Day: October 5, 2007


Letter Re: Underground Storm/Fallout/Vault Shelters

Jim, You know we respect you. You’re at the top of the survivalist food chain because of your relevant knowledge and for your impeccable integrity. Those qualities draw respectful, serious readers to SurvivalBlog, and their contributions, in turn, to the cause of preparedness and your blog’s content are first rate as well. Needless to say, we’re very pleased that Safecastle is associated with you and can help sponsor the work you’re doing for the folks of this nation. You know that Safecastle is all about crisis preparedness. For most folks, they know us by our Buyers Club (that club ad …


Letter Re: “ZIPSkinny”–A Tool for Gathering Intelligence on Potential Retreat Locales

Greetings Jim, Here is a link for gathering statistical intelligence on an area one may want to relocate to for a retreat or to use to plot an escape route. This site gives a quick thumbnail reference of demographics, economic and social indicators etc. for further research or to locate areas to avoid that you may not be familiar with. Plug in the ZIP code for the area of interest and you will get information on the area as well as adjacent area ZIP codes along with an additional tool to compare up to twenty other ZIP codes of your …


Two Letters Re: Betavoltaic Batteries

Jim, Here is an article describing the challenges associated with betavoltaic batteries. The recent buzz over the 30 year battery, while intriguing, is overly optimistic. As stated in the article I linked to, betavoltaics currently have low efficiency, require heavy shielding, and the energy absorption media tends to degrade due to the high energy bombardment. I think it would be great if they could overcome these issues, but it looks like it may be 30 years before we see anything like a 30 year battery. – Mark D. in Utah Mr Rawles, Firstly I would like to say that after …


Weekly Survival Real Estate Market Update

Realities and Compromises While Retreat Shopping Over the summer I was blessed to meet a lot of fellow SurvivalBlog readers here in north Idaho. Most, if not all, made several drastic changes to their retreat shopping list either during or right after their trip here. Most notably, the changes made most often were: Distance to a sizeable town/economic base, the parcel size (acres), and access to the parcel. It’s important to realize that once you take in the enormity of the locale you have chosen to relocate to that these factors become the number one issue in a search. There …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Pending Home Sales Index Hits Record Low   o o o From Newsweek‘s Daniel Gross: There’s No Inflation (If You Ignore Facts)    o o o Green Mountain Gear has found a limited supply of some more original German HK91/G3 alloy magazines. This new batch is in new-in-the-wrapper condition. These are in the original factory wrappers, with factory labels and anti-corrosion paper strips on the followers. (Just as they left the factory in the 1960s.) They don’t come any better than this.    o o o DV and David L. both suggested this article: Dollar’s double blow from Vietnam and Qatar