paradise living

PARADISE LIVING
I had a really good trip this weekend, so thanks for putting up with my hooky on Friday. I can't remember as relaxing a three days for quite some time. My last job I was working seven days a week to get overtime to pay for my high rent living ( lot rent was nearly three quarters of my take home pay, which helps explain my ability to live like a dirt wallowing barbarian now and like it ) and since I've lived in Elko I haven't had much time off, what with twelve hour days and weekends devoted to chores and writing. So, I got to see my dad and took some personal time off for myself. The first relaxing time in nearly three years. Visiting down near the state capital also reminded me what a good choice it was to move north. It took me an hour to drive fifteen miles at two o'clock in the afternoon Friday. I understand that you people living in real rat like people pile conditions scoff at my considering sixty thousand crowded, and a commute taking less than two hours a quick stroll in the park, but there it is. I'll take the metro of Elko with eighteen thousand any old day. Yes, it is still crowded, but you can't go much lower without seeing no available jobs. And by the by, the state capital daily newspaper is in such sorry shape ( even after buying out the free Penny Saver type paper to eliminate classified ad competition ) they cut back to five days a week publishing.
*
A week and a half ago, the Druid Dude had an even better than normal article ( http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ ) on the Rust Belting of the west coast. He was explaining his choice in moving from the Oregon coastal area back to a small Appalachian Mountain town. Forgive me if I don't hit it straight on, going from imperfect memory, but it boiled down to his view that the west coast was in big trouble due to the decline of port traffic. Without the decades long increase in imports continuing, the entire coast is going to repeat the northeast Rust Belt saga. Now, the Druid Dude and I disagree on the collapse. He holds out for a long descent ( the title of his most excellent and highly recommended book ) with a lower tech, decentralized agricultural future. I figure we are all going to very quickly descend into full blown anarchy, die of disease and warfare and end up with 1% of the current population, who will continuously battle each other over depleted farmland and the trash of the current Oil Age ( Post Oil Dark Ages or Peak Oil Dark Ages- PODA ). I don't necessarily think he is wrong. I acknowledge that I'm just a smidgen paranoid. Regardless, I respect his intellect and reasoning behind his decisions.
*
Despite severe problems with living back East, it isn't a bad place to live under certain futures. A long slow collapse allows the overpopulation there to be kept under control ( no out of control mobs as long as the hyper-inflated dollar denominated welfare checks keep coming ), so there isn't the screaming hoards of zombie bikers so near and dear to the paranoid crowd. The area can rebound relatively easily from the lack of imports and oil, whereas the West was never a viable place to settle before the consumption of coal and oil ( for anything other than a nomadic, primitive lifestyle ). There is abundant rain, plentiful river transport and small scale power, and some of the old infrastructure can be salvaged. Out West, with a few exceptions here and there, without abundant oil for all aspects of life things will totally cease to function. I don't know how accurate it was, but I once read a figure on the native population of L.A. as relating to the naturally occurring water flow being in the mere tens of thousands. So, for the future that the Druid Dude envisions, his choice of location is as close to paradise as he can get within his budget.
*
My choice of Elko was based solely on economics, but I've come to realise that it is a great location as far as a total collapse. Everyone screams and waves their arms in severe panic, bouncing into walls and already planning my funeral. They simply can't see a future without farming, whereas I see a realistic chance of survival through herding and a nomadic life. You can eat your corn gruel and die in a famine, I'm going to eat rancid goat BBQ and die in one of the never ending skirmishes with neighboring tribes. I might die earlier, but my stomach will be filled with yummy meat instead of mush. My location doesn't work for organic farming Druids, and his location is a death trap as far as I'm concerned. Neither one of us is wrong, we are choosing to survive our own types of disaster. So when I recommend junk land, of course it is under certain expectations. If you don't share those concerns, it doesn't mean you are wrong but simply that you don't agree with my crystal ball. Nothing wrong with that. So if I do look at you disapprovingly for your inaction, please understand that it is with my own expectations of the future in mind. I can't always add the disclaimers to my articles. "If all goes according to Jim's plan, then the following course of action is the best one". I assume you take my recommendations with that understanding.
*
It is important to live in what you consider the best place, your paradise ( or a reasonable facsimile thereof for your budget ). Take the sense of urgency at face value, but the location with a grain of salt. You know what is best for you. I hope.
END

movie review

MOVIE REVIEW
I'm off work today for a three day visit to my dad. He isn't sick in the hospital or anything ( although we just a had a good scare there last week ), but I feel like I need to keep in contact in case his heart condition suddenly does him in. Most likely, I'll get run over or have a heart attack biking to work before he dies. But I don't want any regrets when he does pass away ( I don't want to say, "I should have spent more time with him" ). So I'm spending way too much money going down to see him. Today you get a pre-posted movie review, since it was something I had ready to go. I'm getting closer to finishing that book on post-apocalypse movies. Be patient.
*
28 DAYS LATER
Rated R, 2002
Various cheap English actors

This one is yet another zombie film, but done quit well and one of the best. First off, there is a group of Greenpeace Birkenstock wearing Volvo driving Dead Head listening tree hugging animal rights activists that break into a chimp testing lab. Now, considering how pretty nasty their infection turned out, you would think that perhaps the place would have been a little better guarded. But, leave it to the British, they are so busy installing a surveillance camera on every corner in every town all over the nation they most likely simply didn’t have the manpower. So, a squeaky little lab guy sees them breaking in and says, wait, wait, danger Will Robinson, danger. They are infectious, oh my. Now, being super green weenie types they should have immediately felt a kindred spirit with the nerd, visions of school with bully athletes dancing in their head. But instead, they ignore sensible cautions against playing around IN LABS with infections stuff. I mean, if it was me I wouldn’t go near the place. Sorry chimps, you’re just going to have to die for the cause. I don’t even trust the germs at a hospital, so there is no way I’m going in a research lab. Look where AIDS and the Mexican Flu came from, you know. Anyway, if the film took that step it would have just been another two fags falling in love kind of story which England has enough of, thank you. Although, they did pay phallic homage, which I’ll get to later.

The dumb ass tree hugger chick opens the chimp door and then just looks all surprised when Bonzo jumps on her face and starts to chew on it. Boom! First infection. This stuff is super fast. One second you’re getting your flesh dined on cannibal style and in less than a minute you are a zombie. Actually, you only need to get blood past your skin to get infected. Just like AIDS, but better since you get to become a zombie. Yes, zombies suck compared to vampires. Vampires are all regal and cool and get to be bad ass. Zombies are just gross and decaying. But at least it is some kind of second lease on life. Just with leprosy, kind of. Okay, 28 days later we visit a hospital were a brain damaged coma patient wakes up. He is naked in bed with an empty IV in him so you know its been awhile since he’s eaten. Not that you can usually tell with the Brits as they are generally thin and pasty anyway. And get this. Full frontal nudity. His dingaling is just hanging away. Gross. We don’t get to see any boobs most of the movie, and then it is only zombie boob which is not very sexy and even if it was they showed it jerky framed and not in great focus. I really felt cheated. And later, we have to see this same guys butt in a shower scene. Do English like boobs, or not?

The room is locked, but a thoughtful doctor or nurse slid the key into the room before they turned zombie. See, the coma dude can survive a little longer since there is no way for anyone to get in ( presumably the door window is shatterproof ). Coma dude, name of Jim, is a bit confused, wanders around. Thinks it might be an acid flashback or something. He walks into a church ( after a bunch of wide shots of a deserted city ) and calls out, hello! Oops, movement below. The priest is now a bloodsucker, which isn’t much of a career change. He starts running towards Jim, acting all bugged eye and crazy. Jim hit’s the priest to stun him, feeling bad the whole time because he’s been raised a good little protestant. Then he hauls ass, the first sensible thing he’s done since he woke up and scared us with his junk. Others zombies starts chasing him. Luckily for Jim, two dudes pop out and start Molotov cocktailing the zombie which is way cool since they keep running until they melt down into a pool of zombie juice. Run away, run away. Holed up in a convenience store, blah, blah. My name is Jim, my name is big macho dude, my name in Selena, I’m actually a hot chick as you can tell after I take off my mask.

I must see my Mum, no it’s not safe. I must. OK, we’ll all go. Mum and Da are toast, but they took sleeping pills and wine before they got eaten so it’s all cool. But, dumbass Jim goes downstairs in the middle of the night and watches home movies because he’s all sad and misses Mum. Zombies see light, attack, big fight, big macho dude gets bit, Selena starts hacking him to pieces since you only have ten to twenty seconds before they turn. Now, I wonder where she got her machete, it kicks ass. Plowing right through bone. Mine won’t even cut the bushes. They haul butt until they see lights blinking in an upstairs apartment building. Get up right ahead of yet more zombies, these guys are all freeken over the place. Welcome, blah, blah. We’re out of water, no rain, must leave for army checkpoint that is broadcasting a safe haven. Off they go, zombies following, looting upscale markets for food, a wonderful road trip adventure. Until they get to the checkpoint.

Long story short, the army leader dude is holed up in a nearby mansion with high walls and barbed wire and he wants women for his soldier boys so they can rebuild the British race. One assumes they ask the ladies to please keep their bras on so as not to be offended by boobs. But, no one gets that chance. Jim escapes, comes back to rescue ladies ( Selena plus the daughter from the apartment building ), turned zombies on the soldiers. One assumes he was turned into the hero to please the pillow biters that must love this film. Anyway, they escape and after another 28 days Jim recovers from a gunshot wound he got while escaping and they try to contact a passing jet. So, as the movie closes you know there is civilization elsewhere.
*Genre Rating- a damn good end of the world story. OK, again, it’s just on the island. But it is a pretty darn good show. I even forgive the hint of a government rescue in the end because it could be realistic. Plus, by portraying the existing military as evil overlords instead of protectors they made things very realistic.
*Nudity Rating-very disappointing. Too much male nudity and only a brief glimpse of any female parts. But those were zombie parts and thus hardly count.
*Overall Rating- damn good. Two thumbs up. Cool. It’s such a good movie I can forgive the homoerotic nonsense. I’ve seen it at least four times. And I’m usually a new release kind of movie watcher.

pow & nc's

POW & NC'S
Before starting once again of divine drivel, a very hearty thanks to all those that recently bought through my Amazon Affiliate pages over yonder at www.bisonpress.com . My commission was at a near record $40 and with it I treated myself to "Peak Everything" and "Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller". Looking forward to those. And, my Google ads payments are coming in at $50 a month instead of the old $35 ( average, of course ). My e-book sales have also risen from their old lows. Keep being generous with those rapidly depreciating Greenbacks and I'll keep vomiting out my nuggets of wisdom. A bargain at twice the price. And I keep forgetting to recommend www.backwoodssurvivalblog.com . He gives you a short run down of flagged articles, which is a great time saver.
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All this recent talk about forming a new federal super agency for torture has gotten me thinking about the bad old times just down the turnpike. Not only has our propaganda gotten more like the old Soviet Union, our torture methods are better resembling the KGB also. If you don't call it torture, it can't be torture. I recently was exposed to a program on an old WWII fellow on our side. He was fondly remembered by the Germans for his use on totally non violent interrogation. It was all psychological. Merely clever questioning. But that is now viewed as totally old school. TV constantly shows us violent interrogation, justifying it because the crooks are bad. Innocent until proven guilty? What Constitution? And the feds have lawyers arguing over the definition of sex, er, I mean torture. Well, perhaps torture by sex. Sorry, bad Clinton joke. No offense Hillary, honest. If I don't post on Monday, you know she eliminated me. They'll say it was a traffic accident... Anyway, even forgetting about morals and scruples and being a decent human being, it seems someone has forgotten that your behavior comes back on you. Good or bad. Which means that by its brutal behavior, the government is condoning its troops and citizens to retaliation. That's how much they care. Risking your life to safeguard our fortunes? As thanks, we'll let you be abducted and tortured. God Bless America.
*
After the collapse, when universal bad behavior abounds, you need to be on the side that rises above that. Not only is it the right thing to do, it will come back on you. If you behead civilians and burn fields so the peasants will starve, you will invite the same sort of thing. If you spare non combatants and treat prisoners decently, the other side will at first treat your troops and citizens poorly as usual. But in time you will still be paid back in other ways. Skilled people will want to immigrate and work for you. Soldiers will willingly surrender rather than bitterly fight to the last man, saving casualties on your side. Citizens will help you out to overthrow their evil overlords. You are doing the right thing morally, and being rewarded for it. It is a win/win. I think this shows how desperate our leaders are, that torture is allowed ( funny how your hero Obammy condoned Baby Bush for torture at first, but now wants to make it a cabinet level activity ). We don't have the resources to bribe other countries, but must simply steal what we need.
*
When you take POW's, it is okay to put them to work to earn their keep. It isn't okay to feed them less calories than they are using so you eventually kill them. You can't torture them, regardless of how valuable the information they have is. Once you cross that line, there is no turning back. Mistreating prisoners should be a punishable offense. Remember, you want willing surrender to save on your own casualties. You might even consider a program where they join your side. Prisoner trades should be encouraged. Rather than having each side suffer under too many prisoners ( not enough food to spare, for instance ), you swap them out to relieve the burden. Then there is the issue of retribution. If your civilians are killed, don't do the same. If their side won't pay restitution, at the worst you might execute some POW's. That one might be dangerous, but at least you are keeping the casualties military. Don't be arbitrary about it, don't just shoot them all in anger. Give the other side plenty of warning and chances to comply with your demands. Money doesn't make up for death, but it is preferable to further innocents dying.
*
NC's, non-combatants, should not be treated as badly as we are used to. We fire bombed Japanese and German cities under the assumption that civilians created war material and thus had to be killed. But what that also did was make the civilians buy into their leaders propaganda. We were slaughtering them all, so give your all fighting back, even if it is only in a factory. I'm not excusing the leadership, I'm saying that civilians can't be targets if you want them to sabotage their own leaders efforts. If the SS hadn't been killing civilians when the Russian invasion started, the civilians would have looked at them as liberators. We bomb the heck out of Iraq after a ten year embargo which denied critical food and medicine to innocents, and we wonder why there is guerrilla warfare. I understand it is a bit more complex than that, but we certainly are not liberators. It is as simple as reaping what you sow. It is pretty black and white. You start creating shapes of grey and you are going down a slippery slope.
*
Isn't the concept of consequences pretty simple? Is it just me, is it actually more like rocket science? I weep at the sea of stupidity.
END

skills and stuff

SKILLS AND STUFF
Oh, what a sweet and glorious day this is. Chappaquiddick Ted is dead! Rot for all of eternity in the lower depths of hell, you fat horrid troll. I can only hope that the Pope isn't lying like a rug and damnation is a reality, and that you will be gang raped by demons with inhumanly large members studded with twisted and sharp protrusions, your large gaping wounds healing each night that that you can be tortured anew the next day. On the Communist Puke scale, he ranked right up there with Stalin. And at least Stalin didn't have much to do with the suffering of Americans. And I hope your brain cancer hurt like hell. Don't speak ill of the dead? Piss on that, and piss on Teds grave. But I'm not bitter.
*
Like almost all the teachings of survivalism, the quest for skills is a good idea. But like most other teachings, there is little moderation. Some things you want to go overboard on, like stockpiled food and ammunition. Other things are faintly ridiculous as far as what is suggested. Rather than a realistic level of skill acquisition, it is as if you were instructed to have all the skills needed to survive on a tropical island. Not that this is a bad idea, but it is far from realistic. Very few of us have the time or energy to become a medic or nurse, a sniper, an urban combat specialist, a wilderness navigator, a ultralight hiker and camper, an armorer, a farmer and rancher and butcher and cook, a logistics officer, a pilot, an off road motocross biker, etc. Few of us can master one or two of those, yet you are looked on as a slacking ho that will end up in the zombie bikers stew pot if you don't learn each and everyone of them. The very simple fact of the matter is that for 99% of us, you only learn a skill that is marketable or a hobby.
*
Is it really fair for a farmer or rancher to look down his nose at others because they don't know how to shoe a horse, mend a fence, castrate a bull, create a successful compost pile, or whatever? Of course not. That is his livelihood. If you are getting paid to do something ten hours a day, how can you expect others to pick it up on a few hours here and there between chores and work? Even if it isn't a very good paying job, or perhaps even loses money in the long run, that is their job. In the book "Emergency", the author takes off several years to learn all those survival skills everyone recommends. Gun courses, dressing game, wilderness survival, EMT, etc. Yet, not only were each of those paid courses tax deductible for research, he had several previous best sellers to pay his living expenses during that time. The rest of us don't have the luxury. Even if you win a super duper free course after you write an article about how much you love and worship your AR-15 carbine, you still need to get time off from work, pay for travel, then keep up your training with ammunition that is over fifty cents a round on sale ( unneeded remarks about wasting ammunition in semi mode not mentioned ). For me, just visiting my father who is only three hundred miles away is a huge deal ( I'm going this weekend, so Friday will be a guest article or a movie review ). And I would do that before I went to a gun course. I'm wearing myself out making preparations at work. This is a one man show and keeping the ravenous hoards in food in advance isn't easy.
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Please, for the love of all that is holy and just and good, please, pretty friggin please, listen to me very carefully. I am not saying new life saving skills are bad. They are very good. I am saying that they are very difficult to acquire unless it is job related or part of a hobby you enjoy and use to relax with. So few of us have the needed time or capital. TV, not used in moderation, is a time wasting sink hole of your life. Used conservatively, it has a good purpose. Freeing your mind from the days drudgery. Relaxing. It is a legal opiate. But you must use it in moderation. Even if you give up all TV watching, how much time have you freed? Most of us commute and do chores daily. As food prices and services and everything goes up in price, we will be doing more cooking from scratch, more labor intense chores. We will lose time. Free time will be shrinking, so cutting back on TV will at best be a holding action. If you are being realistic, you have very little time to learn. If you take time to rest and recuperate after work, about zero time. You all get all hot and bothered about doing things the military way, so why would you be opposed to R&R? The most vacation time I ever had was when I was in the military. They must think it is a good idea to give stress a rest.
*
By all means, try to learn the new ( or old ) skills needed for after the collapse of civilization. No, having books on the shelf is not a good substitute, but it is better than nothing. Remember Better Than Nothing? We already had that lesson. BTN is not a bad way to prepare for survival. Skills are just like stuff. It might be the best to have a best and shiniest, but if you never can afford the best, you can die with nothing. All because you insisted on the best and wouldn't just get BTN. If you don't think you will have the time to learn a new skill, at least have the book. And eventually force yourself to put aside time to learn new stuff. Crack the book and experiment on a small scale. Just don't expect to learn everything you think you need to know. You can spout the crap about specialisation is for insects, but economic reality says otherwise. You may want to go visit the fantasyland about being a Super Stud Warrior King having all the skills needed to survive combat in Iraq, then be able to stitch up a squad mates wounds, navigate back to base by the stars, then write up your memoirs that gets on the best seller lists, but the reason the combat guys have those skills is because it was their job and they were paid to learn the skills. You are paid to ride a desk and shuffle paperwork. At best, you can go to the range a few times a year. See how much it will pay to quit that job and go learn to survive in the wild.
*
Most of us have to lean heavily towards stuff instead of skills. It isn't very reasonable to expect otherwise.
END

health care

HEALTH CARE
As I was wildly swinging my golden sword of righteousness in the herd lot, trying desperately to slaughter more sacred cows, it seems I was too busy to notice the villagers arming themselves with pitchforks and torches so as to fight back. Fine, you can keep your cattle alive for now. But I'll be back ( this refers to yesterday's outright mutiny of once loyal minions in the comments section ). Oh yes, I'll be back.
*
Pravda Radio simply can't get enough of our Black Knight On A White Horse Sir Obammy. This morning they replayed his gushing endorsement for reelection of our central banker head Helicopter Ben. Yesterday was yet another propaganda onslaught for his health care plan. Not content to double our national debt in his first six months in office ( I hope you all realize Obammy is a simple puppet just as Baby Bush was ), he wants to spend a crap load of money on a national health care plan. Most folks don't like the idea of national health care. If you've ever been in the military, chances are good you got a taste of government run medical care. Think of the Post Office with two lines. One has aspirin for all problems, the other is a long waiting list to get anything else done. I was actually less impressed with an Indian ( dot, not feather ) dentist on my second to last insurance plan ( he was, literally, the only one taking the insurance in the Daytona Beach metro area ) than I ever was with a military dentist. And my run ins with the medical personnel were always positive. I don't think it was the people, just the system. But of course, that is the whole military. A better example, as given by a loyal minion, is the Indian ( feather, not dot ) health care service which is probably as good as their rancid meat rations used to be when the agents used their posts to get rich rather than help their charges.
*
Now, we all hate communists. As Americans, it is our duty to despise the inability to get rich off the taxpayer ( robber barons would build a railroad for, say, $45 million and charge the government about $90 million ). Perhaps that is the whole role of democrats and liberal pukes. Stampede the cattle into the fascists camp. Propose socialized solutions so everyone instead embraces mercantilism policies. Let's go back and revisit yesteryear. Auto insurance was perhaps mandated by the finance company, but if your car was paid for you didn't need insurance. Over the years, one state after another made auto insurance mandatory. Some states have elaborate computer databases tracking in real time the insured status of a vehicle. Talk about getting the taxpayer to subsidize your private company. I know a lot of lawyers, being the lower bowel parasites that they are, benefited off all the litigation with wrecks and such, but the clear winner here was the insurance industry. Let's call it 200 million drivers in the US. Times that by $50 a month, at least.
*
So here's my thought. Scare the people with nationalized medicine. Get them all worked up, frothing at the bit. Then, go with a "compromise" and announce you will stay with private medical providers. They only need participate with a centralized computer network, perhaps after the French model with their smart chip card and digital records. Crow about the German model where something like 200 different companies offer insurance on a competing basis ( CEO's bonus' based on the number of people signing up ). Point out how much better that is than the Canadian/British civil servant doctors. Of course, for your own good, for the good of the children, it will have to be mandatory coverage. So everyone pays his fair share ( except Congressmen who get it free ). Don't mention all the illegal immigrants jacking up the price of free emergency room care. Or the complexities in the system making 20% of the cost due to administration needs. Or the senior medicine subsidy that encourages waste. Or the lawyer cost, the malpractice insurance. No, just focus on the economics of scale that will magically materialize, along with the supposed savings from computerization.
*
What this is, basically, is simply the bail out of the insurance industry. And it won't be thirty of fifty billion from the feds like Detroit got. It will be hundreds of billions directly from our pockets. No middleman, no borrowing the money and never paying it back, just everybody somehow having to squeeze a bit more blood from a stone to come up with another mandatory insurance expense. Yes, I'm sure there will be some people that don't have to pay. Some government subsidize. Some way to opt out. After all, you can choose not to drive, right? Nothing compulsory there. You can choose not to get medical treatment. Right now, there is a huge free giveaway in the form of ER room treatment. The patients don't pay, paying patients elsewhere see jacked up costs. That is a huge waste of potential profits. We must close that loophole so that corporations can stay in business. We must bail out the insurance industry or terrible things will happen. Perhaps the banks can't afford to buy them out when their derivatives positions go belly up. So it is up to us, the idiots making squat. Happy joy.
END

business as usual

BUSINESS AS USUAL
Today's "Green Sprouts News". This fiscal years deficit is "only" $1.5 trillion. China "only" cut its US debt holdings by 3% in one month. "Only" five banks closed last Friday. Okay, enough of that, I don't want to take any of the thunder away from Uncle Obammy. My last article brought the comment that the reader saw no connection between body fat and semi-auto ammunition. Now, I know that this was a simple ruse to get me introduce today's topic which is business as usual. Thank you for the introduction. This is just another way of saying that nobody is looking for a forest through all the trees. You can't expect your semi-auto rifle to be restocked with ammunition after our civilizations collapse. And you can't think of fat as being a bad thing when it might keep you alive longer. The connection is that we need to totally adjust the way we think about things if we are to have a fighting chance at being the last one in the stew pot.
*
It wouldn't be tactically sound to show up for the apocalypse with a flintlock rifle. There will still be millions of spare rounds available even after the government tries to quarantine the ghettos as they try to suppress the rioting after the genetically modified corn has been turned into ethanol for military use and the wheat crop has failed from the latest rust mutation ( this is all after the drought of course ) and famine grips the land. Until the last of the modern ammunition is used up it would be silly to try to fight 20th century arms ( the only thing even advancing the M-16 from the WWII era are the plastic stocks and metal alloys ) with your 19th century firearm. And speaking of the vile hunk of crap that is the M-16, be sure to check out the last comment on the Survival Blog from today about the AK article. Since some of you fail to genuflect quick enough as my name is intoned, this should reinforce how right I am about the unsuitability of that weapon. A flintlock is the weapon that will never run out of ammunition or an ignition source, but it is absolutely no match for modern arms. And since you need a modern arm to combat others with modern arms, a bolt action is a reasonable compromise. It won't run out of modern ammunition anywhere near as quick. And don't play me with the skill argument. 99 out of a hundred survivalists don't have the skill to conserve ammunition under the new stress of combat.
*
Body fat will once again become both scarce and desirable. Since the vast majority of our land has been striped of its nutrients and only produces food through petroleum product imputes such as natural gas derived artificial nitrogen fertilizer, as soon as the oil becomes scarce enough that land won't produce enough food to feed even a fraction of our current population. We will see famine and pestilence and die-off, the only question is when. It is very unlikely that you will be left in peace to farm that land. Rather, the new local warlord will either kill you to take it over or work you as a serf. And you won't go unnoticed because after the fuel runs out everything is going to revert to local only. That includes the tyrannical government that will rule over every square inch in his domain. Right now you might go unnoticed by the state or federal capital, but later you won't be able to hide. I'm not saying farming is bad, only that no one acknowledges the risks involved. The point here is that we are still thinking about things as if it was business as usual.
*
You think you'll have enough to eat. You think the government will protect you. You think Wal-Mart will never close. Oh, I understand you are stockpiling for shortages, but deep down you won't accept that things will fundamentally change. You have enough food for six months, then expect to farm to eat. You have a few thousand rounds of ammunition and expect law and order to resume before that runs out. You assume shoes will once again be made, trade will once again pick up. It isn't like you can do a whole lot of deep planning assuming otherwise. Our economy has switched over completely to debt and overseas trade. Even forty years ago there was a lot more self sufficiency built in to the economy than now. There were still shoe repairmen instead of the fake leather and glue shoes from China that closed them all down. A lot of small machine shops and fabricators. Much more practical trades than cubical jockeys. All gone now. Almost no one can afford to truly stock enough for much more than a short term disruption. That is understandable. What is less understandable is the assumption that it will be enough. We won't go back to business as usual. The last Dark Ages lasted centuries. Populations crashed severely. Farmland was depleted to the point it took hundreds of years to replenish itself. Law and order took that long to get reestablished. And that was going from an agricultural economy to the same. The infrastructure of outlaying areas feeding Rome failed, true. Now, we will have to readjust from global trade to local production or at most very short distance trade. In that our collapses are similar. The difference, what will make things even harder, is that we are devolving from industry/information back to primitive farming ( the Intensive techniques are an improvement but we are without the infrastructure to support a non-petroleum society ).
*
I don't expect anyone other than a few bizarre folks to plan now for the total collapse. Other than escaping to a wilderness area and living off the land, you can't do much beforehand except short term stockpiling. But perhaps you should stop looking for green sprouts after the collapse. I don't think they will be any more numerous than during this "recovery". Paranoia is good.
END

guest article

GUEST ARTICLE
PROTEIN FORAGING

The primary focus of much of today’s preparedness movement is on the acquisition of items, gear to enable one to survive in the coming dark times. Little time is spent, it appears, on the acquisition of skills to supplement the stockpile of supplies we are all putting away. Having spent the past twenty years as a professional educator/administrator in “fly in” Canadian aboriginal communities including seven “winters” spent north of 60, I have learned from the locals the value of supplementing store bought goods with foraged protein. I do not intend to give instructions on how to actually make sets or set snares as the techniques vary greatly from one area to the next, however, I hope I can convenience you of the value of foraging.

Food supplies, in the communities I have been part of, are available through local co op stores or Northern Stores (the direct descendant of the old Hudson Bay Company). These food stocks, canned good, fresh produce, meats and clothing are brought into these communities either on a winter road/summer barge shipment or weekly on freighter aircraft. Fourteen years ago, in our Inuit community, a bag of milk cost $14.00. The costs today have skyrocketed since then with the increasing costs of petroleum products. When the upcoming dark times arrive the scarcity of fresh food products will drive their costs beyond most people’s ability to purchase. This is when the ability to forage for protein will prove invaluable for family survival.

When I lived in the Canadian Arctic my wife and I maintained a two month reserve of food and paper supplies, in the event the planes stopped flying. We used and rotated these freeze dried fruits and vegetables whenever the locally available produce arrived rotten or simply didn’t arrive. A daily diet of beans and/or lentils made into a soup or stew with freeze dried vegetables is a very bland diet without some form of meat protein to add for flavour. In many of these communities, families ran snare lines for rabbits, gill nets for fish and hunted for fowl and venison. A modern 12 gauge shotgun with a second rifled barrel can harvest both birds up to maybe 40 meters and venison up to a good 150 meters. A hunting shotgun is a lot less threatening to the government than a modern assault rifle and as a result you become less of a threat to them as well. Bows and arrows are effective meat getters and can be used in the “burbs” effectively and silently and, for the most part, do not set off government warning lights. Inuit hunters effectively use 30-30’s against polar bears simply because that’s what they have available. Learn to reload your ammunition and cast bullets as a means of expanding your existing ammunition supply.

Contact your local or state trapping association and ask a trapper to show you how to effectively set snares and Conibears in your area. Learn to use a gill net. In the dark times, do what is necessary to survive regardless of fish and game laws in your state. In the First Depression, many game wardens looked the other way if a man poached a deer or used a gill net to feed his family. Learn how to cold smoke your surplus fish and venison or how to make sausages as an effective means of preserving your surplus meat protein. Foraging for meat protein requires many learned skills and the time to learn those skills is not in the middle of a crisis.

Google the following as a short list of suppliers and information sources I have come to rely upon: Fur Fish and Game Magazine; Backwoodsman Magazine; Bemidji Woolen Mills; Duluth Pack and Buckshot’s Camp. Remember skills, attitudes and global mind sets weigh very little to carry about with you and will count as much towards your long term success as your stockpiles will when the dark times come to you and your family.

With respect
MUKWAH

fat or fit

FAT OR FIT
Before we begin another glorious day of pondering the imponderable and trying to decipher the undecipherable ( not to mention mentioning the unmentionable ), I must announce another guest writer has foolishly contributed to my towering chest of gold by laboring without compensation except for my undying gratitude, which, along with about two bucks, will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Who I think gets a bit of a bum rap from "coffee snobs". Who are these people, anyway? Coffee is for keeping awake and keeping warm. Making a delicacy out of it means you got way too much money on your hands. If you are going to literally piss it away, just send it to me. Starbucks isn't great coffee, but it beats the watered down piss they used to serve. If you can't perk it at home, Starbucks is the next best thing to boiling hot with the spoon standing straight up kind of java. Plus, they pretty much got everybody else to emulate them and serve stronger Joe. I have spoken, and thus it shall be. Anyway, tune in tomorrow for the guest article.
*
There is a generally agreed upon wisdom that one must be lean and fit and in good physical shape to survive the collapse. Now, to a degree this is true. If you are so fat you are gasping for breath five wallowing steps away from a vicious feral dog attack, you might as well topple over, crushing at least one of the dogs under your lard so you at least have that grim satisfaction before you die, and kiss your ass goodbye. Have you ever seen one of the Romero zombie films? He is extremely graphic in the "rending/tearing flesh away from the living victim" department. Watch a few scenes of that to get an idea of how it might feel to have a pack of dogs attack you. Which, if you are all lucky and I feel magnanimous, I might cover in a future article at the suggestion of a loyal minion ( how to survive the attack, not how it feels to be ripped apart while alive ). However, I maintain that it is far better to have a few pounds on your frame extra. Enough to prolong reasonable heath during a famine, not enough to endanger your health right now.
*
Look, you know the kind of people we are talking about here. Type "A" personalities. Obsessive compulsives. In layman's terms, those people with a broomstick shoved so far up their butt they have to pick splinters out of their gums all day. Corporate management types personify this behavior. "Oh, golly gee, look at this slacker, taking bathroom breaks and wanting to eat more than once in 24 hours! You must work faster and harder and only think positive thoughts and worship the god that is our CEO who by his divine appointment deserves his $300 million a year in bonus and you should throw yourself on your sword when he needs to lay off another ten thousand works to increase that bonus and if by his grace you are allowed to stay here on hollowed ground you must work yet faster and harder to pick up the slack of those workers sacrificed to our god." They actually brainwash themselves into this corporate thought process in order to turn into a drone to serve their master more efficiently. One time at the airport I had the misfortune to listen to a gaggle of these suit types doing a group circle jerk to reinforce this behavior to each other. Thank god we weren't airborne yet or I might have thought about jettisoning without a chute.
*
Another group that fits this description are military officers. They totally buy into this corporate type mindset ( although with the added bonus of being able to kill things ) and as a result are insufferable asshats because of it. Perhaps you can excuse the lower level officers, both because they haven't totally joined the hive mind and also because they might be close enough to the action to keep a grasp on reality ( and hopefully all remember Vietnam and fragging ), but the upper level officers are permanently in a happy place and don't have time to visit your planet. And in the military, they are a bit obsessive about body fat. To fit the stereotypically military profile you can't have too high of a body fat count. So not only do you have an official mindset that discourages thinking for yourself, you have a dogma on weight. Of course we all know how your average survivalist gets tingly nipples and a clenching sphincter at the mention of anything military. So along with the unquestioning allegiance to semi-automatic weapons, they buy into the low body fat obsession.
*
You can't logistically support semi-automatic weapons after the collapse of the Oil Age and the industry it supports. And you can't think of fat as a bad thing after the surpluses of petroleum grown food are over and gone. Fat is a good thing when famine stalks the land. Fat allows you to live off your mobile food storage unit. Fat keeps you alive and healthy during a famine. Unless of course a group of cannibals see you and think they have won a combination of the state lottery and Publishers Clearinghouse. They will run you down and act just like a pack of dogs ( see discussion above for the disadvantages of this ). And you advertised dinner to them. But I think the famine survival scenario is much more likely. You are better off with that spare tire than without it. Hell, I think I'm too skinny. I certainly don't have enough spare body fat to survive very long. I might be marginally happy that I'm in better shape now at 44 than I was at thirty, but I also see the downside to it. Remember, enough fat to cushion against famine, but not enough to overload your heart now.
*
Historically, the vast majority of farmers ( you know, that occupation you are all salivating to try out ) have had to be content with an almost exclusive vegetarian diet. The same diet that our glorious betters in charge are advocating right now. No meat except on feast days/celebrations and grains and beans the rest of the time. On a hard labor regimen. And as soon as food got scarce they got sick and died off. Fat is good, but as in all things must be in moderation.
END

propaganda and aluminum cups

PROPAGANDA AND ALUMINUM CUPS
Forgive me if yesterdays article was a little off. I wasn't really satisfied with it myself. Perhaps one day with a little more time I'll do a part two. Today, I'm taking two stray thoughts of no importance and combining them and calling it an article. As I keep telling you, once an idea takes root and sinks its parasitic tendrils into my shrinking compromised grey matter the only way to get rid of it is to vomit it onto this page. Oddly enough, for someone that despises the publicly funded "news" and entertainment sector, the ideas came from Pravda Broadcasting Stations. The propaganda on today's Afghan elections and clay.
*
I haven't figured out how they are screwing us over by having switched from analog to digital signals ( other than forcing me to buy another TV- and blah blah I know all about the converter boxes already having bought one of the turds ) although I'm sure there is a entitlement to corporation angle in there somewhere. But every night it is another stations turn to lose the signal. One night it is on, clear and crisp. The next night, same weather, no signal. Anyway, last night was the station out of Salt Lake which shows an hour of "Scrubs" each night. I shouldn't even have been watching the idiot box but both my library books bogged down and I just felt like vegetating anyway. So I turned to the only other thing on broadcast TV ( for the love of Pete, "Octomom"? This is infotainment at its worst ) which was PBS airing a special on some archaeologist at the original site of Jamestown ( the tourist version is several miles away ), pulling up cool items that survived in the muck for hundreds of years. One item was tobacco pipes. According to the records, a pipe maker was one of the early arrivals ( not the first, but during the first few years ). This being a for profit venture, the investors wouldn't have wasted money sending him over ( the colonists were well provisioned with supplies ) unless he was going to make them money. The most likely answer was that he was scouting out supplies of suitable clay for pipes, there being an acute shortage of the stuff in England. The new habit of smoking was that profitable ( and tobacco allowed Jamestown to eventually prosper ).
*
So, with that nugget in my still sleepy mind as I was peddling to work this morning, I began to once again notice all the aluminum cans littering the roadside. You know the economy isn't that bad yet if aluminum cans sit uncollected for weeks on end. Why would a pottery industry ever reestablish itself after the collapse? Taking into account the inevitable population decline, coupled with the need for soon to be scarce fuel for the kiln, and the vast amount of trash heaped everywhere, why would there be any incentive to form and bake clay for containers? Aluminum cans can be the new cups, if they are even ever needed with all the plastic ones around. Two liter bottles and other long life containers can store and haul water. Tupperware abounds for food storage. Somehow I see the knowledge for working with clay being lost and centuries down the road having to be rediscovered. I don't know if that simple observation interests you or not. If not, how about the following?
*
PBS was rambling on about both health care ( which I was frantically trying to ignore but was thwarted at every turn- heck, I might as well write up some drivel on it later ) and the coming Afghanistan elections. What interested me was the blatant propaganda involved. Oh, the humanity! The evil Taliban, those convenient scapegoats that get blamed for everything from Gore warming to the price of oil, are terrorizing the population and thus a fair vote can't be assured. Okay, forgetting for a second that demonizing a small group of Ragheads benefits our military-industrial complex, can you see any other problem with this statement? As in, we are occupying the country and pretty much pick and choose who gets to run in an election. What is "fair" about that? As a good ol boy from down south used to never tire of telling his children, fair is where you go to sell your pig. Okay, there is no such thing as fair. Fair is the plea of the victim and the excuse of the totalitarian welfare state. I'm merely answering in the context of the Pravda propaganda. The first thing that came to my mind, right after cursing the tax payer funded evil organization to the lower bowels of hell for all eternity, was that the Soviets were actually less skilled about the propaganda than we are. A socialist peoples republic was threatened by renegade Muslim forces, so we must intervene ( this was 1979 by the way, for those even less interested in history than reading my drivel ). And we are there, why? I mean, besides the real reason of gas pipelines and stalemating Chinese and Russian interests in the region ( with a bit of Iranian control thrown in ). We pretend to be protecting them against a renegade Muslim force. You see, the Soviets were interfering with free elections. We are only occupying the country to ensure free elections. Umm, okay.
*
Enough for today, my ridiculous meter is maxed out.
END

digitization nation

DIGITIZATION NATION
Before I begin to pontificate mightily today, two things. First, big hugs and little kisses to Jay on the Wrong Coast for your generous donation ( again ). Good luck with your move, it sounds like a winning decision. Second, check out www.urbansurvival.com as Ure exposes the sham of the Amero. Thank goodness I didn't get all worked up about that "threat" or I would look stupiderer than normal.
*
I've threatened to theorize on our march towards digitalizing, and now I'm finally going to do it. I might be full of crap, I might be making a mountain out of a mole hill. But if nothing else, it will be fun and amusing to play "what if". Our nation was once, long long ago, the factory to the world. We made everything, and we made it darn good. It helped that we had the worlds largest oil reserves, a good supply of ore, plenty of coal and the waterways and other infrastructure to move things. We were also isolated from attack ( the Monroe Doctrine was all about securing the entire hemisphere, and the whole Cuban problem was either allowed to happen or signaled the start of our decline ). And of course way back then we had the freest country both politically and economically. Anyone advocating returning to those days of yesteryear had better explain how to get all that back first. I have no good explanation why we gave all that up, other than we were forced to. The start of the end of our oil extraction ( prior to 1971 we continued to pump more every year which automatically translated into growth, after that our production stayed flat or declined other than a short blip with Alaskan oil and lack of growth is the same as decline in our economy ).
*
However, along with the brake on growth through oil peak, we also had the attraction to the financial interests that the end of industrialization brought. Extracting resources and producing goods brings a low margin of profit and it takes a whole lot of investment. And that investment was also vulnerable to sabotage. So there was the whole worker payoff in the form of Unions and living wages. Those concessions from the corporates and bankers and government were nothing more than bribes to safeguard the factory investment ( only agreed to after military crack downs failed in that regard ). Best to just do away with it all, a lot less of a headache. So then your behind the scenes Japanese steel industry support starts paying dividends. First it is used as a way to counter socialist tendencies in the government, to keep Soviet influence down ( we won't touch the whole issue of possible central bank support of the Nazi's and Soviets to keep this from getting more complicated than I can handle in one hour ) and then you have a scapegoat for the laid off factory worker to blame.
*
Now, we couldn't just go total dictatorship back then like we are today. How to appease most of the population by creating the illusion of a private sector economy? Digitize the whole thing. Here is a decades long process that creates economic activity out of thin air, does away with industry that we can't support because of lack of energy to grow the sector. Along the way you creates jobs that pay a lot less and create a fabled "service" sector that allows a lot more jobs to be turned over to government control. Or eliminated entirely. You expand the welfare sector to keep all non workers consuming and content. Buying off the ghettos during the 60's unrest worked so well, you can expand it to a trailer park near your Congressman. By digitalizing you keep the peace, socialize the costs businesses used to pay, force governments to create deficits to run so they pay more to the banks, and create financial activity everywhere there used to be none.
*
Now, while I'm including small scale computerization here, the big pay off was by converting the financial sector over. Yes, you now are able to substitute chips for steel in autos. Personal computers for printing presses. Eyes in space are cheaper than aircraft on the ground in warfare. Smart missiles use less explosives and metal to do the same job. ATM's replace brick and mortar and tellers. PC's replace secretaries. Computerized registers replace some cashiers. Bar codes replace inventory personnel. Smart thermostats save energy. Etc. All great, but the big enchilada was digitalizing the markets. At first it was great to have the room size reel to reel type monster add a few zeros rather than print out paper currency. But that was still chump change. The birth of the derivatives market was the engine that created trillions of dollars in wealth ( while creating a cool quadrillion in down side risk on a global economy of only thirty trillion ). Okay, I've compressed the process a bit. It was a slow but steady type of thing. But I'm sure you get the point.
*
While it's cool to visualize a back room filled with smoke and scheming fat cats, I'm sure the natural run of events was a lot less ordered or planned. I'm sure it was mostly trial and error, responding to a problem with an expedient compromise, taking advantage of opportunity. But isn't it a bit of a coincidence otherwise how our economy was disbanded and disabled, and all the wealth flowed toward one group, the bankers? Computers, while first seeming to be able to decentralize and free us, now seem to be the means of our bondage. On a personal level, as our jobs were taken over by computers. As our vulnerabilities increased, from overseas parts suppliers to just in time inventory. As government enslaved future generations with deficits used to pacify the welfare masses. As banks ruined our currency playing with the global casino. The computer was a tool used to ruin us. The Internet allows our voices to be drowned much quicker and cheaper ( allow everyone the printing press and no one every finds or believes one voice in many ). As it ties us to the grid for easier control.
*
I could go on, but we're out of time today boys and girls. Thanks to this tool of oppression, your one of millions voice of doom.
END

worst gear

WORST GEAR
As you all are painfully aware, I am a huge advocate for the worst gear. All you want to do is stroll your Hover-Round into your office cubical, your limp and deflated muscles atrophied by decades of TV and microwave cooking, barely conjuring the needed energy to manipulate the wrist controls, and log on to U-Tube so you can effortlessly learn how to survive the coming collapse of the power grid and the death of your beloved steed as the last gasp of its battery cells die along with it by sending your credit card number to the reputable company “Everlasting Middle Class Lifestyle Inc.” and order their super deluxe Survival Box. Included at no extra charge is a steel reinforced concrete bunker, underground greenhouse with UV lights powered by a Las Angeles class submarine nuclear reactor, ten battle rifles with a million rounds of ammunition and five thousand MRE’s. The only problem is that you are unworthy of such tools to see yourself through the collapse. Your purchasing power as one of shrinking middle class has been eroded by decades of inflation and “increased worker productivity” which is merely corporate speak for firing two out of three workers and expecting the third to do everyone’s work. Productivity increases used to be accomplished by substituting tasks of laid off workers by computer, but that has pretty much played itself out as innovation has stalled.
*
Even if you earn enough to buy your super survival retreat, stock it with all your goodies, buy an expensive vehicle to get to it and somehow escape methheads stripping it one weekend when you went into town to fire a few more thousand people so you could keep up your bonuses to buy such treats, you are in the minority. Very few people can match your buying power. A lot of folks were able to emulate the rich by using credit, hoping beyond hope that the nuclear attacks would start before next months balance on the Visa was due and they could move in to their Junior Size Survival Box before they had to sell off the youngest daughter into white slavery and then still file for bankruptcy. Well, there is no more credit available and no more bankruptcy ( although white slavery is on an upsurge from what I’ve heard ). Perhaps now, after over a year of financial meltdown ( who would have thought that the banks would fail before that nuclear reactor at your retreat? ), you can see the wisdom is foregoing the twenty acres with a year round stream and forest and orchard and masonry house with metal roof and a hybrid car and a four wheel drive pick-up and an underground fuel tank, three years of freeze dried food and on and on. All that crap is great to have. But you don’t have time to get it.
*
That is what hacks me off so much about the long slow decline teaching crowd. First, it’s most likely impossible due to decreasing energy. But mostly because it gives you the illusion that you can donk around getting ready. I can just see the proverbial table of behind the scenes power brokers, chuckling uproariously at our naivety. Ho, Ho, Ho, that’s simply too rich, Gerald. The swine think they have another twenty years of oil from Saudi Arabia, never mind that little piss-ant Hubbert proved his theory in the ‘70’s, trying to alert them of their impending doom. Why, if we hadn’t used up all of Canada’s natural gas to liquefy the shale oil or used a third of our corn crop to make ethanol to replace the oil drying up from Mexico, they would already be dead from a real energy collapse. After we get done reducing their oil consumption through this depression, then they can really experience energy decline. But, hell, in twenty years there won’t be a drop left anywhere. Don’t they wonder where all the oil rigs are going? The Saudi’s are using all of them to decrease the decline in their output. Simply idiotic. And that, gentlemen, is why we must lead them.
*
The best might be a worthy goal to strive for, but it behooves you for safety sake to get the bare minimum now. After you have acquired a bare minimum of gear, then you can worry about upgrading. If you slowly but surely strive for perfection you might just run out of time. Then you have a great incomplete selection of the best. The best weapons will lack magazines and ammunition. The best food will only feed you for a very short time. The best shelter will be repo’ed by the bank when you are laid off. Your bare minimum survival stash will help you be prepared tomorrow, and will supplement better gear if you have time to get it. It certainly won’t go to waste. Four hundred pounds of wheat will keep you alive for a year if that is all you have time to buy. If you can also get beans and canned meat and freeze dried food, than you simply have a great way to bulk up your menu. If you only have time to buy a war surplus bolt action rifle, that will protect you and if you are lucky and there is any game left then you can hunt with it. If you later get battle rifles or what have you, the bolt will at a bare minimum make a great barter item, more than likely fetching more than you paid for it in purchasing power. A piece of junk land will legally provide a place to park when you are unemployed. If you later get a better piece of land that will grow crops you can still use it as a vacation spot or give your kids a free place to live.
*
Hundreds of pounds of grain, a surplus rifle, an acre in the desert, camping gear, whatever. They are cheap enough now while the economy is still functional. You simply can’t go wrong buying them. Camping gear is multi-purpose. Rifles can be used for legal hunting. Things such as the grain that you never use still provide a great insurance policy ( of course you want to use it now to get used to eating your storage food, but you replace it as it is consumed so the amount stays constant- the same with ammo, etc. ). No one needs a thousand rounds for hunting, so there is an amount of pure insurance spending. That goes without saying. But there is always the specter of non collapse, so the duel use doctrine can be important to the other half of the budget committee. My point is simply that buying the worst gear is a form of immediate security and peace of mind. It is silly not to provide it. If/when nothing goes wrong, it isn’t a total loss. At a bare minimum it is worth the nights you sleep better. I haven’t been without storage food for twenty years, and while I follow closely the possibilities of food vulnerability, I certainly don’t lose sleep over it. I don’t sweat home invasion, or power outages or other disasters. There is plenty that can wrong, but I worry only at the margins.
*
My gear/supply recommendations can be used by you as a complete program, or just the beginning. But it is a good idea regardless of your course. For the price of a notebook computer, you have a years supply of food, protection from angry fellows, a way to have clean water. A few more weeks worth of pay give you a free and clear place to live and primitive shelter. Far better to gamble wasting the money buying what you really don’t want to be satisfied with than to be saving or dreaming of the perfect supplies and never get them. By all means, go with the Rawles Yuppie Delux Survival set up. But first, get the bare minimum, the worst gear. Then upgrade, all the while having the basic security blanket.
END
I wrote this one ahead of time as I'll be busy at lunch today. I know it is something I've blathered on about before, but at least it's refreshingly witty. Check out the film blog, www.bisonfilms.blogspot.com for a review of "The Survivors". Also, an update on my raise at work. I thought it was a nickel raise, but upon further reflection, I realized I actually lost a penny an hour. The board voted to take away two of our paid holidays as a cost cutting measure, and that was more than my raise. That really sucks. Now, since I've lost money at work, BUY MY CRAP www.bisonpress.com

rawles new book

RAWLES NEW BOOK
How To Survive The End Of The World As We Know It. Subtitled, Tactics, Techniques, and technologies for uncertain times. By your favorite James Wesley Rawles. Being a very special person, along with the other forty seven publishers of survival blogs that get more than three readers, I received an advance copy of this book in the hopes that I would review it and help spread the word on it. You, being one of the great unwashed, can wait until late September to buy a prettier, more polished copy from the publisher. If you buy it from Amazon, which would be preferable since you of course will get it through my web site and thus get me my 4% commission, and if you buy it with another book so your order equals $25 and thus qualifies you for free shipping, than the cost will only be around ten or twelve bucks. For three hundred pages that is a pretty good deal. But, is it worth buying at any price?
*
I know, you know, and even Ross Perot knows ( of course he knows, I constantly update him about my life as we sit and drink beers in his mansion- which, because of his heightened security to thwart North Korean Ninja Death Squads, is not as comfortable as you would think ), that my preparations/survivalist outlook and that of Rawles are total opposites. We rarely agree on anything. In fact, I think I got a bit uppity there for awhile and rubbed him the wrong way. But, since unlike myself he is a real gentleman, he offered an olive branch and we seem to get along now. If in fact my existence has any impact on his life and I’m not blowing out of proportion my own importance ( in my defense, if you were me you would realize how easy that is to do ). But the quality of his book has nothing to do if I agree with him or not. I could pick apart a hundred things about this book I don’t agree with. Which I eventual will, I’m sure. But the question remains, not if I agree with Rawles, but how was his book. To be honest, it is pretty darn good. If you accept the Rawlesian Survival Universe then this book is great. Even if you don’t agree with a lot of his conclusions, this book still has a heck of a lot to offer you.
*
HTSTEOTWAWKI covers a lot of ground. If you knew nothing about preparation for the collapse, this would be the book to consult. If you’ve been studying the field for awhile, this book is a nice update which is twenty years overdue. Even if you are in total disagreement with the basic philosophy underlying these plans, you can still learn a heck of a lot from this book. Let’s face it, no matter if you are a pacifist gardener self sufficiency type, a heavily armed fallout shelter dweller or an urbanite stocking up for a storm, a lot of prepping overlaps and is useful to everyone. There is plenty that is useful for everyone here. I’m a book fanatic. I’ll eat less savory food to be able to free up my budget for books. I mail order books nearly every week. And I get very excited when they arrive. However, I usually don’t get as excited when I’m reading them. As of late, I’ve had a hard time finding and really enjoying a good book. This book was one I couldn’t wait to keep reading, one I finished as quick as I could because I enjoyed it so much. That is as high of a compliment as I can give it. Near equally complimentary, this is a book I will be reading again and again.
*
Is it the best? Of course not, mine are. Is it the best mass market survival book to come out in awhile? Most likely. Now, you do have to keep in mind that because so much ground is covered, very little gets covered in detail. Which is okay. That is what the Internet is for. This book lays out all you need in a concise form. A lot of what you weren’t thinking about is presented so that a complete course is available. If everything was given in more detail, you would quickly get lost and have no direction. And for the price, this is a very good bargain. A manageable, precise course to cover all that you need to study to be truly as self sufficient as possible. Don’t expect a lot detail on guns, either. The barebones are given, and the advice to consult the Boston Gun Bible ( damn good advice, no one does it better ). Each section of each chapter is only about two or three hundred words. As I said, this covers a lot of ground. I would have liked a lot more detail on certain things, but everybody’s list is different, and you can’t really publish a much larger book for mass market. The D&D crowd might shell out $30 for a nine hundred page hardback for part six of The Molester Magicians Majestic Misadventures, but I don’t think quite a niche market was envisioned for Rawles book.
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Is this book suitable for my readers, the trailer park redneck survivalist crowd? Yes. It covers everything, a lot of which you may not have been thinking about. It is much better to buy a laundry list book like this for $11 than try to read four years of Rawles’ blog, or the three years of mine to get this information free. Once you see a section you like, then search his site for more information. Then you can Wiki or Google even more. He covers Peak Oil in this book in about a hundred words. Go online if you need further details and you can spend the next decade reading full time about it. But you don’t have that kind of time. I do, since I love this doom and gloom stuff. It is my hobby as well as my second job. I eat up that kind of detail. You have actual lives to live, wives to beat and dogs to kiss. Rawles book does the heavy lifting for you.
Chapters are The Survival Mind, Priorities, the Retreat, Water, Food Storage, Fuel and Power, Gardens and Livestock, Medical, Communications, Security and Defense, Firearms, GOOD, Investing and Barter, Comes Down To You, and then three appendix and an index ( chapter names are listed here in abbreviated form, in the book they are longer and more detailed ).
*
I manfully restrained myself from heaping criticism and scorn on any idea I didn’t agree with in this book. This isn’t about me, but about if you should invest your money and time in this book. I don’t think you will regret buying this book, and I think most of you will greatly enjoy it. Even if the above proves too optimistic, this book does present several years of Survival Blog in an easy to read form. I don’t see you going wrong getting this book. Not at its low price. Even if you don’t overly much enjoy reading, the Readers Digest length of most subject make this an easy to manage book. You can do a little at a time. Please note that it would please the author mightily if you all waited for his announced “Book Bomb” day to buy the book. You read his blog free every day, so it wouldn’t kill you to do him that solid. Will I be buying this book, even after getting a free copy? Yes, I too must pay my dues for the free info on his blog. If I don’t I’ll apply the funds to buying his retreat book, which I’ve lusted after for some time ( but the $30 price fills me with fear ). Even if you are a cheap bastard, look at this book purchase as insurance that the Survival Blog will continue to be published and you can suck up even more free information.
END

path to the righteous arsenal

PATH TO THE RIGHTEOUS ARSENAL
I got the advance copy of Rawles "How To Survive The End Of The World As We Know It" from FedEx today. It was actually delivered on Monday, but as usual it was a major to-do getting it delivered. They send a postcard telling me I need a physical delivery address. That takes two days since they no longer sort mail locally but send it to Salt Lake. I have to call them and give them my work address. They send that info to the locals, then I finally get it. I really need to post my work address on my web site. My point is, I'm going to try to get it read this weekend so I can review it on Monday. So far it looks pretty good, just from flipping through. Today I'm just going to bore you with totally irrelevant personal history. It really is good for little else other than entertainment, but as usually it has a point to it. It might be really hard to decipher that point, but I can't just hand you these things on a silver platter.
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It would be really cool to pretend like I've always known what I was doing, that I had a master plan and had arrived at my perfect destination. Well, we all know better. There are guys that have their lives organized. I'm not one of them. I'm a "cluttered desk where I know what pile to look in for that paper" kind of person. In the end I find the paper but it takes a lot of wasted effort. I've always known the general trend I'm following, but I get sidetracked by a lot of details. My excuse is that I'm a creative type, absent minded professor, that can't devote my energies to organizing when I must have the brain cells involved in the more messy creative process. Hey, it sounds good. How I arrived at my current perfect arsenal is an example.
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In the late eighties I finally decided to stop reading about preparedness and actually do something concrete. Thanks to reading Kurt Saxon, I had the idea of how to do it cheaply. You would think that it was a pretty obvious step of going to the feed store and bake shop to get wheat, but I had previously only been aware of commercial solutions to food stockpiling. Thanks, Kurt. You might have gotten most of your ideas elsewhere, but you made it accessible to everyone. I got my four hundred pounds of wheat kernels, my $50 Corona grain mill, a half dozen gallons of bleach, and I went down to the gun store with a bright shiny new credit card. My only experiences ( other than an occasional trip with friends to the shooting range and borrowing their gun ) with firearms was in the military. So a 45 was a natural choice. I had been given the opportunity to buy an AR-15 a few years previous for $500, but that was a months net income so I was never seriously tempted. Thank goodness. Yes, the 45 was the same, but I was paying like $12 a month on credit. At the same time as the private sale AR, I had run across the SMLE and fell in love with it after it maimed me, but more on that shortly.
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When I was an MP in the army, they were still using the 45. A real gun, not some limp wristed Euro Commie trash piece of crap 9mm, fag Nazi round. At my second duty station ( I got out after my first tour, then went back in later ) I just missed being issued one of the hunks of crap. It seems that the whole lot for the Company was defective and had been shipped back for work and they reissued the 45's temporarily. If you are only using FMJ ammo, the 9 is vastly inferior to the 45. The 45 hits a heck of a lot harder. Then, if your opponent is only stunned, you can beat his head in to a pulp with the solid mass of the heavy frame. The 9mm has the hitting capacity of a mouse fart ( granted, I don't want to get hit with one, but I'm comparing it to the 45 ) and then if you can throw it with that limp wrist it doesn't do much damage. I had that pistol for about seven years. In fact, that was my only gun. I shortly thereafter married the Bride Of Lucifer ( in my own defense, I didn't know she was already hitched ), and all paychecks were dutifully signed over to Herself. So whatever preps I made prior to her was what I needed to stay content with. Four hundred pounds of wheat for two adults and two infants. With one pistol and several boxes of ammo. That would have worked out wonderfully.
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Come the mid nineties I was paroled. I immediately got remarried, being an idiot. But she was much more accommodating with letting me keep my own paycheck. In fact, she was polar opposites from the Evil One. But she was crazier than a craphouse rat ( and getting fatter each month ), so that didn't last long. By the end of that year, I had three SKS's and three SMLE's. I had fallen in love with the Enfields when I borrowed a friends and I limp wristed it like it was a semi-auto carbine, the recoil sent the rear site up to take a chunk out of my eyebrow. I suppose I was impressed with its power. Anyway, on top of the Enfields and carbines, I had two Rugar 10-22's. A Russian made single shot 12 gauge, and a few pawn shop pot metal pimp pistols. After I basically abandoned everything in a moment of pure panicked flight, I had to start over again with basically nothing.
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At this point, I was over the SKS. They had all been Chinese and the shoddy quality was too obvious. Also, I was not going to buy another No.1 Enfield. Their front sites were terrible. Even putting bright nail polish on them did no good. I was still sold on 45's of course. So my new arsenal was No.4 Enfields, 45's ( two of them this time, since two of the South American models was the price of one Springfield Armory, my original purchase ), and more rimfires, but this time generic models and old revolvers ( being much cheaper than Rugars ). Then, when I left Florida I needed more moving funds so I sold the 45's. During that time I had gotten a 357 hammerless, just because I could. I kept that, and discovered that I actually preferred revolvers. No acquiring mags, no swapping out mags to avoid spring compression. No wrestling them apart for cleaning.
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So, after all that, I ended up with today's arsenal that I am quite happy with. Too many Enfields, a few revolvers and some 22's. I didn't really plan it, rather fell in to it after some very expensive lessons. I think most gun owners do the same thing, keep trading up to perfection. My point? If I wasn't one to readily admit my mistakes, I never would have evolved my choices. I don't enjoy mindless Chop Suey movies anymore, even with explosions, boobs and gunfire. I want a story with my movie. And I don't think all the fun boy toys I used to own for weapons are the best choices for defense or survival anymore. It is called wisdom, and you are welcome for sharing.
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land v. gas

LAND V. GAS
Before starting today, further signs that we are out of a recession. Home foreclosures increase 7% in one month. The Fed is buying 1.25 trillion in mortgage back securities. The national average pay raise is 1 1/2%, far below the past average of 3% and way below inflation ( my whopping raise combining my one year anniversary with the rise in minimum wage was 3/4%, not even enough to keep up with food inflation, let alone any other ). Of course, as unemployment rises the robber barons remind us we are lucky to have any job, let alone one paying over minimum wage. As they are busy transferring medical insurance on to the taxpayer. Yep, those green shoot recoveries sure look hopeful.
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I'm better off paying for land than transportation. When I originally planed on moving up to Elko, I would have had two choices. Commute an hour and a half each way by bike or pedal for a half hour and then burn three quarters gallon of gas getting to and from work. Then another half hour pedal. If I had gotten the other car to run properly it would have "only" been a gallon of gas. My lot fifteen miles from town was ten miles of freeway and five miles of very bad road. I would have had to bike to the freeway, and then get in the car I could have paid to store at the RV park. Even not worrying about the rent fee, gas alone would have run me $60 a month. By making payments on a lot much closer to town I bike the same amount ( well, six instead of five, but it could have been the same depending on where I got a job ) and don't have to depend on a vehicle for transportation. I use the truck on the weekend to run into town, but that is pure luxury rather than necessity. I can kick the car habit cold turkey if needed.
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I am spending slightly more money by buying a new lot. But in the end I end up with another piece of land instead of just a pile of gasoline receipts. Unless I had a string of auto repairs, in which case I would be saving money. But, wait, what if gas goes up in price? I rounded up to $3 a gallon, but what if gas goes to $4 a gallon? Now I'm paying $80 a month in gas, very close to my $100 a month land payment. At $5 a gallon I end up spending the same one way or another. But wait! There's more. Pedaling ten miles a day burns up a lot of calories. That is extra food you have to buy. So I'm not really spending that much less, even at three bucks a gallon. At my current location I buy land and more food. Call it$120 a month. If I lived further out of town on the lot already paid for I'm spending $60 for gas. $20 for food. The parking fee should really be included. A minimum of $25. With no car repair bills, ever, or no gas price increases, ever, I'm still spending $15 less a month to live on my "rent free" land. Is it worth that small amount of initial savings? No, because dollars to donuts something will break on the vehicle and gas prices will increase.
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Now, lets add in my third lot. The first lot is paid for, fifteen miles from town. This is my ultimate fall back if I'm totally broke. Lot two is the one I'm living on now. $100 a month and six miles from work. Bike repairs have averaged $40 a month. But I don't factor those into the equation because they would cost the same if I was on the rent free lot ( five miles to the parked vehicle ). Lot three is a further three miles down the road. If I moved there I could stop paying on my current lot ( lot three is still being paid on, but it is a luxury rather than a necessity ). But now I'm back to a commute cost. I won't ride my bike the further distance, even to save $100, because it is hard enough at the current mileage. In bitter cold weather, or the usual strong head winds, and extra 50% commute is too horrible to imagine. So, let's say I now take the vehicle to work. Still about a gallon a day in the Hippie Bread Van. It isn't worth buying another vehicle for another five or ten miles per gallon. Assuming no repairs or gas cost increases, I go from $120 a month to $60 a month cost of rent. A much better savings. And if I did move, I could start building permanent structures such as skirting or sheds ( I won't build now because I have six more years to pay off this land and don't think my job will last that long ).
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So why haven't I? I would actually spend more money building than I would save. Even adding another $40 on saved bicycle repairs. And I would have the fear of repair bills and gas cost increases. More stress, in other words. For sixty to a hundred bucks a month. If I just wait until permanent unemployment my costs will go to zero and I won't have commuting cost stress ( although plenty of stress otherwise ). So, I really haven't shown that gas is more expensive than land. But it isn't too far off. Close enough that the slight extra cost is a built in safety net. Your land cost is frozen. Your commute cost will most likely only go up. It isn't a strict dollar amount decision. Lack of stress and a form of insurance aren't free. Of course, in the long run I would be better off moving now. Less money to land, more money to improve the homestead. But, I figure I'm working one and a half jobs already. To further complicate my life at this point is just getting silly. My plate is full enough. As I said, it can't always be just a dollar amount decision. The point of today's article? Put a lot of consideration into your commuting cost when deciding where to live.
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guest article

GUEST ARTICLE
My usual article will be posted at the end of lunch. If you missed it I also posted a guest article the other day.

Jim, I have a lot more information on the Gulf of Mexico oil fields. I posted it as a comment on your site yesterday but it evidently was deleted by Google. Someone does not want this made public.
There are 6400 oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. 6000 have been capped so far. The rest are being capped as I type this.
Exon,Chevron,Apache and Pride Oil have all pulled out of the Gulf. Pride owns quite a few of the rigs. Tarpon is still working but they are just doing P&A's. (that's well capping).
The oil boat companies have mostly pulled out of the Gulf. Their boats have been sold or are in drydock. Trico has 4 out of 100 boats left. Edison Schoubst,Aries,Sea Bulk,Southern States have pulled out. Hornbeck is still working but they are doing P&A's for Tarpon.
Port Fourchon (pronounced Foo-shon) is a ghost town. Last year it was the busiest port in the world. Port Cameron is shutdown also.
The headhunters (job placement companies) are going broke. Google Bob Walton,one of the biggest headhunter outfits and give him a call. Tell him you are looking for any kind of job in the Gulf. I think he'll laugh at you.
Heres a tidbit..........The U.S. pays Saudi Arabia $20 over spot for oil because the Saudis' bought up so much of our debt. You won't hear that on C.N.N.
The oil companies don't set the price of oil, the refineries do. I thought there were only 2 or 3 refineries but there are around 20 of them.
I have come to the conclusion that the government does not want this information made public. Check it out for yourself and scream to everyone in the media about it. So far I've had no luck getting anyone to listen.
Thanks, G.C.

economic trees

ECONOMIC TREES
Yesterday I'm reading the first reader comment. Junk land listings in an urban area, what gives? And I replied it was mostly economic survival. And it suddenly hit me. I'm just like all these other idiots, blinded in the collapse forest by economic trees. Even though I prance around and act all smart, making fun of such idiotic advice as how to get rich during the Depression ( money will be worthless after PODA starts, so investment advice is fundamentally flawed ), I'm just as blinded by economics. I'm so concerned over surviving the economic collapse that I don't focus enough on surviving through the collapse. You know, the time period after money is useless and government has collapsed into just another competing crime gang but before a militarily strong system of governance has restored order. And that interval could last far more than a mere few years.
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My advice is too severe for short term, natural disaster type survivalists. I really do wish they are right and I am wrong. Even if I am wrong about the collapse of civilization due to cheap and abundant oil running out ( abiotic oil theory, even if true, still won't be our salvation because, as pointed out by a reader, it isn't replenishing itself anywhere near as quick as we are using it ) I can still separate loyal minions from their money by pimping the fantasy of collapse. Even if I'm wrong I can still milk this cow. I hope I'm wrong so me and my children die of natural old age rather than simmering in the stew pot. I don't honestly believe that I am mistaken, but prudence alone dictates I at least acknowledge the possibility. On the other hand, my advice for the collapse would now seem to be too tame. I can see you all nodding sagely, having reached this conclusion years ago. Hey, I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes. But I think I need to focus more on surviving the gulf between when economics no longer matter and when order is restored to a castle near you. Can't promise it will be swift or sure, but it will be something I'll try to think on.
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I think the simple truth of the matter is that 90% of junk land still leaves you vulnerable to attack. You have to be close enough to town to go to work or go shopping. If you live far enough out in the middle of no where you are vulnerable to insane gas prices. It has already become much more expensive to both buy a vehicle ( new cost as much as a house twenty years ago, used cost three times what it used to because of that fact and because of Cash For Detroit ) and to keep it running. You do remember the five bucks a gallon surge last year, right? From one hurricane. Setting aside the fact that we are running out of oil, just normal disruptions now spike gasoline prices beyond affordability. But that seems to be an article for another day. Right now, let's just make a blanket statement that almost all of us need to live close to town. My location is no safer from townies. I might have a nice 360 buffer of two to three hundred miles from the outside world, but I have to be close enough to town that all the mouth breathing asshat wearing crankhead idiots will eventually wander on out to my place and have a look at what's not nailed down. By that time I will be unemployed and vigilantly be sitting on my roof hoping to sniper one of them so I can put his skull on a nice pole outside the subdivision. But it is still a problem I don't need. Eventually I'll have to come down when I need to take a dump and then they'll ambush me. Damn zombies.
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There is no real safe place to live. There are places that are not as exposed. Some that are marginally safer. In my darker moods, I do admit that all of this preparation is only good to keep you from being the first in the stew pot. You are buying time but eventually you will be killed. I offer no guarantees. So, yes, we should all fanatically prepare to postpone death. Then, after that, we should in fact relax and enjoy life. Once you've prepared past a certain point it does little good to keep it up. The continual presence of neighbors is a constant threat you can't buy your way out of. Your insurance is to extend your life, not to make yourself immortal. So take my panic and ranting with a grain of salt. Panic, prepare, then relax. Now, getting back to my point, as if I actually ever had one, preparing economically is a pretty safe bet. You must of course prepare for lack of oil, but long before that you have to survive the economic collapse. It will effect every one of us. I'm not misleading you by focusing on economics, but I know I must branch out. It isn't all about insulating yourself from the dollar death. As if I needed more to worry about. Hell, I think I earn my $60-$90 a month writing for eleven hundred readers. I put a lot of stress into what might happen. I think I might like it, because otherwise why do it? But enough of all this damn navel gazing. We have plenty to worry about as it is.
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Be afraid, be very afraid. Because surviving the economic collapse is just the beginning. But something you can't ignore. Rawles or Creekmore ( no offense guys, you're just not paranoid enough ) will be happy to have you jump ship from the sinking USS Bison to their Good Time Happy Happy Joy cruise liner. They sell optimism, not me. Stay tuned, gluttons for punishment.
END

guest article

GUEST ARTICLE
My regular article will be posted as usual after lunch. Here is a bonus article.

War, Peace or both?


For most survivalists, guns and ammo are a part of their preparations.
They envision a possible future collapse of civilization. Millions of
starving people fleeing the cities, stealing and killing. Doing whatever
it takes so that they and their families can survive. Besides the
desperate hordes from the cities, we also have to deal with our
neighbors. (Who, also did not prepare)

So, we buy guns and ammo. After that, if we have the money, its
reloading equipment, camouflage, extra parts, books on patrolling,
defensive positions, night fighting, NVDs, on and on.

But what about PEACE? How much are we spending on peace?
By peace, I mean security from being attacked by neighbors
because they are starving. (Greedy, lazy or ruthless is another matter)

I believe that the average frugal survivalist should spend as much on
peace as is spent on a basic rifle, pistol, and their ammo.

Let's say that the bare bones survivalist has a MN 91/30 which cost
him $110, a FEG63 for another $110, a 440 rd tin of 7.62x54r for $90
and 4 boxes of 9x18 for another $50. That comes to a total of $360.

Now it's time to spend $360 to keep our starving neighbors from
attacking us. We are going to keep it simple and only buy two
things. The first is a grain grinder for $25. The second is whole,
shelled corn. About 42 fifty pound bags of it. That gives us 2100
pounds of it. (Yes, I know it takes up some room. Put it in the garage,
stack it up the same as they do at the feed store, and put mouse traps
around it.)

It will be ground into corn flour as needed. Corn flour can be made
into bread, tortillas, corn mush, etc.

Give it away or trade it. Most starving people will work for food.
History shows that most starving people will choose to work for
food (one origin of slavery) rather than raid for it.

If all your neighbors are prepared or are excellent farmers, you can
always use it for animal feed.

So the next time you buy a couple of extra boxes of ammo, stop at
the feed store and get a bag of corn too.

War AND Peace!


"Food is a weapon. It is now one of the principal tools in our negotiating kit" ( US Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, Business Week, 15/12/ 75).

junk land drivel

JUNK LAND DRIVEL
Before we start today, a hearty hi ho and thanks buckaroo to JRG of Texas for another generous donation. Some of you are aware of the need to keep your name in the headlights so that you are picked for the Inner Secret Council Of Bisonia. Others just don't get it. Now, I got two e-mails on junk land. Here, that constitutes a landslide of interest so I felt compelled to write about it. Plus, I get that warm fuzzy feeling knowing I don't have to herniate myself trying to hatch an idea for the days topic. One loyal minion wanted to know about the more upscale land being sold, the other commented on the "advice" presented over on a gun forum over the unsuitability of junk land. I put the "advice" in quotation marks, not because I believe that it is horrid, unsuitable, dangerous and ill advised ( which I actually believe but am too polite to say ), but because when a pearl of wisdom rolls from my highly evolved brain it constitutes advice. When any other cretin grunts a few syllables it is merely background noise that you may safely ignore.
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More alert minions might remember that when I originally posted the blog www.dirtcheapdirt.blogspot.com I was very careful to only list lots that allowed RV's or travel trailers to park there full time. Unfortunately I simply don't have the Internet time to do that any more. It takes two to three times as long to weed out the more controlled lots. I get into work a minimum of an hour before I clock in. If I spend any more time on the land blog I wouldn't have time to read all my daily sites that keep me in a high state of paranoia. Perhaps some of you prefer a Jim that is mellow and relaxed, but I can't believe I would have very much of interest to say then. I need my infusion of fear and fright like a fat chick needs a daily Ho Ho ( that's for you, Biguns-I was going to say Twinkies ). It keeps me artificially motivated. Getting back to junk land, if we may, by publishing links to land with only price as a criteria there is going to be a lot of land unsuitable for the truly frugal. Not only do you need to be aware of con artists trying to scam you on your purchase, you also need to keep in mind that you might be legally conned.
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After we stole the Indians land fair and square, plus some worthless land the Mexicans weren't using ( and don't friggin cry me a river with Whitey Stole Our Land- you stole it from the Indians also, we just did the same to you ), settlers were pretty much left alone on their land. If you bought it, it was yours. Well, slowly but surely monied interests discovered this vast untapped source of wealth and any more land is just seen as a cash cow by a half dozen types of parasites. Now, through zoning and building codes and other regulation benefiting local taxing authorities and contractors and Unions and MegaCorporations selling building supplies and especially banks, you get to own land like a sharecropper gets to own farm goods. You pay all your life for the privilege of working it for very few benefits or rewards. And don't even get me started on all the asshat neighbors that turn you into the zoning police so your land doesn't endanger their property values ( thank God for the karmic justice of the housing bubble ), or the property associations that micromanage your home. By buying land with any zoning or building hassles, you step into that whole mess of the leeches hanging from your wallet until the day you die.
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So why do I include that kind of land, other than my lack of time to filter it out? Because I know one size doesn't fit all. You might have sold before the crash and have plenty of cash for a stick built home. You might prefer a conventional home. You have kids and need a regular dwelling. By buying cheap land you have plenty left over for a nice house. Etcetera. But don't buy the land and expect them to change the rules allowing you to have an unconventional home. They won't change. Too many vested interests are able to pay off their own home, send their own kids to Ivory Hall schools by screwing you over. We could be five years in the Depression with unemployment at fifty percent and still they wouldn't change the rules. Poor people never should have applied to live there. The people clutching on to the property there won't stand for any poor redneck trailer trash moving in and degrading the property values any more. It doesn't matter if there are absolutely no jobs in the area. It doesn't matter if they grossly overpaid for their lot twenty years ago. In fact, the more they paid the more they will refuse to admit they made a mistake and were played as a sucker and will fight you tooth and nail if you resist insanely expensive building requirements. Here in Elko, the county allows trailers without a problem. But as soon as you try to build anything they open up code books the size of the English Oxford Dictionary. And fees and permits are bad enough to make a king blush.
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Now, on to the inane comments about junk land. I've only read an excerpt on the thread over at AR15 forums. I could be blowing it out of proportion. Of course, I usually do that anyway ( which, by the by, leads me to this carefully hidden retraction on the oil import figures I've been giving- I inadvertently added six months to the decline of imports. It has been two years total at 8% a year, not the two and a half years at 8%,8% and then 4.5% I gave you. So, 16% total rather than 20%. My bad ). If I read it right, they are saying having junk land is stupid because you can't just arrive and have barren land, unsuitable for farming for lack of preparation or practice. To which I reply, duh. That is why you have a crapload of stored food to get you through several years. By itself, junk land is worthless for anything but squatting because you bought the land so cheap. Two acres of productive farmland cost $20k. Two acres of junk land costs $2k. Years and years of stored grains and beans, plus buying commercial fertilizer to condition the soil costs another grand. I understand the original point. Don't just buy the land and leave it and expect to survive on it with no preparations. But by not giving the advice to store three to five years food ( plus import the needed soil improvements ) to tide you over, you are just falling into the high cost Yuppie survival camp of buying everything high dollar to solve all problems ( like buying a hundred dollar Mylar bag sealer instead of using your clothes iron ).
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Again, I didn't read the whole thread and if I jumped to any conclusions I stand corrected. But, given that this is a forum on AR-15's, an overly expensive self defense solution, I somehow doubt it. If I am misquoting, this is still a good opportunity to remind you that junk land is still as good as overpriced land, given a little work and thought. I'll have more junk land drivel real soon, so stay riveted to your monitors.
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