CABIN FEVER
A loyal minion suggested this article and while I don’t think this is what they had in mind, it’s what I came up with. What do you do after the balloon goes up and you are at your retreat? What then? You have all your supplies there, you are staying put for the duration. What happens next? I think the intent of the question was, how do you interact with a changing world? That I’m going to have to give a bit more thought on, although the short answer would seem to be that you plan on perpetual warfare. Resource wars are the reason for wars, so that label is a bit of an oxymoron. We don’t fight over race or religion. That might be the justification. We fight over resources because there is never enough to go around. Even the miracle of oil based agriculture didn’t change that since the population just increased to its normal level beyond carrying capacity. Remember, human population is a strategic advantage. If you win your neighbors resources it is a good thing. Otherwise it causes you to starve faster.
*
The short term answer to the question is reorganizing your life. We’ve already covered the necessity of entertainment. It is going to be necessary as a time waster and since everyone’s stress level is elevated. And as an aside, this applies to sudden and long term collapse. Long term collapse will most likely see you unemployed and scrambling for resources so it will share a lot of similarities with the classic nuke strike or asteroid impact or Yellowstone scenario. But there is going to be a lot more to passing the time of day than entertainment. Since the vast majority of us are going to not be living on a farm chores are going to be limited. We are not self sufficient in supplies and travel is out of the question. After a minimum number of operations such as cleaning out the gutters for rain catchment and catching up on splitting wood the lack of supplies is going to limit further prep activities. So you can count on several hours a day on the limited chores ( outside of garden activities such as composting or harvesting which will take bursts of activity ), a few of entertainment and the majority with empty time.
*
I know a lot of you are raising your hand as you roll your eyes, begging to prove me wrong with your two foot long list of chores to do. So just ask yourself, if I suddenly became cabin bound with no new supplies available, how feasible would my list be. Remember also, a lot of your list has chores on that once done depend on the items used being replaced. So you might start crossing a lot off to preserve the supplies you have. And you are confined to your area for the most part when a hunting trip might turn into a combat operation. So, if we can assume a disruption in regular activities, what do you do with your time? Even if you have no structure at your land and arrive with minimal supplies and start clearing land and chopping trees, just the fact that you are out of shape will mean hard physical labor is limited each day. Your main job each day is going to become that of an administrator.
*
Even if it is totally out of character, you must become anal retentive. Everything must be organized. It is all well and nice to call for a totally skilled survivalist, one that has no need to learn new skills. One that has already practiced what he needs to implement. In reality, we are all handcuffed to the corporate grindstone and have very little time or energy to devote towards primitive or reduced technology skills. You are going to have to begin learning those. You are going to have to inventory everything. Everything. Either through economics or through transportation disruption it is assumed that near future trade is next to impossible. You are going to have to know exactly what you possess so you can prioritize activity. You might have enough lumber, but what if your fasteners are in short supply? They are assigned to the most pressing projects. Skills need to be assessed. Duties assigned. It is going to be nearly a full time job just organizing food supplies. Calories available, who receives how many. How many are coming in. Reserves to factor in future shortages. In short, you must become a logistics officer.
*
Now when you factor in the area away from your domicile things get even more interesting. Then you start expanding complexities on every issue. You then must not only take into account your personal supplies and skills but how others react to your quest to procure additional ones. Even peaceful trade involves switching resources to travel and defense and replacing lost manpower. Stealing what you need is far more complex than that. But that is getting ahead of ourselves. The basics are that you must organize and administer at first, to be successful. It is going to be a survival skill just as important as shooting or construction. We tend to focus on preparing for disaster. We also need to explore what comes after. I know I don’t have all the answers here. I’m just trying to dip my toes in to try out the water temperature. Hope this helps somewhat to get you thinking.
END
Won't you buy my crap today, hmmm? www.bisonpress.com
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
medical triage
MEDICAL TRIAGE
Those unfortunate enough to experience childhood after the era of disco might not remember the television show MASH. This was set in the Korean war with a mobile army medical unit. It was a comedy but it also worked hard at having important messages to share. I loved it as a kid and whenever I am exposed to reruns on cable ( which is rare- I don’t even know if they are still running episodes in syndication ) I still enjoy it. It was the only TV show my mother felt was good enough to allow us the occasional bending of the strict two hour maximum TV time every night ( Saturdays were also relaxed to allow for Bugs Bunny and such ). This is where we were introduced to the concept of medical triage at a tender age. We were also introduced to crap like women’s lib although we didn’t realize Alda’s subtle brainwashing until later. And relax, girls. I’m not telling you to get back in the kitchen and stay pregnant. But we sure as heck need stable family structures more than we need women in the military or as police officers or firepersons. What was the first country that pushed hard for total women’s equality at the workplace ( to include the military ) and relegated children to day care? Ooh, ooh I know. The Soviet Friggin Union you commie pukes.
*
Medical triage is once again all the buzz amongst social dissident groups as a report comes out recommending that extreme old bastards and retards should be allowed to die. I’m thinking, what’s the problem? Who needs ‘em? But of course since you pay good money to read this wonderful publication you expect me to give you facts and logic rather than just throw in a flippant and caustic remark dismissing the subject at hand. Okay. Triage is a necessary procedure. On the battlefield supplies are limited. More importantly, medical personnel are limited as is their time. You can’t do the impossible or perform miracles. I think everyone accepts that. The problem is that it is being discussed regarding the civilian masses rather than the military. Let’s ignore the fact that as a betterment for society as a whole soldiers benefit everyone more than terminal cancer victims or ninety year old cripples. Perhaps the objection is to those in power playing God? Like they don’t already? If you are old and get Medicare, isn’t the government already deciding your medical future? The laws that are passed effect people’s lives. Such as the young adult convicted of marijuana possession spending his whole life in jail.
*
No, I think the problem is something different. I think that no one is willing to come to terms of our collapse of empire and our resources being depleted. Why, if we can’t provide for everyone than that must mean it is time for the die-off. If we accept the fact that those at the bottom of the food chain are to be written off then it can only be a matter of time and a few more disasters before it is our turn. This is a valid concern. First the advanced geriatrics are sacrificed when care is being rationed, next thing you know those with DNA showing a propensity towards cancer are denied food or energy. Then they start culling those without needed skills. Next thing you know we are back to Jewish doctors or orchestra conductors breaking rocks at a concentration camp. Rationing medical care is seen as the start towards rationing all vital life sustaining supplies.
*
Duh. Our wonderful Great Father in Washington is all set to sacrifice you for his own good. Why does anyone think things are going to be any different this time around? History is littered with empires that ran out of resources and their population died off en masse. This is what irritates me about those that refuse to believe we could be any different. All empires are full of people with the delusion that they are special and one of God’s chosen. Then they starve to death or are killed and eaten. Running out of oil is no different than running out of topsoil. Society fails when food production falls. We already have depleted topsoil. It is only kept productive by petroleum inputs. Oil running out is not just our cars staying idle. It is one thing to dispute the timetable, quit another to deny altogether that nonrenewable resources will run out.
*
In short, why is anyone surprised? You know it will come to this. Resources run out and the elite go short last. Medical care is just like food or defense. You are responsible to provide your own. Try to jettison bad habits, try to eat right. Herbal knowledge might be helpful. And a plan to avoid people if possible. You need a village to survive long term. Short term during the die-off it is better to avoid people if possible. They are hungry, armed, contagious. If you don’t have a group of family and friends already holed up when the engineered plagues start, you better not let them in after. Do you really think that we will be allowed to survive in our present form, a society of welfare recipients, paper pushing civil servants and make-work service workers or entertainment providers, using up the last of the oil? Expect a man made plague or two to help cull the herd. No matter how special you think you are, you are still just a resource waste to those in charge. It was easier to supply the proletariat with a sliver of the wealth when oil was abundant and nearly free. Now that is not, don’t expect a reward for living. Expect a punishment.
*
And in case there is any confusion, the culling is already underway. Pollution, GMO’s, Chinese poisoning, malnutrition in the form of shelf stable foods and restaurant food, growing lack of medical care ( even with the withdrawal of ER’s from overwhelmed locations ). Coming soon, hyperinflation. And Social Security bankruptcy. Amongst other things. Medical triage is a given, not even worthy of our concern at this point. I’d worry about wheat rust, drought, and resource inflation first. Heck, it might not even matter if Hillary is elected at this point. That’s sad, indeed.
END
Sorry about the glaring mistakes lately. Last week it was bowel instead of bowl and now I used sedation instead of sedition. My bad. I go back and change those mistakes pointed out, but here it is for the record so I don’t fall into the bad habit of hiding my idiocy. I’ll try to catch those before the fact, but they will happen as long as I am in a hurry ( which is my usual state of affairs ). Have pity on me, I’m editing things myself.
*
Books and gear for sale at www.bisonpress.com
Those unfortunate enough to experience childhood after the era of disco might not remember the television show MASH. This was set in the Korean war with a mobile army medical unit. It was a comedy but it also worked hard at having important messages to share. I loved it as a kid and whenever I am exposed to reruns on cable ( which is rare- I don’t even know if they are still running episodes in syndication ) I still enjoy it. It was the only TV show my mother felt was good enough to allow us the occasional bending of the strict two hour maximum TV time every night ( Saturdays were also relaxed to allow for Bugs Bunny and such ). This is where we were introduced to the concept of medical triage at a tender age. We were also introduced to crap like women’s lib although we didn’t realize Alda’s subtle brainwashing until later. And relax, girls. I’m not telling you to get back in the kitchen and stay pregnant. But we sure as heck need stable family structures more than we need women in the military or as police officers or firepersons. What was the first country that pushed hard for total women’s equality at the workplace ( to include the military ) and relegated children to day care? Ooh, ooh I know. The Soviet Friggin Union you commie pukes.
*
Medical triage is once again all the buzz amongst social dissident groups as a report comes out recommending that extreme old bastards and retards should be allowed to die. I’m thinking, what’s the problem? Who needs ‘em? But of course since you pay good money to read this wonderful publication you expect me to give you facts and logic rather than just throw in a flippant and caustic remark dismissing the subject at hand. Okay. Triage is a necessary procedure. On the battlefield supplies are limited. More importantly, medical personnel are limited as is their time. You can’t do the impossible or perform miracles. I think everyone accepts that. The problem is that it is being discussed regarding the civilian masses rather than the military. Let’s ignore the fact that as a betterment for society as a whole soldiers benefit everyone more than terminal cancer victims or ninety year old cripples. Perhaps the objection is to those in power playing God? Like they don’t already? If you are old and get Medicare, isn’t the government already deciding your medical future? The laws that are passed effect people’s lives. Such as the young adult convicted of marijuana possession spending his whole life in jail.
*
No, I think the problem is something different. I think that no one is willing to come to terms of our collapse of empire and our resources being depleted. Why, if we can’t provide for everyone than that must mean it is time for the die-off. If we accept the fact that those at the bottom of the food chain are to be written off then it can only be a matter of time and a few more disasters before it is our turn. This is a valid concern. First the advanced geriatrics are sacrificed when care is being rationed, next thing you know those with DNA showing a propensity towards cancer are denied food or energy. Then they start culling those without needed skills. Next thing you know we are back to Jewish doctors or orchestra conductors breaking rocks at a concentration camp. Rationing medical care is seen as the start towards rationing all vital life sustaining supplies.
*
Duh. Our wonderful Great Father in Washington is all set to sacrifice you for his own good. Why does anyone think things are going to be any different this time around? History is littered with empires that ran out of resources and their population died off en masse. This is what irritates me about those that refuse to believe we could be any different. All empires are full of people with the delusion that they are special and one of God’s chosen. Then they starve to death or are killed and eaten. Running out of oil is no different than running out of topsoil. Society fails when food production falls. We already have depleted topsoil. It is only kept productive by petroleum inputs. Oil running out is not just our cars staying idle. It is one thing to dispute the timetable, quit another to deny altogether that nonrenewable resources will run out.
*
In short, why is anyone surprised? You know it will come to this. Resources run out and the elite go short last. Medical care is just like food or defense. You are responsible to provide your own. Try to jettison bad habits, try to eat right. Herbal knowledge might be helpful. And a plan to avoid people if possible. You need a village to survive long term. Short term during the die-off it is better to avoid people if possible. They are hungry, armed, contagious. If you don’t have a group of family and friends already holed up when the engineered plagues start, you better not let them in after. Do you really think that we will be allowed to survive in our present form, a society of welfare recipients, paper pushing civil servants and make-work service workers or entertainment providers, using up the last of the oil? Expect a man made plague or two to help cull the herd. No matter how special you think you are, you are still just a resource waste to those in charge. It was easier to supply the proletariat with a sliver of the wealth when oil was abundant and nearly free. Now that is not, don’t expect a reward for living. Expect a punishment.
*
And in case there is any confusion, the culling is already underway. Pollution, GMO’s, Chinese poisoning, malnutrition in the form of shelf stable foods and restaurant food, growing lack of medical care ( even with the withdrawal of ER’s from overwhelmed locations ). Coming soon, hyperinflation. And Social Security bankruptcy. Amongst other things. Medical triage is a given, not even worthy of our concern at this point. I’d worry about wheat rust, drought, and resource inflation first. Heck, it might not even matter if Hillary is elected at this point. That’s sad, indeed.
END
Sorry about the glaring mistakes lately. Last week it was bowel instead of bowl and now I used sedation instead of sedition. My bad. I go back and change those mistakes pointed out, but here it is for the record so I don’t fall into the bad habit of hiding my idiocy. I’ll try to catch those before the fact, but they will happen as long as I am in a hurry ( which is my usual state of affairs ). Have pity on me, I’m editing things myself.
*
Books and gear for sale at www.bisonpress.com
Thursday, May 29, 2008
novel and new sites
NOVEL & NEW SITES
Sometimes all the planets line up and the Gods smile down on me and Good Things Happen To Good People. Which means me, just in case you missed it. I’m looking through our moldy thrift store ( all the crap is old and what I don’t want ) and I actually come across a new and exciting book. I couldn’t quite place it but something about it was familiar. But reading the introduction it just sounded too good to pass up. And I normally would have passed it up since all the thrift stores in town recently got together in a top secret meeting and colluded on raising the price of paperbacks from twenty five cents to fifty cents. All except Salvation Army which thinks their anal secretions don’t stink and they charge near new prices, and for some reason they didn’t raise their price which is odd. Unless you consider that they only put out new book selections maybe once a year so even at a quarter no one is buying their aging collection of 70’s masterpieces. Bastards.
*
The introduction described the Mysterious And Secluded writer ( who I want to be like one day ) who built his own adobe house in New Mexico. Remember, this was a book from the seventies when you could buy a cheap place in a remote western state and build your own house with minimal sweat from the zoning police. Nowadays parasitic syphilitic crack whores from California who were drafted, served as a mechanic stateside, went through college on the GI Bill back when it paid a full ride, got a job as a defense contractor Union member, bought a house for ten grand and after retiring wanted to leave the former paradise they helped turn into a socialist toilet so they sold the house for half a million and moved to a once sparsely populated non intrusive governed state, jacked up the real estate market past the ability of natives to participate and started campaigning for more tax and spend and regulate government- may their putrid bloated carcasses rot in the lower bowels of Hell for all eternity, amen. Not that I am bitter, mind you.
*
So I had to get this book. Any hermit who lives off the grid and writes a fiction book on the collapse of America deserves my support. Well, okay, I bought the book used so I’m not doing him any favors. If he is even still alive. The book is “Defiance” by Oliver Lange. Does the author sound familiar? The former title was “Vandenberg”. You had to look mighty hard to find the small print where they made that disclosure. It was explained in the introduction that it was thought people were confused at the title. Like it was a biography or a travel guide to the Air Force base. Come on! What a wagon load of bovine road apples. They were just like any other big corporate publisher that was trying to up the profit margin by pulling a fast one on the customers. Then they tried to explain that there was very little description placed on the jacket to not ruin the suspense or some such weasel words. The sad part is that this is a superb book. It is extremely rare that I will start reading a six hundred page book in the early afternoon and barely stop for dinner, ignore TV and stay up past my bedtime to finish. There was no reason the publisher had to play fast and loose when they had such a wonderful product.
*
The basic story is that after the Soviet occupation of America no one much cared since the Ruskies sugar coated things. They left things alone except for minor, easily complied with laws. Few were inconvenienced. This thirty year old book actually has more relevance today as we turn into a fascist police state. The main character eventually fights back and there is a lot of focus on surviving up in the mountains as a guerilla. To me this book was a lot better than a fair number of more direct survivalist fiction books from that period. Such as The Postman. Everyone complains the movie was worse, but at least the movie didn’t have robots from the state university after a collapse. That was as believable as my winning the Survival Writer Of The Year award.
*
After I had read Defiance I realized that I had in fact read this about twenty five years ago. A few passages leapt out at me. I never remember liking it before. I certainly didn’t remember it until now. I think that back in my younger days I was more into the pulp fiction side of post-apocalypse. You know the ones I’m talking about, the series of ten or twenty books that were all stamped from the same implausible cookie cutter. Oh, look! Our hero is woken from cybernetic sleep after three hundred years and goes out to battle the supreme Soviet overlord leading a mercenary army of mutated cockroaches. On the way there he stumbles on an unmolested cache of fully automatic weapons and half a trillion rounds of ammunition along with C-rations that are still edible. Heck, I loved the American Ninja movie, just to give you an idea of my frame of mind back then. Plus, I wonder if being an alcoholic had anything to do with it. Ah, the good old days of numbness and denial. Today I just get paranoia and rabid fear to go along with undiluted reality. I think I got a bum deal. Reading today I have a better appreciation of the writing style and talent, back then I just wanted bare hooters and explosions.
*
There have been a few more entries into the survival blog business since I last listed them. Almost all were discovered by other people. Especially “Staying Alive”. That is one helpful poster. You really should read him daily. A lot you won’t like, kind of like here. The truth might set you free, but freedom is painful. Remember, cut and paste his address since there is no “.” between the www and the S.
wwwstayalive.blogspot.com
Okay, the first new entry is not new at all. He’s been doing this for years. But it’s new to me ( and remember, it’s all about me ). www.commanderzero.com/blog/
The blog is Notes From The Bunker and comes to you from Montana.
*
Next up is The Suburban Prepper. He has a lot of great stuff. My only complaint is the page is so larded with graphics that if you are on dial-up you need to go get a cup of coffee, scratch your ass, pick your nose, scratch the dogs butt ( believe me, he’ll appreciate it ) and go wash the car before it is done loading. Then if he didn’t post anything new it was a waste of time ( although the dog will love you more and protect you from a home invasion first before the rest of the family ).
www.suburbanprepper.wordpress.com
*
www.selousscouts.blogspot.com is a great read. Not daily, but close.
www.twsorg.blogspot.com started out promising and he’s just lagging since. Keep an eye on him but don’t hold your breath just yet.
*
www.mayberry-keepitsimplestupid.blogspot.com is a great read by a beginner. He really seems to have his stuff together, and I don’t say that just because he agrees with me a lot.
www.22sandthoreau.blogspot.com is our rimfire specialist. Great stuff.
www.stealthsurvival.blogspot.com is just getting started and seems promising.
*
Okay, enjoy.
END
buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Sometimes all the planets line up and the Gods smile down on me and Good Things Happen To Good People. Which means me, just in case you missed it. I’m looking through our moldy thrift store ( all the crap is old and what I don’t want ) and I actually come across a new and exciting book. I couldn’t quite place it but something about it was familiar. But reading the introduction it just sounded too good to pass up. And I normally would have passed it up since all the thrift stores in town recently got together in a top secret meeting and colluded on raising the price of paperbacks from twenty five cents to fifty cents. All except Salvation Army which thinks their anal secretions don’t stink and they charge near new prices, and for some reason they didn’t raise their price which is odd. Unless you consider that they only put out new book selections maybe once a year so even at a quarter no one is buying their aging collection of 70’s masterpieces. Bastards.
*
The introduction described the Mysterious And Secluded writer ( who I want to be like one day ) who built his own adobe house in New Mexico. Remember, this was a book from the seventies when you could buy a cheap place in a remote western state and build your own house with minimal sweat from the zoning police. Nowadays parasitic syphilitic crack whores from California who were drafted, served as a mechanic stateside, went through college on the GI Bill back when it paid a full ride, got a job as a defense contractor Union member, bought a house for ten grand and after retiring wanted to leave the former paradise they helped turn into a socialist toilet so they sold the house for half a million and moved to a once sparsely populated non intrusive governed state, jacked up the real estate market past the ability of natives to participate and started campaigning for more tax and spend and regulate government- may their putrid bloated carcasses rot in the lower bowels of Hell for all eternity, amen. Not that I am bitter, mind you.
*
So I had to get this book. Any hermit who lives off the grid and writes a fiction book on the collapse of America deserves my support. Well, okay, I bought the book used so I’m not doing him any favors. If he is even still alive. The book is “Defiance” by Oliver Lange. Does the author sound familiar? The former title was “Vandenberg”. You had to look mighty hard to find the small print where they made that disclosure. It was explained in the introduction that it was thought people were confused at the title. Like it was a biography or a travel guide to the Air Force base. Come on! What a wagon load of bovine road apples. They were just like any other big corporate publisher that was trying to up the profit margin by pulling a fast one on the customers. Then they tried to explain that there was very little description placed on the jacket to not ruin the suspense or some such weasel words. The sad part is that this is a superb book. It is extremely rare that I will start reading a six hundred page book in the early afternoon and barely stop for dinner, ignore TV and stay up past my bedtime to finish. There was no reason the publisher had to play fast and loose when they had such a wonderful product.
*
The basic story is that after the Soviet occupation of America no one much cared since the Ruskies sugar coated things. They left things alone except for minor, easily complied with laws. Few were inconvenienced. This thirty year old book actually has more relevance today as we turn into a fascist police state. The main character eventually fights back and there is a lot of focus on surviving up in the mountains as a guerilla. To me this book was a lot better than a fair number of more direct survivalist fiction books from that period. Such as The Postman. Everyone complains the movie was worse, but at least the movie didn’t have robots from the state university after a collapse. That was as believable as my winning the Survival Writer Of The Year award.
*
After I had read Defiance I realized that I had in fact read this about twenty five years ago. A few passages leapt out at me. I never remember liking it before. I certainly didn’t remember it until now. I think that back in my younger days I was more into the pulp fiction side of post-apocalypse. You know the ones I’m talking about, the series of ten or twenty books that were all stamped from the same implausible cookie cutter. Oh, look! Our hero is woken from cybernetic sleep after three hundred years and goes out to battle the supreme Soviet overlord leading a mercenary army of mutated cockroaches. On the way there he stumbles on an unmolested cache of fully automatic weapons and half a trillion rounds of ammunition along with C-rations that are still edible. Heck, I loved the American Ninja movie, just to give you an idea of my frame of mind back then. Plus, I wonder if being an alcoholic had anything to do with it. Ah, the good old days of numbness and denial. Today I just get paranoia and rabid fear to go along with undiluted reality. I think I got a bum deal. Reading today I have a better appreciation of the writing style and talent, back then I just wanted bare hooters and explosions.
*
There have been a few more entries into the survival blog business since I last listed them. Almost all were discovered by other people. Especially “Staying Alive”. That is one helpful poster. You really should read him daily. A lot you won’t like, kind of like here. The truth might set you free, but freedom is painful. Remember, cut and paste his address since there is no “.” between the www and the S.
wwwstayalive.blogspot.com
Okay, the first new entry is not new at all. He’s been doing this for years. But it’s new to me ( and remember, it’s all about me ). www.commanderzero.com/blog/
The blog is Notes From The Bunker and comes to you from Montana.
*
Next up is The Suburban Prepper. He has a lot of great stuff. My only complaint is the page is so larded with graphics that if you are on dial-up you need to go get a cup of coffee, scratch your ass, pick your nose, scratch the dogs butt ( believe me, he’ll appreciate it ) and go wash the car before it is done loading. Then if he didn’t post anything new it was a waste of time ( although the dog will love you more and protect you from a home invasion first before the rest of the family ).
www.suburbanprepper.wordpress.com
*
www.selousscouts.blogspot.com is a great read. Not daily, but close.
www.twsorg.blogspot.com started out promising and he’s just lagging since. Keep an eye on him but don’t hold your breath just yet.
*
www.mayberry-keepitsimplestupid.blogspot.com is a great read by a beginner. He really seems to have his stuff together, and I don’t say that just because he agrees with me a lot.
www.22sandthoreau.blogspot.com is our rimfire specialist. Great stuff.
www.stealthsurvival.blogspot.com is just getting started and seems promising.
*
Okay, enjoy.
END
buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
group junk retreat
GROUP JUNK RETREAT
Every once in awhile I get an email from a loyal minion asking a question. It doesn’t happen very often. I like to think that after reading just a few weeks worth of my articles they suddenly see the light and are transformed. In reality what most likely happened is that they wrote to Rawles but he was way too busy answering all his fan mail. Then they tried everyone else but since most of the blogs are in snooze or at least nap mode for the summer no one was answering. In desperation and after a week of trying everything they could think of they wrote me. They are polite enough, they don’t rub it in my face, but I can’t help harboring suspicions. One was asking advice on stealth mode for family on their property. You know, your brother in law gets laid off and his crack whore daughter needs a place to hide from the her pimp. So you throw a trailer pad up and move them in. Well, your neighbor gets all righteous because he couldn’t get a pity hump from her and so he calls the zoning jackboots and at 3am a helicopter starts repelling ninjas and they start writing out fines in triplicate. As much as we whine and moan like little bitches about the evil government and the Powers That Be, more often than not we get busted and harassed because some jerk-off down the block decides to punish you through proxy. Another good reason not to spend a quarter million dollars and thirty years of your life buying a house. What if you can’t stand your neighbor?
*
Needless to say I had few concrete answers for the question. And I wouldn’t have even considered turning it into an article if it hadn’t been for several properties I saw advertised on E-Bay. Since I was going through the lists anyway, trying desperately to find postings for http://www.dirtcheapdirt.blogspot.com/ and http://www.sortacheapdirt.blogspot.com/ I got sidetracked by a few pieces of real estate. West Texas has always had some cheap land but the lack of water and extreme distances to a store ( let alone a job ) make it problematic. There are a few places outside of Pecos for several acres for under two grand. The river is close. But Pecos is something like 90% Mexican and the unemployment rate has jumped recently. Being a cracker looking for a job there most likely wouldn’t see very good results. There was a few Nevada entries which caught my eye. Montello is up in the far northeast, not much more than a village. They have always had cheap five or ten acre lots. You are a pretty good distance from any employment and even further from discount stores. But there was one ten acre lot for $200 payments.
*
As much as I hate taking on debt, a five year note for $200 a month is less than a used mobile home payment. And if the land is sub-dividable you could theoretically go in with a few friends and have a retreat for between $20 and $50 payments. Even if the flakey bastards started complaining about how their fat pimply varicose veined horn rimmed glasses wearing beehive hairdo sporting hat on a dogs ass looking faced wives wanted the money for their own personal selfish satisfaction instead of allowing their hen pecked pickled testicle husband to keep even a smidge of their own money you could carry the whole payment if you had to. Being out in the middle of no where decreases your chances of being harassed by the neighbors. And since the county allows travel trailers as homes the only thing you need to worry about anyway is legally disposing of waste and how to bring in a casual income to cover your almost non-existent bills.
*
Having a group out in the boonies is not just a good idea for after the apocalypse. You can do a lot far cheaper. Renting a trench digger for septic systems. Going in on the expense of a group well rather than each needing one ( or having water delivered or buying a trailer for hauling ). Group grocery shopping sharing vehicles. Having a mechanic in the group will reduce commuting costs. You might be able to buy building material at a bulk discount. Everyone chipping in for a diesel generator could have quick charged batteries and a long lasting machine for little more than the cost of a crappy little gasoline generator ( as well as the bulk tank fuel being a manageable expense ). One guy could act as a caretaker while others worked in town. I’m sure I haven’t even scratched the surface on the possibilities. Now, why do I once again hound you with buying worthless desert junk land ( even though this would work on any land that is cheap-I just gave an example I‘m familiar with )?
*
Because even if all of that never happens you can still sell others on this idea. Even if no one moves there until it is too late to properly civilize the place. Because a piece of junk land can be passed off as a hunting camp or a place to park the RV with the family on vacation. Try this. Ask a co-worker if they would like to pay $30 a month for a piece of land they can camp on anytime. Or, ask them if they realize the end of the world is coming and they only have a few short months to sell everything they own and prepare. Which one is going to get a better response? Do you actually know three to ten other guys that are actual survivalists? That will plan and prep with you? I didn’t think so. That is much too rare. So if you go all stupid and try to buy a $100,000 farm so you can be self sufficient you will have to do it alone. No one will join you. The payments will not pass the spouse smell test. We need to sugar coat these kinds of things.
*
Back at the original question about in-laws taking up residence, I have no great answer other than hiding them. Thanks to the government deciding what we can do with our own land ( hell, why not? They already decide how we spend our paycheck ) we must act like Ann Frank and stash ourselves in the attic to avoid the concentration camp ( let’s skip the theories on her actual existence for now, shall we? ) if the goose steppers spot us. “Halt, citizen! Your papers, please. You are in violation of zoning ordinances and sedition against the Homeland.”
END
E-books, Amazon books, prep gear at http://www.bisonpress.com/
Every once in awhile I get an email from a loyal minion asking a question. It doesn’t happen very often. I like to think that after reading just a few weeks worth of my articles they suddenly see the light and are transformed. In reality what most likely happened is that they wrote to Rawles but he was way too busy answering all his fan mail. Then they tried everyone else but since most of the blogs are in snooze or at least nap mode for the summer no one was answering. In desperation and after a week of trying everything they could think of they wrote me. They are polite enough, they don’t rub it in my face, but I can’t help harboring suspicions. One was asking advice on stealth mode for family on their property. You know, your brother in law gets laid off and his crack whore daughter needs a place to hide from the her pimp. So you throw a trailer pad up and move them in. Well, your neighbor gets all righteous because he couldn’t get a pity hump from her and so he calls the zoning jackboots and at 3am a helicopter starts repelling ninjas and they start writing out fines in triplicate. As much as we whine and moan like little bitches about the evil government and the Powers That Be, more often than not we get busted and harassed because some jerk-off down the block decides to punish you through proxy. Another good reason not to spend a quarter million dollars and thirty years of your life buying a house. What if you can’t stand your neighbor?
*
Needless to say I had few concrete answers for the question. And I wouldn’t have even considered turning it into an article if it hadn’t been for several properties I saw advertised on E-Bay. Since I was going through the lists anyway, trying desperately to find postings for http://www.dirtcheapdirt.blogspot.com/ and http://www.sortacheapdirt.blogspot.com/ I got sidetracked by a few pieces of real estate. West Texas has always had some cheap land but the lack of water and extreme distances to a store ( let alone a job ) make it problematic. There are a few places outside of Pecos for several acres for under two grand. The river is close. But Pecos is something like 90% Mexican and the unemployment rate has jumped recently. Being a cracker looking for a job there most likely wouldn’t see very good results. There was a few Nevada entries which caught my eye. Montello is up in the far northeast, not much more than a village. They have always had cheap five or ten acre lots. You are a pretty good distance from any employment and even further from discount stores. But there was one ten acre lot for $200 payments.
*
As much as I hate taking on debt, a five year note for $200 a month is less than a used mobile home payment. And if the land is sub-dividable you could theoretically go in with a few friends and have a retreat for between $20 and $50 payments. Even if the flakey bastards started complaining about how their fat pimply varicose veined horn rimmed glasses wearing beehive hairdo sporting hat on a dogs ass looking faced wives wanted the money for their own personal selfish satisfaction instead of allowing their hen pecked pickled testicle husband to keep even a smidge of their own money you could carry the whole payment if you had to. Being out in the middle of no where decreases your chances of being harassed by the neighbors. And since the county allows travel trailers as homes the only thing you need to worry about anyway is legally disposing of waste and how to bring in a casual income to cover your almost non-existent bills.
*
Having a group out in the boonies is not just a good idea for after the apocalypse. You can do a lot far cheaper. Renting a trench digger for septic systems. Going in on the expense of a group well rather than each needing one ( or having water delivered or buying a trailer for hauling ). Group grocery shopping sharing vehicles. Having a mechanic in the group will reduce commuting costs. You might be able to buy building material at a bulk discount. Everyone chipping in for a diesel generator could have quick charged batteries and a long lasting machine for little more than the cost of a crappy little gasoline generator ( as well as the bulk tank fuel being a manageable expense ). One guy could act as a caretaker while others worked in town. I’m sure I haven’t even scratched the surface on the possibilities. Now, why do I once again hound you with buying worthless desert junk land ( even though this would work on any land that is cheap-I just gave an example I‘m familiar with )?
*
Because even if all of that never happens you can still sell others on this idea. Even if no one moves there until it is too late to properly civilize the place. Because a piece of junk land can be passed off as a hunting camp or a place to park the RV with the family on vacation. Try this. Ask a co-worker if they would like to pay $30 a month for a piece of land they can camp on anytime. Or, ask them if they realize the end of the world is coming and they only have a few short months to sell everything they own and prepare. Which one is going to get a better response? Do you actually know three to ten other guys that are actual survivalists? That will plan and prep with you? I didn’t think so. That is much too rare. So if you go all stupid and try to buy a $100,000 farm so you can be self sufficient you will have to do it alone. No one will join you. The payments will not pass the spouse smell test. We need to sugar coat these kinds of things.
*
Back at the original question about in-laws taking up residence, I have no great answer other than hiding them. Thanks to the government deciding what we can do with our own land ( hell, why not? They already decide how we spend our paycheck ) we must act like Ann Frank and stash ourselves in the attic to avoid the concentration camp ( let’s skip the theories on her actual existence for now, shall we? ) if the goose steppers spot us. “Halt, citizen! Your papers, please. You are in violation of zoning ordinances and sedition against the Homeland.”
END
E-books, Amazon books, prep gear at http://www.bisonpress.com/
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
gulag usa
GULAG USA
If you look in an English dictionary it would quite easy to look up hypocrite. Yet if there was such a thing as an American dictionary the word would be a little harder to find. Hypocritical behavior is so engrained into our psyche that I think it is taken for granted. All men are created equal, except blacks. Or women or Indians. Join in our fight against excessive taxation, but once we’ve won don’t think your whiskey is exempt from high duties. We have low taxes since everything added to a product or service is called something else such as a user fee or surcharge or tariff or custom or excise or levy or duty. Europeans are socialists with their high gas taxes. Americans steal their oil and keep the price low so we’re better. We are the greatest society, land of the free. The highest per capita rate of incarceration globally is not China but the US. I’m sure I could come up with a few more examples but already the trolls are hard at work pooling their newspaper route money to buy me a one way ticket out of the country. Thanks, but I don’t want to be strip searched and cavity probed going through airport security.
*
There has been a bit of talk on the part of the uber-paranoid lately relating to concentration camps. Gulags, American style. The British claim credit for the first concentration camps during the Boer War but I think they ripped off the idea from us. We were rounding up the natives long before that, shipping them out to the desert to live in hovels and eat contractor supplied rotted food. We may not have had to enclose the place with barbed wire since they couldn’t escape and assimilate into the white population. But it was still a fine national system of prison camps. Two things made it easy for us. Which is another thing going for hypocrites here, they claim they work hard but we have always relied on slave labor- indentured, forced labor, economic servitude from immigrants or mechanical. But I digress. It was easy to enslave the Indians since almost three hundred years of war and western settlement and disease and killing off their food supply had drastically reduced their numbers. Plus, being a different color, speaking a different language and practicing a different culture ensured they could easily be segregated.
*
For anyone envisioning the coming mass enslavement and imprisonment of dissidents, you must keep in mind two things. The ingrained hypocrisy we practice means that the entire program must be disguised and dressed up in pretty clothes. And being lazy, any large scale efforts are doomed to fail. The powers that be here in this country must always disguise their efforts at controlling us. Even long past the point of there being much in the way of resistance. I think of this as the cat in the sun effect. Americans are big and fat and lazy and like to lay around in the sun soaking up heat. Only getting up for the finest in canned gourmet foods, then quickly going back to the window sill for a few more hours of comfort. However, laying around allows the cat to be capable of sudden huge bursts of energy. A dog wakes past and he will suddenly attack it. Then go back to sleep, not at all disturbed. We are like that, only stirring ourselves to protect our territory and gourmet canned food. So you never know what minor event will get our dander up. Hence, enslavement is always subtle and disguised. It also practices the two forward, one back tactic. Even when few are paying attention, the mouth pieces on the payroll ( such as the Congresscritters or media ) always make an effort to convince us they are protecting our freedoms. The Patriot Act passes with none opposing and a year later a Senator will act all concern and make a big spectacle of pushing implementation of the National ID back another year. Two steps losing freedom, one step back in the time table so we feel safe again.
*
Two farm boys want to molest a pig, they put a dress on it and some lipstick. The boys can fool themselves into thinking they’ve got the town whore, but the pig will soon feel the difference. The good part is that the boys will spend so much time pretending that everything is proper, the pig has a good chance of escaping while they are sewing the hem line and picking out matching cosmetics. Chances are good that so much effort will go into pretending the concentration camps are something different that we stand a good chance of figuring out how to avoid them. My best guess is that the tens of millions of deadbeat debtors will be ankle monitored in their homes as they are forced to work off their loans to the banks. You are monitored to avoid your disappearance. And more than one family will be living in the house. The work done is inconsequential. It will most likely be “make work”, if we are lucky. Not lucky means toxic and dangerous work being forced on us. The important thing is to get extra cheap labor, to keep you from using gasoline, to make homes more energy efficient ( several families per house use a lot less resources ) and to control you completely through threat of supply stoppages. You can slowly be eliminated ( if desired ) through malnutrition, “terrorist/militant/rebel” attacks, brown or black-outs in the winter to freeze you. Even poisoning your food rations.
*
The illusion that we are still free will be maintained. True concentration camps will exist of course. The Constitutionalists, Libertarians, gun owners, whoever. But the bulk of the population will have no work as we enter into a Super Depression and thus unable to service their debts. Even with hyper-inflation no one will have any wages and thus you will enter a work camp to pay off the debt. But work camps are visible affronts to our delusion of freedom. Work homes are private. And trouble in contained, out of sight. Pay will be in company script so you are never out of debt ( after paying for your substandard food and energy allotment ). No, we won’t be shipping all the jobs overseas too much longer. Energy costs are rising too fast. Soon it will be far cheaper to force the locals into less than minimum wage servitude. The average American is already in a pair of golden handcuffs, self imposed life time debt for bobbles and trinkets. But that is high cost for corporations. Far better to substitute a pair of cast iron shackles for that pair of precious metal cuffs.
*
The rumors of concentration camps have been around a long time. At least since Clinton took the throne. And pictures always “prove” it. I’m not saying they don’t exist. They could. But even a huge construction binge on them will never allow too much of the population to be placed in them. By all means, fear them. Just the threat should cause concern. But don’t be mislead, either. The much bigger threat should be the undeclared imprisonment the corporations have planned for us.
END
Buy my wonderful crap, books and gear www.bisonpress.com
If you look in an English dictionary it would quite easy to look up hypocrite. Yet if there was such a thing as an American dictionary the word would be a little harder to find. Hypocritical behavior is so engrained into our psyche that I think it is taken for granted. All men are created equal, except blacks. Or women or Indians. Join in our fight against excessive taxation, but once we’ve won don’t think your whiskey is exempt from high duties. We have low taxes since everything added to a product or service is called something else such as a user fee or surcharge or tariff or custom or excise or levy or duty. Europeans are socialists with their high gas taxes. Americans steal their oil and keep the price low so we’re better. We are the greatest society, land of the free. The highest per capita rate of incarceration globally is not China but the US. I’m sure I could come up with a few more examples but already the trolls are hard at work pooling their newspaper route money to buy me a one way ticket out of the country. Thanks, but I don’t want to be strip searched and cavity probed going through airport security.
*
There has been a bit of talk on the part of the uber-paranoid lately relating to concentration camps. Gulags, American style. The British claim credit for the first concentration camps during the Boer War but I think they ripped off the idea from us. We were rounding up the natives long before that, shipping them out to the desert to live in hovels and eat contractor supplied rotted food. We may not have had to enclose the place with barbed wire since they couldn’t escape and assimilate into the white population. But it was still a fine national system of prison camps. Two things made it easy for us. Which is another thing going for hypocrites here, they claim they work hard but we have always relied on slave labor- indentured, forced labor, economic servitude from immigrants or mechanical. But I digress. It was easy to enslave the Indians since almost three hundred years of war and western settlement and disease and killing off their food supply had drastically reduced their numbers. Plus, being a different color, speaking a different language and practicing a different culture ensured they could easily be segregated.
*
For anyone envisioning the coming mass enslavement and imprisonment of dissidents, you must keep in mind two things. The ingrained hypocrisy we practice means that the entire program must be disguised and dressed up in pretty clothes. And being lazy, any large scale efforts are doomed to fail. The powers that be here in this country must always disguise their efforts at controlling us. Even long past the point of there being much in the way of resistance. I think of this as the cat in the sun effect. Americans are big and fat and lazy and like to lay around in the sun soaking up heat. Only getting up for the finest in canned gourmet foods, then quickly going back to the window sill for a few more hours of comfort. However, laying around allows the cat to be capable of sudden huge bursts of energy. A dog wakes past and he will suddenly attack it. Then go back to sleep, not at all disturbed. We are like that, only stirring ourselves to protect our territory and gourmet canned food. So you never know what minor event will get our dander up. Hence, enslavement is always subtle and disguised. It also practices the two forward, one back tactic. Even when few are paying attention, the mouth pieces on the payroll ( such as the Congresscritters or media ) always make an effort to convince us they are protecting our freedoms. The Patriot Act passes with none opposing and a year later a Senator will act all concern and make a big spectacle of pushing implementation of the National ID back another year. Two steps losing freedom, one step back in the time table so we feel safe again.
*
Two farm boys want to molest a pig, they put a dress on it and some lipstick. The boys can fool themselves into thinking they’ve got the town whore, but the pig will soon feel the difference. The good part is that the boys will spend so much time pretending that everything is proper, the pig has a good chance of escaping while they are sewing the hem line and picking out matching cosmetics. Chances are good that so much effort will go into pretending the concentration camps are something different that we stand a good chance of figuring out how to avoid them. My best guess is that the tens of millions of deadbeat debtors will be ankle monitored in their homes as they are forced to work off their loans to the banks. You are monitored to avoid your disappearance. And more than one family will be living in the house. The work done is inconsequential. It will most likely be “make work”, if we are lucky. Not lucky means toxic and dangerous work being forced on us. The important thing is to get extra cheap labor, to keep you from using gasoline, to make homes more energy efficient ( several families per house use a lot less resources ) and to control you completely through threat of supply stoppages. You can slowly be eliminated ( if desired ) through malnutrition, “terrorist/militant/rebel” attacks, brown or black-outs in the winter to freeze you. Even poisoning your food rations.
*
The illusion that we are still free will be maintained. True concentration camps will exist of course. The Constitutionalists, Libertarians, gun owners, whoever. But the bulk of the population will have no work as we enter into a Super Depression and thus unable to service their debts. Even with hyper-inflation no one will have any wages and thus you will enter a work camp to pay off the debt. But work camps are visible affronts to our delusion of freedom. Work homes are private. And trouble in contained, out of sight. Pay will be in company script so you are never out of debt ( after paying for your substandard food and energy allotment ). No, we won’t be shipping all the jobs overseas too much longer. Energy costs are rising too fast. Soon it will be far cheaper to force the locals into less than minimum wage servitude. The average American is already in a pair of golden handcuffs, self imposed life time debt for bobbles and trinkets. But that is high cost for corporations. Far better to substitute a pair of cast iron shackles for that pair of precious metal cuffs.
*
The rumors of concentration camps have been around a long time. At least since Clinton took the throne. And pictures always “prove” it. I’m not saying they don’t exist. They could. But even a huge construction binge on them will never allow too much of the population to be placed in them. By all means, fear them. Just the threat should cause concern. But don’t be mislead, either. The much bigger threat should be the undeclared imprisonment the corporations have planned for us.
END
Buy my wonderful crap, books and gear www.bisonpress.com
Monday, May 26, 2008
generation long die-off
GENERATION LONG DIE-OFF
Some time ago a reader in the comments section said I should cover a long term slow decline and die-off. At first I didn’t give it much thought because, big picture, we have already gone there. But then, after being subjected to endless prattle about the meaningless elections and the idiotic cries and death wails of four dollar gasoline which are nothing more than complaints that oil is no longer free, I decided that perhaps the subject should be covered after all. Even the most rational person that gives an inordinate amount of time to ponder the ways of the world still has blind spots where assumptions and life long propaganda unconsciously drive thought and decision making. Our whole lives we have operated under the basic assumption of nearly free oil and it has colored everything we do and think about. And almost all the crises that recently have come about ( man-made, anyway ) are largely a result of that changing. Over population is a result of oil abundance. Our jobs. Our homes. Our economy. Everything. As that overabundance ends everything we think we know will change. And even those of us convinced that Peak Oil will happen are still living in denial. We know it will result in a new Dark Ages but we are still caught in the old abundance method of living.
*
It is hard to see the forest when you are living amongst millions of trees. We are at the top of global oil production ( the top level of the bell curve where declines are barely noticeable ) and life never looked so good. Yet even now it is obvious to any thinking person that change is in the air and the good times are over. The US surplus of oil was over decades ago and we have been in serious deficit for a long time. Economically it is glaringly obvious that this is true. The age of the average man working hard and joining the middle class is over. Only those participating in the tax and spend government fueled economy prosper. If you are not at the public trough you are losing economically. Whereas before surplus oil lead the creation of worker wealth, now only artificially created wealth in the form of credit creates the illusion of wealth. Things might never have looked so good but that is due to an artificial veneer. Fundamentally we have no surplus energy to run an economy with. Only that which we can steal. And as our paper asset economy implodes our military will become less able to protect our global oil supply.
*
You may wonder why I think we have been suffering a long decline when oil has been cheap for almost twenty years and the economy has limped along with barely a downward blip. The answer is that nothing producing our wealth is sustainable. Our economy is an illusion. We are Zimbabwe Lite. When foreigners stop loaning money to us the only wealth creation will be hyper-inflation. That will kill our military which secures our oil imports ( which constitute around 60% of our daily use ). And oil keeps everything running. The Internet which moves digits around as an illusion of production. Millions of buildings which are totally dependant on oil and natural gas to be livable. Transportation which is the only way 99% of us eat, and oil the only way any food is grown. Half the country relies on water pumped from underground by electricity ( which in and of itself is not oil dependant but the coal that is used is ). Our infrastructure is even dependant on overseas spare parts to keep it limping along ( and that is being allowed to deteriorate ). In short, increased oil use is hiding our complete and total energy dependence for survival.
*
In the past our lives looked less prosperous. More labor, less luxury, less comfort, more primitive methods. Now the illusion of prosperity is everywhere. Eight hour a day entertainment. Work largely totally lacking in hard physical labor ( and even then usually completely dependant on power tools and machinery ). Thin stucco walls and sheetrock all that stands between us and below freezing weather, petroleum products keeping us alive. Vacations accomplished with gas guzzling recreational vehicles. Long commutes in vehicles that pleased our vanity, thinking we were environmentally conscious when in fact performance standards were 40% worse than a few decades ago ( trading less emissions or more power for less efficiency ). Each increase in our luxuries increased our dependence on oil. And any increase in our luxuries was only possible by trading a life time of future labor through total debt and dependence. A crude owner built cabin surrounded by fields tilled by animals was traded for a life spent servicing a half million dollar debt from a contractor built McMansion, powered farm equipment, and extra acreage needed to make the tractor economically feasible.
*
We have grown soft and lazy and the image of wealth is there but it is all powered by the man behind the curtain. There is no substance behind the illusion. Only a nonrenewable energy source keeps us alive. It no longer makes our lives easier, we are incapable of living without it. It no longer boosts our output, it is the total of everything we produce. It no longer helps us grow more food, it is the complete input to produce any food. It has gone from a slave to a master. We think we are better off, but our very lives are staked on the continual production of oil. Think of it as the drug user that increases his output artificially. He uses the drugs more, gets more done, but soon needs the drugs to do any work at all. Any drop in supply and he can’t work at all and might even die.
*
The ongoing die-off is even harder to see. We have almost totally exported death by oil dependence. Third World countries are unable to afford almost any oil. Economically suffering countries suffer lack of health care and malnutrition. Mostly the deaths go unnoticed with declining life expectancy. Yet our time will come. Infrastructure collapse, economic collapse and reduced successful global manipulation will see our living standards fall. As one example, look at our ( so far ) mild economic problems and the effect on health coverage. Far fewer people can afford preventive medical care. More deaths will happen unnoticed due to lack of diagnosis. That’s more of a slow die-off that goes unreported. How many people died during Katrina because military units and equipment were overseas securing our stolen oil? There was a combination of infrastructure degradation, economic collapse and total oil dependency. The good news is that we have a while to go before we enter a Dark Age. The bad news is that we are already well on our way there.
END
Books and gear for sale at http://www.bisonpress.com/
Some time ago a reader in the comments section said I should cover a long term slow decline and die-off. At first I didn’t give it much thought because, big picture, we have already gone there. But then, after being subjected to endless prattle about the meaningless elections and the idiotic cries and death wails of four dollar gasoline which are nothing more than complaints that oil is no longer free, I decided that perhaps the subject should be covered after all. Even the most rational person that gives an inordinate amount of time to ponder the ways of the world still has blind spots where assumptions and life long propaganda unconsciously drive thought and decision making. Our whole lives we have operated under the basic assumption of nearly free oil and it has colored everything we do and think about. And almost all the crises that recently have come about ( man-made, anyway ) are largely a result of that changing. Over population is a result of oil abundance. Our jobs. Our homes. Our economy. Everything. As that overabundance ends everything we think we know will change. And even those of us convinced that Peak Oil will happen are still living in denial. We know it will result in a new Dark Ages but we are still caught in the old abundance method of living.
*
It is hard to see the forest when you are living amongst millions of trees. We are at the top of global oil production ( the top level of the bell curve where declines are barely noticeable ) and life never looked so good. Yet even now it is obvious to any thinking person that change is in the air and the good times are over. The US surplus of oil was over decades ago and we have been in serious deficit for a long time. Economically it is glaringly obvious that this is true. The age of the average man working hard and joining the middle class is over. Only those participating in the tax and spend government fueled economy prosper. If you are not at the public trough you are losing economically. Whereas before surplus oil lead the creation of worker wealth, now only artificially created wealth in the form of credit creates the illusion of wealth. Things might never have looked so good but that is due to an artificial veneer. Fundamentally we have no surplus energy to run an economy with. Only that which we can steal. And as our paper asset economy implodes our military will become less able to protect our global oil supply.
*
You may wonder why I think we have been suffering a long decline when oil has been cheap for almost twenty years and the economy has limped along with barely a downward blip. The answer is that nothing producing our wealth is sustainable. Our economy is an illusion. We are Zimbabwe Lite. When foreigners stop loaning money to us the only wealth creation will be hyper-inflation. That will kill our military which secures our oil imports ( which constitute around 60% of our daily use ). And oil keeps everything running. The Internet which moves digits around as an illusion of production. Millions of buildings which are totally dependant on oil and natural gas to be livable. Transportation which is the only way 99% of us eat, and oil the only way any food is grown. Half the country relies on water pumped from underground by electricity ( which in and of itself is not oil dependant but the coal that is used is ). Our infrastructure is even dependant on overseas spare parts to keep it limping along ( and that is being allowed to deteriorate ). In short, increased oil use is hiding our complete and total energy dependence for survival.
*
In the past our lives looked less prosperous. More labor, less luxury, less comfort, more primitive methods. Now the illusion of prosperity is everywhere. Eight hour a day entertainment. Work largely totally lacking in hard physical labor ( and even then usually completely dependant on power tools and machinery ). Thin stucco walls and sheetrock all that stands between us and below freezing weather, petroleum products keeping us alive. Vacations accomplished with gas guzzling recreational vehicles. Long commutes in vehicles that pleased our vanity, thinking we were environmentally conscious when in fact performance standards were 40% worse than a few decades ago ( trading less emissions or more power for less efficiency ). Each increase in our luxuries increased our dependence on oil. And any increase in our luxuries was only possible by trading a life time of future labor through total debt and dependence. A crude owner built cabin surrounded by fields tilled by animals was traded for a life spent servicing a half million dollar debt from a contractor built McMansion, powered farm equipment, and extra acreage needed to make the tractor economically feasible.
*
We have grown soft and lazy and the image of wealth is there but it is all powered by the man behind the curtain. There is no substance behind the illusion. Only a nonrenewable energy source keeps us alive. It no longer makes our lives easier, we are incapable of living without it. It no longer boosts our output, it is the total of everything we produce. It no longer helps us grow more food, it is the complete input to produce any food. It has gone from a slave to a master. We think we are better off, but our very lives are staked on the continual production of oil. Think of it as the drug user that increases his output artificially. He uses the drugs more, gets more done, but soon needs the drugs to do any work at all. Any drop in supply and he can’t work at all and might even die.
*
The ongoing die-off is even harder to see. We have almost totally exported death by oil dependence. Third World countries are unable to afford almost any oil. Economically suffering countries suffer lack of health care and malnutrition. Mostly the deaths go unnoticed with declining life expectancy. Yet our time will come. Infrastructure collapse, economic collapse and reduced successful global manipulation will see our living standards fall. As one example, look at our ( so far ) mild economic problems and the effect on health coverage. Far fewer people can afford preventive medical care. More deaths will happen unnoticed due to lack of diagnosis. That’s more of a slow die-off that goes unreported. How many people died during Katrina because military units and equipment were overseas securing our stolen oil? There was a combination of infrastructure degradation, economic collapse and total oil dependency. The good news is that we have a while to go before we enter a Dark Age. The bad news is that we are already well on our way there.
END
Books and gear for sale at http://www.bisonpress.com/
Saturday, May 24, 2008
spoiled whiners
SPOILED WHINERS
Remember the Chuck Norris movie, Invasion USA? I shouldn’t, but I do consider that one of his better ones. Everything about the movie screams out “cheesy exploitation 80’s popcorn trash flick” but I can’t help it, I love the movie. One of my favorite parts is when the two Soviet guys are talking about the mission and one makes the observation that Americans are too soft. No, trolls, it is not because I hate this country. It is because without the ability to critique our shortcomings we could fall prey to others attacking us ( oops!-too late ). We are too soft. I can see the point of view from the French, for instance. After one war that consumed an entire generation there was little strength left to repeat the experiment and so surrender was easier. Of course that doesn’t excuse them from their crappy attitude after we bailed them out twice plus gave them nukes so they could protect themselves in the future. But to veer slightly towards a point again, we will likely surrender in the future just because we are too soft and bloated. I don’t mean a war. That we can win, even if it leaves half the globe in a smoldering radioactive slag heap. I mean doing what it takes to sustain our culture and way of life.
*
The American dominance of the world is over. It ended long ago after we began importing more energy than we produced. Ever since then we have been on borrowed time. We didn’t cinch our belts, start making sacrifices or prepared ourselves for the future. We dove head first into a Roman orgy of consumerism and mindless entertainment to dull the pain a brush with scarcity caused ( that will be seen with hindsight as minor ). This weekend is a good time to reflect on the legacy that most Americans are ignorant of and disrespectful of. Despite my contempt of our political leadership and the bankers and corporations that pushed us into needless wasteful wars that were unnecessary, I recognize the noble spirit of the soldiers that fought and died in them. Does the average citizen? Is driving an RV to a campground and playing on ATV’s and eating BBQ celebrating past achievements of protecting freedom or is it celebrating securing extra wealth for leisure and wallowing in luxury? If we were celebrating hard work and bettering our children, that’s one thing. But instead we seem to be commemorating achieving the pinnacle of wastefulness and underachievement.
*
We are coasting on past achievements and eating our seed corn. Instead of celebrating freedom and the fight to secure it we are celebrating the strengthening of the Fascist Police State where all past freedoms are traded for a few more years of power to our plasma TV and heat for our larger stucco box we commute from in a oversized SUV. Thanks, guys, for giving up your life to preserve our Constitution and our legacy as a free people. Now if you don’t mind I’ll piss that all away by allowing jack booted machine gun toting ninja mask FedThugs to cavity search grandma in the airport so the illusion of a terrorist attack can be maintained so we can occupy the last country in the middle east to have a largely underdeveloped reserve of oil. Not so we can stay free, but so we can stay soft and fat and weak.
*
Jesus Christ! The spectacle of the sheeple bleating about $4 gas and the mainstream media spooning out the stories like sugared treats. $4 gas is not expensive for a scarce nonrenewable resource. If you want to take a few pathetic stories from the media that always cover people that couldn’t balance their budget if their salary was increased by a half a million dollars you might believe we are on the edge of the abyss ( not that we aren‘t- just that a minor inconvenience is portrayed as the real deal ). Yet if you drive out on the road you can’t see much difference in traffic. Driving is mostly necessity due to the only available card being played during the housing bubble of folks moving to the affordable suburbs, but I would wager there is some entertainment aspect to a lot of driving ( “I need to get out of the house” Let’s go shopping and have fun” “Come over and visit me” ). During the last year gas consumption decreased 2%. Add in a percent decline in oil use due to ethanol ( causing corn price to quadruple- what a bargain! ) and you see that although we consumed 3% less oil last year the price at the pump went up about 20%. Isn’t math fun!
*
People think they have things rough since it costs an extra $20 to get to Aunt Betty’s for the weekend? Soft and weak. Enjoy the future, fat bitches.
END
From a loyal minion:
Here is a tip: Get some fine mesh, un-coated Steel Wool from your Hardware Store. It is very cheap stuff. Pick up some 9 Volt batteries too. This is important because both battery terminals are on the same end of the 9 Volt type. Fluff up a chunk of the steel wool and touch the battery posts to it. Sparks will start to travel in the steel wool strands. Put into the kindling and blow. Instant molten steel and a Helluva Fire Starter.
*
Buy my books and gear www.bisonpress.com
Remember the Chuck Norris movie, Invasion USA? I shouldn’t, but I do consider that one of his better ones. Everything about the movie screams out “cheesy exploitation 80’s popcorn trash flick” but I can’t help it, I love the movie. One of my favorite parts is when the two Soviet guys are talking about the mission and one makes the observation that Americans are too soft. No, trolls, it is not because I hate this country. It is because without the ability to critique our shortcomings we could fall prey to others attacking us ( oops!-too late ). We are too soft. I can see the point of view from the French, for instance. After one war that consumed an entire generation there was little strength left to repeat the experiment and so surrender was easier. Of course that doesn’t excuse them from their crappy attitude after we bailed them out twice plus gave them nukes so they could protect themselves in the future. But to veer slightly towards a point again, we will likely surrender in the future just because we are too soft and bloated. I don’t mean a war. That we can win, even if it leaves half the globe in a smoldering radioactive slag heap. I mean doing what it takes to sustain our culture and way of life.
*
The American dominance of the world is over. It ended long ago after we began importing more energy than we produced. Ever since then we have been on borrowed time. We didn’t cinch our belts, start making sacrifices or prepared ourselves for the future. We dove head first into a Roman orgy of consumerism and mindless entertainment to dull the pain a brush with scarcity caused ( that will be seen with hindsight as minor ). This weekend is a good time to reflect on the legacy that most Americans are ignorant of and disrespectful of. Despite my contempt of our political leadership and the bankers and corporations that pushed us into needless wasteful wars that were unnecessary, I recognize the noble spirit of the soldiers that fought and died in them. Does the average citizen? Is driving an RV to a campground and playing on ATV’s and eating BBQ celebrating past achievements of protecting freedom or is it celebrating securing extra wealth for leisure and wallowing in luxury? If we were celebrating hard work and bettering our children, that’s one thing. But instead we seem to be commemorating achieving the pinnacle of wastefulness and underachievement.
*
We are coasting on past achievements and eating our seed corn. Instead of celebrating freedom and the fight to secure it we are celebrating the strengthening of the Fascist Police State where all past freedoms are traded for a few more years of power to our plasma TV and heat for our larger stucco box we commute from in a oversized SUV. Thanks, guys, for giving up your life to preserve our Constitution and our legacy as a free people. Now if you don’t mind I’ll piss that all away by allowing jack booted machine gun toting ninja mask FedThugs to cavity search grandma in the airport so the illusion of a terrorist attack can be maintained so we can occupy the last country in the middle east to have a largely underdeveloped reserve of oil. Not so we can stay free, but so we can stay soft and fat and weak.
*
Jesus Christ! The spectacle of the sheeple bleating about $4 gas and the mainstream media spooning out the stories like sugared treats. $4 gas is not expensive for a scarce nonrenewable resource. If you want to take a few pathetic stories from the media that always cover people that couldn’t balance their budget if their salary was increased by a half a million dollars you might believe we are on the edge of the abyss ( not that we aren‘t- just that a minor inconvenience is portrayed as the real deal ). Yet if you drive out on the road you can’t see much difference in traffic. Driving is mostly necessity due to the only available card being played during the housing bubble of folks moving to the affordable suburbs, but I would wager there is some entertainment aspect to a lot of driving ( “I need to get out of the house” Let’s go shopping and have fun” “Come over and visit me” ). During the last year gas consumption decreased 2%. Add in a percent decline in oil use due to ethanol ( causing corn price to quadruple- what a bargain! ) and you see that although we consumed 3% less oil last year the price at the pump went up about 20%. Isn’t math fun!
*
People think they have things rough since it costs an extra $20 to get to Aunt Betty’s for the weekend? Soft and weak. Enjoy the future, fat bitches.
END
From a loyal minion:
Here is a tip: Get some fine mesh, un-coated Steel Wool from your Hardware Store. It is very cheap stuff. Pick up some 9 Volt batteries too. This is important because both battery terminals are on the same end of the 9 Volt type. Fluff up a chunk of the steel wool and touch the battery posts to it. Sparks will start to travel in the steel wool strands. Put into the kindling and blow. Instant molten steel and a Helluva Fire Starter.
*
Buy my books and gear www.bisonpress.com
Friday, May 23, 2008
homemade draino & double your food
HOMEMADE DRAINO & DOUBLE YOUR FOOD
I notice that a lot of people seem to be short on their food preps. The latest profile at www.survivalblog.com sees a wealthy ( by my standards at least ) couple with a fair number of guns ( not excessive or heavy on black plastic semi’s ) and fifteen thousand rounds of ammunition. A retreat. Yet only with a year and a half of food. Perhaps the bulk of their ammo supply is rimfire so they feel the money spent on the food was proportionate. I don’t know. Perhaps the food is all freeze-dried thus very expensive. Other folks have limited space such as an apartment and stock mostly cans. So their food stockpile is perhaps only a few months. Nothing wrong with that, if cans are what you eat. Or if the bulk of your food is beans and rice if that is what you enjoy. Whatever you eat normally. And while it is important to protect your life and what food you do have, I think too little food should be your main worry, not the ammo supply. We had just talked about this a week or so ago.
*
It is the simplest thing to double your food stocks if they are on the low side. Wheat. I understand whole wheat may not be your thing. Some of these whole grain breads they sell would turn off anybody. If you aren’t used to cooking with whole wheat, buy a bag from your grocer. They are not too much over the cost of white flour, lately. Mix half and half with white at first to ease yourself into it. Try that flatbread. Or if you find a bread maker at the thrift store cheap enough, try your own bread. Buttered wheat bread fresh baked is the best, even out of the machine ( if you pursue bread making you will find how much better it tastes the old fashion way ). Wheat kernels from the feed store ( buy untreated, without medicine added ) are under half the cost of rice and one third that of beans. Even the more expensive type mailed to you ( buy at www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html ) is still hardly more than the cost of rice from Wal-Mart and it is much healthier for you. But try the store bought flour first to see if you are going to like the whole wheat.
*
Let’s say you have a months worth of freeze-dried foods. Or a months worth of canned goods and rice. I’m sure the cost was at least $60. But that’s no big deal, it’s food you will eat which is what you need once the stress of an emergency starts. And it is twice as important if you are feeding the wife and kids because they will be far pickier. For $8 at the feed store you can double that to two months. Or the mail order wheat kernels will cost you $25. You double your calories/meals by adding a lot of bread products to supplement your canned foods or freeze-dried goodies. At a very low price. Important if there is more than one of you or you are building up the time you wish to be food self-sufficient. The couple with only a year and a half of food stored at their expensive retreat would only need spend an additional $300 to double their food stocks ( and that includes the cost of metal barrels to store the kernels in ). Well, okay, actually $325 after they buy a grain grinder.
*
How can anyone not afford this? How can anyone not find the room to store this? Even if you have no transportation, are always busy, and have no feed store close you can order through the mail once a month for chump change and in no time have a nice food stockpile.
*
It is cheap enough to stock up on dollar store drain opener. Generic Draino cost a whole dollar and if the clog is minor will last two uses. However, you might find yourself without some. Or you have a septic system or grey water system. Or you just don’t want the chemicals around for the kids to taste test. So here are two different recipes. One I got out of “Cheaper & Better” by Birnes, the other by Googling. A quarter cup of baking soda and a quarter cup of salt along with a tablespoon of cream of tarter are put in the drain after being mixed. Flush with a cup of boiling water. A half hour later repeat. The other method is one cup baking soda and followed by one cup vinegar down the drain then flushed with boiling water. With food costs rising I don’t know how much cheaper this is than the chemical, but at least it is a organic method. Another technique was coffee grounds. The author says almost everyone warns against this but she has never had a clog. Coffee grounds are tossed down the drain after use, the theory being the grounds act like loose sandpaper to scour out the pipes. But try that one at your risk.
END
Buy My Crap www.bisonpress.com
I notice that a lot of people seem to be short on their food preps. The latest profile at www.survivalblog.com sees a wealthy ( by my standards at least ) couple with a fair number of guns ( not excessive or heavy on black plastic semi’s ) and fifteen thousand rounds of ammunition. A retreat. Yet only with a year and a half of food. Perhaps the bulk of their ammo supply is rimfire so they feel the money spent on the food was proportionate. I don’t know. Perhaps the food is all freeze-dried thus very expensive. Other folks have limited space such as an apartment and stock mostly cans. So their food stockpile is perhaps only a few months. Nothing wrong with that, if cans are what you eat. Or if the bulk of your food is beans and rice if that is what you enjoy. Whatever you eat normally. And while it is important to protect your life and what food you do have, I think too little food should be your main worry, not the ammo supply. We had just talked about this a week or so ago.
*
It is the simplest thing to double your food stocks if they are on the low side. Wheat. I understand whole wheat may not be your thing. Some of these whole grain breads they sell would turn off anybody. If you aren’t used to cooking with whole wheat, buy a bag from your grocer. They are not too much over the cost of white flour, lately. Mix half and half with white at first to ease yourself into it. Try that flatbread. Or if you find a bread maker at the thrift store cheap enough, try your own bread. Buttered wheat bread fresh baked is the best, even out of the machine ( if you pursue bread making you will find how much better it tastes the old fashion way ). Wheat kernels from the feed store ( buy untreated, without medicine added ) are under half the cost of rice and one third that of beans. Even the more expensive type mailed to you ( buy at www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html ) is still hardly more than the cost of rice from Wal-Mart and it is much healthier for you. But try the store bought flour first to see if you are going to like the whole wheat.
*
Let’s say you have a months worth of freeze-dried foods. Or a months worth of canned goods and rice. I’m sure the cost was at least $60. But that’s no big deal, it’s food you will eat which is what you need once the stress of an emergency starts. And it is twice as important if you are feeding the wife and kids because they will be far pickier. For $8 at the feed store you can double that to two months. Or the mail order wheat kernels will cost you $25. You double your calories/meals by adding a lot of bread products to supplement your canned foods or freeze-dried goodies. At a very low price. Important if there is more than one of you or you are building up the time you wish to be food self-sufficient. The couple with only a year and a half of food stored at their expensive retreat would only need spend an additional $300 to double their food stocks ( and that includes the cost of metal barrels to store the kernels in ). Well, okay, actually $325 after they buy a grain grinder.
*
How can anyone not afford this? How can anyone not find the room to store this? Even if you have no transportation, are always busy, and have no feed store close you can order through the mail once a month for chump change and in no time have a nice food stockpile.
*
It is cheap enough to stock up on dollar store drain opener. Generic Draino cost a whole dollar and if the clog is minor will last two uses. However, you might find yourself without some. Or you have a septic system or grey water system. Or you just don’t want the chemicals around for the kids to taste test. So here are two different recipes. One I got out of “Cheaper & Better” by Birnes, the other by Googling. A quarter cup of baking soda and a quarter cup of salt along with a tablespoon of cream of tarter are put in the drain after being mixed. Flush with a cup of boiling water. A half hour later repeat. The other method is one cup baking soda and followed by one cup vinegar down the drain then flushed with boiling water. With food costs rising I don’t know how much cheaper this is than the chemical, but at least it is a organic method. Another technique was coffee grounds. The author says almost everyone warns against this but she has never had a clog. Coffee grounds are tossed down the drain after use, the theory being the grounds act like loose sandpaper to scour out the pipes. But try that one at your risk.
END
Buy My Crap www.bisonpress.com
Thursday, May 22, 2008
urban unrest
URBAN UNREST
Now, while I don’t necessarily agree with certain unnamed blogs that start with the initials http://suburbanprepper.wordpress.com/ about one being crazy just because they turn the basement into a fortified bunker and keep the kids locked up for their own protection, there might be something to the point of overreaction on the part of super stud muffin survivalists. Yes, of course it is a good idea not to be in the city while the plagues advance with lightning speed, the grid goes down and the famines start. And, yes, if you do live in the city it is pretty important to have a place to go before things get too bad. But is the danger of city living a bit overblown? Currently, living in an urban area assures you a job and cuts down on the distances needed to commute. In short, economic survival. In the future you will need to leave the city before thing disintegrate too badly. We have covered this recently. The point I wish to make here is that I think too many people, when deciding upon a rural or a urban lifestyle, are forgetting past lessons and are assuming the cities will explode too quickly.
*
I am not saying a rural home is not preferable. As long as you are not a slave to commuting in this age of daily oil increases a rural location insulates you from a lot of problems. And when we are talking about city living it is assumed that you are not living in a mega-city ( which is a bad place to live even in the best of times ). What I am saying, real slow so that the trolls can move their lips as they try to read without the aid of pictures ( and trolls- stop doing repeat postings as they are needless and tiring ) is that the odds are good that you can escape from a city in plenty of time. This is not the Cold War. I doubt we will see all population centers attacked by missiles. If a towel head brings in a tactical nuke you only have to worry about one or two targets ( stay out of DC, NYC and Miami and you should be okay ). A disease outbreak will not be spontaneous all over the country. I am not talking about natural disasters ( the New Madrid quake or Yellowstone will effect rural as much as urban ). I am talking about the most likely of calamities. Economic collapse.
*
Everyone seems to assume instant riots and gridlocked roads and out of control fires. The cities will get there, eventually. But the thing everyone fears, minority barbarism, has already been marginalized ( at least for the time being ). It’s refreshing to hear people being honest. You watch interviews on the DemocRAT race and white Southerners will tell the interviewer that they won’t vote for a Black. I’m not saying the racism is justified or that I agree with it, I’m just saying at least they don’t lie about their feelings. Most people try to hide behind BS. But I can guarantee you that the most rabid Liberal secretly fears minorities. Even if it is only subconsciously, they approve of the Welfare State because it bribes the minorities into settling peacefully into their ghettos and not molesting white women ( which make up a good majority of Yuppie Scum Communist Liberal Pukes ). We can all piss on each others heads and smile at each other and tell each other its raining, but it’s all a damn lie. All the politicians pandering to the college educated idiots can pass hours babbling about compassion and eliminating poverty and leveling the economic playing field but the blunt fact is that after the 60’s urban riots the priority became buying off blacks to keep them from bringing down the establishment. I don’t know if it really could have, but politicians get fat off other peoples fears, and blacks roaming freely and killing whitey was certainly a huge fear. Buy them off fast with welfare to settle them down. Along with paying the bribes to keep the middle class whitebread majority feeling safe, the next major action was to give the black males easy money. Keep them occupied, keep them immobile in the slums, and let them kill each other off at young ages. In effect, we allowed the drug trade to flourish as another way to bottle up black aggression ( increased drug prohibition artificially increases prices and encourages participation of the marginalized due to generous profits ). The police and politicians don’t care if the ghettos were smoldering crap holes straight from the Third World. As long as they stayed contained.
*
Uncle Sugar has long experience with keeping social unrest contained. The money is free, just print up some more. The prison population explodes, as does the welfare bureaucracy. The middle class whites have great paying jobs, and affirmative action gives those blacks that wish to join the middle class a guaranteed job. Civil unrest becomes a distant memory. We still fear it. But, at least in the initial stages of collapse ( which you are on the watch for ) unrest will be contained. This will give you the time to escape. Sure, sudden collapses can occur. Natural disasters can cut off an area. But the most likely of problems to effect you will be economical. You should see high odds of having time to flee. Don’t despair about still living in the city, just don’t fail to have a concrete escape plan. Some signs I would take as an evacuation notice? A bank holiday lasting more than a few days. The Straights Of Hormuz being blockaded. US forces using a nuclear weapon attacking someone. Severe gas rationing ( every other day fill ups don’t count ).
*
I understand this isn’t a complete list. This isn’t a checklist that only allows your escape under a set number of conditions. There will be a lot of teeth gnashing and head scratching. It might be a good idea to avoid calling in sick and building up your allowable time off. Then if something bad happens you call in sick. And, yes, I understand this ignores the gridlock on freeways problem and the possibility of gas rationing or restrictions on travel. I’m just pointing out the likelihood that we will have a grace period to escape if we live in the cities. It will not be an instant Zombie Biker/Mad Max war zone, more than likely.
END
My books and gear at www.bisonpress.com
Now, while I don’t necessarily agree with certain unnamed blogs that start with the initials http://suburbanprepper.wordpress.com/ about one being crazy just because they turn the basement into a fortified bunker and keep the kids locked up for their own protection, there might be something to the point of overreaction on the part of super stud muffin survivalists. Yes, of course it is a good idea not to be in the city while the plagues advance with lightning speed, the grid goes down and the famines start. And, yes, if you do live in the city it is pretty important to have a place to go before things get too bad. But is the danger of city living a bit overblown? Currently, living in an urban area assures you a job and cuts down on the distances needed to commute. In short, economic survival. In the future you will need to leave the city before thing disintegrate too badly. We have covered this recently. The point I wish to make here is that I think too many people, when deciding upon a rural or a urban lifestyle, are forgetting past lessons and are assuming the cities will explode too quickly.
*
I am not saying a rural home is not preferable. As long as you are not a slave to commuting in this age of daily oil increases a rural location insulates you from a lot of problems. And when we are talking about city living it is assumed that you are not living in a mega-city ( which is a bad place to live even in the best of times ). What I am saying, real slow so that the trolls can move their lips as they try to read without the aid of pictures ( and trolls- stop doing repeat postings as they are needless and tiring ) is that the odds are good that you can escape from a city in plenty of time. This is not the Cold War. I doubt we will see all population centers attacked by missiles. If a towel head brings in a tactical nuke you only have to worry about one or two targets ( stay out of DC, NYC and Miami and you should be okay ). A disease outbreak will not be spontaneous all over the country. I am not talking about natural disasters ( the New Madrid quake or Yellowstone will effect rural as much as urban ). I am talking about the most likely of calamities. Economic collapse.
*
Everyone seems to assume instant riots and gridlocked roads and out of control fires. The cities will get there, eventually. But the thing everyone fears, minority barbarism, has already been marginalized ( at least for the time being ). It’s refreshing to hear people being honest. You watch interviews on the DemocRAT race and white Southerners will tell the interviewer that they won’t vote for a Black. I’m not saying the racism is justified or that I agree with it, I’m just saying at least they don’t lie about their feelings. Most people try to hide behind BS. But I can guarantee you that the most rabid Liberal secretly fears minorities. Even if it is only subconsciously, they approve of the Welfare State because it bribes the minorities into settling peacefully into their ghettos and not molesting white women ( which make up a good majority of Yuppie Scum Communist Liberal Pukes ). We can all piss on each others heads and smile at each other and tell each other its raining, but it’s all a damn lie. All the politicians pandering to the college educated idiots can pass hours babbling about compassion and eliminating poverty and leveling the economic playing field but the blunt fact is that after the 60’s urban riots the priority became buying off blacks to keep them from bringing down the establishment. I don’t know if it really could have, but politicians get fat off other peoples fears, and blacks roaming freely and killing whitey was certainly a huge fear. Buy them off fast with welfare to settle them down. Along with paying the bribes to keep the middle class whitebread majority feeling safe, the next major action was to give the black males easy money. Keep them occupied, keep them immobile in the slums, and let them kill each other off at young ages. In effect, we allowed the drug trade to flourish as another way to bottle up black aggression ( increased drug prohibition artificially increases prices and encourages participation of the marginalized due to generous profits ). The police and politicians don’t care if the ghettos were smoldering crap holes straight from the Third World. As long as they stayed contained.
*
Uncle Sugar has long experience with keeping social unrest contained. The money is free, just print up some more. The prison population explodes, as does the welfare bureaucracy. The middle class whites have great paying jobs, and affirmative action gives those blacks that wish to join the middle class a guaranteed job. Civil unrest becomes a distant memory. We still fear it. But, at least in the initial stages of collapse ( which you are on the watch for ) unrest will be contained. This will give you the time to escape. Sure, sudden collapses can occur. Natural disasters can cut off an area. But the most likely of problems to effect you will be economical. You should see high odds of having time to flee. Don’t despair about still living in the city, just don’t fail to have a concrete escape plan. Some signs I would take as an evacuation notice? A bank holiday lasting more than a few days. The Straights Of Hormuz being blockaded. US forces using a nuclear weapon attacking someone. Severe gas rationing ( every other day fill ups don’t count ).
*
I understand this isn’t a complete list. This isn’t a checklist that only allows your escape under a set number of conditions. There will be a lot of teeth gnashing and head scratching. It might be a good idea to avoid calling in sick and building up your allowable time off. Then if something bad happens you call in sick. And, yes, I understand this ignores the gridlock on freeways problem and the possibility of gas rationing or restrictions on travel. I’m just pointing out the likelihood that we will have a grace period to escape if we live in the cities. It will not be an instant Zombie Biker/Mad Max war zone, more than likely.
END
My books and gear at www.bisonpress.com
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
20% inflation
20% INFLATION
My father and stepmother, both of whom I love very much, are total idiots financially. Every move I view as boneheaded, from lifetime debt to living paycheck to paycheck even with a $75k plus income, they have embraced. The newest brainstorm makes it even worse. After three or four years without a vacation ( imagine working overtime at a time you should be retiring ) they finally took a few days off and went up to Idaho to visit an old friend. And fell in love with the place, up near the far northern part. The fall in elevation and the surplus of actual trees giving out oxygen ( instead of a few scrub brushes we have around here ) gave them a marked increase health wise just in that short period of time. So they are quite excited about working towards moving there next spring. Good luck selling the house here, right? But worse than that is starting the mortgage process all over again. At age seventy.
*
Let’s set aside all the problems with taking on a mortgage such as indenturing yourself to the bank and your job and the government ( the overvalued home needs high property taxes paid on it ). Or the fact that it seems silly to assume you won’t be laid off before the house is paid for. As hard as it is to believe that not everyone wants to work towards escaping the Rat Race and moving out to the boonies, some folks actually want a nice house and a retirement fund instead of a trailer in the desert with a cache of buried beans and bullion nearby. There really is no accounting for taste I guess. Hell, there’s plenty of desert out there. Even if every serious prepper out there moved to a piece of paradise we wouldn’t run out of parcels. And I’m mostly kidding, so relax. For all the negative trait’s a mortgage is burdened with, at least they are one of the few inflation fighters out there. I’m not advocated mortgages, just pointing out how few options people have for fighting inflation. The vast majority of folks. I’m a bit different, I know. Different, good. Not different, special education.
*
The reason I mention my folks is to say, in effect, you are an idiot to have a mortgage but since my own family is like you I can’t think too badly of you. Which I know is a load off your mind. I understand why you did it. Plus, if the family does move away I won’t feel too badly for moving up to Elko. Although the most important reason for staying is financial. Got to pay the ex-wife to stay out of jail. It’s much better to be sodomized financially from her than get the actual thing in prison. Which ties in with inflation. At the beginning of time, way back when I first started paying the witch, my monthly payments were a huge chunk of my income. 65% of gross income went to Uncle Asshole and the ex. Now it is down to 50%. Since inflation has skyrocketed lately before she is paid off the purchasing power of the fixed amount of money I give her is going to fall substantially. Now that is a great reason to celebrate inflation. I can stretch out the payment a total of four more years ( the current plan to is save enough that in two more years I can stop working full time and pay her from the savings ) and at the current real rate of inflation it won’t buy crap.
*
If the current rate of energy increases doesn’t slow down ( I have serious doubts it will fall ) inflation is going to be a lot higher than 20%. The figure is easy to calculate. How much did gasoline increase from last year? How about food? The core rate of inflation is a political Damn Lie. Price inflation last year was 20%. The increased money supply was nearly that much by most accounts. I’m keeping things simple here. Money or credit creation or resource depletion are all irrelevant except for theory. In the real world rising costs ( from whatever source ) are what we concern ourselves inflation-wise. Now that the housing bubble is over and house inflation is over, a mortgage is one of the few ways to beat inflation ( before, rising values could easily raise your property tax to up your payments 10% ). Another way is to have child support for eighteen years, but I wouldn’t recommend that. A garden and chickens is a great inflation fighter. Another good inflation fighter is stockpiling ( that’s one we are all familiar with ). In the city, or other circumstances which disallow that I would stock up on precious metals. They won’t make you a profit, in most cases. But they will always keep your purchasing power intact. They are inflation proof.
*
But even the best inflation fighter out there ( precious metals ) will only protect yesterdays wealth. Your savings. Inflation is impacting all of us and there is very little you can do other than soften its effects. A mortgage was a great inflation fighter in the 1970’s. It can be right now ( in twenty years, even with wage hikes below inflation, the payment will be a lot easier ) but things seem to be riskier than the last bad inflation. If oil depletion becomes reality nothing will save our middle class investments ( a house is a middle class investment, a trailer on junk land is a redneck investment ). But beyond houses or gold or paying off debts with cheaper money, the best thing to do to lessen the ravages of inflation is to eliminate the need for so much money. Insulation is far cheaper than heating oil which will increase. A garden has once more become much cheaper than grocery store produce ( not too long ago that wasn’t the case ). Getting rid of one car might mean a logistical nightmare but it can be a lifesaver ( not having a car has done more for me than anything else to allow a frugal budget ).
*
The less money you need to live, the less impact inflation will have on you. Living on 95% of your income will not work for too many years if inflation stays at present levels. Living on even a little less gives you room to maneuver without doing stupid things like payday loans or pawn shop loans. Or using credit cards to buy food. That turns into 40% food inflation with the interest factored in. And don’t be fooled into short term price decreases or sales. Right now most areas have a surplus of grocery stores. The competition has some effect on keeping prices lower. That might not last indefinitely. Plus, meat prices right now are artificially low with dumping due to feed price increases. Remember, voluntarily cut back now and control things. Or wait for reality to force you into action with no choices.
END
Senator Kennedy has brain cancer. Karmic justice is sometimes damn slow.
Rack up karma brownie points by buying my books and gear ( I’ve added another Chicken Little to the list ) www.bisonpress.com
My father and stepmother, both of whom I love very much, are total idiots financially. Every move I view as boneheaded, from lifetime debt to living paycheck to paycheck even with a $75k plus income, they have embraced. The newest brainstorm makes it even worse. After three or four years without a vacation ( imagine working overtime at a time you should be retiring ) they finally took a few days off and went up to Idaho to visit an old friend. And fell in love with the place, up near the far northern part. The fall in elevation and the surplus of actual trees giving out oxygen ( instead of a few scrub brushes we have around here ) gave them a marked increase health wise just in that short period of time. So they are quite excited about working towards moving there next spring. Good luck selling the house here, right? But worse than that is starting the mortgage process all over again. At age seventy.
*
Let’s set aside all the problems with taking on a mortgage such as indenturing yourself to the bank and your job and the government ( the overvalued home needs high property taxes paid on it ). Or the fact that it seems silly to assume you won’t be laid off before the house is paid for. As hard as it is to believe that not everyone wants to work towards escaping the Rat Race and moving out to the boonies, some folks actually want a nice house and a retirement fund instead of a trailer in the desert with a cache of buried beans and bullion nearby. There really is no accounting for taste I guess. Hell, there’s plenty of desert out there. Even if every serious prepper out there moved to a piece of paradise we wouldn’t run out of parcels. And I’m mostly kidding, so relax. For all the negative trait’s a mortgage is burdened with, at least they are one of the few inflation fighters out there. I’m not advocated mortgages, just pointing out how few options people have for fighting inflation. The vast majority of folks. I’m a bit different, I know. Different, good. Not different, special education.
*
The reason I mention my folks is to say, in effect, you are an idiot to have a mortgage but since my own family is like you I can’t think too badly of you. Which I know is a load off your mind. I understand why you did it. Plus, if the family does move away I won’t feel too badly for moving up to Elko. Although the most important reason for staying is financial. Got to pay the ex-wife to stay out of jail. It’s much better to be sodomized financially from her than get the actual thing in prison. Which ties in with inflation. At the beginning of time, way back when I first started paying the witch, my monthly payments were a huge chunk of my income. 65% of gross income went to Uncle Asshole and the ex. Now it is down to 50%. Since inflation has skyrocketed lately before she is paid off the purchasing power of the fixed amount of money I give her is going to fall substantially. Now that is a great reason to celebrate inflation. I can stretch out the payment a total of four more years ( the current plan to is save enough that in two more years I can stop working full time and pay her from the savings ) and at the current real rate of inflation it won’t buy crap.
*
If the current rate of energy increases doesn’t slow down ( I have serious doubts it will fall ) inflation is going to be a lot higher than 20%. The figure is easy to calculate. How much did gasoline increase from last year? How about food? The core rate of inflation is a political Damn Lie. Price inflation last year was 20%. The increased money supply was nearly that much by most accounts. I’m keeping things simple here. Money or credit creation or resource depletion are all irrelevant except for theory. In the real world rising costs ( from whatever source ) are what we concern ourselves inflation-wise. Now that the housing bubble is over and house inflation is over, a mortgage is one of the few ways to beat inflation ( before, rising values could easily raise your property tax to up your payments 10% ). Another way is to have child support for eighteen years, but I wouldn’t recommend that. A garden and chickens is a great inflation fighter. Another good inflation fighter is stockpiling ( that’s one we are all familiar with ). In the city, or other circumstances which disallow that I would stock up on precious metals. They won’t make you a profit, in most cases. But they will always keep your purchasing power intact. They are inflation proof.
*
But even the best inflation fighter out there ( precious metals ) will only protect yesterdays wealth. Your savings. Inflation is impacting all of us and there is very little you can do other than soften its effects. A mortgage was a great inflation fighter in the 1970’s. It can be right now ( in twenty years, even with wage hikes below inflation, the payment will be a lot easier ) but things seem to be riskier than the last bad inflation. If oil depletion becomes reality nothing will save our middle class investments ( a house is a middle class investment, a trailer on junk land is a redneck investment ). But beyond houses or gold or paying off debts with cheaper money, the best thing to do to lessen the ravages of inflation is to eliminate the need for so much money. Insulation is far cheaper than heating oil which will increase. A garden has once more become much cheaper than grocery store produce ( not too long ago that wasn’t the case ). Getting rid of one car might mean a logistical nightmare but it can be a lifesaver ( not having a car has done more for me than anything else to allow a frugal budget ).
*
The less money you need to live, the less impact inflation will have on you. Living on 95% of your income will not work for too many years if inflation stays at present levels. Living on even a little less gives you room to maneuver without doing stupid things like payday loans or pawn shop loans. Or using credit cards to buy food. That turns into 40% food inflation with the interest factored in. And don’t be fooled into short term price decreases or sales. Right now most areas have a surplus of grocery stores. The competition has some effect on keeping prices lower. That might not last indefinitely. Plus, meat prices right now are artificially low with dumping due to feed price increases. Remember, voluntarily cut back now and control things. Or wait for reality to force you into action with no choices.
END
Senator Kennedy has brain cancer. Karmic justice is sometimes damn slow.
Rack up karma brownie points by buying my books and gear ( I’ve added another Chicken Little to the list ) www.bisonpress.com
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
more nuke bread
MORE NUKE BREAD
Well, here we go again. Once more I’m trying to think and once again it might get me into trouble. I was thinking that I haven’t covered microwave bread for some time. I thought I hadn’t covered it since the weekly Bison. If three strikes and you’re out applied to unsuccessful mental effort I would serving a life time sentence. So, being the wary and paranoid fellow that I am I attacked this thing two different ways. First, I titled the article as “More” on the off chance I was wrong and had covered this in recent memory. Then, in a further brilliant move I experimented with this recipe so I could do it slightly different and thus present a new and improved version for your illumination. My craftiness knows no bounds. I want to be just like the big corporations, constantly shrinking product size and raising the price at the same time and then having the audacity to claim I love the environment and I am only doing this because Al Gore invented the Green Movement one day while driving down the Internet in his SUV on the way home to his ten thousand square foot home office which is heated with renewable natural gas. Sure, Wal-Mart might actually buy into the resource saving idea at least as a customer stroke job but the soap company only is going along for the money savings. Forced saving is fine and dandy, it is the companies blowing smoke up my butt I don’t like.
*
I love regular flat bread. It is tasty, filling, cheap and easier than yeast breads. Mix whole wheat flour and water to form a dry dough. Form into golf ball size balls. Flour your board and rolling pin and roll as thin as possible. Heat up your pan on high until a drop of water dances on the surface. Cook the bread, flipping several times. You are shooting for dark brown spots on the bread, not burnt black ones. It will be done is just a few minutes. Cover in butter. Whole grain and dairy. The perfect breakfast or lunch. I love to splash a little salt on mine along with a lot of ground black pepper. Yum. However. And there is always a however. Preparation and cooking time and clean up take a bit of effort. It is best to cook up several days at a time because it cuts down on the time/energy it takes. This is the tastiest way to cook unleavened bread, but since we are all so important and good and just and far too busy to take the time to do this it naturally follows that a faster way of doing this is needed. Hence, nuke bread.
*
When I was a far younger lad I first came across this method of cooking quite by accident. I don’t know if anyone else is doing this. Most likely not. They would clutch their throat and make choking sounds and complain about radiation poisoning their food. They might be right, but I don’t worry about it. One day as I was hungry and broke I was contemplating the only ingredients available to me, a sack of whole wheat flour ( and I mean literally that was the only food available as I was at work ). A little voice, possibly that of Satan if the unhealthiness of microwaved foods is valid, told me to just dump some water in it, mix, and toss it in the nuker. I used the materials at hand in a work break room. Styrofoam cups, plastic spoons, paper plates and a microwave. And it actually worked the first time. I was more impressed with myself than usual. It tasted like crap, but it was cooked whole wheat and it filled me up and gave me energy. Just mix in a bowl a half cup of flour and enough water to get a waffle mix thick batter. Take a spoon and spread it out all over your plate as even of a thickness as you can. Nuke for five minutes. As I said, it tastes like doughy cardboard, but it is quick and easy ( and the ingredients are healthy even if the cooking method is not ).
*
Since I had to come up a new and improved method for cooking this so I wouldn’t look like I was a slacking ho and kept regurgitating all my old ideas, I tried something different. After I cooked the vile patty for five minutes I pried it up with a butter knife ( it sticks to the plate, so use ceramic not plastic ), flipped it over and cooked it for another two minutes. Cooking the other side sure made it taste a lot better. It didn’t taste great, but it was an improvement. I realize the grid will be down during an emergency and the microwave will not be available. But by getting into the habit of eating whole grain now you can make the bulk of your storage foods wheat and experience no gastronomic disruptions later.
END
More info on the oil well capping. http://rense.com/general67/PRICE.htm
Remember, even if Peak Oil is delayed the price increases effecting the economy can still ruin your day. Prep like oil will run out to protect yourself physically. This will also protect you financially.
*
An article on why diesel is increasing in price faster than gasoline http://www.energybulletin.net/44435.html
*
You know the drill-by my books and gear www.bisonpress.com
Well, here we go again. Once more I’m trying to think and once again it might get me into trouble. I was thinking that I haven’t covered microwave bread for some time. I thought I hadn’t covered it since the weekly Bison. If three strikes and you’re out applied to unsuccessful mental effort I would serving a life time sentence. So, being the wary and paranoid fellow that I am I attacked this thing two different ways. First, I titled the article as “More” on the off chance I was wrong and had covered this in recent memory. Then, in a further brilliant move I experimented with this recipe so I could do it slightly different and thus present a new and improved version for your illumination. My craftiness knows no bounds. I want to be just like the big corporations, constantly shrinking product size and raising the price at the same time and then having the audacity to claim I love the environment and I am only doing this because Al Gore invented the Green Movement one day while driving down the Internet in his SUV on the way home to his ten thousand square foot home office which is heated with renewable natural gas. Sure, Wal-Mart might actually buy into the resource saving idea at least as a customer stroke job but the soap company only is going along for the money savings. Forced saving is fine and dandy, it is the companies blowing smoke up my butt I don’t like.
*
I love regular flat bread. It is tasty, filling, cheap and easier than yeast breads. Mix whole wheat flour and water to form a dry dough. Form into golf ball size balls. Flour your board and rolling pin and roll as thin as possible. Heat up your pan on high until a drop of water dances on the surface. Cook the bread, flipping several times. You are shooting for dark brown spots on the bread, not burnt black ones. It will be done is just a few minutes. Cover in butter. Whole grain and dairy. The perfect breakfast or lunch. I love to splash a little salt on mine along with a lot of ground black pepper. Yum. However. And there is always a however. Preparation and cooking time and clean up take a bit of effort. It is best to cook up several days at a time because it cuts down on the time/energy it takes. This is the tastiest way to cook unleavened bread, but since we are all so important and good and just and far too busy to take the time to do this it naturally follows that a faster way of doing this is needed. Hence, nuke bread.
*
When I was a far younger lad I first came across this method of cooking quite by accident. I don’t know if anyone else is doing this. Most likely not. They would clutch their throat and make choking sounds and complain about radiation poisoning their food. They might be right, but I don’t worry about it. One day as I was hungry and broke I was contemplating the only ingredients available to me, a sack of whole wheat flour ( and I mean literally that was the only food available as I was at work ). A little voice, possibly that of Satan if the unhealthiness of microwaved foods is valid, told me to just dump some water in it, mix, and toss it in the nuker. I used the materials at hand in a work break room. Styrofoam cups, plastic spoons, paper plates and a microwave. And it actually worked the first time. I was more impressed with myself than usual. It tasted like crap, but it was cooked whole wheat and it filled me up and gave me energy. Just mix in a bowl a half cup of flour and enough water to get a waffle mix thick batter. Take a spoon and spread it out all over your plate as even of a thickness as you can. Nuke for five minutes. As I said, it tastes like doughy cardboard, but it is quick and easy ( and the ingredients are healthy even if the cooking method is not ).
*
Since I had to come up a new and improved method for cooking this so I wouldn’t look like I was a slacking ho and kept regurgitating all my old ideas, I tried something different. After I cooked the vile patty for five minutes I pried it up with a butter knife ( it sticks to the plate, so use ceramic not plastic ), flipped it over and cooked it for another two minutes. Cooking the other side sure made it taste a lot better. It didn’t taste great, but it was an improvement. I realize the grid will be down during an emergency and the microwave will not be available. But by getting into the habit of eating whole grain now you can make the bulk of your storage foods wheat and experience no gastronomic disruptions later.
END
More info on the oil well capping. http://rense.com/general67/PRICE.htm
Remember, even if Peak Oil is delayed the price increases effecting the economy can still ruin your day. Prep like oil will run out to protect yourself physically. This will also protect you financially.
*
An article on why diesel is increasing in price faster than gasoline http://www.energybulletin.net/44435.html
*
You know the drill-by my books and gear www.bisonpress.com
Monday, May 19, 2008
retard arsenal and cheap gun safe
RETARD ARSENAL & CHEAP GUN SAFE
The Retard Arsenal are guns recommended to new shooters. I don’t mean that the people are retards. I’ve already shared my experience being unable to disassemble my first SKS. I mean that the guns are so simple that a retard could actually use them. First time shooters are usually going to be reluctantly pulled into shooting. Your spouse, your kids. A city friend. Don’t tell me how you are such a stud and all your family has been shooting from birth and they will form a commando team after TSHTF. I’m talking about the average person here. A lot of folks think guns are yucky and evil because all their favorite Hollywood actors that can afford their own bodyguards tell them so. You want to make this as painless an experience as possible. You want people to think the experience is fun. You want them coming back for more, bigger, better. But I’m also concerned with the budding survivalist who is isolated and has no support network. Anyone can hand a gun to a beginner and train him and then clean the gun for them. Here we are concerned with the beginner on their own.
*
The average person on their own, with a limited budget, should first buy themselves a shotgun. A single shot. 12 gauge for the boys, 20 for the ladies or others more sensitive to recoil. Wal-Mart sells these for about $100 after tax. If you have your druthers, try to get one at your local gun shop instead ( assuming the price difference is marginal ). Wal-Mart has a less than friendly or efficient gun buying experience. The reason I don’t think a side by side is a good idea is the high cost. Which also applies to the pump but remember our primary concern here is with simplicity. The break open single shot is as simple as they make things. Also, the vast majority of casual preppers can stop right there. This one firearm will see you through most temporary emergencies. You can buy cheap hunting rounds to go practice with. You need to practice for speedy loading and for getting used to the crappy sights.
*
If you have the money get yourself an inexpensive revolver, such as a Taurus. Get a .357. You can always just use .38’s, but you’ll have the use of the more powerful round if you ever want it. The revolver is a simple point and shoot. Nothing fancy or complicated about it. As with the shotgun, simple to operate and clean. And as a bonus, also one of the cheapest in its class. In urban or forested areas it can also serve as your only weapon if need be. Calamities are not going to follow our schedule. If the bottom falls out tomorrow instead of waiting for us to get off our ass and prepare ( hint, hint prospective junk land buyers ) you need a starting arsenal that works well as a better than nothing tool.
*
If you are going to recommend a rimfire to a beginner, suggest a single shot or a bolt action. Yes, a Rugar 10/22 is much better. But also over twice the cost and much more complicated to break down. Cared for firearms do not decrease in value. You can always sell the one gun and get the other. War surplus bolt guns are relatively simple, yet I hesitate to recommend them to the beginner. They are mean bastards to shoot. Try to work up to them. Just keep it simple to start. If really poor, the shotgun. If needing concealable firepower and not as poor, a revolver. Anything else is upgrading and expanding, not beginning.
*
A gun safe gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling by protecting your guns. The kids can’t get into it and it discourages the casual thief. If no one is home and the crook has tools than it just becomes an obvious target. My preferred method is to keep the old lady at home, along with a dog ( my actual method is hiding the old and crappy collection that no one wants ). Then your only concern is locking the guns up from the kids. I don’t agree with the need, training is better. But if you live in a locale with those types of laws… If you have no kids than you just want to hide things from a burglar. A used file cabinet from the thrift store should work well for handguns. Fill the bottom with heavy crap like lead bars and boxes of ammo and have the guns in the top drawer ( the most common cabinet is the two drawer unit ). Lock it up during the day, have it unlocked at night for easy access if a break in occurs. Not a perfect solution, a butter knife or screwdriver can pry open one of the things. But perhaps it might qualify as a “hidden in plain sight” type. It’s what I used while the kids were still living with me and I felt comfortable with it in both roles.
END
A loyal minion has mentioned that an oil field worker connection of his routinely reports the capping of wells. Hit oil, cap it off. Only a few out of many hits are used. I have no reason to disbelieve this as history is full of Big Oil shenanigans. High oil prices bring big profits and shortages cause high prices. I don’t see this as ending concern about Peak Oil, but is does provide a ray of hope. Sky high prices will cause a Depression, but no oil at all will be Dark Ages. The lesser of evils.
*
Do not rue the day-buy my crap. www.bisonpress.com
The Retard Arsenal are guns recommended to new shooters. I don’t mean that the people are retards. I’ve already shared my experience being unable to disassemble my first SKS. I mean that the guns are so simple that a retard could actually use them. First time shooters are usually going to be reluctantly pulled into shooting. Your spouse, your kids. A city friend. Don’t tell me how you are such a stud and all your family has been shooting from birth and they will form a commando team after TSHTF. I’m talking about the average person here. A lot of folks think guns are yucky and evil because all their favorite Hollywood actors that can afford their own bodyguards tell them so. You want to make this as painless an experience as possible. You want people to think the experience is fun. You want them coming back for more, bigger, better. But I’m also concerned with the budding survivalist who is isolated and has no support network. Anyone can hand a gun to a beginner and train him and then clean the gun for them. Here we are concerned with the beginner on their own.
*
The average person on their own, with a limited budget, should first buy themselves a shotgun. A single shot. 12 gauge for the boys, 20 for the ladies or others more sensitive to recoil. Wal-Mart sells these for about $100 after tax. If you have your druthers, try to get one at your local gun shop instead ( assuming the price difference is marginal ). Wal-Mart has a less than friendly or efficient gun buying experience. The reason I don’t think a side by side is a good idea is the high cost. Which also applies to the pump but remember our primary concern here is with simplicity. The break open single shot is as simple as they make things. Also, the vast majority of casual preppers can stop right there. This one firearm will see you through most temporary emergencies. You can buy cheap hunting rounds to go practice with. You need to practice for speedy loading and for getting used to the crappy sights.
*
If you have the money get yourself an inexpensive revolver, such as a Taurus. Get a .357. You can always just use .38’s, but you’ll have the use of the more powerful round if you ever want it. The revolver is a simple point and shoot. Nothing fancy or complicated about it. As with the shotgun, simple to operate and clean. And as a bonus, also one of the cheapest in its class. In urban or forested areas it can also serve as your only weapon if need be. Calamities are not going to follow our schedule. If the bottom falls out tomorrow instead of waiting for us to get off our ass and prepare ( hint, hint prospective junk land buyers ) you need a starting arsenal that works well as a better than nothing tool.
*
If you are going to recommend a rimfire to a beginner, suggest a single shot or a bolt action. Yes, a Rugar 10/22 is much better. But also over twice the cost and much more complicated to break down. Cared for firearms do not decrease in value. You can always sell the one gun and get the other. War surplus bolt guns are relatively simple, yet I hesitate to recommend them to the beginner. They are mean bastards to shoot. Try to work up to them. Just keep it simple to start. If really poor, the shotgun. If needing concealable firepower and not as poor, a revolver. Anything else is upgrading and expanding, not beginning.
*
A gun safe gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling by protecting your guns. The kids can’t get into it and it discourages the casual thief. If no one is home and the crook has tools than it just becomes an obvious target. My preferred method is to keep the old lady at home, along with a dog ( my actual method is hiding the old and crappy collection that no one wants ). Then your only concern is locking the guns up from the kids. I don’t agree with the need, training is better. But if you live in a locale with those types of laws… If you have no kids than you just want to hide things from a burglar. A used file cabinet from the thrift store should work well for handguns. Fill the bottom with heavy crap like lead bars and boxes of ammo and have the guns in the top drawer ( the most common cabinet is the two drawer unit ). Lock it up during the day, have it unlocked at night for easy access if a break in occurs. Not a perfect solution, a butter knife or screwdriver can pry open one of the things. But perhaps it might qualify as a “hidden in plain sight” type. It’s what I used while the kids were still living with me and I felt comfortable with it in both roles.
END
A loyal minion has mentioned that an oil field worker connection of his routinely reports the capping of wells. Hit oil, cap it off. Only a few out of many hits are used. I have no reason to disbelieve this as history is full of Big Oil shenanigans. High oil prices bring big profits and shortages cause high prices. I don’t see this as ending concern about Peak Oil, but is does provide a ray of hope. Sky high prices will cause a Depression, but no oil at all will be Dark Ages. The lesser of evils.
*
Do not rue the day-buy my crap. www.bisonpress.com
Saturday, May 17, 2008
low hanging fruit
LOW HANGING FRUIT
Picking low hanging fruit must be built into our DNA. I’m sure that back several hundred thousand years ago ( or whenever the heck it was before the last of Neanderthals were wiped out as a food source by our ancestors ) that our monkey boys were skipping along the jungle floor, scratching their red asses and thinking about which unattended female to impregnate. Suddenly there is a bunch of fruit that is so plump and ripe that the branch is weighed down from it and hangs near the forest floor. They give out a triumphant screech and rush toward the prize, announcing to any other chimp in hearing range that they are special and worthy while the others are primeval ooze and deserving of nothing short of a painful death, and while they are mentioning it could any unattached female kindly come share this bounty with him. So as you can imagine this type of thing appealed to all our basic instincts. Laziness, greed and horniness. No wonder everyone wants to stumble upon bananas dragging in the dirt.
*
Since politicians are barely evolved above the ancient monkey, it stands to reason that they are big fans of no work, undeserved riches and cigar “smoking” babes. Actually, we all desire these things so it’s a little hard to get too angry with them. We are just jealous. The problems start when politicians use this same philosophy to solve problems. That’s the problem with being a politician. You are a position to suck off the hard work of others, having no other skill except being a lying parasite. But in order to keep your victims alive and well and continuing to produce a surplus in order for you to continue the good life you must make decisions and take actions to protect your flock of gold laying geese. Naturally, you pick whichever action is easiest and causes the least pain. This is idiots way of solving problems. It only means that any future problems are harder to fix.
*
It’s really not that difficult to choose to work harder currently in order to experience less pain later. Most people call that planning for retirement. Politicians call it the way not to get reelected. But it is the smarter way of doing things. You go to college now in order to spare yourself work later. You buy a house while young ( but after saving for a down payment ) so you need less money in retirement. You take the extra time now ( that you really are hard pressed to spare ) to properly raise your children so they turn out to be productive adults that as a bonus might support you in old age since Social Security should go broke any year now. And this is just not the only example. You insulate your home to avoid higher heating bills. You undertake preventive maintenance to avoid replacing items as often. You can think of dozens of things you do daily that requires hard work today to pay off tomorrow. Yet politicians can’t and/or won’t think this way. They might think to cheat and steal and assassinate ( what do you mean a flashburn from three feet away to the back of the head with no blood from the wound nearby isn’t a suicide? ) today in order to retire at 100% pay after one term served. But that’s about the extent of it. All other problems solved on the job are taken care of by picking the low hanging fruit.
*
The easiest solutions are used first. Those that require the least effort or energy. Yet example after example has shown that throughout history societies have had to contend with deleting energy. By picking the low hanging fruit first, by definition you are going to have to devote more energy to solve the next problem. At the same time as you have less energy to use to do so. This is totally back-asswards to how you should be doing things. Such is the legacy of our politicians. Making sure future generations suffer more. Not that this is anything new. We can see it everywhere. Just consider the Federal deficit. But you also need to consider that a lot of other problems are going to rear their head in the future. From bankrupted pensioned funds to oil running out to depleted soil to a deteriorating electrical or water or sewer grid to living in Third World conditions. There is no happy ending. No technological fix. No savior in sustainable villages or renewable energy. Everything will continue to devolve, and one reason out of many is picking low hanging fruit.
END
Thanks, JRG from Texas, for the snail mail donation.
Mayberry from Keep It Simple- email me re: some land ( I don’t have your address )
My books and gear for sale at www.bisonpress.com
Picking low hanging fruit must be built into our DNA. I’m sure that back several hundred thousand years ago ( or whenever the heck it was before the last of Neanderthals were wiped out as a food source by our ancestors ) that our monkey boys were skipping along the jungle floor, scratching their red asses and thinking about which unattended female to impregnate. Suddenly there is a bunch of fruit that is so plump and ripe that the branch is weighed down from it and hangs near the forest floor. They give out a triumphant screech and rush toward the prize, announcing to any other chimp in hearing range that they are special and worthy while the others are primeval ooze and deserving of nothing short of a painful death, and while they are mentioning it could any unattached female kindly come share this bounty with him. So as you can imagine this type of thing appealed to all our basic instincts. Laziness, greed and horniness. No wonder everyone wants to stumble upon bananas dragging in the dirt.
*
Since politicians are barely evolved above the ancient monkey, it stands to reason that they are big fans of no work, undeserved riches and cigar “smoking” babes. Actually, we all desire these things so it’s a little hard to get too angry with them. We are just jealous. The problems start when politicians use this same philosophy to solve problems. That’s the problem with being a politician. You are a position to suck off the hard work of others, having no other skill except being a lying parasite. But in order to keep your victims alive and well and continuing to produce a surplus in order for you to continue the good life you must make decisions and take actions to protect your flock of gold laying geese. Naturally, you pick whichever action is easiest and causes the least pain. This is idiots way of solving problems. It only means that any future problems are harder to fix.
*
It’s really not that difficult to choose to work harder currently in order to experience less pain later. Most people call that planning for retirement. Politicians call it the way not to get reelected. But it is the smarter way of doing things. You go to college now in order to spare yourself work later. You buy a house while young ( but after saving for a down payment ) so you need less money in retirement. You take the extra time now ( that you really are hard pressed to spare ) to properly raise your children so they turn out to be productive adults that as a bonus might support you in old age since Social Security should go broke any year now. And this is just not the only example. You insulate your home to avoid higher heating bills. You undertake preventive maintenance to avoid replacing items as often. You can think of dozens of things you do daily that requires hard work today to pay off tomorrow. Yet politicians can’t and/or won’t think this way. They might think to cheat and steal and assassinate ( what do you mean a flashburn from three feet away to the back of the head with no blood from the wound nearby isn’t a suicide? ) today in order to retire at 100% pay after one term served. But that’s about the extent of it. All other problems solved on the job are taken care of by picking the low hanging fruit.
*
The easiest solutions are used first. Those that require the least effort or energy. Yet example after example has shown that throughout history societies have had to contend with deleting energy. By picking the low hanging fruit first, by definition you are going to have to devote more energy to solve the next problem. At the same time as you have less energy to use to do so. This is totally back-asswards to how you should be doing things. Such is the legacy of our politicians. Making sure future generations suffer more. Not that this is anything new. We can see it everywhere. Just consider the Federal deficit. But you also need to consider that a lot of other problems are going to rear their head in the future. From bankrupted pensioned funds to oil running out to depleted soil to a deteriorating electrical or water or sewer grid to living in Third World conditions. There is no happy ending. No technological fix. No savior in sustainable villages or renewable energy. Everything will continue to devolve, and one reason out of many is picking low hanging fruit.
END
Thanks, JRG from Texas, for the snail mail donation.
Mayberry from Keep It Simple- email me re: some land ( I don’t have your address )
My books and gear for sale at www.bisonpress.com
Friday, May 16, 2008
disposable preps
DISPOSABLE PREPS
Disposable items are usually something you want to try to phase out of your life. In the long run you save money, you lesson your dependence on consumerism, and if it matters to you become more Green. Using cloth napkins instead of paper, hand towels instead of paper towels. Ceramic dishware instead of paper plates or bowls. Ceramic mugs instead of Styrofoam. Cloth diapers instead of disposables. Reusable shopping bags. Even using a mechanical pencil so you only have to replace the core rather than an entire wood pencil. Buying in bulk to eliminate a lot of packaging. Not that disposables cost a whole heck of a lot of money ( other than diapers which are cheap individually but because of the needed volume add up quickly ). But if you can’t watch the pennies than the dollars will certainly never take care of themselves. And if a Greenie sees you with a reusable shopping bag she will run over to you, arm pit hair streaming behind her, tripping over her Birkenstocks in hast to plant a big sloppy kiss on you. I’m not totally anti-environmental since after all I enjoy breathing air I can’t see. But even a good intentioned wackjob is still dangerous and to be avoided.
*
One place disposables are great is in your disaster preps. More than likely in any natural disaster water is going to be an issue. Either the electricity is going to be out and no water gets pumped, the lines have ruptured, or the available water is contaminated. In this case the last thing you should care about is your carbon footprint, your Gaia violations or your depletion of resources. You need disposable items to carry on life for the short term until normalcy is returned. It is not impossible to camp using dishes and to use very little water to clean them. But disposables make things easy and cut down on your stress ( and remember, this is where seasoned cast iron comes in handy-scrape clean instead washing if needed ). This will be important. And this is just for a period of adjustment. Just figure the number of people you need to feed, the number of meals and the days involved. If a dollar pack of plates has a 70 count, a three member family can eat three times a day for a week. Not bad for a dollar, a week without plates to wash. Disposable cups are not absolutely necessary, you can have a separate design or color for each individual and they reuse. But it will save the small amount of water that would go towards rinsing out the cups. If you have a baby you definitely want disposable diapers. You will have no time or inclination to be washing out diapers even if you have the available water.
*
This ties in nicely with sanitation. Disposables are great for increasing sanitation. As long as you bury or burn the items right away. Along with plenty of trash bags, disposable eating utensils, disposable diapers, disposable towels will make clean up much easier and so cut back on sanitation issues. Let’s say you have a disease outbreak. Family members start to violently eject body fluids from all orifices. You will want plenty of paper towels for a quick and relatively sanitary cleanup. With disposable plastic gloves ( still fifty pair for a buck at Dollar Tree ). And extra trash bags. When near strangers in the family are forced together in close proximity suddenly, you are going to have a gaggle of women all starting their periods at different times ( although isn’t there something to the myth that over time they will synchronize their times? ). Your wife might have a reusable cup but no one else does. And bugging out none of them thought to bring a box of pads. Have plenty on hand.
*
Right now disposables are dirt cheap. Before fuel surcharges get insane, stock up on at least a few weeks of disposable plates, cups, silverware, napkins, towels, gloves, diapers, trash bags, rinse free hand sanitizer- anything that will see you through a lose of water and trips to the grocery store.
END
By My Crap http://www.bisonpress.com/
Disposable items are usually something you want to try to phase out of your life. In the long run you save money, you lesson your dependence on consumerism, and if it matters to you become more Green. Using cloth napkins instead of paper, hand towels instead of paper towels. Ceramic dishware instead of paper plates or bowls. Ceramic mugs instead of Styrofoam. Cloth diapers instead of disposables. Reusable shopping bags. Even using a mechanical pencil so you only have to replace the core rather than an entire wood pencil. Buying in bulk to eliminate a lot of packaging. Not that disposables cost a whole heck of a lot of money ( other than diapers which are cheap individually but because of the needed volume add up quickly ). But if you can’t watch the pennies than the dollars will certainly never take care of themselves. And if a Greenie sees you with a reusable shopping bag she will run over to you, arm pit hair streaming behind her, tripping over her Birkenstocks in hast to plant a big sloppy kiss on you. I’m not totally anti-environmental since after all I enjoy breathing air I can’t see. But even a good intentioned wackjob is still dangerous and to be avoided.
*
One place disposables are great is in your disaster preps. More than likely in any natural disaster water is going to be an issue. Either the electricity is going to be out and no water gets pumped, the lines have ruptured, or the available water is contaminated. In this case the last thing you should care about is your carbon footprint, your Gaia violations or your depletion of resources. You need disposable items to carry on life for the short term until normalcy is returned. It is not impossible to camp using dishes and to use very little water to clean them. But disposables make things easy and cut down on your stress ( and remember, this is where seasoned cast iron comes in handy-scrape clean instead washing if needed ). This will be important. And this is just for a period of adjustment. Just figure the number of people you need to feed, the number of meals and the days involved. If a dollar pack of plates has a 70 count, a three member family can eat three times a day for a week. Not bad for a dollar, a week without plates to wash. Disposable cups are not absolutely necessary, you can have a separate design or color for each individual and they reuse. But it will save the small amount of water that would go towards rinsing out the cups. If you have a baby you definitely want disposable diapers. You will have no time or inclination to be washing out diapers even if you have the available water.
*
This ties in nicely with sanitation. Disposables are great for increasing sanitation. As long as you bury or burn the items right away. Along with plenty of trash bags, disposable eating utensils, disposable diapers, disposable towels will make clean up much easier and so cut back on sanitation issues. Let’s say you have a disease outbreak. Family members start to violently eject body fluids from all orifices. You will want plenty of paper towels for a quick and relatively sanitary cleanup. With disposable plastic gloves ( still fifty pair for a buck at Dollar Tree ). And extra trash bags. When near strangers in the family are forced together in close proximity suddenly, you are going to have a gaggle of women all starting their periods at different times ( although isn’t there something to the myth that over time they will synchronize their times? ). Your wife might have a reusable cup but no one else does. And bugging out none of them thought to bring a box of pads. Have plenty on hand.
*
Right now disposables are dirt cheap. Before fuel surcharges get insane, stock up on at least a few weeks of disposable plates, cups, silverware, napkins, towels, gloves, diapers, trash bags, rinse free hand sanitizer- anything that will see you through a lose of water and trips to the grocery store.
END
By My Crap http://www.bisonpress.com/
Thursday, May 15, 2008
PODA
PODA
I looked up on Google to see if any other rude bastard had swiped my brilliant idea ( okay, I think it’s my idea- I could still be wrong if I have been subconsciously carrying it around with me ) for a new acronym. PODA. Post Oil Dark Ages. I introduced you to this wondrous new word last week but I was met with silence and disdain. Typical ingrates. A mind is a terrible thing to waste and mine has been tuned into a German engineered racing machine. Not that you care. Typical proletariat mob storming the castle and using the canvas paintings as sanitary napkins. Anyway, good news. The only reference I found was to some gay business word that some flamming idiot thought looked cute on a Power Point. God, have you ever been around a group of suits for any period of time? It will make your teeth itch. “Well, Gary, using the interface matrix in relation to the profit percentage as part of the credit equation we come to the question of depth to travel in the inverse rectal cranium position”. Translated into English it means that the idiots that thought a liberal arts degree was too hard took business and learned a new vocabulary to disguise their room temperature IQ. Any crippled byproduct of a first cousin sexual union running a fish taco stand in the ghetto could tell you that business is not much more than supply and demand and customer service but that is exactly what they teach out of you in American college business school.
*
So here I am having a crappy day. Last Saturday was one of our twice yearly food drives that places an insurmountable burden on me by requiring long continual physical labor and I am still recovering from it ( 20% less received than last year, about equal to food price increases ). The homeless dining room is falling apart and I’m running around trying to make hardware store parts fit proprietary commercial equipment ( it doesn’t work ). I work straight through lunch which puts me in a foul mood. And, worse of all, the radio is all a twitter over some grotesque sorry excuse of a human being. Some moronic bubble headed drooling idiot of an eleven year old has sold all of his worldly goods ( provided by his Yuppie Scum parents ) and presented a check for $400 to Bill Clinton to give to the brimstone breathing horned foul demon from the lowest rungs of Hades for her (re)election. First, the parents allowed this to happen. If they wanted to teach the little road apple what a bad idea it was to waste money on bribing your rulers they should have docked his allowance the full retail price of what he sold. Second, anyone trying to get Clinton elected should be sterilized. I don’t care what age you are.
*
Now on top of all this I’m having my typical idealess day. This is what you get. Lucky you. PODA. Before we are even able to reproduce a pre-Industrial Age society with medium scale manufacturing using water and animal power we must first enter into another Dark Ages. Within a half a generation almost nothing in working order should be left of our current technology. All the powder and primers should be used up. All auto batteries cease to hold a charge. PV panels losing generating capacity. Windmills long seized up. All mining using primitive techniques no longer produces useable ore. Even marginal oil wells that were not out of petroleum have ceased working due to spare parts issues. Malnutrition brings regular pestilence. All soils must be regenerated both due to overproduction of bio-fuels before total collapse and afterwards as people desperately planted everywhere. The average age in a lifespan collapses down to the low thirties. Trade is almost non-existent and war is continual. Civil War reenactors become the new military both due to having the needed equipment and training. Okay, I’m not sure about the last one for sure. The point is, can you even start to get your head around the idea of the end of oil?
END
Thanks again, Eric, for another contribution. Please be careful crossing the street, you are my best donor.
Buy Now! Books and gear at www.bisonpress.com
I looked up on Google to see if any other rude bastard had swiped my brilliant idea ( okay, I think it’s my idea- I could still be wrong if I have been subconsciously carrying it around with me ) for a new acronym. PODA. Post Oil Dark Ages. I introduced you to this wondrous new word last week but I was met with silence and disdain. Typical ingrates. A mind is a terrible thing to waste and mine has been tuned into a German engineered racing machine. Not that you care. Typical proletariat mob storming the castle and using the canvas paintings as sanitary napkins. Anyway, good news. The only reference I found was to some gay business word that some flamming idiot thought looked cute on a Power Point. God, have you ever been around a group of suits for any period of time? It will make your teeth itch. “Well, Gary, using the interface matrix in relation to the profit percentage as part of the credit equation we come to the question of depth to travel in the inverse rectal cranium position”. Translated into English it means that the idiots that thought a liberal arts degree was too hard took business and learned a new vocabulary to disguise their room temperature IQ. Any crippled byproduct of a first cousin sexual union running a fish taco stand in the ghetto could tell you that business is not much more than supply and demand and customer service but that is exactly what they teach out of you in American college business school.
*
So here I am having a crappy day. Last Saturday was one of our twice yearly food drives that places an insurmountable burden on me by requiring long continual physical labor and I am still recovering from it ( 20% less received than last year, about equal to food price increases ). The homeless dining room is falling apart and I’m running around trying to make hardware store parts fit proprietary commercial equipment ( it doesn’t work ). I work straight through lunch which puts me in a foul mood. And, worse of all, the radio is all a twitter over some grotesque sorry excuse of a human being. Some moronic bubble headed drooling idiot of an eleven year old has sold all of his worldly goods ( provided by his Yuppie Scum parents ) and presented a check for $400 to Bill Clinton to give to the brimstone breathing horned foul demon from the lowest rungs of Hades for her (re)election. First, the parents allowed this to happen. If they wanted to teach the little road apple what a bad idea it was to waste money on bribing your rulers they should have docked his allowance the full retail price of what he sold. Second, anyone trying to get Clinton elected should be sterilized. I don’t care what age you are.
*
Now on top of all this I’m having my typical idealess day. This is what you get. Lucky you. PODA. Before we are even able to reproduce a pre-Industrial Age society with medium scale manufacturing using water and animal power we must first enter into another Dark Ages. Within a half a generation almost nothing in working order should be left of our current technology. All the powder and primers should be used up. All auto batteries cease to hold a charge. PV panels losing generating capacity. Windmills long seized up. All mining using primitive techniques no longer produces useable ore. Even marginal oil wells that were not out of petroleum have ceased working due to spare parts issues. Malnutrition brings regular pestilence. All soils must be regenerated both due to overproduction of bio-fuels before total collapse and afterwards as people desperately planted everywhere. The average age in a lifespan collapses down to the low thirties. Trade is almost non-existent and war is continual. Civil War reenactors become the new military both due to having the needed equipment and training. Okay, I’m not sure about the last one for sure. The point is, can you even start to get your head around the idea of the end of oil?
END
Thanks again, Eric, for another contribution. Please be careful crossing the street, you are my best donor.
Buy Now! Books and gear at www.bisonpress.com
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
sks 2 & blue tarp
SKS II AND BLUE TARP
I know you were all astounded at my rehash of old news and tired proclamations with the last SKS article and are breathlessly waiting my next installment. Unfortunately for you I shall cover the fabled blue tarp first. Someone somewhere made a mention of needing a tarp Monday. Can’t remember where I read it otherwise I would share. My loyal minion? Another site? Anyway, after reading that Tuesday morning I later heard mention of them on National Pravda Radio. Chinese families are living under tarps as the quake aftershocks are severe and they fear further collapses. The unfortunates are huddling under mere umbrellas. Could it be that the Chinese are better prepared than the average American? Camping out in the open under shelter as opposed to living in the Death Dome. And on a related note, it seems the official Chinese response to their disaster was a bit more coordinated and comprehensive than ours was to Katrina. But, noooooo!!!!! That of course doesn’t mean we are seeing another symptom of economic decay and official incompetence because then that would mean I was unpatriotic to point out the obvious.
*
Blue tarps are one of those quite useful products of our oil drenched industrialized society. Two liter soda bottles are much more useful come emergencies, but the tarp is a close second. They provide shelter from rain. A collection area for water. A shade from the sun. They are far cheaper than regular tents while providing more area. They might not last too long with wind and ultraviolet exposure but for short term shelter they are great. You can even use them in the winter to keep some heat from escaping from your fire. Before you waste money on a cheap tent, consider buying several tarps and thin rope. You might wish to construct debris shelters or lean-to’s but if half the town is camping out near you the materials might be in short supply. A tarp shelter might be all that is available. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the tarps have other bad traits besides lack of longevity. They make noise. If blue is too bright the only other option is silver ( in standard Bulk Mart stores-I think the cammo ones are expensive and hard to find ). But for about ten bucks, it beats other types of expedient shelter. A good item to strap to the BOB.
*
On to our next item. I don’t know how many of you actually take time to read the comments section of each article the evening after it comes out, but you should. Vlad just came out with a great comment which impressed the heck out of me. Actually, I kind of got all embarrassed and hung my head in shame and wouldn’t go to school with the other kids. This was such a good idea that I felt bad for not have had a clue about it. Vlad comes up with a lot of good ideas ( and, yes, so do the rest of my regulars ). This one was better than ever. Turn your SKS into a bolt gun. Now, I can already hear the trolls gathering in a breath to vomit forth their hate and bile and I’ll just stop you right there. During quite a few disasters, possibly more than you imagine, ammunition supply is going to contract. Bolt guns are an important way to counteract this. Yes, the original point of recommending the SKS was that its ammunition would be more widely available than almost any other kind of ammunition ( for future production- which disqualifies the 223 ). But that still doesn’t mean shortages and price hikes won’t happen. The 762x39 round will more than likely, as long as trade exists, be less susceptible to shortages and see less cost inflation than other types of ammunition.
*
Remember, I’m not necessarily advocating buying a new rifle(s). You can buy an insert for your bolt gun as long as you don’t mind a single shot. But that way it only costs you $35 instead of $175. That said, with the SKS turned into a bolt gun you have the advantage of not wasting ammunition, even if you want to. You have a modern, newly manufactured carbine. Replacements and spare parts are easy to get. The recoil is light enough for almost all family members, unlike the thirty caliber bolt guns. The bayonet sucks-hard. And I think bayonets are important for a PODA future. But there always has to be trade-offs. It is inevitable. The range is not great, either. But 200 yards is about all the average shooter can do with open sites anyway. Without a scope, most of the range of a bolt gun is wasted ( stopping power is something else of course ). Below is a copy of Vlad’s comments. Thank you, Vlad.
*
Think one shot one kill.instructions with pictures (dis)assembly SKShttp://tinyurl.com/yvrpjyremove bolt operating rod from inside gas tube. replace gas tube.(IF YOU FAIL TO REPLACE GAS TUBE, GAS FROM GAS PORT WILL BLOW YOUR EYES OUT.) You will soon learn to quickly operate SKS as pullbolt.Make every shot count. Ammo supply is limited.One shot to the head or torso kills them as dead as they can get. Two or more shots in the head will not make them any deader.Save ammo. Kill the wounded enemy with a hammer or ax.
END
e-books, Amazon books, prep gear www.bisonpress.com
I know you were all astounded at my rehash of old news and tired proclamations with the last SKS article and are breathlessly waiting my next installment. Unfortunately for you I shall cover the fabled blue tarp first. Someone somewhere made a mention of needing a tarp Monday. Can’t remember where I read it otherwise I would share. My loyal minion? Another site? Anyway, after reading that Tuesday morning I later heard mention of them on National Pravda Radio. Chinese families are living under tarps as the quake aftershocks are severe and they fear further collapses. The unfortunates are huddling under mere umbrellas. Could it be that the Chinese are better prepared than the average American? Camping out in the open under shelter as opposed to living in the Death Dome. And on a related note, it seems the official Chinese response to their disaster was a bit more coordinated and comprehensive than ours was to Katrina. But, noooooo!!!!! That of course doesn’t mean we are seeing another symptom of economic decay and official incompetence because then that would mean I was unpatriotic to point out the obvious.
*
Blue tarps are one of those quite useful products of our oil drenched industrialized society. Two liter soda bottles are much more useful come emergencies, but the tarp is a close second. They provide shelter from rain. A collection area for water. A shade from the sun. They are far cheaper than regular tents while providing more area. They might not last too long with wind and ultraviolet exposure but for short term shelter they are great. You can even use them in the winter to keep some heat from escaping from your fire. Before you waste money on a cheap tent, consider buying several tarps and thin rope. You might wish to construct debris shelters or lean-to’s but if half the town is camping out near you the materials might be in short supply. A tarp shelter might be all that is available. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the tarps have other bad traits besides lack of longevity. They make noise. If blue is too bright the only other option is silver ( in standard Bulk Mart stores-I think the cammo ones are expensive and hard to find ). But for about ten bucks, it beats other types of expedient shelter. A good item to strap to the BOB.
*
On to our next item. I don’t know how many of you actually take time to read the comments section of each article the evening after it comes out, but you should. Vlad just came out with a great comment which impressed the heck out of me. Actually, I kind of got all embarrassed and hung my head in shame and wouldn’t go to school with the other kids. This was such a good idea that I felt bad for not have had a clue about it. Vlad comes up with a lot of good ideas ( and, yes, so do the rest of my regulars ). This one was better than ever. Turn your SKS into a bolt gun. Now, I can already hear the trolls gathering in a breath to vomit forth their hate and bile and I’ll just stop you right there. During quite a few disasters, possibly more than you imagine, ammunition supply is going to contract. Bolt guns are an important way to counteract this. Yes, the original point of recommending the SKS was that its ammunition would be more widely available than almost any other kind of ammunition ( for future production- which disqualifies the 223 ). But that still doesn’t mean shortages and price hikes won’t happen. The 762x39 round will more than likely, as long as trade exists, be less susceptible to shortages and see less cost inflation than other types of ammunition.
*
Remember, I’m not necessarily advocating buying a new rifle(s). You can buy an insert for your bolt gun as long as you don’t mind a single shot. But that way it only costs you $35 instead of $175. That said, with the SKS turned into a bolt gun you have the advantage of not wasting ammunition, even if you want to. You have a modern, newly manufactured carbine. Replacements and spare parts are easy to get. The recoil is light enough for almost all family members, unlike the thirty caliber bolt guns. The bayonet sucks-hard. And I think bayonets are important for a PODA future. But there always has to be trade-offs. It is inevitable. The range is not great, either. But 200 yards is about all the average shooter can do with open sites anyway. Without a scope, most of the range of a bolt gun is wasted ( stopping power is something else of course ). Below is a copy of Vlad’s comments. Thank you, Vlad.
*
Think one shot one kill.instructions with pictures (dis)assembly SKShttp://tinyurl.com/yvrpjyremove bolt operating rod from inside gas tube. replace gas tube.(IF YOU FAIL TO REPLACE GAS TUBE, GAS FROM GAS PORT WILL BLOW YOUR EYES OUT.) You will soon learn to quickly operate SKS as pullbolt.Make every shot count. Ammo supply is limited.One shot to the head or torso kills them as dead as they can get. Two or more shots in the head will not make them any deader.Save ammo. Kill the wounded enemy with a hammer or ax.
END
e-books, Amazon books, prep gear www.bisonpress.com
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
petrols prison punk
PETROLS PRISON PUNK
I love how I just make a flippant remark, having fun and lightly skipping through the tulip fields, rainbows glittering and birds chirping, and everyone gets all butt hurt and bent out of shape and viciously attacks me like I was Ossama Obamma trying to get votes at a KKK meeting. But that’s okay because now I have the idea for another article which you feel compelled to read and which I’m sure will irritate you and cause you to write other snide comments. So in effect you are continuing the great circle of life and all is well with the balance of the universe. Poking fun at fat old guys needing a chainsaw after a storm to clear downed trees was meant to convey our insane dependence on petroleum and how it has made us rather comical and lazy.
*
The critics, most of whom I imagine fit the physical profile of old and fat ( although I shouldn’t be throwing stones in that glass house ) got a trifle offended. You are a moron, they shouted. You’ve never used a chainsaw or you would know how much better it is in relation to a manual saw. You should cut a million cords of wood before you tell us what to do. Now, I realize I shouldn’t feed the trolls after I told you not to. That’s a bit rude. But I can’t pass this up. I have to respond. This is too perfect of an example how dependant we are on oil. I understand that all of us are only alive because of oil. Our food, our heat, or water. Everything is oil derived. What I am trying to get across to you is that if we don’t try to reduce that dependence individually we are in serious trouble. Let’s just say that Peak Oil doesn’t unfold as quickly as we are all thinking. I doubt it, but anything is possible. Hell, Clinton could even be a serious contender rather than a puppet to scare the masses into voting for Bush Light ( Hillary frightens the sheep into voting for the Muslim which frightens everyone into voting for Business As Usual Bush Clone ). Even if oil is still around to get out of the ground easily ( remember, it’s about getting cheap, abundant oil, not oil at any cost ) we are being beaten economically by China and soon will be unable to import oil.
*
Not too many people can make a credible defense that the US economy will remain strong, continue long, or remain the worlds leader. I would argue that this is already the case, a decline being disguised by living off past accomplishments and past power arrangements. But even with more breathing room to come we are still going to eventually decline economically far past the point we are now at. We will not be able to afford to buy oil at our current sweetheart terms ( adjusted for inflation we are not too off affordable ) when the dollar is no longer accepted at current favorable rates. And certainly not when foreign nations stop giving us loans. Already American imports of Chinese goods are lower than the combination of other nations. We are not as vital to their survival as we once were. And Japan is in effect bribing us to protect them by providing loans to us. How much longer will that last? With the recent surge of earthquake activity, remember that one big Tokyo quake will decimate the Japanese economy.
*
So, either physical supplies of petroleum run out or economically we are unable to buy as much as we need ( while at the same time not having the money to protect “our” oil in Iraq ). This is when oil supplies really start becoming dear. At this point you are going to have to adjust to weaning yourself off of oil. You can’t do without, obviously. But can you start using less? Right now using a chainsaw makes economic sense. And most likely will far into the future. The parts might cost more with transportation costs escalating. But the cost of using it, the gas used to run it, is virtually nothing. That is not the point. The point is you need to learn how to scale down everything you can now. While it is a lot less painful, while alternatives are out there, while mistakes are tolerated. When gas is $20 a gallon and when you stay in line on alternate days to buy gas is not the time to relearn how to do things. It is just like living frugal. You can’t just pinch a penny or two, you have to adjust everything in your life to cost less.
*
You need to learn to use less oil. Not because it lessons your dependence on it. Remember, we all eat oil grown food. But because practice will allow you to develop the mindset to be a lot less miserable when the stuff starts running out. Going from a chainsaw to a manual saw. Going from power tools to manual ones ( one time use such as cheap tools to build a house is a bit different ). Going from a power mower to a push-reel type ( I used one in Florida twice a week when I had a lawn-miserable to use, it only cost $10 less than a motorized unit, but I try to live simple ). In time you start to adjust other activities to be grid or oil free. Shade and earth tubes instead of air conditioning. A bike instead of a car. None of it is as easy, as comfortable or as fast as their power equivalents. Isn’t this one of the things I keep poking fun at with the Yuppie Survivalists? Trying to live in comfort through the Apocalypse.
*
Powering down, minimizing your dependence. You save money. Live simpler and with less stress. Reduce lifestyle shock during a calamity. In the long run you stay more comfortable with almost modern conveniences. The guy with all the labor saving devices now will have none of the proper tools post-collapse. Think of it this way. The guy with no bank account loses out on convenience- until the day a bank holiday is declared. Get it?
END
A great look at post-oil fiction novels http://www.energybulletin.net/44031.html
Buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
I love how I just make a flippant remark, having fun and lightly skipping through the tulip fields, rainbows glittering and birds chirping, and everyone gets all butt hurt and bent out of shape and viciously attacks me like I was Ossama Obamma trying to get votes at a KKK meeting. But that’s okay because now I have the idea for another article which you feel compelled to read and which I’m sure will irritate you and cause you to write other snide comments. So in effect you are continuing the great circle of life and all is well with the balance of the universe. Poking fun at fat old guys needing a chainsaw after a storm to clear downed trees was meant to convey our insane dependence on petroleum and how it has made us rather comical and lazy.
*
The critics, most of whom I imagine fit the physical profile of old and fat ( although I shouldn’t be throwing stones in that glass house ) got a trifle offended. You are a moron, they shouted. You’ve never used a chainsaw or you would know how much better it is in relation to a manual saw. You should cut a million cords of wood before you tell us what to do. Now, I realize I shouldn’t feed the trolls after I told you not to. That’s a bit rude. But I can’t pass this up. I have to respond. This is too perfect of an example how dependant we are on oil. I understand that all of us are only alive because of oil. Our food, our heat, or water. Everything is oil derived. What I am trying to get across to you is that if we don’t try to reduce that dependence individually we are in serious trouble. Let’s just say that Peak Oil doesn’t unfold as quickly as we are all thinking. I doubt it, but anything is possible. Hell, Clinton could even be a serious contender rather than a puppet to scare the masses into voting for Bush Light ( Hillary frightens the sheep into voting for the Muslim which frightens everyone into voting for Business As Usual Bush Clone ). Even if oil is still around to get out of the ground easily ( remember, it’s about getting cheap, abundant oil, not oil at any cost ) we are being beaten economically by China and soon will be unable to import oil.
*
Not too many people can make a credible defense that the US economy will remain strong, continue long, or remain the worlds leader. I would argue that this is already the case, a decline being disguised by living off past accomplishments and past power arrangements. But even with more breathing room to come we are still going to eventually decline economically far past the point we are now at. We will not be able to afford to buy oil at our current sweetheart terms ( adjusted for inflation we are not too off affordable ) when the dollar is no longer accepted at current favorable rates. And certainly not when foreign nations stop giving us loans. Already American imports of Chinese goods are lower than the combination of other nations. We are not as vital to their survival as we once were. And Japan is in effect bribing us to protect them by providing loans to us. How much longer will that last? With the recent surge of earthquake activity, remember that one big Tokyo quake will decimate the Japanese economy.
*
So, either physical supplies of petroleum run out or economically we are unable to buy as much as we need ( while at the same time not having the money to protect “our” oil in Iraq ). This is when oil supplies really start becoming dear. At this point you are going to have to adjust to weaning yourself off of oil. You can’t do without, obviously. But can you start using less? Right now using a chainsaw makes economic sense. And most likely will far into the future. The parts might cost more with transportation costs escalating. But the cost of using it, the gas used to run it, is virtually nothing. That is not the point. The point is you need to learn how to scale down everything you can now. While it is a lot less painful, while alternatives are out there, while mistakes are tolerated. When gas is $20 a gallon and when you stay in line on alternate days to buy gas is not the time to relearn how to do things. It is just like living frugal. You can’t just pinch a penny or two, you have to adjust everything in your life to cost less.
*
You need to learn to use less oil. Not because it lessons your dependence on it. Remember, we all eat oil grown food. But because practice will allow you to develop the mindset to be a lot less miserable when the stuff starts running out. Going from a chainsaw to a manual saw. Going from power tools to manual ones ( one time use such as cheap tools to build a house is a bit different ). Going from a power mower to a push-reel type ( I used one in Florida twice a week when I had a lawn-miserable to use, it only cost $10 less than a motorized unit, but I try to live simple ). In time you start to adjust other activities to be grid or oil free. Shade and earth tubes instead of air conditioning. A bike instead of a car. None of it is as easy, as comfortable or as fast as their power equivalents. Isn’t this one of the things I keep poking fun at with the Yuppie Survivalists? Trying to live in comfort through the Apocalypse.
*
Powering down, minimizing your dependence. You save money. Live simpler and with less stress. Reduce lifestyle shock during a calamity. In the long run you stay more comfortable with almost modern conveniences. The guy with all the labor saving devices now will have none of the proper tools post-collapse. Think of it this way. The guy with no bank account loses out on convenience- until the day a bank holiday is declared. Get it?
END
A great look at post-oil fiction novels http://www.energybulletin.net/44031.html
Buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Monday, May 12, 2008
case for the SKS
CASE FOR THE SKS
My apologies if this is a repeat. It would almost take me as long to search through past issues as to write this. I could lie to you and tell you I’m going to create an index for Bison and get organized but we all know that would be a damn lie. And the only thing worse than a damn lie is a statistic. I will promise to consider the idea, however, and that should make everyone all warm and fuzzy and feeling special. My idea today, if it can be considered an idea rather than a vaguely remembered hazy rip off of someone else’s mental gem, is that while my ideas of ideal survival guns are perfect and can never be perfected upon my choices are not for perfect but rather for best-as-can-be. Your best-as-can-be-Post-Apocalypse rifle is of course the Enfield. But in other disaster scenarios other weapons are better. Hence the case for the SKS.
*
The Enfield is ideal because it is very inexpensive. The rifle itself, the elimination of magazines and the amount of ammunition you need to feed it. It is a great bayonet platform. It is simply and cheaply set up for a scope. It has a large ammo capacity and is twice as fast to reload as other bolt guns. And it holds up very well to dirt in the field. Ammo is available commercially. The SKS is almost as cheap. The rifle only costs $25 to $50 more than the Enfield and also eliminates the need for magazines. It is semi-auto, for all those worried about feral dog packs and mutant zombie bikers. As long as trade with former ComBloc nations is allowed, ammo is very cheap at twenty cents a round. Of course, you are comparing a full size rifle round to a carbine round. I would not scope a SKS. The battle sites are great to 200 yards, and the round won’t go out much farther than that for your average shooter.
*
At first glance, the SKS is still far inferior to the Enfield for a post collapse weapon. It uses a lot more ammo ( under stress you WILL spray and pray ). It has a pathetic bayonet. It’s practical range is half that of the bolt gun. I still think the Enfield is the best, all around. But one thing to consider is repair and resupply. Enfield’s are starting to thin out. Not disappear but getting more expensive as the supply starts to shrink. SKS’s are still being made. More importantly, the ammunition is still being made so surplus ammo is still in good supply. 303 is about thirty five cents surplus when available. 762x39 is twenty cents a round by the case. The price may have doubled due to the Forever War and our puppet troops using the round, but all things considered still cheap.
*
As the oil runs out ( and as the dollar is hyper-inflated ) trade will be squeezed, but it will not disappear until a total collapse. China has a lot more ammunition plants that will bring in trade currency than they do idle fields waiting to be planted. Ammunition will be available as long as ships are sailing. The US has plenty of trade items such as grains and other foods, lumber, oil and gold. Groups might be fighting to secure the area that contains those items ( such as current day Africa ) so this is a double bonus to our ammunition supplier ( it could other nations such as Eastern Europe or Russia ). He sells ammo because there is a conflict and more ammo is sold for trade goods. The US will break apart, despite its military. The armed forces are too reliant on oil and high tech and Federal debt. All of which are in danger already, let alone in the future. There will be the guise of freedom fighting and patriotism, but most likely you will find yourself fighting for a new rulers wealth, power and trade currency. Yes, the power vacuum will be filled immediately. By a worse sort. But whether you are fighting off local warlords or happily joining in the fighting and looting, your rifle will need more ammunition. The most likely available type will be for the SKS or AK-47 ( forget the AK, it uses mags, it is over twice the cost, it is less accurate and not as robust ).
*
As long as overseas trade occurs, either in war or peace, SKS ammo will be in high supply. In the case of total Hillary confiscation the foreigners will illegally supply us to foster civil conflict. Consider that in your planning. Even if you can’t or don’t want to change your weapon platform, at least get a 762x39 insert for your bolt gun. Ammunition is your weak point.
END
Your tax refund anticipation loan is now being sent out. Buy my e-books, Amazon books and prep gear at www.bisonpress.com
*
Thank you, Eric, for the donation! Big smiley face.
My apologies if this is a repeat. It would almost take me as long to search through past issues as to write this. I could lie to you and tell you I’m going to create an index for Bison and get organized but we all know that would be a damn lie. And the only thing worse than a damn lie is a statistic. I will promise to consider the idea, however, and that should make everyone all warm and fuzzy and feeling special. My idea today, if it can be considered an idea rather than a vaguely remembered hazy rip off of someone else’s mental gem, is that while my ideas of ideal survival guns are perfect and can never be perfected upon my choices are not for perfect but rather for best-as-can-be. Your best-as-can-be-Post-Apocalypse rifle is of course the Enfield. But in other disaster scenarios other weapons are better. Hence the case for the SKS.
*
The Enfield is ideal because it is very inexpensive. The rifle itself, the elimination of magazines and the amount of ammunition you need to feed it. It is a great bayonet platform. It is simply and cheaply set up for a scope. It has a large ammo capacity and is twice as fast to reload as other bolt guns. And it holds up very well to dirt in the field. Ammo is available commercially. The SKS is almost as cheap. The rifle only costs $25 to $50 more than the Enfield and also eliminates the need for magazines. It is semi-auto, for all those worried about feral dog packs and mutant zombie bikers. As long as trade with former ComBloc nations is allowed, ammo is very cheap at twenty cents a round. Of course, you are comparing a full size rifle round to a carbine round. I would not scope a SKS. The battle sites are great to 200 yards, and the round won’t go out much farther than that for your average shooter.
*
At first glance, the SKS is still far inferior to the Enfield for a post collapse weapon. It uses a lot more ammo ( under stress you WILL spray and pray ). It has a pathetic bayonet. It’s practical range is half that of the bolt gun. I still think the Enfield is the best, all around. But one thing to consider is repair and resupply. Enfield’s are starting to thin out. Not disappear but getting more expensive as the supply starts to shrink. SKS’s are still being made. More importantly, the ammunition is still being made so surplus ammo is still in good supply. 303 is about thirty five cents surplus when available. 762x39 is twenty cents a round by the case. The price may have doubled due to the Forever War and our puppet troops using the round, but all things considered still cheap.
*
As the oil runs out ( and as the dollar is hyper-inflated ) trade will be squeezed, but it will not disappear until a total collapse. China has a lot more ammunition plants that will bring in trade currency than they do idle fields waiting to be planted. Ammunition will be available as long as ships are sailing. The US has plenty of trade items such as grains and other foods, lumber, oil and gold. Groups might be fighting to secure the area that contains those items ( such as current day Africa ) so this is a double bonus to our ammunition supplier ( it could other nations such as Eastern Europe or Russia ). He sells ammo because there is a conflict and more ammo is sold for trade goods. The US will break apart, despite its military. The armed forces are too reliant on oil and high tech and Federal debt. All of which are in danger already, let alone in the future. There will be the guise of freedom fighting and patriotism, but most likely you will find yourself fighting for a new rulers wealth, power and trade currency. Yes, the power vacuum will be filled immediately. By a worse sort. But whether you are fighting off local warlords or happily joining in the fighting and looting, your rifle will need more ammunition. The most likely available type will be for the SKS or AK-47 ( forget the AK, it uses mags, it is over twice the cost, it is less accurate and not as robust ).
*
As long as overseas trade occurs, either in war or peace, SKS ammo will be in high supply. In the case of total Hillary confiscation the foreigners will illegally supply us to foster civil conflict. Consider that in your planning. Even if you can’t or don’t want to change your weapon platform, at least get a 762x39 insert for your bolt gun. Ammunition is your weak point.
END
Your tax refund anticipation loan is now being sent out. Buy my e-books, Amazon books and prep gear at www.bisonpress.com
*
Thank you, Eric, for the donation! Big smiley face.
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