Day: September 27, 2005

Specific Regions to Consider for Retreats – Western U.S.

I’ve completed the “State by State” level analysis series that I posted earlier in the month. For ease of reference, this data is now archived at the Retreat Areas static page. (See the new button in the SurvivalBlog navigation bar.) I’m now moving on to providing detailed retreat locale recommendations. While I’m posting these, please give this some serious thought. Particularly for those of you living east of the Mississippi and for our overseas readers, I would appreciate you sharing your expertise. If you know of a particular region with retreat potential, please e-mail me the details, and I will …


Recommended Region: The Kalispell/Flathead Lake Region (Flathead County, Western Montana)

Concentrate on small towns north of the reservation line, such as Bigfork, Creston, Proctor, Rollins, and Somers. On Staying Outside the Reservation: Much of the lower elevations in this region are inside the boundaries of the Flathead Indian Reservation. The united Salish and Kootenai (“S&K”) tribal government has been forcefully asserting its sovereignty in recent years, affecting both tribal members and everyone else living inside the reservation boundaries. (Even deeded property owners!) If you want to buy land in this region, buy land that is beyond the reservation boundaries but that is still at low elevation. This you will have …


Inflation–Past, Present, and Future

It has been said that nothing is inevitable except death and taxes. But personally, I add inflation to that list. Inflation is an insidious hidden form of taxation We’ve been robbed! According to The Inflation Calculator, what cost $100 in 1905 would cost $2052.36 in 2005. The U.S. dollar has lost 95% of its value in that time. (If you were to buy exactly the same products in 2005 and 1905, they would cost you $100 and $4.87 respectively.) The inflation rate jumped considerably in the 1960s and 1970s. It is no coincidence that the U.S. Treasury stopped minting real …


Letter Re: 3-D Aerial Topographic Map Site and Oregon

Hello from Pleasanton, California! I too look at the hills and envision the populations of Hayward, Oakland, et al. swarming over into our little valley in the event of disaster. So we have a “ten-year plan” to purchase and stock a “vacation home” in NE Oregon. I have been looking long-distance at the Wallowa Valley. Do you have any particular objection to planning on freshwater lakes as a fallback source of water? (I am thinking of Wallowa Lake.) Just wondering what may have pushed you to choose the Grande Ronde valley over the Wallowa. You may wish to link to …


Letter Re: AK-47 Reliability

Mr. Rawles: Glad I found your site…it is a daily read for me. I watched a show that was on Discovery (I think) channel this past weekend, about a special police force in South Africa. Relevant here is that part of the show where they went to destroy certain arms caches left from a war decades ago. The arms were buried under massive rocks, far from civilization. At one point it show a truly nasty AK-47, rusted and just looked like garbage. One of the officers poured a can of oil over it, and in it, worked the bolt a …