Letter Re: Cell Phone E-911 Tracking

Jim, I think this would come under the heading of privacy….or our losing more and more of it on a daily bases. I got a call from my cell phone company today (US Cellular) they told me that I was going to be required to bring in my old phone…the same one I have had for five years… and trade it for one that was capable of being tracked by 911 (these are the [E-911] ones with GPS chips in them.) I told them that I did not want to. They told me I had no choice. They said that …


Odds ‘n Sods:

A bad omen for the U.S. stock market?    o o o Mike the Blacksmith pointed us to this interview with Dr. Michael Osterholm of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy about H5N Asian Avian Flu.    o o o Middle East expert Ken Timmerman (one of my associates from my days with Defense Electronics magazine) reports on the “Big George” attack plan for war with Iran



TEOTWAWKI and the Life Events Stress Scale

I have recently been pondering the far-reaching implications of a grid-down economic collapse situation–commonly called The End of the World as We Know It (TEOTWAWKI) in survivalist circles. One of the under-emphasized implications of TEOTWAWKI will be the psychological stress of the situation–both upon you and upon your neighbors. For many years, psychologists have used the Holmes-Rahe Social Adjustment Scale (also commonly called the “Life Events Stress Scale”) to gauge the level of stress that their patients are experiencing. I can foresee that a TEOTWAWKI situation will be off the scale for any of your neighbors that are not prepared. …


Letter Re: Illegal Alien Invasion in the United States

Jim: I noticed that you have remained relatively quiet on the millions of illegal aliens that have been demonstrating in dozens of American cities this past week..was wondering if you considered the Marxist led demonstrations that call for the death, expulsion of Americans on our own soil by foreigners a threat or a concern? I find it disheartening that so many are chiming in about potential asteroid strikes yet no comments about the very real and present threat posed by so many millions right in our own midst. Hope American wake up, its seems that the 12-20 million illegal aliens …


Letter Re: Letters on Asteroid or Comet Impact in 2012? by Rourke

Jim: It was funny that the majority of the criticism to my last writing had to do with the Mayan calendar and the Bible Code since I didn’t consider that my main focus and was meant as a lead in. I will say most prophecy is simply too vague to be useful, and the only time it really catches my attention is when separate sources, separated by thousands of miles, hundreds or thousands of years, and of different religions and cultures, somehow reach the same conclusion. My real intent was more so to play “connect the dots” with what NASA …


Odds ‘n Sods:

The Army Aviator mentioned this great article by Bob Carter in England about the global warming issue.    o o o SurvivalBlog reader “KYPD” mentioned that Mel Tappan’s book Survival Guns is now back in print. You can get a copy at Delta Press for only $24.95. Delta Press also has many other very handy books such as “Nuclear War Survival Skills”, “Where There Is No Doctor”, Where There Is No Dentist”, “Ditch Medicine” and other hard to find titles.    o o o Of interest to home schoolers–and anyone else interested in U.S. history: The story of the Gadsen …



Four Letters Re: Asteroid or Comet Impact in 2012? by Rourke

Jim: I’d like to add some input to the meteor thread. First, there’s a near complete (based on our knowledge) and growing database at: http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/ that shows the residual effects of quite a few impacts. Megaton range impacts occur surprisingly frequently–about once a century. Tunguska level events (that killed almost everything in 2000 sq miles) occur about every thousand years. I don’t like Deep Impact as a scenario, because I cannot for the life of me see 300 million Americans, not to mention the rest of the world, just accepting that a select few will go into a safe cavern, …


Odds ‘n Sods:

SurvivalBlog reader R.H. forwarded us a link to an accurate summation of the illegal immigration situation in the U.S. by Cinnamon Stillwell.    o o o I just stumbled across a downloadable version of Mel Tappan’s book, “Tappan on Survival.” It is a “must read” for anyone who is serious about preparedness.    o o o SurvivalBlog reader “Merlin” mentioned that the documentary series “Victory at Sea” has recently been spotted on sale in WalMart DVD “dump bins” for only $5.50 for the entire series. That series is one of my favorite documentaries. (I included it my list of recommend …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, …



The Silver Bull Gains Speed

Just over a month ago we were marveling at the fact that silver was solidly over $10 per ounce. I just checked the charts at kitco.com, (see: http://www.kitco.com/charts/livesilver.html) and spot silver was at $12.80 per ounce! (As a data point: The New York close was at $12.05 just four days ago–Friday April 7th. Quite a change since then!)  At the current spot price, means that a $1,000 face value bag of pre-1965 circulated (“junk”) silver U.S. coinage worth $9,152 wholesale. (Assuming 715 ounces in a typical bag of well-worn coins.) The silver market is showing all of the signs of …


Asteroid or Comet Impact in 2012?, by Rourke

The abrupt ending of the Mayan calendar in December of 2012 has long been assumed to be an astrological catastrophic event for Earth (http://survive2012.com). More recently, the Bible Code has produced passages/matrixes that seem to announce a comet impact in 2012 (http://www.satansrapture.com/nasa2012.htm). [JWR Adds: Beware! Not Biblically supported doctrine at that site!] There are said to be two conflicting matrixes, once saying the Earth is annihilated, the other that the comet is annihilated. I realize what most people think of prophecy (unreliable, to say the least), so let’s take a more scientific look at this, and consider that if there …


Letter from David in Israel Re: On Eating Insects, by Maui Mike

James, In reference to eating bugs: Jews who settled in Yemen after the destruction of the first Temple and stayed there until the 1960s had the tradition of eating and identifying the kosher locusts. My Temani (Yemeni) friend in Kollel did not know what the identifiers were. As for kosher and survival, I quote my old Rav from Portland, Oregon “If someone held a gun to my head and said ‘Eat that pork chop!’ my answer would be ‘where’s the catsup?’” Your Maker and Keeper wants you to live so you can glorify him, the mitzvah of saving a life …