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Letter Re: The List of Lists
Jim:
I'm writing this to thank you for your blog, novel and preparedness course. Reading those has revitalized my prepping efforts, which had gone dormant since Y2K fizzled. Since then, I had the nagging feeling that I should be preparing, but I wasn't--until I stumbled across your novel in a local bookstore. Then I got back on track. (BTW, it was mis-shelved in with the "how-to" books! Or maybe it wasn't mis-shelved, since its a novel that doesn't fit any mold!) And it wasn't until I read through your "Rawles Gets You Ready" course that I had any real sense of priorities. If I had to name just one thing that I found the most useful in all you've written, it would be your big "List of Lists", which you have as a part of your prepping course. Those lists really helped me to crystallize exactly what I had to do, and in what priority. Like you suggested, I'm custom tailoring my lists, to match up with my locale. (I live at 5,900-foot elevation, which makes gardening a huge challenge. I'm heavy into sprouting, these days.)
I'm now working my way back through your blog's archives. I'm amazed at how much is there, and all with the level of detail to do really concrete things to get ready. The thing I love about your blog and your prep course is that it is all hard facts, and tested ways of doing things by people that have "been there, done that"--not just vague generality and "this might work" sorts of guesses. Thank you, Jim, ever so much! - Stan in Colorado
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Letter Re: Clarification on the Distribution of SurvivalBlog
James,
Would you be kind enough to add me to your e-mailing list for your blog? I would appreciate it. Thanks, C.R. - Lebanon, Oklahoma
JWR Replies: For the privacy of my readers, I don't keep any e-mail lists. My blog is accessed by readers with a web browser either by clicking a bookmark, or by using our RSS feed. Just be sure to book mark our URL, or better yet, make it your browser's home page. SurvivalBlog has been updated daily, without fail, since its inception in 2005. All of the blog's content, including nearly 8,000 archived articles, letters, and quotes are available free of charge. We do ask for subscriptions to help keep the blog in the black (our "Ten Cent Challenge"), but that is entirely voluntary. I don't even keep a list of the people that have sent donations. Only about 1% of SurvivalBlog's 150,000+ regular readers are voluntary subscribers.
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Letter Re: Preps and Minimizing My Debts Paid Off When Unemployed
Dear Mr. Rawles,
With all the bad news reported every day and your personal heartbreaks I hope I can reassure you about our future just a little by sharing my story with you. I started reading your blog three years ago, during the good times. I'm a 23 year-old man from the liberal north east, some college under my belt, married, and willing to dig in and work to secure my family's future. I had a good job with a subsidiary of a major european telecom, I worked every hour of overtime I could and pushed myself to excel at any challenge thrown at me. I rose to the top of the EE techs at my former employer, but that still didn't stop my being laid off when production was shipped to China.
It's been a year since I've been able to find work, and in the intervening time my wife and I have struggled to stay afloat both financially and physically as my wife has Multiple Sclerosis. Thanks to what I had learned from your blog and Patriots, we've made it. When my wife and I were married two and a half years ago I made sure we paid off debt, were smart enough to skip buying an overpriced house, and built up our food stores.
Thanks to you when I watched over the past year the price of homes crash and energy skyrocket we were relatively secure in our apartment debt free and chopping up all the deadfall I could find out in the state owned land behind us to burn in our fireplace. I must have saved a thousand dollars last winter heating with wood and more importantly got myself into shape. Once again thanks to you when inflation hit food prices I dug into our larder to get us past the rise in prices. And thanks to you for getting me to take an interest in emergency medicine because I've been able to keep my wife stable during health scares a couple times now as we waited for the emts to arrive.
We made it through the rough times, thanks to you and the survivalist community. Today my wife is healthy, our persons secure, and my family while not rich will begin to prosper again. I've found a new job, I enlisted in the US Air Force and am shipping out in two weeks. I'll miss all the holidays this year but I'll know my family is celebrating safe and in peace.
Next to good planning, the most important lesson I've learned is to never quit. So through all your trials Mr. Rawles, I hope you can take heart knowing that you and the Memsahib have touched lives from afar for the better. Sincerely, - Brent S.
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Writing Contest Winners - Round 24
We've completed the judging! The first prize winner for Round 24 of the SurvivalBlog
non-fiction writing contest is"Old Dog" , for his article "Grub and Gear--Lessons Learned from an Alaskan Trapper". He will receive: A.) 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 between $500 and $600, and
B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready
Made Resources. (A $392 value.)
The second prize winner is Brad T. for his article Bug Out and Refugee Considerations. He will receive a "grab bag" of preparedness
gear and books from Jim's Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR)
with a retail value of at least $350.
The third prize winner is C. the Old Farmer , for her article The Disaster Garden--What's Not in the Can. She will receive a copy of my "Rawles
Gets You Ready" preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing.
Runner-up prizes go to four writers:
T.W.P., for Camouflage: The Art of the "Liar"
Lisa L., for One Woman's View of Budget Preparedness
Prepared in Maine, for Prepare to Garden Like Your Life Depends on It.
KAF, for Squeezing Efficiency Out of Every Second of Your Workday to Provide Quality Relaxation Time
They will each receive a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate.
Note to prize winners: Please e-mail me your snail mail addresses (both UPS and US mail), and I'll get your prizes out, right away.
Today we begin Round 25 of the writing contest, which will end on November 30th. Get busy writing, and e-mail
your entry!
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The SurvivalBlog Mirror Site Project
It troubled me to read news reports about the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, S.773. If enacted, the US President could declare a "cybersecurity emergency" and then would have the power to shut down the Internet in the U.S. and the Secretary of Commerce would have access to data, regardless of privacy. Soon after, I read this headline: Obama Plans Internet Grab: FCC to Embrace 'Net Neutrality'. Needless to say, this could have some "negative implications."
As some one who values redundancy in contingency planning, I believe that the time has come for me to set up one or two mirror sites for SurvivalBlog, just in case my blog somehow gets "disappeared." Ideally, a mirror site would be housed on a server in a Second World country with few ties (economic or political) to the United States. I'd like to set up one or two full mirrors, each with unique domain names. This would be automagically backed up daily. We are currently housed using Apache on Linux, with a dedicated server. Once a mirror is established, I'd ask all SurvivalBlog readers to bookmark it, but not regularly use the mirror site, in order to limit the bandwidth, and to retain ease of click-through tracking for our advertisers . (They need to know that they are getting their money's worth, for their advertising dollars.) Does anyone have suggestions for a reliable high bandwidth offshore web host? (Our current bandwidth is over 1terabyte per month, and likely to double in the next year.) Or do you have any recommendations on automatic mirroring software? Thanks.
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Linda Rawles Memorial Fund Donations
Before her recent death, my wife Linda ("The Memsahib") asked that any memorial donations be made to her favorite charity, Anchor of Hope Charities, the main sponsor of the Anchor Institute, a Christian school and orphanage in rural Zambia. It is a very deserving charity, with hardly any overhead expenses. You can make a tax-deductible donation via PayPal, credit card, or by check. See the via PayPal/credit card page, or the mailing address for checks at the Anchor of Hope Charities Donation Page. Thanks for supporting this worthy charity! May God Bless You.
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From The Memsahib: On My Bucket List--Looking for a Wife
I am in a very unusual situation. I'm in my mid-40s, but I'm dying. My doctors have told me that I have less than two months to live. So I have been working on my "bucket list." One of the items therein is finding a new wife for my husband, to marry after I go to be with the Lord. I have always been a cautious shopper, carefully analyzing and deliberating the pros and cons of each acquisition, whether it is a horse, or a piece of land, or just a pair of boots. Finding a new wife for Jim will be a challenge for me.
First, about Jim:
- 48 years old, normal weight, and very healthy, but prematurely gray.
- Has a hard-charging "Type A" personality. He doesn't know how to relax.
- Very punctual and neat, except for his desk.
- Modest, loyal, and extremely devoted. (He has spent the past year by my bedside.)
- Generous and tithes regularly.
- A worrier. (SurvivalBlog is the professional manifestation of his worrying.)
- Hates big cities, and will never move back to one.
- Willing to dig lots of holes for my plants, but he is not much of a gardener.
- Loves giving gifts but he dislikes spending money.
- Has enough survival gear to equip a reinforced squad.
My replacement must meet these qualifications:
- Be a devout, church-going Christian, preferably with Reformed/Calvinist doctrine. This is the first and foremost consideration. (No exceptions.)
- Be healthy and of normal body weight. (Jim could not bear to lose another wife at a young age.)
- Willing to put up with Jim's eccentricities including his emphasis on OPSEC.
- Willing to assume my responsibility of caring for three teenagers. (They are godly homeschooled kids, and a great joy to us.)
- Willing to live at the Rawles Ranch in a remote, yet very beautiful area. (Nearly a two hour drive to any decent shopping.)
- Willing to live in a true "four season" climate, with up to six months of snow.
- Enjoy the outdoors (canoeing, hunting, fishing, berry picking, gardening, et cetera.)
- Have a good sense of humor.
- Not want to have babies. (Jim can no longer have children.)
- No interest in television. (We don't own a television, but we do have high speed Internet service.)
- Be willing to visit your relatives only once or twice a year.
- Not squeamish around slaughtering and butchering of livestock and wild game.
- Hard working.
- Thrifty. (Although Jim makes a very good living, shopaholics need not apply.)
- Circumspect.
- Loyal.
Things about you that do not matter:
- Your age. You can be anywhere between 30 and 55 years old.
- Your appearance. You can be ugly, maimed, deformed, scarred, or disfigured. (But you must be normal body weight and healthy!)
- Your race.
- Your height. (As long as you are least 5'2".)
- Your taste in clothes, music, or art. (Jim has eclectic tastes, but prefers women that dress modestly in public.)
- You have been previously married or already have children (as long as they have been raised to be respectful and well-mannered.)
Things that would be preferable, but not crucial:
- You are omnivorous. (We eat a lot of elk, venison, and trout.)
- You are fairly athletic and enjoy vigorous exercise.
- You have a good traditional skill set (Cooking, sewing, gardening, et cetera.)
- A background in a medical science (Doctor, nurse, veterinarian, EMT, Paramedic, etc.)
- Your family lives west of the Rockies.
- You like dogs and cats.
- You would enjoy raising livestock.
- You can play the piano.
- You have acting experience.
- You are handy with tools.
- You are artistic and/or have a good eye for nature photography.
- You enjoy traveling.
If you believe that you meet the aforementioned qualifications and are sincerely seeking a life-long commitment with a loving husband, then consider this prayerfully, and then e-mail me your brief biography. I'll be doing the vetting before you can talk with Jim. Needless, to say, I'm going to be very selective.
Sincerely, - The Memsahib
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Letter Re: SurvivalBlog Readers in Antarctica
James,
On Monday you noted reaching the 9 million unique visits mark. Congratulations! You also noted having readers on "every continent except Antarctica". As a former employee of Raytheon Polar Services working in the United States Antarctic Program, I was able to visit two of the three permanent U.S. stations on "the Ice". Whether the [SurvivalBlog] Clustmap will register it or not, you occasionally have had, and may continue to have people reading your blog in Antarctica.
Thanks for the great work that you do, and I am praying for your family. Regards, - J. in Texas
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Letter Re: "Patriots" Book Sighting in Downtown Chicago
Just an update on your book from here behind enemy lines in Chicago.
I ride the "EL" [elevated railway] to work each day and on Monday
saw a man reading your novel "Patriots"
.
I asked where he purchased it, expecting the answer
to
be Amazon,
and was stunned when he said that he picked it up at Borders on State Street
in downtown Chicago. I wandered over to the store at lunchtime and, lo and
behold,
there were two copies in the the new "Mystery and Thrillers" section
right next to Ian Rankin's latest book. There were plenty of copies of Rankin's
book but only two of yours remaining. I asked the clerk if there were any
more copies available and she said that they had five that morning. Only two
left. Wow! Unfortunately, they were asking $14.95 for the book. I have a new Kindle
Reader
(I
love this thing) so I'm planning on buying the Kindle
version of "Patriots" this time.
I bought my first copy of "Patriots" about four or five
years ago (I got an autographed copy to boot) from a used book dealer on Amazon
and
have
purchased
that latest two editions. I can't wait for your [two planned] sequels. You've
developed into a terrific writer. I once read a review that described "Patriots" as
a "how-to manual disguised as a thriller."
My thoughts are with your wife and yourself during her difficult health situation
and I hope that all things work out well for your family. Semper Paratus -
Bill L.
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Letter Re: Thanks for SurvivalBlog
James,
I'd like to thank you personally for maintaining SurvivalBlog.
Until last year, I'd always thought of my survival skills as important to
have, but didn't think I'd ever truly need them. Now that the bottom has
fallen out of the economy (in exactly the way you predicted!), I believe
everything I value is truly at risk. To see the danger that America is in,
just turn on the news for ten seconds. To see the danger that the culture of
true service to God is in, do a Google search for "De-baptism" or "Santa
Muerte." The world's situation has gone rapidly downhill, but the amount
of content on SurvivalBlog - and the attention it's receiving - has been
accelerating at an equal pace. Though my logistics are far from ideal, I'm
much better prepared than I was a year ago, and I'm grateful to you for giving
me the information to become this prepared.
Also, I got my copy of "Patriots" the
other day. Its advice makes the average survival guide look like scribblings
on the back of a Post-it note, and the
plot is head and shoulders above the average thriller. Thanks for writing it,
and God bless you.- James in the East
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Cold and Dark--An Account of an Ice Storm, by Steve S.
Preparations
In January, 2008, the outlook for people in the United States appeared bleak.
I told my wife that we needed to stock-up on food because I felt that the supply
lines were thin and vulnerable. I began my preparations by Internet search.
I found JWR's SurvivalBlog and I bought a copy of his novel. In the meantime,
I started buying cases of canned goods. I bought food that we generally ate.
I looked at the expiration dates of every purchase. I tried to buy what would
last through 2011. Not much would, so I bought with the idea of buying more
later, looking for one year at a time.
The pantry was full. I had read Jim's book, and had found many links
on the SurvivalBlog that helped me know how much of what to buy to be balanced.
I bought a freezer at Sam’s Club and filled that also. I noticed that
food prices were increasing at an alarming rate in August. They were up 18%
on same item purchases, on average. Later that figure would reach 35%. I only
talked about this to a trusted few. My wife was starting to wonder about me.
Soon thereafter, a Harbor Freight store opened in Jonesboro, Arkansas, my home
base. There, I purchased several more items I saw as essential. I got a two
burner propane stove with a center grill feature. I bought some LED flashlights,
ropes, staple guns, and other miscellaneous items. Being a hunter and former
U.S. Army officer, I had a lot of camping (survival equipment) on hand. Sleeping
bags were there, polypropylene long johns, butane lighters, three 20 gallon
and one 100 gallon propane tanks were filled. I use them for my barbeque grill.
I told my wife that we should buy a generator. She said that if I thought we
should buy it, that I should. I didn’t.
I found some water barrels at a local food processing plant. I now have eight
55 gallon drums. I found 4 red 35 gallon chemical barrels that were set aside
for gasoline. I had about six 5 gallon gas cans to operate my 4 wheeler, fishing
boat, and sundry other small engines like lawn equipment and field water pumps.
Day to day, I am an NRA certified training counselor/instructor. Starting in
November 2008, my business started to boom. I had a 300% increase in Arkansas
concealed carry classes. That hasn’t stopped to this day. I have a 35
acre facility that is a former bean field, surrounded by thousands of farmland
acres and two liquor stores. I have a 1,200 square foot building for classroom
and office space, a 52 foot trailer for storage. My plan for survival guns
was simple. All guns were to be military calibers. Handguns would be .45 and
.38 calibers. Rifles would be .22 rimfire, 7.62x39, .308 and .30-06 calibers.
Shotguns would be 12 gauge. Stocks of ammunition were increased starting early
in 2008.
Shelter, food, security. What is left? Communications. I bought a set of 25
mile range pair of Motorola hand held communicators with recharger on sale
for $38. Stores of batteries were laid in. Cell phones. Transportation was
what we already had. 2001 Dodge Durango 4x4 and a 2005 Chevrolet 4x4 extended
cab pick-up.
The Storm
January 28, 2009. KAIT –TV weather in Jonesboro, Arkansas is forecasting
a wet winter storm cold front with frigid weather following out of the Northwest.
When it began, the outside temperature was about 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Freezing
rain collected on everything in near biblical quantity.
I was awakened in the early morning of January 29th and you could hear branches
starting to snap with a sound like gunshots. Outside, you could see flashes of
light as one by one, the transformers on the light poles blew out. The power
was off. It was time to go to work. First, open the flue and light the gas logs
in the fireplace. Inside the house, the temperature had quickly fallen to about
40 degrees. I thought to crack a window for ventilation draft to reduce the chances
of carbon monoxide poisoning. Then I set up a propane heater and went about blocking
off all rooms except the den and kitchen, which were adjoining. I used 4 mil
plastic to cover two entrances to the den. The temperature quickly found about
62 degrees. We placed a carbon monoxide detector in the room to keep us from
being statistics. The propane stove was set up over the electric range for cooking
and a 20 pound bottle of propane was connected to it. I started thinking about
how I should have bought a generator.
By morning, we felt isolated in our home. Very few vehicles were moving. The
world outside looked like a war zone with ice-laden limbs and the things they
crushed. With no electricity, the phones didn’t work. We ate breakfast
normally. The whole world became our refrigerator. No cable TV so we cranked
up the radio and began to listen to the results. Reports of some break-ins started
coming in as people abandoned all electric homes for the designated shelters
in town. Outlying areas quickly ran out of gasoline and propane. Stores emptied
out their goods and shelves became bare. Generators and flashlights were nonexistent.
Batteries and power supplies followed suit. Many businesses were unable to sell
anything as their computers were down and lights and heat were out. Sadly, no
one has a backup plan for how to sell anything without electricity. Gas cans
were a faint memory. I checked on our neighbors to make sure they were coping,
and to exchange cell phone numbers. The telephone system actually works without
outside electricity if the type of phone you use doesn’t need 110 volts
from the grid. We had one emergency phone for that reason, and it was operational.
I wondered how many people knew about that?
The day passed relatively uneventfully. We had everything we needed to exist
in a minor disaster. Some people didn’t. A few died for their lack of
preparedness.
After the passing of the first day of “survival,” tree limb removal
became the priority, while everyone fought what southerners call severe cold.
It was the 30th of January. The temperature was unrelenting with nighttime lows
of 9 degrees and daytime highs of 20. I was able to venture out for things that
would be nice to have, like a generator. You see, with a generator, our gas furnace
would work. All you need it for is the electric blower. It was the only hole
in the preparations. I went in to the local Lowe’s, after checking a couple
of other stores. In the back of the store there was a line of about 13 people.
I asked why they were there. There was a truck inbound with 75 generators. I
got in line. Twenty minutes later I was in the electric department buying the
necessary wire nuts and power cords needed to hook my [newly-purchased] generator
to
the
power
panel in my house.
When I got home, the first thing I did was to disconnect the house from the grid
by turning off the main breaker, outside the house. You must do this before attempting
to connect a generator to your power panel. Failure to do so could kill workmen
repairing downed power lines and connecting transformers. To get things operational
quickly, I used the cord provided with the generator, which used four grounded
plug outlets. To operate the [selected] areas to connect, I bought 10
gauge wire. We turned off all appliances and I pulled out the circuit breaker
for the
selected
rooms. I disconnected the wire from the circuit breaker and wired it directly
to each wire with a male plug on the other end to mate with the wire from the
generator. I did this for the heater circuit, the den wall circuit, the kitchen
wall circuit, and the master bedroom wall circuit. The heater kicked on.
I offer one final note about using a generator. The operation book has a chart
in it showing the watts used by each type of appliance. You must calculate the
[load] amount used by your appliances. It has to add up to less than your generators
running wattage rating.
We were on a main highway in town, and we had our electricity hooked to the grid
after spending only a few nights without. Many in town were without electricity
for three weeks. In outlying areas, some are still not connected. The line crews
working to restore power were fantastic. Limbs still line the highways and yards
a month after the event began.
Lessons Learned
It was nice to be confident in the preparations that we had made. It was also
easy to see the holes in the plan. I now have the generator that I knew I would
need when the grid goes down. After the fact, I also bought the connections necessary
to hook up the generator just by turning off the main breaker, plugging the generator
to an installed wall socket, and cranking it up. Cell phones go down after only
a few days without a charge. I bought a portable power battery for that purpose.
If we had been out of power long term, the generator would have had to have been
used on a part time basis, at night. That means that daytime operations would
have been using only one or two rooms, again. When power goes down, the best
fallback is natural gas, if you have it. I am in the process of planning where
to install additional natural gas stubs for appliances that can be added. The
natural gas hot water heater was a blessing. It was on from the start. The warmest
place in the house was the utility room where the water heater is located. Remember
to have books and games for those evening hours when you would have been watching
television. Make sure all of your gasoline cans stay filled and stabilized. Make
sure
all of your propane bottles stay charged. Make sure you have plenty of batteries
for radios and flashlights. Make sure you have enough essential medicines. Roger’s
Rangers rules #1 rule is "Don’t fergit nuthin!"
I may have missed a few issues, but I want to talk about future plans. I am going
to install photovoltaic panels to run an emergency LED lighting system. This
would
be
a small solar panel, probably 45-60 watts [and a deep cycle battery], as a precursor
to getting
a more comprehensive system. LED lights use very little electricity and they
are
very
long lasting.
More technology will be added as it becomes available. Reducing reliance on the
grid is the ultimate goal.
Final Words
You can war game and "what if" emergency situations as much as you
like. It is good to exercise your plan. The problem is that real situations
have a
way of
waking you up to the holes in your plans. Do not wait to begin planning for the
next disaster. People in tornado and earthquake zones know about being ready
for these things, but Mother Nature will have a surprise for you no matter
where
you are.
Prepare for the worst and pray to God that it doesn’t happen.
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Letter Re: Getting the Right Training and Preparing Methodically
Dear Mr. Rawles,
I wanted to thank you for what you are doing and your work. I think that the
reality is that you are saving a lot of people's lives in addition to helping
people to continue to be "in" the world but less and less "of" the
world. I have been able, in turn, to pass along to other people a lot of
things that I have learned from you and your readers, and I hope help them
to focus and remain calm in their preparations. (I have also pointed them
all to your web site).
Now three things that I have done/learned that I would pass along to your
readers:
1) I did get some guns and ammunition recently following the information I
learned from your web site and novel. Then I found a man that would teach me
basic marksmanship - again as your advice suggested, learn the tools you could
be relying on. After just one day of proper training I was shooting better
than 90% of the yahoos at the range that had far better gear than I have. It
cost
me a little money But I am better equipped, more confident, and have a foundation
to build upon - add each day I am at the range I am better and better. So I
would tell your readers that if they just "think" they know what
they are doing, then spend a little money and really learn what
you are doing.
2) I bought and read "Patriots". It was a good read, but sobering.
At the same time, it helped me frame better the "problem" I am trying
to solve. And while I hope it never gets that bad, it sure allowed me to get
some perspective
and begin to work things out in a way that fits my scenario. My advice would
be for others to get your book and read it.
3) I purchased the "Rawles
Gets You Ready" preparedness course. When
I first started this process a few months ago, I was very overwhelmed. I noticed
your course and its price and I thought - "Too much." However, after
reading the blog for a month or so and after reading your your book, I felt
you could be trusted and that your course was not "hokey." I have
been very, very pleased. It is practical, well organized, and adaptable. There
is
a saying "How
do you eat an elephant? - One bite at a time." And your course helped
me to get things aligned so that I could eat things "One bite at a time."
I have been working on a one year preparedness program since the week after
Christmas. I am probably 75% of the way toward where I want to be. The remaining
25% is probably one-half just finishing purchasing and storing some things
and
one-half
understanding
if my retreat location can handle some of my "plans" and if not,
[then determining] what is Plan B.
My family and I would not be nearly so far along without your help. I wish
we had started this process long, long ago, but c'est la vie. We are
on our way now!
May God bless you and your family, Kind Regards, - Jay
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Red Dot Sight Battery Longevity »
Letter Re: Documentary Film Producer Seeking Interview Subjects
Dear SurvivalBlog Readers:
I can't thank you all enough for the numerous responses to my earlier posting.
It's a pleasure meeting you all and reading about your different approaches
to survival and a preparedness mentality. I have been doing my best to respond
to all of your emails, but wanted to let you know if you haven't heard back
from me directly, it is not due to a lack of interest, but more the logistics
of responding to the volume! I have read through all of the emails that have
come my way and encourage those who haven't responded but might be interested
to please don't hesitate to get in touch. I am quite encouraged by the number
of people who have written with advice and/or an offer to participate in
this project. I am more than ever convinced,
after hearing from you all, that this is a subject whose film time has come,
and I'm going to be making every effort to get funding and a green-light so
that we can move ahead as soon as possible. Warm regards, - Amy Bucher, Engel
Entertainment
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Four Letters Re: Firewalls, Anonymity, and SurvivalBlog
Two notes about Some Call Me Tim's excellent recommendation of JanusVM:
1) Use Decloak.net to verify that you've done everything right. It
uses a whole host of very strong tests to attempt to locate your computer
and will find out if you've slipped up somewhere. The place you've slipped
up is almost always DNS but cookies and other things can give you away too.
2) Be aware that this encrypts the traffic you're sending and receiving, it
doesn't make it go away. Someone listening in can tell when you're sending/receiving
and how much, they just can't read it. Timing and bulk are circumstantial evidence,
true, but they are there. So it is best to keep your subtle browsing small
and not be noticed. - PH .
JWR,
As a network administrator. I generally find pleasure in "testing" networks.
JanusVM works great when getting past firewalls, but its large size (~22mb)
could be an issue. I have found UltraSurf works extremely well. It is fast,
50 times smaller than JanusVM, and most importantly, defeats web filtering
and tracking software. It was developed to be used in a certain communist country
with a
rather large firewall, but is now used worldwide. Its small size and no need
for an install make it ideal for quickly dropping onto a system in a cafe/library/school
or just simply running in the background on your personal system. I personally
have used it in each of those situations.
.
One drawback is that some network virus scanners have been notified to look
for it and declare it a trojan to prevent its use on networks. I've encountered
this once in an Indian Internet cafe (of all places) and once on a university
network. To combat this you can do two things. First, keep up with the latest
version, as their signatures aren't tagged by the scanners. Two, rename the
file to something like "stamp_collection.exe" to prevent simple name
recognition.
All of this is great, but what if the user can't download it in the first place?
Many times the web site will be blocked, but the
download itself is available,
especially the
".exe" download as it is not linked from the front page. You
can also find it on popular download sites (like this
one), which will not
all be blocked. Emailing it to yourself using a web mail account is an option,
but the user will have to rename it to something like "file.txt" as
.exe file extensions are usually not allowed attached to emails; just change
it back to an .exe extension to use. Once downloaded, the clever user can simply
carry it around on a USB ["thumb"] drive or floppy disk to pull out when needed.
Keep up the good work, - Blaze
Jim,
In regards to SurvivalBlog, I am still able to access it via NMCI as of this
morning. They have been pretty strict lately due to a Navy/DOD wide virus getting
passed
around via thumb drives (which have since been banned from use). On the matter
of privacy, anyone should know better than to think they will have privacy
while using anything that belongs to the government! Before
you are granted access to a DOD information technology (IT) asset you sign
an "end
user agreement" which
prohibits the use of third party proxies to bypass firewalls, as well as downloading
anything like privacy software. I can say from my own negative experience that
the computer
types keep track of anything and everything, including attempts to circumvent
firewalls by various means. I think the email update idea does have much merit
in this regard, especially for the shipboard folks. Keep up the great work
Jim! - O.E.
Mr. Rawles,
Thank you for your tireless work in educating the masses about the importance
of preparedness. I discovered your writings and your Survival Blog a few
months ago and have enjoyed the treasure trove of valuable information that
both you and your audience contribute. Fortunately, it has reinforced most
of the preparations I have made to date, but it is nonetheless a wonderful
resource to be sure. "Patriots" was
a great read, by the way, and I have given five copies away to friends, both
preppers and non-preppers.
The "nons" have since seen the light and are getting started on their way
to complete independence and self-sufficiency. While I have been casually
encouraging
them to do that very thing for a while, it was your work that finally opened
their eyes, hearts, and minds. Thank you.
The reason for my correspondence is to make you and your readers aware of one
of the most important tools available for the computer user who wants to maintain
complete privacy on both his own computer and public computers that he may
use while traveling or evading.
Iron Key is a USB flash
drive, but it is unlike any other flash drive on the market today. It uses
an onboard browser and proprietary hardware and software
encryption so information stored on the device or sent or received while online,
including web traffic, cannot be intercepted by any else. I will let the folks
at Iron Key do the rest
of the selling. I am nothing more than a customer of theirs, but I believe
wholeheartedly in their product and recommend them
without equivocation. Godspeed, - Jason in Central Texas
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Two Letters Re: Firewalls, Anonymity, and SurvivalBlog
Dear Mr. Rawles
As a network administrator, I spend a fair amount of time making sure my end
users cannot access certain web sites from company computers and data lines.
I try
to make sure we don't get too draconian in our filtering practices, I do my
best to make sure that not streaming audio or video, social networking sites,
or other time killers make their way through the network.
Recently, a friend of mine told me about a tool called JanusVM,
a combination of Internet anonymity tools (TOR, PRIVoxy, Squid, and VPN) that
runs in a virtual
machine. You basically run the VM in a VMWare player, connect a VPN connection
from your PC to the VM, and open your web browser. Like a lot of anonymity
tools, it isn't very fast. It is, however, about as anonymous as you can get
on the internet. I went to a web site that displayed my current IP address
as well as your geographic location and found I was supposedly surfing from
Paris, France. One page reload later and I was in Northern California, and
then followed by Denmark, all without ever leaving my chair. According to the
web site's
very brief write up, the DNS requests are so scrambled that even your internet
service
provider can't tell where you're surfing. That made me wonder if I could use
this tool to get around my web filtering firewall as well. I tested my machine
to make sure I was blocked out by our firewall by trying to visit Facebook,
which is a big no no site around here. Sure enough, it's blocked. Then I closed
my web browser, established the VPN connection to the JanusVM, and re-launched
my web browser. Bullseye! I had Facebook access. Not only was I anonymous,
I'd also defeated my own web filtering software and firewall.
While this is a great tool, here are a few things to keep in mind.
1. I haven't tested it on any other system, so YMMV.
2. You need a network with at least one available IP address for the VM. It
can be an internal IP, but it still needs one. This keeps it from working with
Verizon broadband cards. If someone out there gets it to work with one, I'd
LOVE to hear about it!
3. Anonymity is not the same as privacy, or even security. Don't count on this
tool to protect your internet logins and passwords. Hackers have been known
to sniff incoming and outgoing traffic on TOR nodes for unencrypted passwords.
They may not know where they came from, but they can still read them. If they
can figure out where they were headed, you're in trouble.
4. Your workplace or branch of the military may frown on anyone trying to circumvent
their firewalls and web filters, so use this information at your own risk.
- Some Call Me Tim
James,
A couple of notes about your post on [SurvivalBlog being blocked by the US
Navy and Marine Corps Internet system]:
* with varied duty hours and multiple shifts, there's no such thing as only
blocking during "duty hours".
* Anonymizers are just about the first thing blocked by any organization
that
filters net access. :)
* If you have scripting capability on a web host, CGI Proxy and PHP Proxy are
both good alternatives. Of course, they're going to be blocked, too...so you
still would have to find an unblocked site that has it or an alternate ISP long
enough to download the scripts. People also run services with these or other
types of scripts, but they come and go, and as mentioned previously, will most
often be blocked. You also never know who's running them.
* An alternate site works for a while, but it will eventually get blocked, too.
It also dilutes your "brand".
* The XML RSS
feed option is probably the best, as it doesn't rely on working around
the restrictions so obviously. I use Google Reader myself, through
which I can read web sites blocked by the corporate firewall. It cuts you off
from reading
comments, but that's not a problem with your site. Some may be concerned at Google
having too much information and choose some other feed reader, but I'm not too
concerned with it. [JWR Adds: To avoid trails
of "cookie crumbs", I've read that the best choices
are the Avant
Browser for PCs and the NewsFire
Reader for Macs.]
The feed option is good for current reading and keeping up, but for searching
on a topic or looking at items in a non-linear fashion a proxy of some sort is
a better, more flexible, yet more complicated option. Hope this helps. - Robert
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Letter Re: A Company Layoff Underscores the Need to Be Well Prepared
Jim,
What a surprise my wife and I received at work yesterday. My wife and I work
for the same manufacturing company and after two banner years and a huge Christmas
bonus the company is reducing everyone to 20 hours a week. The company we work
for is a total "team oriented" place to work and if one person gets a bonus
we all get a bonus and the same is true when it comes to layoffs. While our
company
sets and exceeds the world standard for what we do many of the companies we
are dealing with are unable to now qualify for bank funding. What I find odd
is the fact that the companies we deal with are the ones that bring food to
tables around the world and are consistently profitable. I take pause when
the profitable companies aren’t able to do business.
So my true purpose for contacting you is to thank you for blog and the focus
it has toward preparation. My wife and I have been reading daily and are Ten
Cent Challenge subscribers. Additionally, I have your SurvivalBlog banner
on my MySpace page as well as all my outgoing (non-work) e-mail footers. I
read your "Patriots" novel and then started reading your blog
as well as the
Mental Militia
forums. Together, those have [motivated] us [to now be] sitting in a much
better place than we wouldn’t
be otherwise. We now have food supplies for ourselves and our children for
six months as well as weapons and ammo cache.
I want to close by saying that my wife or I ever seen this coming and we are
thankful to be as prepared as we are and hope that others step up while they
can. Sincerely, - "Sharp Shepherd"
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main
Some SurvivalBlog Advertising Changes
I'm very pleased to report that SurvivalBlog is now indisputably the most
popular preparedness blog on the Internet, with an average 117,200 unique visits
per
week.
The phenomenal growth of SurvivalBlog's circulation (which has more than tripled
in the past 16 months), has brought with it some growing pains. As I'm sure
you recall, since November of 2005 we used a scrolling script to make all but
one of the ads slowly scroll by. This worked fine back when we had just a dozen
advertisers. But unfortunately we've found that it was a very inefficient solution:
We've received several complaints from readers about the scrolling ad bar sucking
up their CPU cycles --by as much as 98% of available processing power! This "CPU
drain" has actually cost us some readership. To avoid this problem,
we had no choice to but to make a change: Starting yesterday, we switched to a
random order fixed ad stack. Here is how it will work: Each time that
you visit SurvivalBlog, you will see the ad stack in a new random sequence.
When you come back to the site the next day, or each time that you hit "reload", you
will see the ads in a different random sequence. It is my
hope that you will find this both easier on your eyes (no distracting scrolling
going on), and much easier on your computer's CPU
The other change will be coming on December 31st, when our advertising rates
will be increasing by an average of 33%. In the interim since our last rate
increase, both our daily hit count and our unique visit count has more than
doubled. Throughout the publishing world--both in print and online-- it is
circulation that determines ad rates.
I hope that you enjoy the new look of the SurvivalBlog advertising stack. Please
patronize our advertisers, and when you do, please mention where you saw
their ad, and thank them for advertising.
Keep in mind that without advertising revenue,
it would be impossible to provide SurvivalBlog as a free service, so please
give your
business to
our
paid advertisers first! Thanks!
Main| Letter Re: Advice on an Inexpensive Solar Battery Charger? »
Letter Re: SurvivalBlog is a Money Saver
Mr Rawles:
For some time I was a lurker, reading SurvivalBlog on a more or
less regular basis. Eventually I decided I needed to pay for what I was getting.
I became a Ten
Cent Challenge subscriber. Yesterday, you saved me more than
the cost of my subscription with just one tip: I ordered a Foodsaver V2830
and
paid just $59.99, postage paid. These originally sold for $169.99. I had wanted
one for a long time and put off purchasing it because of the expense. Many
thanks!
And
to the rest of the lurkers out there, it's time to pay your way! - Randy
D. in Maine
JWR Replies: Many thanks for that compliment. A reminder
to our readers that Ten
Cent Challenge subscriptions are entirely voluntary,
and gratefully accepted.
Another way that you can help support the blog is
by patronizing our advertisers. The FoodSaver offer is from one of our
Affiliate advertisers,
where we earn
a small commission for the purchases that you make when you follow our links.
For example, the FoodSaver vacuum sealer that Randy mentioned is a FoodSaver
V2830 for $59.99 with free standard shipping, directly
FoodSaver.com. Use code L8FAV28 at checkout.
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Our Changing Times: The Advent of Rule 157 and Perhaps Rule 308 »
Letter Re: Finding Archived SurvivalBlog Topics
Mister Rawles:
First off, I want to thank you for running SurvivalBlog. Its an awesome resource--sorta "one
stop shopping" for folks like me that are getting prepared.
I first read your book three years ago, when I was on my second deployment
in Iraq. Your novel ["Patriots"]
was in a big pile of books in our unit's MWR [Morale, Welfare and Recreation]
room. They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but I was following advice
from my home-town librarian when I picked your book. She once advised me: "Look
for books with 'broken' spines and that show lots of wear. Those are the ones
that have been read a lot, and that 's usually for a good reason." Well,
your book looked like it was about ready to fall apart, it was so worn out!
I gotta admit that the first time I read your book, I was saying to myself: "Suuuure.
Like an economic collapse will ever happen. Not in my lifetime." Well,
the past three weeks of [reading the] newspapers have given me a whole new
outlook on that subject. The first chapter of your book is practically prophecy.
It is eerie how many things you got right. And you wrote it ten years ago? Word.
Thanks to you, I recently cashed out of my West Valley National Bank [of Arizona]
savings account and will lose my checking account once the last few checks
clear. That will save me some sleepless nights, I'm sure. Thank you for your
repeated warnings to people about getting out of banks that are "under-capitalized" (broke)!
I used the
bank safety rating service that you recommended, and found out that my
bank had a "D" rating! Well, I definitely now owe
you a [10
Cent Challenge voluntary] subscription, and I'll do so A-SAP.
Next, I have a nit-picky complaint: There is way too much in the
[SurvivalBlog] archives to be able to read through it all. Do you have any
ideas on how I can access it better, to research [particular topics]? Oh, one
funny thing I gotta mention: Whenever I start to research prep[aredness] things
with Google, almost always it is SurvivalBlog posts that end up in the top
10 or 20 items found, whether is its "HK91 alloy magazines" or "paracord
and LC-2 harness'", or "infrared cyalume trip flare". I can't
think of a compliment better than being waaay "up there" in the Google
rankings. SurvivalBlog is the Hotel
Sierra blog!
Up until last week, I also had one other complaint, but I solved that one
myself. It was distracting to have all the advertisements crawl by while I
was reading the blog. But then I realized that all that I had to do was leave
my [browser] cursor arrow on top of any ad, and they stopped moving. Simple,
and it stops the eye strain. Thanks and Lord Bless You! - Ray V. in Arizona
JWR Replies: Thanks for your kind letter. There are now more
than 5,300 archived SurvivalBlog articles, letters, and quotations. You are
correct that there it is too much for the average reader to read through sequentially.
To research particular topics, I recommend that you take full advantage of
the article
categories and blog database search feature available
at the SurvivalBlog site. Say, for example, you want to learn more about how
to secure your home. In the right hand bar, down below the scrolling advertisements
there is a list of topic categories. By clicking on the "Retreat Security" category,
only the articles and letters tagged with that topic will be displayed. Or,
you can do a more detailed search, using the Search box at the top of the right
hand bar. For example, if you enter "Security AND Infrared AND Starlight" only
those posts that include all three of those words will be displayed.
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Two Letters Re: Advice for City Folks on a Budget?
Dear Mr. Rawles,
I am writing to ask for your advice and for your charity, and also because
I think this subject may be of interest to many of your readers. I discovered
your web site a week ago and have found it to be both very informative and
also very alarming! It was major wake-up call for me.
In my opinion, I am not at all prepared for the upheavals that are already
underway and that lie ahead of us.
I would very much like to change that situation, but it all (considered as
a whole) seems so overwhelming. I don't know what to do, where to start and
how to go about it. Also, I don't feel that I have the same resources and freedom
as some of your other readers.
I also have the feeling that many, perhaps most, of your readers may be in
exactly the same situation as me:
I am a 50 year old average guy with a wife and two young children to support.
I work in a medium sized metropolitan area and live in an average house in
the suburbs, about 10 miles out of town, on a 1/5th acre lot. My kids go to
public school, my wife works part-time and I work full-time. We depend on the
income
from my job to support the family. It is not the kind of job that allows me
to just uproot myself and live out in the sticks. My wife and I make just enough
to pay the bills and set aside a little bit for my 401(k) [retirement
savings account]and my kids' college education. We do not own any real estate
aside from our home.
We have about
$50,000 in savings, $90,000 in home equity and about $190,000 in my 401(k)
.
In my opinion, we are not prepared at all for any sort of natural, economic,
social or political upheaval or disaster:
- We don't own a ranch or farm or remote property of any kind.
- We don't own gold or silver.
- We don't own any weapons and don't know how to use them.
- We don't have any food or emergency supplies stored up.
- Our house is not "hardened" or "secure".
- We don't have a generator, etc.
- We are not EMTs and don't know how to grow crops or butcher a hog.
- We don't have a G.O.O.D. plan or vehicle or provisions.
In short, we are probably just like most of the other average families in the
USA (and perhaps like most of your readers) except for our awareness of the
problems that may be coming and our desire to be prepared.
My wife and I both believe in being "prepared" but my idea and hers
are different. My wife things that the problems we are facing are temporary,
so she would like to be prepared too, but she doesn't want to rock the boat
or uproot our family to do it. I am alarmed and would like to be very well
prepared, but I don't want to wreck my marriage and family in the process.
Mr. Rawles, please tell us what we can do given the situation I've described.
What specific steps should we take and in what order? What would you do if
you were me in my shoes?
I know you get a lot of letters, but I sure hope you answer this one on your
web site. For my sake, for my family's sake and for the sake of what may be
hundreds or thousands of people just like me that read your web site and want
to do something but don't know what to do, how to do it, where to start and
what's most important to do first, second, third etc.
Thank you in advance for your kind consideration. - Mike H.
Hello Jim,
I've been reading your blog off and on for several months, but I've yet to
see anything substantial for us poorer citizens. When it comes to TEOTWAWKI,
then it's all well and good if you were wealthy enough to be able to afford
a nice out-of-the-way location to save yourself, but what of us who are stuck
in an apartment in the city, like Denver? Or worse, people in metropolises
like Chicago and New York? Where could millions of people all possibly go
to get away from it all? All we can do is to arm ourselves to the teeth and
wait it out? We'd like to get out of the city too, but we aren't able to
buy property, which is why we're stuck in apartments, rather than homes.
I'm afraid that if such a disaster should come our way, then we will be on
our own. Even if we have a network of people, they are often driving distances
that are impractical in a time of extreme crisis. Do you have any suggestions
for those of us with extremely limited incomes? I've searched your site,
but if you did have something, I may have missed it.
Thanks, - Ken R.
JWR Replies: I realize that buying a rural
retreat is not within the means of most SurvivalBlog readers.
There have been quite a few articles on both urban survival and budget conscious
survival, and they are available in the archives, all of course free of charge.
OBTW, a brief description of how to search the archives can be found here.
Here are a few SurvivalBlog letters and articles that I found in just a few
minutes of searches, using "urban" and "budget" in my search phrases. (There
are
many
more available.):
Budget
Preparedness--Survival Isn't About Stuff, It is About Skills
Letter Re: Hunkering Down in an Urban Apartment in a Worst Case Societal Collapse
Letter
Re: An Urban/Suburban "Stay Put" Survival Strategy
Ten Things That Will Get You Killed While Bugging In, by Paul C.
Letter Re: Advice on a Budget Water Filter
Selecting a Rifle for a Budget-Constrained Prepper
Letter
Re: Preparedness on a Very Tight Budget (Also see: Follow-up
letter from
J.F.,
and Follow-up
letter from R.L.)
Letter
Re: Advice for a Canadian with a "Just One Gun" Budget
Letter Re: Will Peasant Farmers Fare Better than the Rich in TEOTWAWKI?
SurvivalBlog is intended
for people from all walks of life. One point of clarification: My own income
is quite modest. In fact, if I still lived in a high cost region, then I
wouldn't be able to afford a mortgage payment on a three bedroom house. It
is only
because
I've
been preparing very gradually and systematically for 30 years that I now
have a squared-away retreat here in The Unnamed Western State. And it is only
by God's grace that I have a wife that is agreeable to living in the boonies,
and that I'm able to work
from home.
Regardless of your income level, start
with a list of lists. Tailor your procurement plan based on your personal
circumstances and to match what you see as the most likely chain of events. Just
be
systematic, and set your priorities carefully. The smaller your budget, then
the
more
important this is.
In answer to the question on 401(k) accounts: Many 401(k) accounts can be
rolled over into IRAs.
If that is the case, then I recommend doing a rollover into a Gold IRA, available
through Swiss
America Trading Company. I have had a gold coin IRA since 1998. Once established,
these accounts are measured in an "ounce" value with
a "Beginning Cost Basis" noted for when your dollars were first
converted into U.S. Gold Eagles. In my case, most of the one ounce Gold
Eagle bullion coins they put in storage for me cost $315 each (IIRC, this was
when spot gold was $298 per ounce). Gold has nearly tripled since then. The
coins
are
physically
stored
by Goldstar
Trust, a bonded vault company in Texas.
The annual storage and administration fee is now $90 per
year, but in my opinion that is a small price to pay for knowing that when
I eventually cash out my IRA it will be in tangible form,
rather than an investment vehicle denominated in dollars. I have no way of
knowing
how much
the US Dollar
will depreciate in the next 15 years, but it is pretty safe to say that gold
will still have the same--or nearly the same--buying power that it does today.
I strongly recommend that if you have an IRA or 401(k) account that you conduct
a fund rollover into a Gold
IRA.
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| A Girl Scout Troop Leader Wants to Get Her Girls Prepared »
Letter Re: A Suggested Reading List
James:
Thank you for all of the work that you put into your web site. I have been
reading your site and preparing for the last couple of years. I thought you
might be interested in the Bibliography to my [retreat] group’s operations
guide.
Fiction
Adams, John Joseph. Wastelands. San Francisco : Night Shade Books, 2008.
Alten, Steve. The Shell Game. Springville , Utah : Sweetwater Books, 2007.
Brin, David. The Postman. New York : Bantam Books, 1985.
Budrys, Algis. Some Will Not Die. New York : Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1961.
Card, Orson Scott. The Folk of the Fringe. New York : Tom Doherty Associates,
Inc., 1989.
Carlson, Jeff. Plague War. New York : The Penguin Group, 2008.
Frank, Pat. Alas, Babylon . New York : Harper Perennial, 1959.
Heinlein, Robert A. Farmer in the Sky. New York : Ballantine Books, 1950.
________. Time Enough For Love. New York : The Berkley Publishing Group, 1973.
________. Tunnel In The Sky. New York : Ballantine Books, 1955.
Ing, Dean. Pulling Through. New York : Charter Communications, Inc., 1983.
Kunstler, James Howard. World Made By Hand. New York : Atlantic Monthly Press,
2008.
McDevitt, Jack. Eternity Road. New York : Harper Collins Publishers, 1997.
Niven, Larry and Jerry Pournelle. Lucifer’s Hammer. New York : The Random
House Publishing Group, 1977.
Party, Boston T. Molon Labé! Ignacio , Colorado : Javelin Press, 2004.
Rawles, James Wesley. Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse. The Clearwater
Press, 2006.
Sheffield, Charles. Aftermath. New York : Bantam Books, 1998.
Stewart, George R. Earth Abides. New York : Del Rey Books, 1949.
Stirling , S.M. Dies The Fire. New York : New American Library, 2004.
________. The Protector’s War. New York : New American Library, 2005.
________. A Meeting at Corvallis . New York : New American Library, 2006.
Nonfiction
Food Storage
Layton, Peggy. Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook. New York : Three
Rivers Press, 2002.
Stafford , Jake and Jim Rawles. Rawles Gets You Ready: The Ultimate Emergency
Preparedness Course. Genoa , NV : Arbogast
Publishing, LLC, 2006.
General
Boy Scouts of America , Fieldbook, 4th Edition. Irving , TX : Boy Scouts of
America , 2004.
Clayton, Bruce D. Life After Terrorism. Boulder , CO : Paladin Press, 2002.
Deyo, Holly Drennan. Dare to Prepare, 2nd Edition. Pueblo West, Colorado :
Deyo Enterprises LLC, 2004
Diamond, Jared. Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York
: Penguin Books, 2005.
________. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Emery, Carla. The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 9th Edition. Seattle : Sasquatch
Books, 2003.
Kelly, Kate. Living Safe in an Unsafe World. New York : New American Library,
2000.
Kunstler, James Howard. The Geography of Nowhere. New York : Simon & Schuster,
1994.
________. The Long Emergency. New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005.
McGlashan, Charles F. History of the Donner Party. Barnes & Noble Publishing,
Inc., 2004.
Party, Boston T. Boston on Surviving Y2K and Other Lovely Disasters. Ignacio
, CO : Javelin Press, 1998.
Rawles, James Wesley. Rawles on Retreats and Relocations. The Clearwater Press,
2007.
________. SurvivalBlog: The Best of the Blog Volume 1. Clearwater Press, 2007.
Ruff, Howard J. How To Prosper During The Coming Bad Years In The 21st Century.
New York : The Penguin Group, 2008.
Starke, Linda. State of the World 2004. New York : W.W. Norton & Company,
2004.
United States Air Force. Search and Rescue Survival Training. New York : Barnes & Noble
Publishing, Inc., 2003.
United States Army , US Army Survival Manual. New York : Dorset Press, 2001.
United States Marine Corps. Guidebook For Marines, 14th Revised Edition. Quantico
, VA : The Marine Corps Association, 1982.
Global Warming
Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth. New York : Rodale, 2006.
Knauer, Kelly. Global Warming. New York : Time Books, 2007.
Lynas, Mark. Six Degrees, Our Future on a Hotter Planet. London : Harper Perennial,
2007.
JWR Adds: For a contrapuntal viewpoint, see: Meltdown:
The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and
the
Media, by Patrick J. Michaels
Mechanical
Bealer, Alex W. The Art of Blacksmithing. Edison , NJ : Castle Books, 1995.
Burbank , Nelson L. et al. House Construction Details, 7th Edition. New York
: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1986.
Davis , Thomas Bieber and Carl A. Nelson Sr. Audel Mechanical Trades Pocket
Manual, 4th Edition. Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004.
Finch, Richard. Welder’s Handbook, revised edition. New York : The Berkley
Publishing Group, 1997.
Hauser, Walter. Introduction to the Principles of Mechanics. Reading , MA :
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1965.
Graf, Rudolf F. The Modern Power Supply and Battery Charger Circuit. New York
: TAB Books, 1992.
Harper, Gavin D.J. Solar Energy Projects for the Evil Genius. New York : McGraw-Hill
Companies, Inc., 2007.
Hornung, William J. Builders Vest Pocket Reference Book. New York : Prentice
Hall Press, 1955.
Macauly, David. The Way Things Work. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 1988.
Oberg, Erik et al. 27th Edition Machinery’s Handbook. New York : Industrial
Press, Inc., 2004.
Parmley, Robert O., P.E. Field Engineer’s Manual. New York : McGraw-Hill
Book Company, 1981.
Peters, Rick. Plumbing Basics. New York : Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.,
2000.
Proulx, Danny. The Pocket Hole Drilling Jig Project Book. Cincinnati , OH :
Popular Woodworking Books, 2004.
Richter, H.P. et al. Wiring Simplified. Minneapolis : Park Publishing, Inc.,
2002.
Schwarz, Max. Basic Engineering For Builders. Carlsbad , CA : Craftsman Book
Company, 1993.
United States Navy. Basic Machines and How They Work. New York : Dover Publications,
Inc., 1971.
Wing, Charlie. How Your House Works. Kingston , MA : Reed Construction Data,
Inc., 2007.
Medical
Burns, A. August et al. Where Women Have No Doctor. Berkeley , CA : Hesperian,
1997.
Carline, Jan D., Ph.D. et al. Mountaineering First Aid, 4th Edition. Seattle
, WA : The Mountaineers, 1996.
Dickson, Murray. Where There Is No Dentist. Berkeley , CA : Hesperian, 1983.
Forgey, William W., M.D. Wilderness Medicine, 5th Edition. Guilford , CT :
The Globe Pequot Press, 2000.
Nato Handbook. Emergency War Surgery. El Dorado , AR : Desert Publications,
1988.
Werner, David et al. Where There Is No Doctor, revised edition. Berkeley ,
CA : Hesperian, 1992.
Peak Oil
Simmons, Matthew R. Twilight in the Desert. Hoboken , NJ : John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., 2005.
Tertzakian, Peter. A Thousand Barrels A Second. New York : McGraw-Hill, 2006.
Weapons and Combat
Ayoob, Massad. The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery 6th Edition. Iola
, WI : F + W Publications, 2007.
Clausewitz, Carl Von. On War. London : Penguin Books, 1968.
Cooper, Jeff. Principles of Personal Defense. Boulder , CO : Paladin Press,
2006.
________. To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth. Boulder , CO : Paladin
Press, 1998.
Party, Boston T. Boston’s Gun Bible. Ignacio , CO : Javelin Press, 2002.
Perkins, John et al. Attack Proof. Champaign , IL : Human Kinetics, 2000.
Plaster, Maj. John L., USAR (Ret.). The Ultimate Sniper. Boulder , CO : Paladin
Press, 2006.
United States Marine Corps. Essential Subjects. Arlington , VA : Marine Corps
Institute, 1986.
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: National Geographic's Cover Story on Soil and Food »
Letter Re: An E-Mailed SurvivalBlog Digest?
Sir,
I would like to sign up to get your blogs [via e-mail]; but I can't see
where I do that; Could you please help me. Thanks, - Dianne M.
JWR Replies: For the privacy of my readers, I don't have
a digest of my blog that is e-mailed. (I don't like to keep lists. I don't
even keep records of anyone that makes a voluntary subscription donation.)
Just direct your web browser whenever you'd like
to
read
SurvivalBlog.
It is
updated daily (and I haven't missed a
day since the
blog was started three years ago), so you might want to make it your browser's "home" page,
so that you'll be able to read all of the useful articles, letters, and quotes.
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Three Letters Re: Advice on Motorcycles »
Letter Re: The SurvivalBlog Ten Cent Challenge
Sir,
This is a note to follow up on the envelope that I mailed you last week, for
my first year of 10
Cent Challenge subscription. (I'm the guy that sent you a stack of 'bout
$70 worth of Liberty [Bell "Forever" US] postage stamps and the
newspaper clipping on the IndyMac bank run. You were right in your prediction
about bank runs!) I just want to let
you know how much
your
blog means to me. I read it almost every day. It is amazing how much practical
knowledge you have passed on to us readers. I am very grateful!
You've raised my awareness by a mile, and what I've read [in SurvivalBlog]
has
saved me from making some mega-costly mistakes in my preparedness. Those two
things
by
themselves
are more than enough justification
for pitching in my ten cents a day.
Your economic predictions have been spot
on--almost eerie! I like your blog so much that I put a
graphical link to SurvivalBlog down at the bottom of my e-mail template,
so I can be an Ambassador for SurvivalBlog. I
think
that your blog is "just right"as a mix of education, motivation, practical
and old-time skills,
tactical
goodies,
news
summaries,
and inspiration. Don't
change a thing sir, just keep it coming!
Please let the Memsahib know--she is in our prayers for a quick and complete
recovery. I know that hospital bills can be insane these days. I hope my subscription
helps a bit.- T.G., in northwestern Nevada
« Letter Re: Insect-Free Long Term Food Storage |Main| Note from JWR: »
A July, 2008 Jim Rawles Interview by AlterNet
The following is a transcript of an interview that will soon be run at the popular
left-of-center AlterNet
web site:
AlterNet: Is survivalism a failure of community? A celebration of it?
JWR: I'd say that survivalism is indeed a celebration of community. It is the embodiment
of America's traditional "can do" spirit of self-reliance that settled
the frontier.
AlterNet: Is it engineered by personal issues? Is it a racial, or economic
phenomenon, in your opinion? Or both?
JWR: Survivalism [is a movement that] crosses all racial and
religious lines. It is essentially color blind. For 99% of us, we could care
less about
the
color of someone's skin,
but we care a lot about about including people with valuable skill sets. The
preparedness movement is simply a rational quest for family and community level
self-sufficiency in an increasingly dangerous world. There is unfortunately
a very small but very vocal minority that are disgustingly racist idiots. I'm
sad to say that they also call themselves survivalists. They get an inordinate
amount of press coverage, making that 1% look much larger than it really is.
In my opinion they should be ignored and shunned, and I certainly don't give
them a platform on SurvivalBlog.
The economic cross section of SurvivalBlog readers is also amazing. We have
working class readers that a worried about how they are going to make their
next car payment posting alongside surgeons and entrepreneurs. We have both
starving students and Little Old Lady pensioners. The readership is also global.
We have regular readers in more than 90 countries. But even with this diversity,
we all get along. [I didn't mention that I also edit out a lot of rants and
foul language from the readers' letters that I post.] Part of this is the
realization that the next Great Depression will be a tremendous "leveler".
AlterNet: Do you think survivalism is a rational response to our current crises?
JWR: Absolutely.
AlterNet: After all, we have an administration with minority support that
is ruining the economy and world without a care for what its majority thinks.
Do you think the unilateral policies of America over the last several years
has contributed to the mindset? Or is it just gun nuts going too far?
JWR: There is greater interest in preparedness these days
because the fragility of our economy, the lengthening chains of supply, and
the complexity of
the technological infrastructure have become apparent to a broader cross-section
of the populous. All parties concerned may not realize it, but the left-of-center
Greens that are calling for "local economy" and encouraging farmer's
markets actually have a tremendous amount in common with John Birchers
that are decrying globalist bankers, and likewise with gun owners that
complain
about their constitutional rights being trampled. At the core, for all
of them, is the recognition that big, entrenched, centralized power structures
are not
the answer. They are, in fact, the problem.
AlterNet: What do survivalists get right?
JWR: They recognize that smaller scale economies and older technologies are appropriate.
They also recognize that meaningful solutions are found at the community level--not
from top-down, command-driven bureaucracies.
AlterNet: What do they get wrong?
JWR: A minority of SurvivalBlog readers are over-enamored with gadgets. I call these
folks "Mall
Ninjas." They live in a fantasy world. In the real world,
skills beat gadgets every time. But in our "big box" consumerist
economy, some people mistakenly think that they can buy happiness, or--in this
case--buy preparedness. A big, expensive pile of "tacticool" gear
without the hard-earned skills to know how to use it is essentially useless.
It takes time and a requisite expenditure of sweat to really know how to
tend a garden, hang a gate, cut a cord of firewood, or field dress a deer.
Some
people have simply never done something so basic as digging a post hole
in rocky ground, and they will break down in tears if they ever have to.
Their
fancy gear can't do everything for them.
AlterNet: Do you think Peak
Oil and climate crisis will team up to smack the
American Dream down?
JWR: I think that Peak Oil is already upon us, but I'm reserving my opinion on climate
change, since there is so much conflicting evidence.
AlterNet: Do you think technology can save us?
JWR: I don't think that technology--in and of itself--can
save us. Again, it is practical skills, not gadgets that will help us to pull
through tough
times. This not to say that I don't recommend some high tech items like photovoltaic
panels. Life without them in a "grid down" situation would
be very uncomfortable. I'm also a great fan of hydrogen fuel cell, alcohol
gas, and
biodigester technologies. But those will likely be a case of "too
little, too late." If anything, life in the 22nd Century will more
closely resemble the 19th Century than it will the 20th Century. I predict
that
it will be
a century of steam and horse power. And between now
and then? Sadly, the 21st Century will probably be remembered as the
time of the Great Die-Off.
AlterNet: Are
Americans too spoiled to change their ways before it is too late?
JWR: For some Americans, yes. But others are clearly showing the wisdom to "Get
Out of Dodge" while the getting is good, by moving to lightly-populated "retreat" regions
to genuinely pursue self-sufficiency. Again, these people come from all
across the political spectrum. I think that in the the next couple of
decades we will
witness the formation of some remarkable intentional communities (a.k.a "gulches")
that will feature some unlikely bedfellows: Anarchists and Ayn Rand readers,
Mennonites and gun enthusiasts, Luddites and techno-geeks, fundamentalist
Christians and Gaia worshippers, tree huggers and horse wranglers. We
welcome them all.
I have been pleasantly surprised to see SurvivalBlog readers set aside
some very sharp differences for the sake of a common goal. That consensus
is one
of the things that gives me the most pride about SurvivalBlog. I'm a
conservative Christian but that doesn't mean that I'm not willing to
listen to a leftist
agnostic, if he has something useful and productive to say about practical
preparedness and self-sufficiency.
AlterNet: And what do you see as the chief threats legitimizing a survivalist
defense?
JWR: The threats are clearly manifold: Peak Oil, a derivatives meltdown, pandemics,
economic instability, food shortages, stock market and currency collapses,
terrorism, bank runs, state sponsored global war, rationing, and more.
In a situation this precarious I believe that it is remarkably naive to think
that
mere geographical isolation will be sufficient to shelter communities
from the predation of evildoers. I strongly believe in turning the other cheek,
but as a realist, I also believe in Rule
308. (See the SurvivalBlog
Glossary.)
AlterNet: What are you [personally] preparing for?
JWR: All of the above. I read Psalm 91 regularly. I encourage
AlterNet readers to take a look at the SurvivalBlog "Precepts" page for
the details of my philosophy and envisioned scenarios. Again, I believe that
we have
more
in common than we have differences.
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Physical Preparation--How to Survive When Your Gear Doesn't, by T. Davies »
Letter Re: The SurvivalBlog 10 Cent Challenge
Mr. Rawles,
Over the past few months some relatives and I have been reading SurvivalBlog.com.
However, we have been "SurvivalBlog Voyeurs", lurking in the cyber-shadows,
benefiting from usable information while failing to contribute to the 10
Cent Challenge [voluntary subscription program]. Well,
we shall lurk no more! The next time I am in town, I pledge to mail you my
contribution, and my son-in-law says that he will do the same.
Thank
you for your generous site, and I would encourage others who benefit from the information here to
do the same: Support SurvivalBlog. It is the site that brings the world a uniquely
critical link to helpful information. - KMA
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Advanced Medical Training and Facilities for Retreat Groups »
Poll Results: The SurvivalBlog Party Mix
We've tallied the 75+ reader responses to our recent poll on your favorite
music with a survival or preparedness theme. Based on the responses, I can
see that
a large number of our readers are rock-'n-roll fans. The Top 10 tunes
mentioned were
(in
descending
order of popularity):
1.) "Silent Running",
by Mike and The Mechanics
2.) "Its
The End Of The World As We Know It", by R.E.M.
3.) "A
Country Boy Can Survive" by Hank Williams, Jr.
4.) "Eve
of Destruction" by Barry McGuire (Buffalo
Springfield 's rendition of the same song was also mentioned.)
5.) "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult
6.) "Riding the Storm Out" by REO Speedwagon
7.) "Bad
Moon Rising" by Credence Clearwater Revival
8.) "Lawyers, Guns and
Money" by Warren Zevon
9.) "The
Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash
10.) "We
Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who
Other songs not in the top 10, but still mentioned by more than one reader
included:
"I Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty, "Thank God for the Renegades" by
Steve Vaus, "Everybody Knows" by Leonard
Cohen
(a
cover by The Duhks was also mentioned), "Going by the Book", by
Johnny Cash, "Political Science" by Randy Newman, "Copperhead
Road"
by Steve Earl, "March
of Cambreadth" by Heather McDonald, and "You Do Your Thing" by
Montgomery
Gentry.
Just to cheer you
up
after
all this Gloom und Doom, listen to this song that was mentioned by three SurvivalBlog
readers: "Are
the Good Times Really Over for Good?", by
Merle Haggard.
« Letter Re: Food Riots in Haiti |Main| Note from JWR: »
The Precepts of My Survivalist Philosophy
In the past week I've had three newcomers to SurvivalBlog.com write and ask
me to summarize my world view. One of them asked: "I could spend days
looking through [the] archives of your [many months of] blog posts. But there
are hundreds
of them. Can you tell me where you stand, in just a page? What distinguishes
the "Rawlesian" philosophy from other [schools of] survivalist thought?"
I'll likely add a few items to this list as time goes on, but here is a general
summary of my precepts:
Modern Society is Increasingly Complex, Interdependent, and Fragile. With
each passing year, technology progresses and chains of interdependency lengthen.
In the past 30 years, chains of retail supply have grown longer and longer.
The food on your supermarket shelf does not come from local farmers. It often
comes from hundreds or even thousands of miles away. This has created an alarming
vulnerability to disruption. Simultaneously, global population is still increasing
in a near geometrical progression. At some point that must end, most likely
with a sudden and sharp drop in population. The lynchpin is the grid. Without
functioning power grids, modern industrial societies will collapse within weeks.
Civilization is Just a Thin Veneer. In the absence of law
an order, men quickly revert to savagery. As was illustrated by the rioting
and looting that accompanied disasters in the past three decades, the transition
from tranquility to absolute barbarism can occur overnight. People expect tomorrow
to be just like today, and they act accordingly. But then comes a unpredictable
disaster that catches the vast majority unprepared. The average American family
has four days worth of food on hand. When that food is gone, we'll soon see
the thin veneer stripped away.
People Run in Herds and Packs, but Both Follow Natural Lines of
Drift. Most
people are sheep ("sheeple").
A few are wolves that prey on others. But just a few of us are more like sheepdogs--we
think independently, and instead of
predation,
we are
geared toward protecting and helping others. People naturally follow natural lines
of drift--the path of least resistance. When the Schumer hits
the fan, 99% of urbanites will try to leave the cities on freeways. The highways
and freeways will soon resemble parking lots. This means that you need to be
prepared to both get
out of town ahead of the rush and to use lightly-traveled back roads.
Plan,
study and practice.
Lightly Populated Areas are Safer than High Density Areas. With
a few exceptions, less population means fewer problems. WTSHTF, there will
be a mass exodus from the cities. Think of it as an army that is spreading
out across a battlefield: The wider that
they
are
spread,
the less effective that they are. The inverse
square law hasn't been repealed.
Show Restraint, But Always Have Recourse to Lethal Force. My
father often told me, "It
is better to have a gun and not need it, than need a gun, and not have it." I
urge readers to use less than lethal means when safe and practicable, but at
times there is not a satisfactory substitute for well-aimed lead going down
range at high velocity.
There is Strength in Numbers. Rugged individualism is all
well and good, but it takes ore than one man to defend a retreat. Effective
retreat defense necessitates having at least two families to provide 24/7 perimeter
security. But of course every individual added means having another mouth to
feed. Absent having an unlimited budget and an infinite larder, this necessitates
striking a balance when deciding the size of a retreat group.
There are Moral Absolutes. The foundational morality
of the civilized world is best summarized in the Ten
Commandments. Moral relativism and secular humanism are slippery slopes.
The terminal moraine at the base of these slopes is a rubble pile consisting
of either despotism and pillage, or anarchy and the depths of depravity. I
believe
that
it takes both faith and friends to survive perilous times. For more background
on that, see my Prayer
page.
Racism Ignores Reason. People should be judged as individuals.
Anyone that make blanket statements about other races is ignorant that there
are both good and bad individuals in all groups. I have accepted The
Great Commission with sincerity."Go forth into all nations" means
exactly that:
all nations. OBTW, I feel grateful that SurvivalBlog is now read
in more than 100 countries. I have been given a bully pulpit,
and I intend to use it for good and edifying purposes.
Skills Beat Gadgets and Practicality Beats Style. The modern
world is full of pundits, poseurs, and Mall
Ninjas. Preparedness is not just about
accumulating a pile of stuff. You need practical skills, and those
only come with study, training, and practice.
Any
armchair
survivalist
can
buy a set
of stylish camouflage fatigues and an M4gery Carbine
encrusted with umpteen accessories. Style points should not be mistaken
for genuine skills and
practicality.
Plentiful Water and Good Soil are Crucial. Modern mechanized
farming, electrically pumped irrigation, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides
can make deserts bloom. But when the grid goes down, deserts and marginal farmland
will revert to their natural states. In my estimation, the most viable places
to survive in the midst of a long term societal collapse will be those with
reliable summer rains
and rich
topsoil.
Tangibles Trump Conceptuals. Modern fiat currencies are generally
accepted, but have essentially no backing. Because they are largely a byproduct
of interest bearing debt, modern currencies are destined to inflation. In
the long run, inflation dooms fiat
currencies to collapse. The majority of
your assets should be invested in
productive farm land and other tangibles such as useful hand tools. Only after
you have your key logistics squared away, anything extra should
be invested in silver and gold.
Governments Tend to Expand their Power to the Point that They Do Harm. In
SurvivalBlog, I often warn of the insidious tyranny of the Nanny
State. If
the state where you live becomes oppressive, then don't hesitate to relocate.
Vote with your feet!
There is Value in Redundancy. A common saying of my
readers is: "Two
is one, and one is none." You must be prepared
to provide for your family in a protracted period of societal disruption. That
means storing up all of the essential "beans, bullets, and Band-Aids" in quantity.
If commerce is disrupted by a disaster, at least in the short term you will
only have your own logistics to fall back on. The more that you have stored,
the
more
that
you
will have
available for barter and charity.
A Deep Larder is Essential. Food storage is one of the key
preparations that I recommend. Even if you have a fantastic self-sufficient
garden and pasture ground, you must always have food storage that you can fall
back on in the event that your crops fail due to drought, disease, or infestation.
Tools Without Training Are Almost Useless. Owning a gun doesn't
make someone a "shooter" any more than owning a surfboard makes someone a surfer.
With proper training and practice, you will be miles ahead of the average citizen.
Get advanced medical
training. Get the best firearms
training that you can afford. Learn about amateur radio from your local
affiliated ARRL club.
Practice raising a vegetable garden each summer. Some skills are only perfected
over
a period
of years.
Old Technologies are Appropriate Technologies. In
the event of a societal collapse, 19th Century (or earlier) technologies such
as a the blacksmith's forge, the treadle sewing machine, and the horse-drawn
plow
will be
far easier
to re-construct than modern technologies.
Charity is a Moral Imperative. As a Christian, I feel morally
obligated to assist others that are less fortunate. Following the Old Testament
laws of Tzedakah (charity
and tithing), I believe that my responsibility begins with my immediate family
and expands in successive rings to supporting
my immediate
neighborhood
and
church, to my
community, and beyond, as resources allow. In short, my philosophy is to "give
until it hurts" in times of disaster.
Buy Life Assurance, not Life Insurance. Self-sufficiency
and self-reliance are many-faceted. You need to systematically provide for
Water, Food, Shelter, Fuel, First Aid,
Commo,
and, if need be, the tools to enforce Rule
308.
Live at Your Retreat Year-Round. If your financial and family
circumstances allow it, I strongly recommend that you relocate
to a safe area and live there year-round. This has several advantages,
most notably that will prevent burglary of your retreat logistics and
allow you to regularly
tend to gardens, orchards, and livestock. It will also remove the stress of
timing a "Get Out of Dodge" trip at the11th hour.
If circumstances dictate that you can't live at your retreat year round, then
at least have
a caretaker and stock the vast majority of your logistics in advance, since
you may only have one trip there before roads are impassable.
Exploit Force Multipliers. Night vision gear, intrusion
detection sensors, and radio communications equipment are key force
multipliers. Because
these use high technology they cannot be depended upon in a long term collapse,
but in the short term, they can provide a big advantage. Some low technologies
like barbed wire and defensive road cables also provide advantages and can
last for several decades.
Invest Your Sweat Equity. Even if some of
you have a millionaire's budget, you need to learn how to do things for yourself,
and
be willing to get your hands dirty. In a societal collapse, the division of
labor will be reduced tremendously. Odds are that the only "skilled craftsmen" available
to build a shed, mend a fence, shuck corn, repair an engine, or pitch manure
will be you.and
your family. A byproduct of sweat equity is muscle tone and proper body weight.
Hiring someone to deliver three cords of firewood is a far cry from
felling, cutting, hauling, splitting, and stacking it yourself.
Choose Your Friends Wisely. Associate yourself with skilled
doers, not "talkers." Seek out people that share your
outlook and morality. Living in close confines with other families is sure
to cause friction but that will be minimized if you share a common religion
and norms of behavior.You can't learn every skill yourself. Assemble a team
that
includes members with medical knowledge, tactical skills, electronics experience,
and traditional practical skills.
There is No Substitute for Mass. Mass stops bullets. Mass
stops gamma radiation. Mass stops (or at least slows down ) bad guys from entering
a home and depriving its residents of life and property. Sandbags are cheap,
so buy plenty of them. When planning your retreat house, think: medieval
castle.
(See the SurvivalBlog Archives for the many articles and letters on Retreat
Architecture.)
Always Have a Plan B and a Plan C. Regardless of your pet
scenario and your personal grand plan of survival, you need to be flexible
and adaptable. Situations and circumstances change. Always keep a G.O.O.D. kit
handy, even if you are fortunate enough to live at your retreat year-round.
Be Frugal. I grew up in a family that still remembered both
our pioneer history and the more recent lessons of the Great Depression. One
of our family mottos is: "Use
it up, wear it out, make do, or do without."
Some Things are Worth Fighting For. I encourage my readers
to avoid trouble, most importantly via relocation to safe areas where trouble
is unlikely to come to visit. But there may come an unavoidable day that you
have
to
make a stand to defend your own family or your neighbors. Further, if you value
your liberty, then be prepared to fight for it, both for yourself and for
the sake
of
your progeny.
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Survival Lessons from the Book "The Long Walk" »
Letter Re SurvivalBlog Logo Hats as Networking Tools
Hello Jim,
I’ve been lurking since last November after I re-read [your novel] "Patriots".
On a whim I tried a web search looking for any newer books you may have published
and found your blog. What a tremendous surprise. I had several questions when
I first started reading your blog and decided to go back through the archives.
Glad I did. Thus far all of my questions have been answered (I just finished
[reading the archives of] December 2006). I feel being a recent contributor
to the 10
Cent Challenge is dirt cheap for the knowledge I’ve gained, and
I’ve been preparedness
conscious and actively preparing for most any scenario ever since I was in
the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the P.R.K..
Okay, the "Rawles
Gets You Ready" preparedness course has been pretty helpful too and back in December
when it was 33% off it was a sweet deal I couldn’t pass up. It really
helped me “fill in the blanks”.
I've noticed from time to time that readers ask about preparedness groups or
how to meet others that are like-minded. I find that wearing my SurvivalBlog
[logo]
baseball
cap to gun shows and similar social and sporting events has prompted some
interesting conversations. Well it’s worked for me and others, but YMMV.
Did I remember to tell you what a great blog you have? Thanks for all you do
and
may God bless you and yours. - East of ABQ
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Keeping a Low Profile is Crucial for Preparedness »
Letter Re: SurvivalBlog Has the Edge in Reporting Some News Stories
Dear Jim,
I've been following your web-site for a while now and am amazed how you and
your members chime in with very news worthy items sometimes weeks before the
mainstream media starts covering them. One latest point would be the CountryWide
Equity Line suspension finally made our local evening news last night.[It was
mentioned
in SurvivalBlog on February 5th.]
I was stunned to read today in The Wall Street Journal that coal prices, which
once were steadily priced in the $20 per metric ton range began trading in
the $40 to $60 range from mid-2003 to mid- 2007, then with the sudden shift
of China becoming a net importer of coal, the price has shot up to over $120.
per metric
ton this week (source: WSJ cites: globalCOAL; 'The price per metric ton for
coal out of Newcastle, Australia, is a key benchmark for the Asian market').
When a country the size of China suddenly becomes a consumer in a
global market where they once were a provider - this will have huge far reaching
consequences.
Our already taxed energy system, which relies heavily on coal for electricity,
will only go up in price because they have to compete in this global market.
We have a country that has not added infrastructure to our oil refineries,
natural gas extraction, or nuclear power in decades. Our country is not in
a position to simply shift our consumption to a different resource.
How do you see these realities of the international coal markets affecting
the United States? The price for electricity must follow in tandem with these
resource price increases.
Thanks for the great web-site! - Dennis
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Letter Re: SurvivalBlog Taught an Old Dog Some New Tricks
James,
Thanks for SurvivalBlog. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but
this old dog learned the following new tricks from the SurvivalBlog articles
and letters.
1. I got fired up after reading the "commo comments" and
finally got my Ham radio license.
2. I bought a number of galvanized trash cans and that's where I now store
shelled corn, etc. (Hint! Don't buy the made-in-China-from-tinfoil cans.
[Instead,] get the good ones which are made right here at home.)
3. As a coffee drinker, I now stockpile green coffee beans, which I vacuum
pack and store in those galvanized trash cans.)
I could go on, but just those three items more than justify my dime-a-day
contribution.
I still live a stone's throw from the Yellowstone caldera, but I've
also learned that we can't eliminate all risks. Some we just have to live
with. Stay warm, - Dutch in Wyoming
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Letter Re: A "Christmas Challenge" from a SurvivalBlog Reader
Hello SurvivalBlog Readers,
In reflecting on the past year I can honestly say that I have enjoyed reading
the SurvivalBlog every day. While I do not always agree with everything said,
this blog will make one seriously think about all
their survival preparations. It is my opinion that if the readers of this blog
prepare to the best of our individual ability we will be among those who, after
the SHTF event,
and those events that follow the initial event, we will be among those who
will return our nation to its Constitutional greatness in the society of nations.
I have enjoyed this blog immensely. My wife of 42 years is reading daily posts
over my shoulder. My sons read it, though not as frequently as their dad. But
they are coming around. There is something here for everyone regardless of
how you see events shaping up. The blog is well assembled. I have managed an
Internet business since 1993 and I can tell you from first hand experience
there is a fantastic amount of time, energy and thought put into maintaining
this service.
It is the Christmas season. A time for remembering and a time for giving. I
challenge all SurvivalBlog readers to say "Thank You Jim", by remembering
Jim and his family this Christmas. I challenge all blog readers to match
my small Christmas gift of $25.00. Do it now before you forget it. BTW,
I have never met Jim and his family but we have corresponded, from time to
time, for more than ten years. I know him by the Spirit. - Martin in Montana
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Letter Re: Thanks for SurvivalBlog!
Dear Mr. Rawles:
I am a newly-minted reader and fan of SurvivalBlog. I stumbled
upon [SurvivalBlog] by doing a web search on what turned out to be one of
your "Quote of the Days" from [the late] Jeff Cooper. All that
I can say is that I am mega-overwhelmed at
what you and the readers have put on-line. I started out by going back through
your
current
threads, and that seemed like a lot. But then I started
clicking
on the monthly archive links [in the right hand column] and then I started
doing searched on particular topics. Wow! I am blown away.
There is so much there. It is like a comprehensive encyclopedia on
preparations for
survival.
Along
with my research at other web sites about the present-day political and economic
slide, now everything is starting to click. It all makes sense. We
are living in a very fragile world and it would be insane not to prepare. I
am starting to build my "list of lists." (Water is at the very top
of my list. I'll be soon ordering a Big Berkey filter--no doubt it'll be from
one of your advertisers.)
I have visited a lot of preparedness and survival sites. They all seem to either
be amateurish or have big axes to grind. But yours is a breath of fresh air:
No whacko rants, no diatribes, no flame wars, no "I think it
could work this way"
conjecture (that clown Dakin at the Bison Blog drives me crazy with his un-tested
"this might work" ideas), no foul-mouth childishness, no political bickering,
no
racism, no
anti-Semitism, none of
that!
I also just read your "Pulling Through" movie script. They have got to
make that into a movie! I just wish I knew where the Rawles
Ranch was. I'd like
to be
your next door neighbor! I'm sure lots of other people would too,
so I guess
its
a
good thing
that you keep your "Bat Cave" [location] a secret.
I heard about your site just before I started a week of vacation for Thanksgiving.
Good timing! Otherwise I would have had to call in sick! I spent 10+
hours a day digging through the archives and taking notes.
I have so much to do to get ready!
So again, thank you for putting this huge resource on the
net for free! I'm heading out to the post office tomorrow
to get a money order for a two year 10
Cent Challenge [subscription]. That's the least that I can do. (I'm doubtful
that anyone that reads SurvivalBlog more than once a week could live with their
guilty conscience for not doing the same.) I'm also going to order a copy of
your
prepper's
course and your books.
God Bless You! - Aaron, "Somewhere East of the Rockies"
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Letter Re: Peace of Mind Through Systematic Preparedness
Dear James and SurvivalBlog Family:
Thank you for this tremendously vital preparedness forum. It has been the direct
impetus for me to seriously prepare to survive various natural disasters
that could assail the New England area, but more importantly, to be prepared
for the inevitable TEOTWAWKI situation,
which I expect, we will face within a decade, as soon as the oft-predicted
Winter Solstice of 2012--Which
still leaves us plenty of time to prepare, if we only make that crucial decision
to begin (or to enhance) our preparations and remain steadfast in our intentions
to survive whatever may come our way.
For the newer SurvivalBlog readers, and those just becoming interested in survival
and preparedness activities, I say, do not be overwhelmed
by the enormity of that which you feel you need to do to be get yourself reasonably “prepared” or
anywhere near as prepared as others that have been preparing for a long time.
Make the decision to prepare for survival and methodically acquire the basic
food, water and equipment you will need to handle any emergency situation,
short or long-term.
I am a charter 10
Cent Challenge SurvivalBlog subscriber and I enclose two
$5 rolls of silver dimes to cover years two and three of my subscriptions (2007
and 2008). In addition, I have enclosed a boxed silver round medallion that
commemorates the 1975 Bicentennial of the Battles of Lexington and Concord
. Paul Revere
is featured on the medal’s obverse with the words “American Revolution
Bicentennial” and “The Shot Heard Round the World”. Please
accept this coin as a token of my appreciation for all you have done for me
and your other readers, in the name of survival and preparedness—for
your tireless, Christian efforts as a true American Patriot--an
honorific you have so justly earned. Keep up the good work and may God bless
you and your family!
I have been an avid reader of SurvivalBlog for over a year and a half and
have learned a tremendous amount of valuable insight from [Mr. Rawles] and
the many outstanding contributors to SurvivalBlog. Not a week goes by that
I do not receive valuable preparedness advice and tips to add to my store of
knowledge.
I am proud to say that I have made a deep, personal commitment to change my
life’s focus from a wasteful, spendthrift mode, bent on acquiring so
many useless things and squandering cash on drinks, gambling and other frivolous
entertainment, to a conservative mode, investing the bulk of my discretionary
income in durable goods, firearms, ammo, long-term bulk food, silver and gold
coins, a generator, and the like.
At the beginning of 2007, I resolved to eliminate all discretionary purchases
that were patently unnecessary. Socks and underwear are okay, no CDs or movie
rentals. Less fast food and daily coffee’s, and no impulse eBay buys,
etc… Rather, I have been earmarking (budgeting) a substantial portion
of my discretionary income for stocking my “pantry” and procuring
key survival supplies and equipment. Having recently finalized my child support
and alimony commitments (ensuring that my ex-wife could keep the house), I
have had been fortunate to have a significantly larger amount of money to “invest” the
past six months and now going forward.
Each month, I buy at least $200 worth of silver or gold coins (mostly silver).
I have amassed nearly $750 in face value junk silver coins (although I do not
consider them “junk” by any means) and nearly 5 ounces of [fractional]
gold coins (mostly American Eagles, Maples Leafs and Krugerrands).
Each pay period I add another $100 in reserve food stores and other basic survival
gear. I have a half dozen cases of #10 Mountain House cans and will continuously
add to that store a few cases a month with a goal of two dozen cases by the
end of 2008.
I am pleased to have finally exercised my 2nd Amendment constitutional right
to purchase and own firearms. I had never been a gun owner before 2006 as my
father was never a sportsman and would not (still does not) allow guns in his
house. Since I do not hunt, there was never a need for a gun or guns. That
20th century mindset has changed and I now know just how crucial firearms are
in this present age of uncertainly and fear. I keep the knowledge of my guns
to myself (and to my two adult sons) and am now fully comfortable to own several
guns and will be buying more on a regular basis.
I have respect for my firearms and keep them safely stored (but strategically
loaded). If fact, I keep a loaded .40 caliber Glock in my laptop computer bag
in a secure, zippered pocket. No laptop, just files and the Glock. My bag is
always with me, either in my car, office or at home ensuring that I will always
be close to a weapon in the event of an emergency. While I have no concealed
carry permit (and am leery to obtain one), I think I will continue to look
askance at my state’s laws that prohibit one from having a loaded handgun
in their immediate possession without a concealed carry permit. I’ll
just risk the consequences. I’d rather be safe than sorry.
I have been averaging a firearm purchase every two months or so to include
two (2) Glock 23 .40 pistols, four (4) .22 pistols, six shotguns (a Remington
870) for home defense and five Mossberg 500s for home defense/target/game,
and two new Ruger .22 rifles (since I must have accumulated some 20,000 rounds
of that ammo so far). I will continue to buy shotguns on a regular basis so
that I am able to arm as many able bodied sons, daughters and other family
members as possible (with two guns each).
Here are a few of my SurvivalBlog“Pearls”:
1. Stock up on: beans, bullets, and band-aids!
2. Live by the Golden Rule, Treat others as you would like to be treated…
3. Buy two or more of everything!
4. Pray for peace and thanksgiving
5. Buy silver (pre-1965 [US 90%]) and gold coins; an excellent way to preserve
wealth for the recovery period); Take physical possession of all precious metals
6. Stock that pantry! You can never have enough food! Check those expirations
dates! Rotate your stock! Donate almost expired food items to the local food
pantry.
7. Buy guns, ammo and multiple magazines for every firearm! You can never have
too many guns, ammo, or magazines. Try to standardize weapons and ammo.
8. Pack several bug out bags (one for each person)
9. Buy “survival” presents for your family and friends (flashlights,
batteries, first-aid kits, camping equipment, sporting goods (guns) bugout
bags, etc…)
10. Buy a (bio) diesel pickup truck and a small SUV for a G.O.O.D. vehicle
(and consider a used U-Haul (or the like) too; also buy a bicycle for everyone)
11. Exercise, get fit, go for long walks (also food for the soul)
12. As the Boy Scouts say, “Do a Good Turn Daily” and it goes without
saying, “BE PREPARED”.
13. Life is unforgivingly short! Live for each moment; get the most out of
life,
14. Don’t hold grudges. Forgive everybody and give thanks to God!
15. Oh yeah, please give blood!
I plan on buying several more firearms and the next several purchases will
be a mix of shotguns and a series of 9mm weapons: four 9mm pistols (Glocks)
and two (or three) KelTec 2000 folding rifles (super-sweet) that use the 33
round Glock magazines (which are available for a bargain at $25.99 each at
Natchez Shooters Supply). I figure a dozen 33-round mags will be a good start
to outfit this part of my arsenal. Those high capacity mags work in the Glock
9mm pistols too.
[Since originally writing this letter in July, I’ve bought one KelTec
2000, one Glock 19 (9mm) and one 20 gauge shotgun]
Finally, I will look to acquire two AK-47s and two then two long-range rifles.
I figure this part of my plan should take another two years to accomplish,
one gun per month or two.
I consider my cache of firearms as an extremely valuable store of wealth in
the face of the inevitable economic collapse. These guns and ammo will be worth
as much as I paid for them, or likely even more in the future. Guns and ammo
are like money in the bank (except better) and will make tremendous items for
barter in a post TEOTWAWKI society.
I have stocked several "But Out” bags (for my two sons, dad and
I), thousands of rounds of ammunition ($100/per month at WalMart) and many
other
suggested
items. I have been chipping away at my extensive list and ply eBay and yard
sales for many of the items that I deem essential. At present, I am prepared
to withstand a month or so without power, and am primed to protect my investments,
but I am not so confident about surviving a really long-term societal collapse
as predicted by so many learned prognosticators. My next level of preparedness
will be to survive fully three months off grid, with an eye towards a more
complete ability to survive any SHTF circumstance by 2012.
I live (rent-free) with my elderly dad and am committed to staying with him
in a quite pleasant coastal New England town. I work for the state in a good-paying
civil service position. I have no monetary resources to relocate to a tsunami
resistant, easily defensible retreat in the mid west (or abroad) and am committed
to my dad who was born in this community, owns his home outright, and has absolutely
no inclination of moving. Further, I run into an elderly parental mindset when
I suggest basic survival activities such as drilling a simple well or installing
a wood stove (forget about voice mail or a dishwasher).
I have gotten away with my ostensible preparations for a hurricane (high New
England possibility) but when I expound on the potential collapse of the US
economy (due to any of several likely scenarios), dad disregards my exhortations.
Since I am the “baby” of the family (even though I’m
50) and am the only family within 400 miles, he accepts my advice as if I were
a teenager. Therein lies the actual predicament for me.
Retreat Considerations
I need to prepare for a short, medium, and long-term
siege in my existing locale. I expect that most SurvivalBlog readers find themselves
in a similar, structurally restricted situation. All of my family, and my fiancé’s
family reside along the East coast from New Hampshire down to South Carolina
. As a result, I hope to secure a farmland retreat that will be strategically
located such that immediate family members could get to the retreat by bicycle
or on foot in a worst case scenario. I’ve been thinking about northern
New Hampshire or the northwestern quadrant of Pennsylvania .
A topic that I have yet to see discussed in SurvivalBlog is the bugout in the
Atlantic region of the country. I understand that there is nowhere along the
East Coast that one can escape the fallout from a nuclear detonation in the
New England or middle Atlantic region but there will many people stuck along
the Atlantic coast in the event of some type of cataclysmic event. I would
greatly appreciate hearing from other readers about places in rural New York/New
England or anywhere along the Atlantic coast that would be suitable in the
occurrence of TEOTWAWKI.
I know that the world is headed for a day of reckoning and that the United
States is teetering on collapse due to decades of financial and administrative
malfeasance. As a student of history and social sciences, I have always been
an ardent patriot but as of late, I have come to the tragic understanding why
most people in the rest of the world distrust us, and in many instances, hate
us. The current administration’s brainless deficit (and mostly pork-barrel)
spending, the spiraling national debt, our sole world super-power mindset,
insatiable consumer demand and burgeoning trade deficit will surely land this
once great nation in the scrap heap of history’s supercilious, bankrupt
empires. I’ll be ready, however. Thanks, JWR and loyal SurvivalBlog contributors!
At least our forefathers were insightful when they insisted that our (appropriately
silver and gold-backed) monetary instruments be inscribed with the dictum, “In
God We Trust”. My one suggestion would be to go back to silver and gold
coins and add the alliterative phrase “…Glocks and Gold” after
the word “God” to aptly symbolize our current plight.
As it was in the story of the tortoise and the hare, slow and steady wins the
(preparedness) race.May peace be with you all. - David J. (in a blue New England
state)
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Letter Re: The "Sneaky Uses" Books
Sir:
Let me start with a thank you for such an awesome resource! I've finally
sent my 10
Cent Challenge [voluntary subscription payment.] I didn't feel right
e-mailing you with this until I got
it out. Since finding your site (from the link at] Captain
Dave's Survival Center), I've been devouring
the info here, as well as "Patriots" (read
twice, and I'm starting it for the third time) and the "Rawles
Gets You Ready" preparedness course. I've
also just finished reading "The
Alpha Strategy"--that you
recommended in both the blog and in the preparedness course. Tremendously eye
opening stuff. You've radically changed my view on things like firearms
ownership, preparedness, and charity. I can't express with words how much my world view
has changed since finding this. Again, thank you.
Anyway, down to business: I'm a computer guy by trade, and while perusing ThinkGeek.com I
found two books titled:"Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things" (ISBN:
0740738593) and "Sneakier
Uses for Everyday Things" (ISBN: 0740754963). While most of the
info contained within is of marginal use, I found "making plastic (and
glue) from milk (using vinegar)", and "making a metal detector from
a calculator (using a radio)". There are other things like adjusting a
FM radio
to get airline [aviation band] frequencies, and powering a LED with
coins, cotton, and salt
water. They are fun for the tinkering types, but also give glimpses into how
some
other
things
work. There are also sections on emergency survival. Not much new [in those
sections], but good info nonetheless.
Thanks for coordinating all this, and keep up the good work! - Nick in Wisconsin
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Book Excerpt--Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse
Geographically distinct units were formed from the Northwest Militia, as planned,
late in the April of the fifth year. To avoid confusion amongst the local citizenry
that they protected, they designated those at the original retreat as “Todd
Gray’s Company” and those at Kevin Lendel’s house as “Michael
Nelson’s Company.” The responsibility for patrolling was divided
along a line east-west between the retreats.
Todd Gray’s Company was to patrol the northern half of the sector, while
Michael Nelson’s Company patrolled the southern half. Separate CB channels
were assigned to each Company for locals to use to contact either Company.
On the 5th of May, Mary was in the garden plot transplanting some young tomato
plants that had been started in the greenhouse a few weeks earlier. As she
was methodically digging holes for each of the plants, she heard a strange
engine noise in the distance. Just moments after she first heard the noise,
she was astonished to look up and see two light aircraft approaching from the
south. She dropped her trowel, snatched up her AR-15, and ran to the house.
By the time she was in the house, the Mallory Sonalerts were wailing, and everyone
at the house was at their “stand-to” positions, scanning their
assigned sectors of fire.
“Does anybody have any idea where those planes came from?” Mary asked.
Sitting at the C.Q. desk, Jeff shrugged his shoulders, and reached over to turn
off the “panic button”, silencing the piercing alarm.
The engine noise was clearly louder now. From the LP/OP, Terry called in on
the TA-1: “They’re pusher prop jobs, twin seat, tandem style. It’s
hard to tell, but it looks like there’s just one pilot in each. They’re
definitely circling us. Everybody stay put.” The planes circled the house
a second time, just a hundred yards above the ground.
From the front of the house, Todd declared: “Hey, wait a minute, it looks
like they’re getting ready to land. Yep, they are landing down on the
county road.” The two planes landed in rapid succession on the straight
stretch of county road below the house. Todd was surprised by how short a distance
it took for the planes to land and come to a full stop. The planes looked identical,
except for their color. One was painted dark green. The other was tan. He heard
their engines roar up in tempo as the planes turned and taxied back to the
front gate. The planes came to a stop at the front gate, and their engines
shut down.
Both pilots lifted their canopies and took off their headphones, almost in
unison. Two figures, one tall and one short, hopped out of the planes, wearing
BDUs and tan boots.
Todd shouted loud enough for everyone at the house to hear: “They are
painted drab, but those sure don’t look military. Have any of you heard
of anyone in the area that owns an ultralight?” There was no reply. Todd
pondered for a moment. “Hey, you know, Dan told me that Ian Doyle was
in an ultralight club.
I sure wish Fong was still here. He’s probably seen pictures of Ian’s
plane. He said that it was a zippy little thing, and I think he said that it
was a two-seater.”
“Who is this Ian fellow?,” Rose asked.
Mary answered, “An old college buddy of Todd and Dan’s. He has
a wife and daughter. That might be him in one of those planes down on the road.”
Ten minutes later, after a cautious squad-sized approach by the bounding overwatch
method, Todd and Ian Doyle were sharing hugs. “Wow! Long time no see.
What brings you here?”
“It’s a long story, Todd. Suffice it to say that we left town in
a hurry when a very large number of muy malo hombres took over. It was muy
peligroso there. So we did some Van-dammage--just to whittle them down,
you understand--and then we took off. It took a few inquiries in Bovill, but
we found your place here easily enough.”
Todd took a long look at the plane behind Doyle, staring at just below the
wing root, where it was stenciled EXPERIMENTAL. He said insistently, “You
can tell me the whole story later. First tell me about these ultralights. They
are really a sight to behold.”
Ian turned to caress the fuselage of the flat forest green-painted plane behind
him. “To begin with, technically, they aren’t ultralights, although
they use a lot of the same design features. Legally, these birds are classed
as light experimentals. These birds are both Laron Star Streaks. I paid just
under $30K for mine, when I picked it up new from the factory in Borger, Texas,
back in ‘98. We towed it home in it’s trailer behind our Suburban.
The Star Streak comes with a lot of standard goodies like dual controls, an
ICOM radio, electric start, electric brakes, three position half span flaps,
electric trim, and a pretty complete set of VFR instruments. I added a GPS
navigation box and active noise reduction headphones to this one. It’s
essentially a poor man’s general aviation plane, but legally it’s
a light ‘experimental’. But it’s too heavy to be classed
as an “ultralight” under the FAA regs.”
“With its enclosed canopy, it’s one of the best light experimentals
for long range flying. In fact, one guy flew a similar model Laron from London
to Beijing and wrote a book about it. As I’m sure you know, the main advantages
of ultralights and light experimentals is that they are so thrifty on gas, and
have a super short take-off roll--usually under 200 feet--and very low stall
speeds. The Star Streak only weighs about 400 pounds, empty. The other neat thing
about our Larons and most similar light experimentals and ultralights is that
they are not restricted to av-gas. In ours here, for example, you can burn any
grade of gas down to about 85 octane. If I adjusted the carb jets, I suppose
they would even burn ethanol or methanol. Luckily, I haven’t had to try
that yet.”
Doyle turned to the trim woman with an olive complexion standing beside him.
She appeared to be around 35 years old. “I’m sorry, I’m getting
ahead of myself. This is my wife Blanca. I’ve written to you about her,
but we haven’t seen each other face to face since college, so you’ve
never had a chance to meet.”
The attractive woman in BDUs extended her hand, and Todd shook it firmly. Gray
said quietly, “Encantado.” She replied in a soft accent, “A
pleasure finally meeting you, Meester Gray.”
“As you probably recall from my e-mail, I met Blanca when I was stationed
down in Hondo,” Doyle continued. “That was back in my ‘Terry
and the Pirates’ days, when I was a lieutenant--not too long out of transition
training. She was a civilian working in flight ops at Tegucigalpa. Blanca was
already a qualified single engine pilot when I met her. Talk about love at first
sight, eh conchita?” Blanca smiled and blushed, nodding her chin
to her shoulder.
Gesturing to the other plane, Ian said, “We swapped for Blanca’s
Laron just after the stock market tanked. I got it from an old fart civilian
who was in the Phoenix Metro ultralight club. He bought this one as a kit.
He said that it took him almost two years to build it in his spare time. He
finished building it in ‘99. It had very low hours clocked on the engine.
His was stored in the same style enclosed trailer that we had for mine. I traded
him my Sten gun, a suppressor with nomex cover, a whole bunch of magazines,
and 1,000 rounds of nine millimeter ball for it. Fair enough swap, I suppose,
since unregistered and suppressed submachineguns don’t grow on trees.
We could both see the handwriting on the wall by then. He knew what I needed,
and I knew what he needed: I needed some more transportation, and he needed
some more firepower. I asked him why he wasn’t planning to bail out of
Phoenix. He said that his wife refused to budge an inch. They had their whole
life wrapped up in their house. Since he was stuck there, he didn’t need
the plane, but he certainly needed a serious self-defense gun.”
Doyle stepped toward the back of the fuselage, deftly ducking under the wing,
and went on: “The Star Streaks cruise at just over 120 miles an hour
at 80 percent power, which is pretty fast for a light experimental. Of course,
that seems like crawling when you are used to wearing an F-16, but I like ‘em.
The cockpit layout is even similar to a Falcon. Not exactly fly-by-wire controls,
though. This model uses a 85 horse Hirth F-30 engine. It’s a great little
plant. It just hums along and sips gas--only about five gallons an hour at
80% power. Both of these planes are identical except for the propellers. Mine
uses a four blade composite, but the prop on Blanca’s is the older composite
three blade. The Hirth is a powerful little engine. It will make the Larons
climb at 2,500 feet per minute when it is in normal configuration with just
one man on board, but of course a lot slower the way we have them loaded down
right now. The planes have a rated useful load of 500 pounds. I’m afraid
that we exceeded that limit when we took off from Prescott. Between the heavy
load and the high elevation of the airport, our takeoff distances were outrageously
long--at least, that is, for a light experimental. But luckily, we had a long
straight stretch of road to take off from.”
Blanca looked around anxiously. “Ees there anywhere where we can put
theeese birds where they whon’t get stolen?”
Mary answered, “We’ll put them both in the Andersen’s big
hay barn, just down the road. It’s a nice dry barn. The wings should
hopefully fit through the front. It was left open on that side to let the big
New Holland harvester in. It’s a three-sided affair. The farm is deserted,
and the barn is almost empty now. They gave us permission to use the place.
Don’t worry--when the planes are pushed to the back of the barn, no one
will see them there. And, as further insurance, it’s just within line
of sight of our LP/OP, up on the hill.”
“Ell-Pee-Oh-Pee?”, Blanca asked, quizzically.
“Sorry, Blanca. I’m afraid that we are used to talking in ‘acronese’ around
here, and not the Air Force acronym dialect you’re probably used to. LP/OP
is a ground pounder acronym for listening post/observation post.” Pointing
to the nearby hill, Mary explained, “Basically it’s a glorified hole
in the ground. If you look very closely, you can see it up on the hill there.
It has a good view of the area. It’s for observation in daylight, and for
listening at night.”
Moving the planes into the barn took only a few minutes. They were able to
taxi the planes under power to within 20 feet of the barn. From there, they
were pushed in by hand. Going in, the planes’ 30 foot long wingspans
cleared the entrance with just a foot to spare on each side. As they were pushing
the first plane in, Mary asked, “How many gas cans have you got in there,
and how far can you fly without refueling?”
Doyle pointed through the canopy at the rear seat area, and cited, “Originally,
the Star Streaks only had a range of around 320 miles at 80% power. The main
tank is 14 and-a-half gallons. But I added some big bladder tanks to both planes.
They aren’t connected directly to the primary fuel system. I cheated
and installed a couple of little Black and Decker Jackrabbit hand pumps along
side the front seats, with extra long hoses. To transfer fuel from the bladder
to the main tank, you just put the Jackrabbit in your lap and crank away. The
bladder tanks extend our range to about 480 miles without landing to refuel,
when we are at max takeoff weight. If we were in a light configuration, they
could maybe even go 550 miles.”
Ian’s plane came to a rest with the tip of its nose less than a foot
from the rear wall of the barn. He inched past the nose and walked around to
the other side of the plane, talking as he walked. “They are both quite
a bit lighter right now, since we have less gas and we had to barter some of
our stuff for fuel.” He tapped on the Plexiglas with his index finger
and said, “I have these five gallon gas cans strapped into the back seats
of both birds, but they are nearly empty, too. Aside from some clothes, sleeping
bags, tools, and aeronautical charts; most of the weight on board is fuel,
oil, guns, ammo, water, and MREs. You know, just the essentials in life. At
present we’re down to less than 8 gallons of fuel between the two planes...”
Mary interjected, “Don’t worry about that. We still have over four
hundred gallons of stabilized unleaded premium in the tank here. It will only
be good for another year or two, so we might as well use it up. I think that
it’s 92 octane, but I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask Terry--she’s
our logistics honcho. But she’s up at the LP/OP right now.”
After they had pushed the second plane in, Todd declared, “Don’t
worry about all your gear, we’ll come down with the pickup truck later
this afternoon and take it up to the house.”
Before they left the planes, Doyle used a socket wrench to remove the nose
wheels from both planes, and buried them under some loose hay near the front
of the big barn. “They won’t be going far without these,” he
said. As they walked out of the barn, Ian slung his suppressed MAC-10 over
his shoulder. Blanca did likewise with a stainless steel folding-stock Mini-14
GB. Todd was disappointed to see that they didn’t carry any extra magazines.
He made a mental note to correct that glaring deficiency.
As they walked, Blanca was bemused at the way the militia members walked at
5 yard intervals. “Why are you walking so far apart?,” she asked
with a laugh.
“Force of habit,” Mary explained. “In case of an ambush, you
are at much greater risk if you are bunched together.”
They chatted amiably as they hiked back to the Gray’s house. Once they
were inside, Rose served up an early lunch of raw carrots, apple slices spread
with reconstituted peanut butter, and freshly baked bread. It was over lunch
that Ian and Blanca started to recount their story. Mary set a TRC-500 to the “VOX” setting,
so that Terry Layton, who was still up at the LP/OP, didn’t feel left
out.
Munching on some bread, Ian began, “The 56th Fighter Wing had just started
a rotation to Saudi. It was just two years before the Crash that we switched
back from a tactical training wing to a tactical fighter wing. I came on board
just a few months into the transition. Anyway, when all the trouble started,
since I was the wing maintenance officer, I was stuck back at Luke, catching
up on paperwork. I was also taking a idiotic mandatory ‘Diversity, Sensitivity,
and Sexual Harassment’ class. The frickin’ class lasted a whole
week. I had orders to catch up with the wing in late November. But then, when
the riots got going in earnest, they planned an emergency redeployment of virtually
all of the close air support aircraft in the Air Force inventory back to the
States. Some weenie at the White House must have dreamed that one up. Our wing
was going to deploy to Hurlburt Field, down in Florida. Criminy! Could you
imagine F-16s and A-10s versus rioters? Talk about over-kill! I never heard
what happened to our squadrons after that. I was too busy with problems of
my own--like finding drinking water for Blanca and myself.”
“And your daughter?,” Mary asked.
Doyle’s face clouded with emotion. Stiffening, he replied, “Linda
didn’t make it, ma’am. She died five years ago. She was in Detroit,
doing her annual six week long ‘Grandmom and Grandpop’ visit with
my folks. It was the first time that she was old enough to go on a commercial
plane by herself. Blanca wanted to stay home to relax, do some pastels, and
a bit of surfing the Internet. We were home-schooling her, so Linda wasn’t
on a normal school year schedule. Blanca and Linda liked to go up to Michigan
in the Fall. They get some nice Fall colors up there.”
Ian paused and looked at the ground. “By the time we realized the magnitude
of the situation, most of the flights had been canceled, and the few that were
still flying were booked solid. In retrospect, what I should have done was
played “you bet your bars” and commandeered a D-model Falcon to
zip up there to get her. Instead, I took the conservative route and just hoped
that the riots wouldn’t last long or spread outside the downtown area
of Detroit. I also figured that if worse came to worse, my dad’s gun
collection could handle any rioters that came down their block. I was wrong.
I got a call from one of their close neighbors who managed to make it out of
Detroit alive. She said that looters got really pissed when my dad shot some
of them. They torched my dad’s house. Killed them all. I still feel like
such a fool. I could have saved my folks and my daughter’s life.”
Blanca squeezed Ian’s hand and said softly, “Don’t do thees,
E-an. We can-no change history.”
Mary’s eyes were wet with tears. “I’m so sorry, Ian. I’m
so sorry, Blanca. ”
Doyle shook his head from side to side and muttered, “Dwelling on it
won’t do any good. In times like these, you just have to suck it up and
drive on.”
Todd said a silent prayer. Then he looked up and asked, “So what happened
to everybody at Luke?”
Doyle snapped out of his reverie and recounted, “To call it mass desertion
would be to put it mildly. The mess halls only had limited food supplies, and
we only had enough MREs on hand for short-term contingencies. I’m sure
some of the overseas air bases had better stocks, but nobody ever expected
a disruption of re-supply of food in CONUS! When it became clear that the food
wasn’t going to last long, virtually everybody started to disappear.
And when they went, they took a lot of equipment, fuel, and nearly every scrap
of food on base with them. The Base Exchange, the commissary, and the mess
halls were stripped clean. When I say everybody, I mean everybody. There wasn’t
a soul from 56th Log or 56th Medical left on base. Even the whole Support Group
basically vanished in about three days time. By the time I decided to pack
it in, Luke was a ghost town. There were only seven pilots and about 20 ground
crew guys left on the post. Most of them were young bachelors. By that point,
I was the senior ranking officer on the base, so I could do pretty much anything
I wanted. I was the de facto base commander. I just called a formation and
released the remaining personnel on base on ‘indefinite leave.’
Unfortunately, my options were pretty limited. You see, there wasn’t
a single aircraft left on the ramp, or a single military vehicle left on post.
By then, there were just a few POVs. Even the fuel trucks had disappeared.
Now you’ve got to understand that they had 217 birds on the property
books, mainly F-16 Cs and D models. Of those, they were all either out on the
Saudi Arabia rotation, or off on “emergency” flights that all mysteriously
ended up being one-way missions. At least three F-16s, and the general staff
Lear were out-and-out stolen. No flight plans were filed. The guys who took
them just figured that they could get away with it. They just taxied out at
O-dark-early and took off. And there was nobody left in the tower to say ‘boo’ about
it. Those four had been the last airworthy planes on the base. The few planes
that were left were just some stripped hangar queens.”
“After that ‘gentlemen, you are released’ speech, I spent the
rest of that day looking for fuel containers. Every gas can available had already
walked off base. The only good sized containers I could find were some hydraulic
fluid drums. But I was afraid that the fluid left in them would contaminate the
gas. So I ended up scrounging a bunch of empty 2 liter pop bottles from dumpsters
around the BX. I drove home that evening with almost 140 gallons of av gas in
the back of the Suburban. I never went back to Luke after that.
We were living off base in a rental flat-top in Buckeye. It’s basically
a retirement community. When I got home, I talked things over with Blanca.
We decided to hang tight for a few days. We packed up, but packed light. It
was like one of those life boat games--’Now if you could only take five
items, which five would they be?’ The end result was that Blanca and
I had to leave a lot behind. We spent a lot of that time listening to the radio
for reports on the rioting. Only a couple of AM stations were on the air by
then, and the news they were handing out was pretty sketchy. None of it sounded
good. They spent half the time repeating the same FEMA ‘Stay calm, remain
in your homes, order will be restored shortly’ tape. What a pile of bull.
The tape even recommend calling 911 if we saw any looting in progress. I laughed
and said, ‘Oh yes sir, will do.’ The phones had all been dead for
several days.”
“Our next-door neighbors had a police scanner. That was the best thing
for monitoring where there was trouble happening. This was at the time when Phoenix
and Tucson were burning down. Major chaos, let me tell ya. Once the looting started
spreading out into the suburbs, we agreed that it would be bad news to stay in
the Phoenix area much longer. Bright and early on a Tuesday morning, we wheeled
the Larons out of their trailers, and bolted on the wings and tails, right there
on our front lawn. It only took about fifteen minutes each to assemble and pre-flight
them, since we’d had plenty of practice before, putting my bird together
for weekend jaunts.”
“While we were loading our gear, most of the neighbors just stood there
and gawked. A few helped out with the fueling process. We handed our next-door
neighbors the keys and title to our Suburban, and the keys to the house. I told
them that anything inside was free for the taking. By then, we knew that we weren’t
ever coming back. Then we taxied off the lawn, down the driveway, and out the
court. We hung a left, throttled up, and took off from Hastings Avenue. Some
of the neighbors stood at the ends to block car traffic for us. Must have been
quite a sight for the retirees. We flew from there straight to Prescott--that’s
in northern Arizona. We planned to stay at my cousin’s place.”
“My cousin Alex was a senior salesman with J&G Sales, a big gun distributor
up in Prescott. With that job, I figured that he would be pretty well squared
away, at least in terms of guns and ammo to barter for anything he could possibly
want. Prescott is partly a resort community, and kind of a haven for gun nuts.
J&G was there, Ruger had a factory there, and there were lots of custom gun
makers, barrel makers, and stock makers. One little outfit there made elephant
guns on custom magnum Mauser actions before the Crash. Big .416 Rigbys and that
sort of thing. The last I saw of them, they were still producing some smaller
caliber long range guns in H-S Precision Kevlar-Graphite stocks. They sold them
on a barter basis. Real tack drivers.”
“Prescott is not a big town, but it took us a while to locate Alex, since
the phones were out there by that time, too. I hitched a ride from the airport,
while Blanca stayed behind to guard the planes. From talking with Alex’s
neighbors, we discovered that he had hired out as a security man for some Tucson
banking fat-cats. They had a pretty elaborate hidey hole set up just north of
Prescott. There were four families living at the compound. At first they didn’t
want to take us in. Then they saw the firepower that we had with us, and they
changed their minds. Officially, we were “security”, just like my
cousin. We had it pretty soft there, compared to most folks. We had plenty of
water, and enough food to get by. We were in no hurry to leave.”
“Things were pretty quiet there for four full years. A little local trouble,
but nothing worth mentioning. Then we started hearing about this gang of escaped
convicts and assorted riff-raff that was slowly working its way up from New Mexico.
Refugees told us that it was originally two gangs that combined into one big
super gang. They would hit a town, linger a week or two, strip it clean, and
then move on to the next one. They were like a swarm of locusts. There were over
300 of them by the time they made it up to the Prescott area. Rumor had it that
at least one of the two gangs had been doing this town-to-town hopping all the
way from south Texas. By then they were getting pretty good at it.”
“I took a recon flight in my Star Streak down to Wickenburg when they hit
there, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. They just swept through the town in
one big mass of vehicles. Many of the houses were abandoned, ‘cause folks
had heard they were coming and didn’t want to be around when they did.
Basically, they burned down any house that anyone was shooting from. Then they
went from house to house, taking anything of value. Even from the air, I could
see them dragging some women out of houses and raping them on the sidewalks.
We’re talking total scum of the Earth. It made me wish I was flying a fully
armed Fighting Falcon instead of my little Laron. I could have really kicked
some tail. These guys were absolute savages, Todd.” Doyle stopped for a
few moments, and then added, “I got shot at some when I was on that flight,
but I didn’t find any bullet holes in my bird when I got back.”
“Just three weeks ago, the gang was making their way up the Agua Fria,
and hit the little town of Mayer. About 80 of us from town, mainly men, went
on a little preemptive strike when we heard that the gang had moved into the
town of Humboldt. Blanca, Alex, and I were all on the raiding party. We knew
that Prescott would be next, because we were just 12 miles up the road. A Navajo
kid about 13 years old, who escaped from Humboldt just after they arrived, gave
us the layout. He even volunteered to go back in to town to scout which buildings
the looters were in. That was a real help in planning the operation.”
“Our little raid didn’t have much in the way of military precision,
but we sure did some damage. We knew that we couldn’t kill them all, so
we decided that the thing to do was to concentrate on their vehicles, especially
their armored cars and APCs. We hit them at just after three in the morning.
Since we were all on foot or horseback the last two miles in, they didn’t
know we were coming until we were already in their midst. They had the buildings
that they were occupying lit up like Christmas trees. Our little Navajo scout
had told us in advance which buildings they’d be in. We were only fully
engaged for about five minutes. It was fast and furious, but like I said before,
we did some serious Van-dammage.”
“In the first couple of minutes, we had the advantage, because most of
the looters were asleep. They made me the point man, since I had the only suppressed
weapon in the raiding party. When I shoot Winchester Q-Loads--those are special
low velocity subsonic rounds--this thing doesn’t make much more noise than
a loud hand clap.” Doyle held up the stubby Ingram M10 for a brief display,
unscrewing the nomex-covered suppressor. “The term ‘silencer’ is
really a misnomer. A ‘can’ like this is really just an elaborate
sound muffler. Again, you can still hear the shot--sounds like a loud hand-clap.
The normal sound is reduced so much that you can even hear the clack of the bolt
going forward with each shot.”
Doyle screwed the suppressor back on the M10 and set it down on the window
seat. “Sorry, I digress. Getting back to what happened in Humboldt...
I got the chance to personally drop three of their sentries, shooting my MAC
in the semi-auto mode. I don’t mind saying that it felt real good, after
what I’d seen them do in Wickenburg. At first, we were the only ones
shooting. Once the looters rolled out of bed and started shooting back, it
was another story They had a lot of fully automatic weapons, grenades, and
rocket launchers of some sort. They really started hosing us down. Before they
did though, we had torched more than 40 vehicles with Molotov cocktails. Apparently,
we got every one of their APCs and armored cars.”
“Our retreat out of Humboldt was let’s say ‘less than organized.’ Only
29 of us made it back to Prescott alive by noon. Two more guys straggled in the
next evening. Of the 31 that made it back, only three had been wounded, and those
were all minor grazing wounds. Oddly enough, all five of the men and women who
were on horseback were among those to make it back without a scratch. Not even
any of the horses were hit. Either they were real lucky, or cavalry is making
a comeback. My cousin Alex never made it back from the Humboldt raid.” Ian
skipped a beat, and then went on: “The looters didn’t show up the
next day or even the day after. Blanca and I waited at the compound, with the
Larons loaded, fueled, and ready to go.”
“Three days after our raid, they came into Prescott, and they must have
been plenty pissed. The gang rolled in just after dawn. They didn’t seem
to care how many losses they were taking, and they immediately started to torch
every building they got to. Blanca and I didn’t wait until they made it
to the north side of town. Everyone at the compound was by then either in town
manning the barricades, or had headed for the hills. Most of the remaining stuff
at the retreat went with two families that had a pair of GMC motor homes. They
were headed for Flagstaff.”
“At that point, we realized that discretion was the better part of valor,
so we took off, too. We used a nice long straight stretch of road that started
a quarter mile north of the compound. I had taken off and landed there many times
before during the five years we were there. When we wheeled around after take-off,
we could see that almost half the buildings in the downtown area were on fire.
We didn’t stick around to see how things ended, but I’m afraid that
the looters must have taken the town. Even though they didn’t have any
armored vehicles left, they had superior numbers and superior firepower.”
Main
Letter Re: Late Blog Posts and Supporting SurvivalBlog
Mr. Rawles:
About noon on Friday, I was starting to write a mean e-mail, because
y'all were late in the putting up the blog posts for the day. You see, I've
been a
daily reader of SurvivalBlog since about April of 2006, and I'd gotten used
to you putting the posts up like clockwork, right around (or before) midnight
for the next day. It has become my habit to read the blog while having my
morning coffee and waiting for my employees to arrive. (I run a lawnmower
and power tool shop in a fair-sized city in Georgia, and I'm an early riser.)
Then
a thought struck me: What cotton-pickin' right do
I have to complain about
late
blog posts,
when
I haven't
done
hardly anything to support the blog, other than just buy a copy of your novel?
It wasn't until your new daily posts weren't there for
a few hours later than usual that I started to think just what my day would
be like
without reading those posts. Now I'm now sorta glad y'all were
late [in posting] on Friday. It made me appreciate what what I've been getting free every
day for more than a year. And up until that glitch on Friday, you were
very consistent. Please accept my apology, and my two-year 10
Cent Challenge subscription
payment. (I'm mailing a check before the P.O. closes today.) Sincerely, - Parker
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Observations on the Flooding in Central England »
EBay Expands its Firearms Parts/Magazine Sales Ban--and SurvivalBlog Takes Action
The liberal do-gooders at eBay have turned the screws even tighter
on gun owners. First they banned the sale of guns, receivers, and ammunition.
Then they banned the sale of 11+ round magazines, barrels, and gun parts
kits. They've also banned any auction for knives with "fighting" or "throwing"
in the title or description. (But they still allow box cutter knives. Hmmmm...)
Now they've announced that they
are banning auction listings for all gun clips/magazines
and most gun parts. They are now using the standard of "any part
required for firing of a gun" for their new restriction. So I presume
that all they will now allow is merely gun slings, holsters, grips, and
stocks. I'm not sure how they'll treat bayonets. They'll probably ban those
too. (That might help reduce the recent wave of drive-by bayonetings.)
This
sort of pansy liberal feel-goodism typifies both politics and the way they
do business in the Nanny States. It is no wonder that eBay is headquartered
in California. (where the majority elected Senators Barbara
Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.) EBay of course is a private firm and has
the right
to run
their business
as
they
see fit.
But SurvivalBlog
is a
private
business,
too. So I've decided drop eBay (including eBay France, eBay Australia,
and eBay.co.uk) as SurvivalBlog affiliate advertisers.
I'm also encouraging SurvivalBlog readers to boycott them.
My recommendations: When you want to buy a book
or DVD, buy it from Amazon. When you want sporting
goods, buy them at fixed price from US
Cavalry Store or at auction from GunBroker.com or
AuctionArms.com. I hardly expect these actions to bankrupt eBay. Its
the principle of the matter.
Since eBay owns PayPal, you can expect to soon see PayPal
adopt an almost identical restrictive policy. When you transfer funds, try
to avoid using PayPal. Instead, please use AlertPay or GearPay --
because they don't share PayPal's anti-gun political agenda.
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: The Pension Gamble: Cash In or Stand Pat? »
Letter Re: Special $99.95 Sale for the "Rawles Gets You Ready" Preparedness Course
Jim,
We just got a batch of 50 of your preparedness courses from the printer, and
they screwed up the shrink-wrapping on many of them. Instead of fighting it
out with the printer, we will knock 1/3rd off the regular price for your SurvivalBlog readers. But we're gonna offer that discount
for only a week, because we don't want to fuss with double inventory. Please
note that our main web site will still stay the same, showing the normal
price,
even on the order page. But when your readers check out, the discounted
price [of $99.95 plus normal shipping and handling] will show up. And if anyone wants guaranteed perfect
shrink wrap they should wait until after the sale ends, when the price will
return
to normal. But you can tell folks to not worry, because every other aspect
of the course is in perfect condition. But when they sell out --around August
8th--we will
raise
the prices back to normal without notice, so anyone who has been sitting on
the fence should act fast if they want to save some bucks.
Hope you're having a great summer in the hinterboonies! Cheers, - Jake
JWR Adds: This is the first time that the "Rawles
Gets You Ready" preparedness course. course with accompanying audio
CD has ever been sold for 1/3 off the regular price. The sale ends
on Wednesday, August 8th, so place your order
soon!
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: My Adventure in Growing Wheat, by Carl in Wisconsin »
Letter Re: The SurvivalBlog Glossary
James:
I have been reading SurvivalBlog most every day for nearly a year now. I'm
a 10
Cent Challenge subscriber. I had long ago read most of those "button" web
pages up at the top [of the SurvivalBlog main page], but it wasn't until
yesterday
that
I
read
your
new page on Peak
Oil, and I took the time to read all the way through the Glossary
page. That thing has gotten huge. Not only was it interesting and educating
to read, but it was also a laugh riot. You snuck some very funny stuff in
there, like your definitions for "BS", "Contrapreneur", "JASBORR", "RV", "Schumer" and "UA
571-C". (That [last item] was from the movie Aliens, right?) ROTFLMAO!,
- Phil in Arkansas
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| CDO PIK: Satisfaction Guaranteed or Double Your Trash Back »
Letter Re: Supporting SurvivalBlog
Mr Rawles:
I was shocked to see that only 1% of readers have gotten a [voluntary] 10
Cent Challenge subscription.
I signed up after the second week that I began reading.your blog. There
is no other site on the Internet that has the same amount
of in-depth info on preparedness. Nothing even comes close. I
am blown away by how much knowledge is piled up in your archives. I
could spend two or three hours a day searching through news sites, financial
advisory websites,
backpacking websites, EMT websites,
gun websites, food storage websites, and so forth, and still not glean
what is contained in SurvivalBlog. Ten
cents a day is tiny pittance compared to what I get out of it.
Because of you and SurvivalBlog,
my family is now much, much, much better prepared than it was a
year ago. SurvivalBlog has tons of useful info. Anyone that can't see that
is either a fool or an idiot. I figure that SurvivalBlog
has saved me hundreds [of dollars] by giving wise advice that has kept me
from making some expensive mistakes in prepping. What I learned from your
blog
allowed my to package my own storage food (in [food grade plastic] pails)
instead of
buying over-priced [commercially] canned food for storage. SurvivalBlog
also steered me away from radio gear that had short range and pitiful security.
([Instead,] I bought MURS band
[transceivers].) The blog also directed me to some outstanding firearms training
that cost very little. (The [RWVA]
Appleseed range
days and "clinics".) The
blog
convinced me to re-prioritize my life and cut out fast food. (Which did good
things for both my budget and my waistline. I'm now down
two full belt notches and about ready for my third notch.) The blog also
motivated me to sell off some of my guns in odd calibers (like
I had
a 280 Remington, a .35 Remington, and a .41 AE [Action Express]) and get
standard calibers. Now that ammunition has zoomed way up
in price,
I have
a lot more options on where to buy and what to buy. Now I have all.308 [Winchester],
.30-06, .30-30, 7.62mm (AK), .223 Rem., 12 ga., .45 Auto, .357 Mag.,
9mm, .22LR and .22 Mag. guns. Like another guy that wrote a few months
back,
SurvivalBlog
also set
me straight
on generators.
(Now I plan to get a low RPM diesel, not gas!)
So I figure that in the long run SurvivalBlog will save me thousands.
Ten cents a day, by comparison, is a real bargain. So here's my personal
challenge to anyone that reads this: What is SurvivalBlog really worth to
you? If SurvivalBlog
were to disappear, would you miss it? If you value it, then support
it! -
Phillip G.
« Letter Re: Eye Protection, Flushing, and Infection Treatment |Main| Note from JWR: »
SurvivalBlog Reader Poll Responses: What is Your Profession?
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- Lean manufacturing / Automotive.
- LEO / Tactical instructor
- Liquor salesman
- Logistics manager
- Lutheran pastor
- Machinist
- Maintenance engineer
- Maintenance supervisor forest service / National guard utility man
- Sign language interpreting agency manager
- Manager / Manufacturer / Firearms teacher / Machinist / Intelligence analyst
- Manager of Contracts and Pricing
- Manufacturing jeweler / watchmaker
- Massage therapist
- Master plumber
- Master plumber / Carpenter / AC tech / Electrician / Mechanic
- 5 MDs (Emergency Medicine, Anesthesia, ER, and GP)
- Mechanic
- Airline mechanic / ER Nurse
- Mechanic / Rocket engine builder / Heat treater / Tax Accountant
- Mechanical engineer
- Medical transport / Deputy sheriff / Fireman
- Microbiology student
- Motion designer / Cinematographer
- Museum director
- 2 Navy SEALs
- Notary public
- 3 Novelists
- NRA field rep
- Nuclear work and safety planning
- Nuclear security officer
- Psychiatric and Primary Nurse
- Commercial truck sales operation owner
- Painting contractor
- Paper engineer / graphic designer
- Petroleum geologist
- Petroleum landman / farm owner
- 5 Pharmacists
- Pharmacist / Intelligence Analyst / Health and Safety Specialist
- Pharmacy Recruiter
- 3 Physicists
- 4 Pilots (including 1 Canadian military)
- Pipefitter / Welder
- 4 Police officers
- College student
- Private investigator
- Private mailbox / Packing & shipping store / Musician
- Production control analyst
- Professor of ancient Near Eastern archaeology
- Property manager / Business continuity planner
- Property tax consultant.
- Prototype automobile modeler
- Internet Purchasing Specialist
- Psychotherapist
- Radiologic technologist
- Real estate appraiser
- 5 Realtors
- Region loss prevention manager
- Registered investment adviser owner / CPA
- 3 Registered nurses
- Respiratory therapist
- Retail manager / Salesperson
- Retail operations / Small business consultant
- Retail store manager, retired
- Retired electrical contractor
- Retired policeman / Park ranger
- Safety manager for construction company / landlord
- 2 Sales representatives/agents
- Sales agent
- Security dispatcher
- Security officer / Writer / Actor / Designer
- Security representative
- Electronics technician.
- Network security engineer
- Small business owner / barber
- Machine operator
- 2 Software developers
- Software engineer
- Special Forces Vietnam Vet / Firefighter(Retired) / Rancher
- 2 Submariners
- Systems engineer
- 2 Teachers
- Telecommunications design engineer
- Television producer / writer
- Power company lineman
- Truck mechanic
- 4 Truckers
- U.S. Treasury bond broker
- USDOE Security
Police Officer
- Veterinarian / Dog Breeder / Farmer
- Veterinarian / Attorney
- Vice President of Finance
- Wastewater treatment plant manager / Computer consultant
- Welder
- Welder / Chef / Blacksmith / Martial arts instructor / Gunsmith
- Welder, Underwater
- Writer / Secretary
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Oregon's Willamette Valley as a Retreat Locale? »
Two Letters Re: SurvivalBlog Hats and T-Shirts
Mr. Rawles,
I've talked to you a few times via e-mail and once in person. Recently
you said you would like a photo of one of your hats being worn in Afghanistan
or Iraq. I am headed back over again in a few weeks and would be glad
to do that. I didn't see a link to your hats etc. on the web so I thought
I'd drop you a line and see how to buy one. Take care. - W.
JWR Replies: May God grant you safety on you next
trip to The
Big Sandbox. In answer to your question, SurvivalBlog hats,
T-shirts, bumper stickers, tote bags, mouse pads, mugs, and
so forth are available from Cafe
Press, which is also the print-on-demand publisher of several of
my non-fiction books sw well as my "Pulling Through" screenplay.
Hello Jim,
I have purchased four SurvivalBlog shirts from Cafe
Press and have
had the same results in public. Once in awhile someone will ask what
the [quote
on the]
back of the shirt means, or makes a positive comment,... however,
no one
has
commented
about your blog as the blog name is only printed on the front.
Since 50% of the shirt [surface area] is on the back side, I think
it would be a huge value
to
your
readership if you would put "survivalblog.com" on the rear.
We wore ours out to Front
Sight over the weekend and struck up some
great conversations after going prone. Since we can't always
engage conversation with everyone, I think the change would be monumental
on expanded readership and hopefully sponsorship/donations.
One of the range masters commented on how it took him several times
to "get" everything on the rear of the shirt, it may be important
to use a different font, size of letters, color, (which obviously adds
cost therefore not as productive), or location on the shirt. Since
shirts get tucked in many times, I feel readership would be best just
below the neck, (i.e.- above the current text). This may still be visible
if one was to wear to a college class just above their backpack as
well. Of course, longer hair may impair some readability, but FFTAGFFR.
We had a great time in some crazy "combat conditions", but
an excellent result nonetheless.
Please do not consider this as chastising, rather desire to expand
your success! Thanks Jim, - The Wanderer
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Bad News on Peak Oil: Five Year Slide to a 50% Production Crash »
Letter Re: Resources on SurvivalBlog
Mr. Rawles:
I discovered SurvivalBlog just by accident about two months ago, when I was
doing a Google search on "FN-FAL" [rifles].
I pretty soon discovered your blog was a treasure trove.
Not only am I totally addicted to reading the new postings every day (I read
it on my lunch hour at work), but I've also started working my way back through
the archives. (It was just two weeks ago that I discovered the little "Search
Posts on SurvivalBlog" window down under your rotating ads. Maybe you
should put that up at the top, so people can spot it easier.) Wow! I just
can't believe how much practical no-BS info
that you have put together in your blog postings, and in the permanent [button
bar] pages at the top (like your Retreat
[Areas] page and your Survival
Guns page), plus all your FAQs.
Also, thanks for your big glossary,
which is great for a newbie like me. (I'm a served as a Air Force mechanic
and I know a lot about vehicles and guns, but the rest of preparedness is
pretty new to me.) I had always felt the need to be ready for more
than just high water and hurricanes, but couldn't put my finger on why.
But now, after reading your blog and your books, I'm connecting all the
dots. Everything you write rings true with me. We do live
in a very fragile world. I saw that up close and personal, right after Hurricane
Katrina. And that was just a regional disaster. Something nationwide
will be horrendous. An you were right when you said: "The power grid
is the lynchpin." Once that grid goes down past a few days, people are
going to come unglued.
So now, I'm selling off some of my "Big Boy Toys" (like our ski boat,
our his-and-hers matched set of jet skis, my Army Air Corps and early Air
Force flight instrument collection, and my commemorative guns.) I'm spending
all that cash on getting prepared, big time. Example: Right
now, the Mrs. and I are getting our long term food stocks and heirloom garden
seeds squared away. I just recently got your Rawles
on Retreats and Relocation book, plus your Best
of the Blog book. They are both some Hotel
Sierra reference books. I tore through those books! Now the Mrs.
is reading them. And I just ordered your novel ["Patriots"],
too, and we can't wait to read it.
But the main reason I'm writing this is to say that just last week I decided
that I was being a freeloader, so I signed up for The Ten
Cent Challenge. I challenge everyone else out there reading this to do
it, too. Come on you clowns, if you think that SurvivalBlog ain't worth 10
cents a day, y'all are kidding yourself. Fact is, I'd be happy to pay ten times
that--a dollar a day--for what I learn on SurvivalBlog. Example: Just what
I learned about generators by itself saved me about $500, last month. (On Mr.
Rawles's advice, I bought a diesel engine low-RPM genset instead
of the "bargain" gasoline-powered high-RPM genset that I had originally
wanted to buy. It [the diesel generator] will last 2X or 3X longer [than the
gasoline-powered model.] Plus, until I had read through SurvivalBlog, I hadn't
even thought about common fuel for [the generator and] my [diesel] tractor
and my Dodge pickup, which is also a diesel. That's just one small example
of what I'm talking about. Knowledge is power, and knowledge prevents
us making expensive mistakes. Like I said, SurvivalBlog is
a treasure trove of knowledge and worth every freakin'
penny to me, and it should be to you, too. It is a disgrace that only 1% of
the SurvivalBlog readers have bought a subscription. For you that are freeloading,
shame on you. Quit freeloading, and pony up! - Gus in Alabama.
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: The Eastern Canada Gasoline Crisis »
Letter Re: From a USFS In-Holding in Colorado's High Country--Snowed-In!
Mr. Rawles:
I just wanted to send you a thank you note for your novel "Patriots",
your "Rawles
Gets You Ready" preparedness course and for SurvivalBlog.com.
We've been having a winter weather adventure, which I've chronicled in this
thread at The Claire Files. If I hadn't found SurvivalBlog.com some time
back in late 2005, it might have been
a very different story than the mainly humorous tale I was able to relate.
Catching up on some of your entries that I missed over time, I found one that
was particularly pertinent to our situation. On February 14, you did a post
titled "State and Federal Lands - Poor Choices for short term retreat
locales". The first item of concern that you stated was access, with the
following specific quote: "There is also no guarantee that once you get in
to public lands that you can get out. Many roads inside forest lands are not
maintained
in winter. Depending
on the latitude and elevation, this could mean getting truly "snowed in" for
the winter."
Our retreat is on private land at 8500' elevation, but is totally surrounded
by National Forest. Our only access is via non-maintained forest service roads.
These roads are never maintained, not just a case of no winter maintenance.
And snowed in we did get. Fortunately our larder was deep.
So I just wanted to let you know that I've gratefully renewed my annual subscription
to the Ten Cent Challenge. As I said, without SurvivalBlog.com, the
story might have had a very different outcome. Thanks, - Karen, aka
Coloradohermit
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Two Letters Re: Pondering Some Personal Consequences of Global Climate Change »
Letter Re: Supporting SurvivalBlog
On the Yahoo discussion
group survivalretreat, the other two moderators
and I recently posted a very boiled down and simple philosophy: “The
more who prepare, and the better they each prepare, the better off
we all are. We welcome people to join us as survivalists.” I
hope this is your attitude as a survivalist, and if you think about
it, wouldn’t this be an incredibly wise policy for any government
to take. It would make its citizenship stronger, less needy, and more
resilient to against any catastrophe or hard times. The best part is,
it’s free. This is merely information, advice, and encouragement
for people to ready themselves with some realistic advice as to how
to do so. Survivalblog.com, to a significant extent does this for all
of us through
the continued posting of and debate of ideas, for free. Advertisers
here make this financially possible, and offer the products and services
that allow you to expand and improve upon your preparations. I hope
you consider patronizing them first for this reason. I have.
Special thanks to James Rawles for the continuing level of quality
and fresh material on the site. Is there financial self-interest for
the advertisers? Of course there is. But don’t kid yourself about
them becoming rich off this. Survivalism is unfortunately a very small
market,
and thus we should all take special appreciation as to how this blog
site brings so many of us together internationally. I see that it is
now
been a year since I took the Ten
Cent Challenge , and is time for me
to renew. I encourage you to as well, as you are able.- Rourke
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Observations on the Recent Missouri Ice Storm »
Letter Re: Supporting SurvivalBlog
Jim,
I'd just like to exhort readers to invest whatever modest sum
they can in helping to keep SurvivalBlog up and running--stepping up
to the Ten
Cent Challenge or whatever other means of providing support
they feel up to.
There's nothing else of this type and quality out there on the web,
and if folks think that anyone can live on the paltry ad fees you collect
for the site, then they are obviously not aware of the details.
It's to all of our benefit that you have given this your best shot--committing
your full attention to making sure your readers get the best advice
in survival available. I know well what it must take for you--I am,
in similar fashion, trying to keep Safecastle LLC moving forward. It's
a load and a half, and if you don't have a similarly dedicated and
understanding client/reader base to help you with your vision, then
ultimately, it can all disappear.
Yes, I'm an advertiser here. You could say I have my own reasons for
wanting SurvivalBlog to succeed. But that would be a bit too cynical.
My own view is that all of us with a mind to help others prepare are
on the same team. There's a lot of work to do out there, and none of
us can make a dent in it by ourselves.
Stay strong and on the path! - Vic at Safecastle
« Letter from Matt Bracken Re: Blue Water Sailing as a Retreat Option?, by CMC |Main| Jim's Quote of the Day: »
Special Note from JWR:
The folks that sell preparedness products
have reported a sales slump for the past several months, as Americans have
gone into "cocooning" mode
and curtailed their discretionary spending. (On everything, it seems, except big
screen televisions.) Consequently, that has meant that several of our advertisers
have scaled back their advertising
budgets.
We presently have room for several more advertisers, including a special "nailed
up" top of the ad stack position--that is, an ad that will stay fixed
above all of the scrolling ads. If
you contact any potential advertisers, please ask them to get
a SurvivalBlog banner ad. My advertising
rates are absurdly low, especially compared to magazine ads. The small
ads are just $55 per month. If
my ad revenues don't recover soon, I
will be forced to go back to a full-time job and I would therefore have
to sharply curtail or perhaps even shut down SurvivalBlog.
(My other sources of income--mostly from book sales and subscriptions--are
not enough to pay even our most essential monthly bills here at the
ranch.) We have just 79 loyal
Ten Cent
Challenge subscribers, representing the nearly
14,000 people that read SurvivalBlog every week. (Subscriptions are
entirely voluntary.) I want to specially thank you folks. You know who you
are. Thank
you very much!
« Letter Re: The Next Pandemic: Starvation in a Land of Plenty |Main| Note from JWR: »
Book Excerpt: "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse"
In response to a request to Matthew from Indiana, who wanted to know
what my novel was like before ordering it, the following is an excerpt
from the first chapter of the expanded (33 chapter) edition of my novel
"Patriots":
On the last day of October, the Grays found that their phone was still
working, but only for local calls. When they tried making long-distance
calls, they got an “All circuits are busy now” recording,
at all hours of the day or night. The next day, there was message advising
that “All circuits will be restored
shortly.” Two days later, there was no dial tone.
By early November, there was almost continuous rioting and looting
in every major city in the U.S. Due to the financial panic and rioting,
the November election was “postponed” to January, but it
never took place. Rioting grew so commonplace that riot locations were
read off in a list—much
like traffic reports—by news broadcasters. The police could not
even begin to handle the
situation. The National Guard was called out in most States, but less
than half of the Guardsmen reported for duty. With law and order breaking
down, most of them were too busy protecting their own families to respond
to the call-up. An emergency call up of the Army Reserve three days
later had an even smaller response. All over America, entire inner-city
areas burned to the ground, block
after block. No one and nothing could stop it. On the few occasions
that the National Guard was able to respond to the riots, there were
some massacres that made Kent State seem insignificant.
Many factories in proximity to the riots closed “temporarily” in
concern for the safety of their workers, but never reopened. Most others
carried on with their normal operation for several more days, only
to be idled due to lack of transport. Shipping goods in the United
States in most cases meant one thing: 18 wheel
diesel trucks traveling on the interstate highway system. The trucks
stopped rolling for several reasons. First was a fuel shortage. Then
came the flood of refugees from the cities that jammed the highways.
Then people that ran out of gas disrupted traffic. As cars ran out
of gas, they blocked many critical junctions, bridges and overpasses.
Some highway corridors in urban areas turned into gridlocked
parking lots. Traffic came to a stop, motionless cars began to run
out of
gas, and the forward movement of traffic was never resumed. In some
places, cars were able to back up and turn around. In most others,
people were not so lucky. There, the traffic was so densely packed
that drivers were forced to just get out of their cars and walk away.
Every major city in the United States was soon gripped in a continual
orgy of robbery, murder, looting, rape, and arson. Older inner city
areas were among the hardest hit. Unfortunately, the design of the
interstate freeway system put most freeways in close proximity to inner
city areas.
The men who
had planned the interstate highway system in the 1940s and 1950s could
not be blamed. At that time,
downtown areas were still flourishing. They were the heart of industry,
population, commerce, and wealth. Thus, it was only logical that the
highways should be routed as close to them as possible, and preferably
through them. These planners could not then have predicted that in
50 years the term “inner city” would
become synonymous with poverty, squalor, welfare, drugs, disease, and
rampant crime.
America’s once proud and efficient railroad system, long the
victim of government ineptitude, was unable to make any appreciable
difference in the transportation crisis. Most of the factories that
had been built in the past 30 years had been positioned near highways,
not railroad tracks. Also, like the highways, most rail lines passed
through urbanized areas, placing trains at the same risk as trucks.
Gangs of looters found that it did not take large obstructions to cause
train derailments. Within a few hours of each derailment they stripped
the
trains of anything of value.
A few factories managed to stay in operation until early November.
Most had already closed, however, due to failing markets, failing transportation,
failing communications, or the failing dollar. In some instances, workers
were paid through barter, rather than cash. They were paid with the
company’s product.
Chevron Oil paid its workers in gasoline. Winchester-Olin paid its
workers in ammunition.
The last straw was the power grid. When the current stopped flowing,
the few factories and businesses still in operation closed their doors.
Virtually every industry in America was dependent on electric power.
The power outages forced even the oil refineries to shut down. Up
until then, the refineries had been operating around the clock trying
to meet the increased demand for liquid fuels.
Ironically, even though refineries processed fuel containing billions
of BTUs of energy, most of them did not have the ability to produce
enough electric power to supply all of their own needs. Like so many
other industries, oil refiners had made the mistaken assumption that
they
could always depend on the grid. They needed a stable supply of electricity
from the power for their computers and operate the solenoids for their
valves.
The power outages caused a few dramatic
effects. At a Kaiser Aluminum plant near Spokane, Washington, the power
went out during the middle of a production shift. With the plant’s
electric heating elements inactive, the molten aluminum running through
the hot process end of the plant began to cool. Workers scrambled to
clear as much of the system as possible, but the metal hardened in
many places, effectively ruining the factory. If the plant were ever
to be re-opened, the hardened aluminum would have to be removed with
cutting torches or jackhammers. Electricity also proved to be the undoing
of prisons all over America. For a while, officials maintained order
in the prisons. Then the fuel for the backup generators ran out. Prison
officials had never anticipated a power outage
that would last more than two weeks. Without power, security cameras
did not function, lights did not operate, and electrically operated
doors jammed. As the power went out, prison riots soon followed.
Prison officials hastened to secure their institutions. Under “lock
down” conditions, most inmates were confined to their cells,
with only a few let out to cook and deliver meals in the cell blocks.
At many prisons the guard forces could not gain control of the prison
population, and there were mass escapes. At several others, guards
realized that the overall situation was not going to improve, and
they took the initiative to do something about it. They walked from
cell to cell, shooting convicts. Scores of other prisoners died at
the hands of fellow convicts. Many more died in their cells due to
other causes; mainly dehydration, starvation, and smoke inhalation.
Despite the best efforts of prison officials, 80 percent of the country’s
more than 1,500,000 state and federal prisoners escaped. A small fraction
of the escaped prisoners were shot on sight by civilians. Those that
survived quickly shed their prison garb and found their way into the
vicious wolf packs that soon roamed the countryside...
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| How to Reply to "When the SHTF, I'm Going Over to Your House", by Rolf in the Northwest »
Letter Re: 10 Cent Challenge Subscription Renewal Reminders?
Jim,
I just had to scan through tons of e-mails to see when I last contributed
[to the10
Cent Challenge]. I just wanted to stay current because I sincerely
appreciate the information you convey. It would be very helpful if
you would just
send out a little reminder as my year anniversary approaches so I can
stay up to date. Once again, thanks for your wonderful blog! - Andy
JWR Replies: Thank you for your continued support.
It is very much appreciated. But as much as I value it, I
don't e-mail our 10
Cent Challenge subscribers, bugging/begging them to renew. Our
subscriptions are entirely voluntary. If you realize that
it has been more than a
year
since you
sent in your last annual subscription
payment and you think that what you get out of reading SurvivalBlog is
still worth 10 cents a day to you, then please just send another
subscription payment via AlertPay, PayPal, check, cash, or money order.
I don't do
any arm
twisting to get a voluntary payment from anyone. In my estimation,
sending a "subscription renewal" e-mail is contrary to the
spirit of a truly voluntary support network. Please just mark your calendar
to remind yourself about your
renewal next year. Thank you so very much!
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Survival Retreat Potential of Northwest Florida »
Two Letters Re: The Novel "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse"
Jim,
I recently received the updated version of "Patriots" a
couple days ago. At first I was just going to read the new chapters, but after
seeing that you gave it
an overall update, I decided to just read the whole thing. So far I have been
very impressed. (The two new chapters alone were worth the price of the book.)
Not to mention the way everything else was updated. Way to go! You have done
a very good
job with this new edition, and I have already ordered a few more copies to have
on hand as gifts.
I have also just received the "Rawles
Gets You Ready" preparedness course, and Rawles
on Retreats and Relocation. Both look very good at
first
glance, and I’m
looking
forward to delving into them soon. BTW, I’m also looking forward to the
release
of the "Best
of the Blog" book. - Gung Ho
Mr. Rawles:
I read your book in two breathtaking and exciting days,
it was impossible to put down. It was as if you took my worst nightmares,
and word for
word put them into a novel. I had been talking politics with a friend,
as is normal for me, when he asked me just what I thought was going
to happen in the future of our country. My friend had heard of your
book, and when he realized that the vision of my future and your book
were one in the same, he told me to go out and pick it up. I couldn't
find it at any of my local book stores, so I ordered it on Amazon.
Like I said, two days later... I'm sitting here in awe. Being from
New Jersey, most people I talk with are totally clueless to the situation,
and just refer to me as a "paranoid nut", an "extremist" or
an "idiot". Especially if they ever catch wind of the cache
I have in my trunk for a "rainy day" as you put it. I just
want to say "Thank you!" for such an incredible job
of being able to see into the future, and doing your best to help warn
people of it in the best way you can. May G-D bless you, - BDB
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| From #1 Son: Farm Bill Comment Deadline »
Letter Re: Doubling Up on a SurvivalBlog 10 Cent Challenge Subscription
Jim,
I’m enjoying the blog so much that I want to double my contribution.
How would I do that? An additional PayPal subscription? I wish that
more folks would join on.
Best Regards, - MP in Seattle
JWR Replies: I'm glad to hear that you find the blog useful
and informative. A double subscription would be greatly appreciated, but that
would be above and beyond the call of duty. The easiest method is simply to
start a second
subscription, via the link at
our Ten
Cent Challenge page. A second subscription
won't cause any paperwork confusion, since I don't send out any renewal
reminders. (The $3 monthly PayPal subscription system
is
set up on a "subscribed until cancelled" basis.)
Subscriptions are of course entirely voluntary, and gratefully
accepted. Your offer of two subscriptions is above and beyond my expectations.
Many thanks for the extra support.
May God Bless You and Yours in the New Year!
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Total Tax Burdens of States as a Determining Factor in Relocation »
Two Letters Re: Some More Good Things Prompted By SurvivalBlog
Jim,
For a few months now, I've been thinking about sending you a note along the
lines of Redmist's recent post. His post inspired me to get off my hands
and start typing.
I discovered SurvivalBlog in September of 2005--just a week or two after Katrina
knocked the stew out of the Gulf coast. Around the same time I was blessed
to work at a relief distribution center in Gulf Port, Mississippi for five
days. In March of this year, my wife and I accompanied my son on another five-day
trip with the church youth group to do reconstructive work on a storm-surge
damaged house in Pass Christian, Mississippi. What I saw on those two trips
encouraged me to do something, i.e., to get prepared. SurvivalBlog has provided
the needed direction.
Here's what I've accomplished in the last 14 months:
* I've invested about a third of my portfolio in silver bullion and an ETF.
* Not wanting my wife to extract my wisdom teeth with a razor blade and flashlight
one dark, post-TEOTWAWKI night,
I had them removed by a qualified individual in a well lit room
* I acquired a Yugoslavian SKS rifle for myself and just purchased one for
my son as a Christmas gift. (I hope he's not reading this)
* I attended an Appleseed Shoot with my son in June (and we have plans to attend
another in January)
* I acquired a pellet rifle and trap so we could practice what we learned at
the Appleseed Shoot in our back yard (and we have)
* I had my 12 gauge shotgun barrel reduced to 19" and acquired some 00
[buckshot] and bird shot
* I acquired a .308 [Winchester] sporting rifle, a second .22 [rimfire] rifle
and some ammo for both
* I learned a bunch from reading Patriots, Alas,
Babylon, and Lights
Out
* I began CERT training
(but have not yet completed it)
* I expanded and grew my second vegetable garden, learned a lot and will be
expanding it again next year
* I lost more than 20 pounds through responsible eating and regular exercise;
the weight loss allowed me to discontinue use of medication to control hypertension
and to avoid beginning additional medication to reduce my triglyceride level;
I am currently not taking any prescription medication
* I began laying up beans, band aids, and other supplies
* I am actively seeking property with two other families from our church; in
fact, we currently have a contract on 16 acres
I fully realize these are baby steps--I have a long way to go. But I'm way
ahead of where I was 14 months ago.
Thank you Jim for all you provide directly in the way of valuable information
through SurvivalBlog and indirectly through allowing others to contribute and
do the same. Since that information is indeed valuable I've put my money where
my mouth is and have taken the 10
Cent Challenge. I hope more will do the same. Warm Regards, - d'Heat
Mr. Rawles:
I stumbled upon your site right at the beginning and have never missed a day
since. I just wanted to thank you for what you do. I am not a book reader at
all, but read Patriots in
five days the first time, and have also read through your "Rawles
Gets You Ready" preparedness course. During this time I have been
very pleased to do business with The Pre-1899 Specialist; MURS Radios; Best
Price Storable Foods; Walton Feed; The Freeze Dry Guy; Inirgee; and Ready Made
Resources. They are all top notch vendors, and I will be doing more business
with most, if not all of them. I am also renewing my 10
Cent Challenge pledge. Thank you, - RT in Texas
« Letter Re: Recommendations on Springfield Armory TRP Series M1911 Pistols? |Main| Jim's Quote of the Day: »
Letter Re: Access to SurvivalBlog Archives?
Jim,
I stumbled across your Survival Blog today. Wonderful service you provide!
Read some of archives...excellent! Question: It looks like the SurvivalBlog
archives start in August of 2005 but cut off in April of 2006. Are there
any more recent posts that I can access? Thank you. - J.U., COL, US Army
(Ret.)
JWR Replies: Welcome! Yes, all of the posts that
are more recent are now fully searchable by key word, or can be browsed
by categories, or can be browsed in monthly Archives. (See the categories,
monthly archive links, and Search window, down under the ads, in the
right hand scrolling bar.) Our long term goal its to eventually duplicate
all of the earlier posts into Movable Type, so that the entire site
contents will be searchable.
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Letter Re: Some Good Things Prompted By SurvivalBlog
Jim,
The following are some things SurvivalBlog.com has prompted me to do
since I began reading it:
I've had no debt for 20 years, but my meager holdings are now about
1/3 precious metals. Is lead considered a precious metal? :-)
My freezer is full of elk, whitetail deer, and caribou. I added to
my long-term foods during your Safecastle special,
but I'm now reviewing the viability
of my existing stocks. Like the realtor's mantra of "location, location,
location", a survivalist's creed should be "Rotate, rotate,
rotate. "
A 10 KW Generac
generator is ready to be wired to my primary residence.
My primary heat source is now a shelled
corn burner
My wife and I just finished a first aid course refresher and bought
a couple of family-sized first aid kits from the American Red Cross.
I upgraded my firearms battery to include a third .308 Winchester rifle--a
DPMS Panther LR-308 [AR-10.] An accurate load for the Sierra 168-grain HPBT has
been found and loading on the Dillon
press commences soon.
During this year's whitetail deer hunt, our group adhered to the hunting
laws but still kept in contact with our MURS
Radios.
And thanks to your blog, I'm practicing preparedness more. I've never
learned how to take a deer apart other than simple de-boning. So with
instructions at the ready, the wife and I will skin this year's buck
and carve the meat into steaks, roasts, stew meat and burger. But with
a full freezer, I'll be practicing charity by giving it to my friend
Mike, a less fortunate carnivore.
Now it's time to renew the 10
Cent Challenge subscription. There is much more to do and learn.
Merry Christmas to you and yours, - Redmist
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Some Thoughts on Ammunition Handloading, by Inyokern »
Letter Re: Invitation to a Blog "Carnival" on Preparedness and Survival
Hi Jim,
I've been a sometime reader of your blog since last year, and wanted
to invite you to submit an article for the first issue of the Carnival
of Preparedness & Survival. If you are willing, you can also
extend the invitation to your readers. I can't promise to use everything
that's submitted, but some of your
readers have had interesting things to say, and I'd like to have as
much variety as possible in this Carnival. Best Regards, - D.S.
Rawles
Disaster Preparedness
SurvivalBlog
Blog Carnival
The Bugout Bag
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Letter Re: SurvivalBlog RSS Feed
Hello James,
Last week you mentioned publishing content in the MobiReader format so that
it is accessible to readers using PDAs
or cellular phones with text windows.
I have not used that software specifically, but would like to bring pRSS
Reader to your attention. pRSS
Reader is a free RSS reader
that runs on Windows Mobile devices, and is the software I use to read SurvivalBlog
daily. You may want to suggest this option
to your readers who prefer to read the blog on a mobile device. The software
will automatically check for updates to the blog at a configurable interval,
and even has a handy "Today-Screen" plugin so that you can quickly
look at your device's main screen to see if there are any updates to the
blogs you've subscribed to. pRSS reader can be downloaded at: http://pda.jasnapaka.com/prssr/
Regards, - DLF
« Letter Re: "Jericho" TV Series Airing This Fall |Main| Letter Re: The Importance of Storing Salt for Preparedness »
Letter Re: Everyday Savings Via SurvivalBlog
Jim:
Just the other day, on the thread concerning watches, another
SurvivalBlog reader posted a link to a Japanese firm [Higuchi.com]
that sold watches. I took a
look around their site, and found, to my surprise, that the watch
I had been pining for was 1/3 the cost of the same watch purchased
from a USA dealer, shipping included. Needless to say I whipped out
my debit card and did the deed. But it occurred to me, over the short
existence of SurvivalBlog I have run into bargains for items that
I would normally purchase - unrelated to survival or preparedness,
and
I have discovered some products that I now regularly use. It has
enhanced my family's lifestyle and saved us money - Jim's policy of
posting
little blurbs from folks who are trying to provide advice or the
like has worked pretty well for me - LDM
JWR Replies: I hope that folks appreciate the value
of what they read at SurvivalBlog--both the tangibles and the intangibles.
If you find that what you read here is worth ten cents a day or more
to you, then please become a Ten
Cent Challenge subscriber to SurvivalBlog. Also, when you patronize
any of our paid advertisers of affiliate advertisers, please mention
that you heard their name on SurvivalBlog. Thanks!
« Odds 'n Sods: |Main| Letter Re: Maggots for Wound Debridement »
Letter Re: Ten Cent Challenge
Jim,
I have been reading SurvivalBlog from the beginning. I have made several
contributions early on, and signed up for the 10
Cent Challenge some time
ago. The real reason I am sending this email is to publicly ask everyone who
is a regular reader of your blog to sign up now for the Ten Cent Challenge,
if you have not already done so. I cannot imagine the huge empty hole that
would be left if for some reason you discontinued your blog due to lack of
support. I sincerely believe our country at some time will face one or more
major disasters. For those of us who sense this, It is our God-given duty to
both prepare ourselves, and try to influence others who will listen, to prepare
themselves. In my opinion, the single best way to keep focused on this is to
regularly read your survival blog and act accordingly on the information it
contains.
I cringe when I read in some of the articles that are submitted when the writer
says he will sign up for the Ten Cent Challenge as soon as he can afford it.
Although I am usually slow to offer other people advice, I believe that if a
person in the USA at this time cannot afford ten cents a day then they need to
either upgrade their present employment, or get a second job. One aspect of being
prepared is to also prepare ourselves to be valuable in the job market. This
will enable us to earn an adequate amount to prepare and provide for ourselves
now, set some aside for the future, and have some flexibility in our budget to
contribute to worthy projects.
Actually, I believe that someone who says he cannot afford ten cents a day really
means it is not a high enough priority in his life to pay it. If that is the
case, I believe those writers should just leave out any reference to not being
able to afford the Ten Cent Challenge rather than make up some excuse.
Sorry for the diversion there, and back to the point, I again ask everyone who
is a regular reader and has not already signed up, to sign up now for the 10
Cent Challenge.
Thank you. - Joe.
« Jim's Quote of the Day: |Main| Two Letters Re: Truck, Auto, ATV, Motorcycle, and Bicycle Tire Repair »
Letter Re: The Ten Cent Challenge
I am thankful you started the Survival
Blog in August of 2005. I firmly believe we must support those who
educate and advocate what is correct and true. People purchase
newspapers and magazines, donate to others asking for different organizations
on the side of the road. We give. I would like
to appeal to all of the other readers out there. Please be honest with
yourselves. If you come to this site at least once a month, and find
the material
of interest, motivational, compelling,
as well as a resource full of other sites to cross-reference to, if
this site has enriched your present/future plan, please join us and
keep this in mind: Today we stand, we watch, we pray. It takes action
to make things happen. Notice all the words used in the first sentence
requires action. Please
join in and help with the daily 10 cent pledge. I thank you and
pray that all those who read SurvivalBlog will step up to the
plate
and contribute
so they can also stand united in principle and ethics (sincere - truth-
accountable - forthright.) - E. & L. Guerra, Warriors for
the Truth
JWR Replies: Thanks for you kind letter. We've
now had 48 readers send 10
Cent Challenge donations. You folks know who you are. All
that I can say is MANY THANKS!
