      At some point a major tropical storm or hurricane will create a flood in Jacksonville Florida that will make Katrina look like a day at the water park.

      At some point half a mountain will fall off and island and cause a tsunami that will be twice the size of the one that hit Japan and will likely lay waste to much of the eastern United States.

      The next stock market crash will make the last one look like the good old days.

      Soon the US will end up with so much debt the interest will be greater then the cost of the department of defense.

      Those are not predictions, they are things that eventually will happen, if you just say enough shit like that you get to claim you predicted things as they happen.

      I don’t think anyone ever believed that there could never be a tsunami causing earthquake that would knock reactors off line if they were in the way. This type of crap is utter nonsense. If you want to live your life convinced a CME is the real threat, if you want to consider recent history “near misses” and ignore the non events caused by quite a few direct hits, that is your choice. Call the guys at Doomsday Preppers they will be happy to make you look like a nut job (though I know you are not, I am not being facetious I am being sincere I know you are not) and put you on TV as a CME Prepper.

      Just be careful listening to all these clowns that claim to have predicted shit. Most predict 1,000 things that could happen, then focus on the few that do. It isn’t predicting, it is playing the odds that something will happen and predicting everything that might and from there in the words of Paul Wheaton, “noooooo, that’s just marketing.”

  11. Jeez, Jack…I didn’t mean to send you off on a rant. But, as the old guy in “Raising Arizona” stated: “Well, ok then!”.

  12. A huge benefit of belonging to a gun club is free lead and brass. If you find brass in the bucket its yours for the taking. The etiquette is to only take calibers that you reload, and leave the rest for another member or for the club to sell as scrap. Lead from the pit is also available to members who cast bullets. The amount of brass and lead I get a year reduces the cost of my annual dues significantly.

  13. In addition to vitamins, I also take fish oil.

    Thanks for the detailed reply Jack.

  14. Hey Jack,

    I’ve found that old wine barrells work well for patio gardens, cut them in half and put 4″ casters on the bottom, and a couple drainage holes, and it works great! And looks good too. I add wine bottle corks as mulch and it makes a good conversational piece. My next project is to try putting a plastic beer bucket in the bottom of a wine barrell as water storage and plant into a smaller pot with water wicking up to it.
    Great show.

  15. A valid concern of putting ethanol into small engines is the fact that many small engine mnfrs. are behind the curve in replacing the rubber or neoprene fuel system components with sanoprene or equivalent to prevent swelling of rupture of those components. Boats with fiberglass tanks also can have issues with the ethanol. I am a huge ethanol proponent and have had to due a fare amount of vetting of the cons to appease the naysayers. I’ve run chainsaws to cars on 30-100 percent ethanol with little trouble.

  16. Jack,
    I have never been one to be active much online but I wanted to say thanks for one part of this episode. When you spoke about why you think the way you do specifically about reading everything, you could have been describing me. I have been labeled with any number of insanity issues because of this but just I have this vast need to understand and to know. Its a strange thing to take away from this episode but after all I have taken from the podcast, it is not surprising. Thanks!

  17. Jack,
    Thanks for making it clear on ethanol in small motors. I have listened to all of Steve’s podcasts and don’t recall ever hearing him say airtight containers. (but he might have) Not only does ethanol attract moisture when vented it also phase separates which causes more problems.
    I also think that it might react with aluminum carbs but have no proof. Ether that or contributes to bacterial growth. Only that I have opened up carbs that have a gel like substance in them that turns to a white powder when exposed to air. This was not found before the switch to e10 from mtbe.
    Our #1 service job over the last 3-4 years is repairing fuel systems with ethanol and its not getting any better.

    (15 years as a marine technician)