Note from JWR

Today we present another article from Rourke, one of our prolific SurvivalBlog contributors. (He is also the organizer/editor of Yahoo’s Survival Retreat and Secure Home Forum.)  We are grateful to Rourke for sharing his knowledge and insights.




Finding Gas Stations that Sell E85 Ethanol

I’ve been touting the advantages of E85 Ethanol-compatible “flexible fuel” vehicles for many months. I recently put my money where my mouth is, and bought a flexible fuel 2003 Ford Explorer 4WD for us here at the ranch. The Explorer replaced our not-so-gracefully aging 1989 Suburban. (It had 205,000 miles on the clock, lots of non-functional subsystems, and it was starting to lose compression on the grades.) Assuming that you buy a Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV), where do you find fuel? If you live in Brazil or Sweden, no sweat. E85 is found at the majority of gas stations. But …




Rourke on: Establishing a Survivalist E-Mail/Cellular/Wireless PDA Alert System

How can you best avoid being caught in the egress gridlock of sheeple? The best answer to that problem is having the critical information first, allowing you to bug out prior to everyone else. If you are ready to go, or ready to do what you need to do, a few hours or even minutes may be all the edge you need. The information age is becoming the instant information age, but the problem becomes filtering out what you don’t want (too much information, then again you can just watch major media and let them filter out what they don’t …




Letter Re: Which Rifle and Caliber is the Best for TEOTWAWKI?

Dear Jim, For once and for all, which rifle and caliber is the best for the end of days? Let the discussion begin. Sincerely, – 2Knives JWR Replies:  I’ll open the discussion with these oh-so subjective suggestions (YMMV): United States (Except California): L1A1 or FN/FAL in 7.62mm NATO California: FN-49 .308 Argentine Variant (in 7.62mm NATO with 20 round detachable magazines)–most other effective semi-autos rifles are banned Central America (except Mexico)/South America/Anywhere in Africa/Oceania: FN/FAL in 7.62mm NATO Philippines: M14E2, in 7.62mm NATO, selective fire. Why selective fire? Just because you can. Canada: M1 Garand in .30-06.  (Thankfully exempted from …




Letter Re: Considerations for Longer Term Survival

Dear Mr. Rawles, I have become increasing concerned that many survivalists do not take longer term survival seriously and in many case appear to give it no consideration at all. They seem to be more concerned with stocking their retreats and being able to hold out against all until things return to normal. The majority of what has been written about survival originates from the USA but there is literally none of this information that considers the longer term. By longer term I mean after surviving the initial disaster, whatever the cause. I am also talking about an event that …




Odds ‘n Sods

The Memsahib and I have nearly finished watching the late-great science fiction TV series Firefly, on DVD. I must say that it is some of the best television that we’ve seen in years. Parenthetically, I should mention that we don’t even own a television. We just watch movies on DVD on our computers–we have three Macintosh computers at the Rawles Ranch. The folks over at The Claire Files were positively raving about Joss Whedon’s Firefly, so we took the plunge and bought the entire series on DVD at Amazon.com. The series is set in colonized/terraformed outer space, sans aliens, a …




Jim’s Quote of the Day

“… Mr. Clinton, sir, America didn’t trust you with our health-care system. America didn’t trust you with gays in the military. America doesn’t trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don’t trust you with our guns.” – Charlton Heston, in a June 6, 1998 speech at a NRA Convention