Day: September 6, 2006


Keeping Your Preparations Low Profile

Of all of the aspects of preparing a survival retreat, perhaps the most overlooked in survivalist literature are privacy and operational security (OPSEC). Your preparations must be kept secret from all but your most trusted friends. All of your expensive logistics could disappear in a few hours soon after TEOTWAWKI. Your “hidey hole” could be stripped clean by looters or overzealous government agents wielding “emergency powers.” You must absolutely resist the urge to mention your preparations to anyone who does not have a need to know about them. I am not suggesting that you lie to anyone. That would be …


Letter Re: How Much Ammo to Store For Self Defense and Hunting?

Mr. Rawles: I found reading your Retreat Owner Profiles fascinating. One item I noticed was that even those with incomes significantly less than mine, sometimes by a factor of 30 to 1, had much more ballistic wampum. How many rounds do you recommend for survival but not trade?[ [JWR Adds: I slightly fictionalized the following, for purposes of illustration]: My circumstances are as follows: I live on the Big Island of Hawaii, in the Mountain View farming district of North Puna, plenty of rainfall (with catchment), lots of fruit trees, fairly high elevation (only minor need of house heating). I …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Reader M.M. mentioned this scary news article from England: Six Years of Below Average Harvests, Globally. He commented: “Harvests are less than the population eats for the sixth straight year and the warehoused surplus is almost gone. Famine or serious and aggressive agriculture are the two potential outcomes. If it goes like it has for the oil, the free food is over and the price of food will be bid up until demand is destroyed, such as a poor country doesn’t get its shipments. And that is that for them…” Meanwhile, reader Ben L. sent this corroborating piece from Rense.com. …