Year: 2006

Two Letters Re: Railroads Tracks and Right of Ways as Bug-Out Routes

JWR: Please pass on to Larry in Kansas and anyone else interested that they need to look well ahead of time at any railroad beds as a bug out route. Here in Michigan the railroads have closed off all the service roads beside the tracks. Some are simply chained and easily defeated with bolt cutters, but other are blocked with ties and high mounds of gravel. My primary escape route has an emergency “go around” for a choke point that is active railroad bed. It will be hairy, but my Ford Ranger pickup will be able to make the trip. …


Odds ‘n Sods:

A professor hired by the Federal Reserve says that by some measures the U.S. is technically bankrupt.    o o o Wars and Rumors of Wars: Hezbollah guerrillas fire more Katyusha rockets at two northern Israeli towns, 220,000 Israelis are now staying in bomb shelters. Meanwhile, Israeli Warplanes Strike in Beirut, and Israel Blockades Lebanon.    o o o A 50 mile long fire line: crews are battling two California Mojave Desert wild fires–60,000+ acres charred.  



Note from JWR:

I’ve updated my “Writings” Page to include descriptions and sample covers for my three upcoming book releases. Please be patient about the release dates. At this juncture I am at the mercy of my publisher’s production schedule. I will let you know as soon as the books are orderable. Today we present another article for Round 5 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The writer of the best non-fiction article will win a valuable four day “gray” transferable Front Sight course certificate. (Worth up to $2,000) Second prize is a copy of my “big box” preparedness course, (worth $149) generously …


Suburban Survival, by “Jim in Texas”

We all know that to be fully prepared we need a great survival retreat we can bug-out to. We all dream of the perfect retreat, were we will go post-SHTF. If you are like me however, this is simply not reality. I have no remote, armored, fully stocked retreat to go to in a disaster. Like millions of Americans I live not in the country, nor the city, but the area in between, commonly called the suburbs. Though all suburbs are different most of them share similar qualities, small, less than acre lots, single family houses with well maintained front …


David in Israel Re: On Gun Laws in Israel and War Worries Update

In answer to your queries about gun laws in Israel: The gun control laws in Israel are draconian. You must have a “valid reason” to keep a gun at home. Sadly in the West Bank our cousins (the Arabs) give that reason. All of Israel law is a combination of Ottoman Empire, British occupation, and Israeli passed laws, also the radical leftist Supreme Court which has empowered itself to strike down laws it does not agree with and to generate law by judicial declaration. We do not have a constitution for the state of Israel. These rules may change as …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Multiple mutations reported in Indonesia’s Asian Avian Flu Strain.    o o o The Citizens’ Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) alerted us to the following: During U.S. Senate consideration of the Homeland Security appropriations bill (H.R. 5441), Senator David Vitter will offer an amendment (# 4551) to “prohibit the use of funds appropriated under this bill for the confiscation of lawfully possessed firearms during an emergency or major disaster.” Hopefully this will prevent a repeat of the gun seizures that followed Hurricane Katrina. Our U.S. readers are urged to support this amendment. Please call your …



Note From JWR:

Please continue to spread the word about SurvivalBlog. Please mention the blog whenever you call in to talk radio shows or when you are on podcasts. Thanks! Today we present another article for Round 5 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The writer of the best non-fiction article will win a valuable four day “gray” transferable Front Sight course certificate. (Worth up to $2,000) Second prize is a copy of my “big box” preparedness course, (worth $149) generously donated by Jake Stafford of Arbogast Publishing. If you want a chance to win, start writing and e-mail us your article soon. …


What is Considered of Value in the Poorest Nations, by SF in Hawaii

I have a book called Material World by Peter Menzel in which average families from around the world put everything they own on their lawn and you get to see what they own and how they live. While I purchased the book as a way to demonstrate to my kids ‘just how good they have it’ there are also some lessons for us survivalists. I went through the poorest nations where per capita income was usually far less than $1,000 USD per year (and in the case of Mali, Africa, $251 per year). What I noticed was a pattern in …


Letter Re: Surplus Wireless and Hard Wire Seismic Intrusion Detection

Hi Jim, I like your site! (And enjoyed “Patriots” quite a bit, too!) It was referred to your site by a customer in Louisiana. My customer mentioned that I could probably mention my remaining TRS-2 PEWS seismic intrusion detectors on your site. We have about 30 detector/transmitters (DT-577 V(6) /TRS-2) left. @ $60/ea. (these run on a 9VDC ‘transistor radio’ battery for about two weeks, and are on 150.6 MHz) Also have about a dozen of the R-1808 V(6) /TRS-2 Receivers (same frequency) @ $500 each. (These run on two each 9VDC batteries for a couple of days.) All of …


Letter Re: Comments on the RWVA Appleseed Training Experience

I grew up plinking with a .22 rifle but was totally inexperienced with MBR rifles when I bought my FAL last summer. When I saw the RWVA Appleseed training schedule in SurvivalBlog, I decided to risk a possible cold weekend and attended Fred’s February 2006 training in North Carolina. I had the company of one other FAL shooter, an SKS shooter, a .22 shooter and a lot of M1A and M1 Garand shooters on the lower range line. Three or four families with children ranging in ages from about 10 up came to the training also and sported various calibers …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Okay, so it is a little techno-geeky and complex, but moonbounce EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) transmission does work.    o o o SurvivalBlog reader M.P. mentioned that the Sony ICT-B01 emergency radio is now available at JR.com for $40. While it doesn’t have some of the bells and whistles of the Eton and Grundig models, the Sony portables generally have the best proprietary radio integrated circuits, and they never sell them to other radio manufacturers.      o o o The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that they plan to distribute terror and disaster alerts via cell phone. But this is …



Letter From England Re: What Will Europe Be Like After TEOTWAWKI?

Hi Jim Thanks for sending your novel (“Patriots”) so promptly. I’ve hardly put it down since it got here. It does make me wonder how things would pan out in Europe under similar circumstances. There are definitely less weapons in private ownership here in the UK, however criminals have no problem getting their hands on ex-Soviet weapons of all types. Not a good balance of power in the absence of law and order. Regards, – P.