09:04 – Here’s irony. There’s a front-page article in the paper this morning that says city authorities are going to start confiscating recycling carts from homes who persist in putting non-recyclable items in them. Apparently, people are tossing in household garbage and even dead animals. So now the city says it’s going to give people three warnings and then confiscate the carts. That’s fine as far as it goes, but the article goes on to say that one of the worst items that people put in their recycling carts is grocery-store plastic bags, which apparently foul up the machinery on the recycling line. The irony is that many of these bags are labeled “Please Recycle”. So how can the city justify penalizing people for recycling something that’s labeled “Please Recycle”? We should be safe, because 99% of our recycling, by count and mass, is cardboard and paper, with the remainder being mostly plastic, glass, or metal containers.
Barbara is heading out to run errands this morning. I’m doing laundry and working on kit stuff.
I’m confused. The real purpose of all this recycling stuff is a big make work project. People are recycling something that says “Please Recycle” and making too much work for the people on the big make work project?
Yeah, and the dirty little secret is that most of what gets recycled ends up in the landfill anyway. They want the aluminum cans. Other stuff, not so much.
“Yeah, and the dirty little secret is that most of what gets recycled ends up in the landfill anyway. They want the aluminum cans. Other stuff, not so much.”
Around here, they take out the metals (aluminium and ferrous), then burn the rest of the “sorted” waste in exactly the same incinerator as the “unsorted” waste. Cullet from the “bottle banks” goes directly to landfill.
Have you changed something in the comments machinery? Comments pages have been loading noticeably slowly for the past few days…
When I was living in Canberra they didn’t want corrugated cardboard in the recycling – they expected me to drive 10 km to the nearest 24 hour recycling centre to drop it off. Because it fouled their machines. The petrol used would have negated any environmental savings. (I was very strict about separating stuff correctly.)
I’ve been seeing the same problem for several days, but I figured it’d clear up on its own. Obviously not, so I just submitted a problem report to my hosting company.
We get a choice of recycling in Vegas where I live. I don’t, but save aluminum cans for those who want them. I guess they squash them for sale?
We’re not suppose to put plastic bags in recycling either. So they go in the trash. You can take them back to the store but I think I know what they do with them. And of course California has banned them but it’s not in effect yet and may never be. They should be recycling them into artificial turf to replace lawns.
It’s all just another big State racket. Has been for decades now. Yet peeps and derps keep mindlessly chugging along with the program anyway.
And I’ve noticed that at some of these “recycling centers” you have these little commissar types running around and checking everything and lecturing you on what a great job they’re doing and pretty soon 99% of everything will be recycled. They’ll feel your bags and look in them and just cream themselves over this pseudo cop power they have over you. Every time I see this I think of “1984” and the scenes in “Doctor Zhivago” when they come back to the nice mansion in Moscow and it’s been taken over by Bolshevik scum and assorted street rabble.
Another movie to watch every year, like “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” “The Man Who Would Be King,” etc.
Overcast again here today; looks like more snow flurries on the way. At this rate we’re not gonna have Spring but move directly into Summer and the broiling 70-degree temps.
We have recycling included with our trash collection. Three bins: plastic, metal, glass. Cardboard and newspaper is to be bundled. At best only 24% of the households in our area recycle even one item.
Waste Management has been experimenting with single stream recycling, that is where you dump everything into the bin. http://www.recycleamerica.com/services/sustainablerecycling.asp
IMHO, the best answer is waste co-generation where all the waste is burned to produce power. Even with zero emission plants though the eco-weinees don’t like it, so I like it even more.
I prefer to turn eco-weenies into bio-diesel.
IMHO, the best answer is waste co-generation where all the waste is burned to produce power. Even with zero emission plants though the eco-weinees don’t like it, so I like it even more.
There you go. For the same reason on earth day I was actually thinking of tossing a fast food bag I had out the car window. It was all paper bag, wrapper and napkin so it wouldn’t have been much harm. In reality I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“In reality I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
You had that image of the old Indian guy with tears streaming down his face in your head, dincha?
“I prefer to turn eco-weenies into bio-diesel.”
Good idea. And my pet peeve this week: throw in whichever faceless bureaucratic assholes sent out a memo “requiring” the VA to report veterans allegedly having trouble “managing their benefits” as mentally incompetent to the BATF so they get their firearms taken away. First, though, let some of us vets have ten minutes in a room with the sons of bitches who ginned this up.
We should be safe, because 99% of our recycling, by count and mass, is cardboard and paper, with the remainder being mostly plastic, glass, or metal containers.
I maintain that, decades from now, maybe even centuries, our descendents will be mining our trash dumps for raw materials.
One serious problem though, is people putting wallboard into trash dumps. Wallboard has sulfur in it and when the trash dump starts offgassing (decomposing), the resulting gas can have up to 30 ppm sulfur in it. Which, makes the gas toxic and must be cleaned before usage or incineration. You would be surprised how much low quality natural gas (500 to 600 btu/scf) comes out of these dumps. You can run a reciprocating engine on natural gas as low as 300 btu/scf.
I swear, south central Texas is turning subtropical again. We got another two inches of rain about four am or so. Bring it on! We used to get 60+ inches of rain per year and this 20 inches of rain in the last couple of years is pitiful. The nasty side effect is the monster mosquitoes that are hatching and making my two mile walk last night a little tough. These suckers are about a half inch across, furry, and do not sting in the slightest. The only good part is that they do not fly very well and bang into you half the time.
The wife ran off to a wedding shower this morning so the dog and I are on our own. Lady and I had a splendid breakfast of turkey bacon.
We are at 76 F and supposedly heading to 89 F today. Muggy!
Mmmmm….turkey bacon…..
….with scrambled eggs, cheese, grits, tomatoes w/mozzarella-basil-olive oil, fresh fruit in season…hot chocolate…pitcher of cranberry juice….OFD’s ideal breakfast, unless I swap out the turkey bacon for red flannel hash….
We’re PREPPING here today…planting stuff, assembling raised beds, planning rest of yard layout, and I’m also fiddling with bathroom lighting problems.
“How to defend yourself from ransomware”
http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/how-to-defend-yourself-from-ransomware/
This is a serious problem!
Regarding slow page loading on comments. … might be interesting to temporarily disable the new search comment plugin and look at the page load times via Firebug, compared to having the plugin enabled.
You might also want to clear out the Spam comments in WP Admin; even though they are not displayed, the size of the comment database can affect comment page load time.
(I assume that you have enabled Akismet to catch the obvious spam comments.)
…Rick H (partly cloudy with brief light showers here on the Olympic Penninsula)
“city authorities are going to start confiscating recycling carts from homes who persist in putting non-recyclable items in them”
Who will then just fly-tip and dump their trash anywhere.
@Rick H
I installed Akismet the day I started using WP. I don’t get that many spam comments, maybe 2,000 to 3,000 on a heavy day, but I routinely empty the spam comments several times a day.
The slowdown predates me installing Search Everything, which had no apparent effect on speed.
So would purchasing an outdoor propane grill be a good prepping thing when your kitchen stove is electric?
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Char-Broil-Convective-4-Burner-Grill-Stainless-Steel-Black/39073040
I have never owned one of these. How quickly do they go through propane bottles?
If you are getting that many spam comments a day, you might want to check into my FormSpammerTrap for Comments plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/formspammertrap-for-comments/)
It traps non-human (bot) activity using a variety of techniques, and throws away the comment before it gets to Akismet, keeping the bot comment out of the comments database. Has some other (IMHO) nifty features to allow you to do a bit of customization of the Comment form, although the defaults are quite effective in blocking comment spam.
It should get rid of a very high percentage of spambot comments, and then Akismet can take care of the rest of them. I’ve used it on several of the sites that I manage, and it cuts down on spam comments quite well. I’ve seen one site go from spam comments of 2K/day down to a handful.
Works better than all of the others I have tried. If you try it, I’d be interested in the results. (More info about the plugin is also at my http://www.formspammertrap.com site.)
…Rick … (turned out to be a nice partly cloudy day here on the Puget Sound after some morning sprinkles)
“I have never owned one of these. How quickly do they go through propane bottles?”
Depends on how often you use it, Grasshopper.
We don’t have one; we use this baby instead:
http://www.pkgrills.com/
And we use hardwood charcoal in it, plentiful in this heavily forested region. Works like a charm and can smoke stuff pretty well, too.
Still, the idea of a grill when one’s kitchen is electric would seemeth a capital idea for ya down there.
“I have never owned one of these. How quickly do they go through propane bottles?”
If you turn it off right away and close the valve at the tank, a long time. I use mine almost exclusively for dinner during the summer months and the tanks last more than a month. I have two tanks, so always have a full one as a spare.
If you leave it burning to “clean it” and then forget it, > 1 day.
Just purchased a Surface Pro 3, 256 gig SSD and 8 gig memory. Needed something to take with me Europe that I can use to process pictures. I am going to a wedding, will be taking pictures, will process the pictures and then get them printed in Germany to create a memory book. The iPad is totally unsuitable (software lacking, plus no USB writing capability to a thumb drive although it can read from my camera USB with an adapter) and my old Netbook is just too slow. it is too heavy, too bulky and the screen too small.
Considered the new Macbook but it is too small. Very light and thin but it runs OS/X unless I want to mess with Bootcamp. Also the Macbook was more expensive for the same storage I have on the Surface. I would also have to get new licenses for Lightroom and Photoshop which would be expensive. I don’t want Adobe CC yet, perhaps in a year or two.
I am generally impressed at the speed of the Surface Pro 3. Nice screen and the pen seems to work well after you get used to it’s function. I did get the keyboard as that is a necessity in my opinion. Also got a small Bluetooth mouse that works well.
I like the kickstand and which I had one on my iPad. Although I consider the iPad and data consumption device and not something with which I could do really useful creations. The Surface can do that much better with the keyboard and the kickstand.
Tried Lightroom and Photoshop. Imported some pictures from my camera and it was as fast as my desktop. Editing and processing the pictures worked quite well. Not the same as my desktop with a 23 in. monitor, full keyboard and gaming mouse (they have higher precision for Photoshop). But the combination will work quite well while I am in Europe.
When W10 is released the Surface will be even better based on my experiences with W10 in a virtual machine on my secondary work machine. I also base some of this from what I saw at the Microsoft dog and pony show.
Agreed. iPad and most tablets are for information consumers, not information creators. Oh, sure, there are some nifty apps and you can buy a keyboard and blah blah blah, but by and large tablets are for consumers.
That said, an iPad is, what, 10000 times as powerful as a work PC from the late 1980s? With an external keyboard and an appropriate selection of software, there’s no reason you can’t be as productive on an iPad as on a 1980s DOS PC. Oh, wait, did that come out snarky?
Here in Houston, we have a single recycling bin (takes everything but plastic shopping bags and styrofoam) and a separate trash bin. From what I understand, we are lucky in that there is a plastic recycling plant near here. In addition, we have to dispose of yard clippings and leaf waste in special, city approved decomposing bags. They supposedly compost the yard stuff and use it in parks and city plantings. The bags are a crap plastic that is low strength and starts breaking down in our weather in a few days. The capper is that they cost about 50 cents each and can’t hold that much. They would be cheaper, except the city requires a city seal on them which drives up the cost. Which is not needed, as they have to meet an ASTM standard. Putting the ASTM logo and number is good enough.
When W10 is released the Surface will be even better based on my experiences with W10 in a virtual machine on my secondary work machine.
I’ve got Windows 10 and a new Intel 480 GB SSD drive to upgrade my office pc with next week after I finish my mini software project for some customers in Norway. That old Intel 180 GB SSD hit its last byte a couple of months ago and it is time to move on to bigger and better things. I have decided to do some alpha testing for Mickeysoft again (last did that for Windows 92, subsequently renamed Windows 95). I hope this time goes better.
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Retail/dp/B00F0RD5H8/
and
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-iso
Next week, we will also be replacing our Windows XP source code server with a totally new Windows 7 pro x64 box and WD 4 TB drive. Been counting the bytes over there for while also.
If you turn it off right away and close the valve at the tank, a long time. I use mine almost exclusively for dinner during the summer months and the tanks last more than a month. I have two tanks, so always have a full one as a spare.
If you leave it burning to “clean it” and then forget it, > 1 day.
Cool! I figured 2 or 3 hours at most. 24 hours is surprising. Definitely need to have at least two tanks, maybe 10 or so.
I need to replace our electric downdraft cooktop with a natural gas downdraft model. Our kitchen is totally Jenn-Air except for the fridge. So, a 30 inch Jenn-Air gas downdraft cooktop is about $1,800. I am in no hurry to make that change out.
Why I don’t vote, spelled out a little more brutally:
http://www.dethguild.com/voting-will-not-fix-what-ails-the-united-states/
@Lynn, a grill is a great convenience during an outage. You might want to consider one with a side burner too. That way you can easily boil water or cook a side dish. The propane lasts a long time but it’s always good to have a spare as Mr Murphy will ensure that you run out 5 minutes before you dinner is done cooking.
I’ve got colman stoves and set up a little kitchen outside my back door during Ike. Aquatainer for water, colman stove for cooking, placed on the “potting bench”. Ran the geni in the am for coffee and microwave. Colman stoves are commonly available at estate sales and yard sales for about $20. They are easy to rehab if needed. I say stoves ’cause I’ve got some that use colman fuel, some that use the propane bottles, and a couple that are ‘dual fuel’ with colman and gasoline. I’ve got the same flexibility in colman lanterns too.
Oh, and I saved the side burner from my old grill, and picked up the remains of a grill from a neighbor, that had a good side burner. I’ve set that up with a burner on either side and in the middle I removed the worn out grill, so I can put a colman stove there, or use my crawdad boiling ring there.
Is that all overkill? Probably, but hot food is worth it.
(I’ve got a variety of backpack style stoves too, in all kinds of fuels including alcohol.)
(and I’ve got the concrete blocks to make a rocket stove if I need to burn sticks.)
(and the cast iron cookware for an open fire if it comes to that.)
(and I can set up a colman based kit for friends in need very quickly. One stove, one lantern, one can of fuel, one pot, one frying pan, one bag rice, paper plates, plastic utensils, and some cans, all fits in one of the black and yellow plastic tubs from costco. If I really wanted to support them I’d add a water filter, but I NEVER find filters at estate or yard sales.)
nick
@Lynn, the sears outlet store is a great source for cheaper appliances. I’ve bought several things there and am really pleased with the result and the savings. You have to keep checking, but it’s not uncommon to find a high end cooktop for 25 % of list. Not 25% OFF, but one quarter of list. They almost always have discontinued or overstock ones at 50% of list. For the scratch and dent, it is usually either some horrible defect like a cracked glass top, or something minor and easily replaced (like a trim ring, or missing knobs or grates). There are dozens of cheap appliance parts stores online and most of them carry all the major brands. Normal sears warranty is still in effect too.
As an example, refrigerators often have damaged handles but the rest is perfectly fine. The handles come off with 2 screws and cost about $70. You can save $1000-2000 on a fridge and replace the handles for peanuts. I priced out a JennAire double oven, the one with the 6 inch LCD display. It was over $7k new, was on sale for $1200. Both door skins and both handles need to be replaced. Total for parts was <$300. I didn't have the $1200, so I didn't buy it, but thought really hard about it. Changing those parts is a matter of a few screws. The ovens were new, never installed.
I was just there, looking for a gas cooktop to replace my electric Dacor that came with the house. I hate the electric. This trip, I didn't see any cooktops I liked. The stock varies depending on what the warehouse monkeys have screwed up (or customers) so it's the perfect thing to keep checking back on, especially if you aren't on a time table for your upgrade.
There are other scratch and dent stores in the Houston area too, but the sears outlet is really consistent.
nick
@Nick, yes, I have shopped at Sears Appliance Outlet several times. Especially when we had a rent house in Dallas. But I just don’t have the time to fix that stuff anymore. We’ve got one of the older double oven Jenn-Airs with a single line LCD panel. I shudder to think what that costs. BTW, both the Jenn-Air microwave and dishwasher say Maytag inside them. I guess that means that Jenn-Air is now a Chinese company.
$2,000 for a refrigerator? Are you kidding me? How about $900 for a Frigidaire Gallery at Lowes? We have bought two in the last three years with the stupid roof rats getting in the base and chewing out the wiring. Lynn is cheap XXXXX frugal.
http://www.lowes.com/pd_492439-2251-FGHS2631PE_0__?productId=50288041
BTW, I hate Dacor. My Dad has a Dacor cooktop and we replaced the computer last year which lasted about six weeks before it shorted out. So he ordered a complete new cooktop and is now waiting for me to help him install it. Did you know that cooktop weighs 200 lbs? I begged him to put in GE and get a serviceman to do it, I am too old for that much weight. That glass cooktop is heavy! Mom has been cooking on an electric camp stove for about a year now, sitting on top of that 48 inch Dacor. In fact, she kinda likes it. They live in Port Lavaca.
I hate the electric cooktops also. Flame is so much better, controllable and more even heating.
(and I can set up a colman based kit for friends in need very quickly. One stove, one lantern, one can of fuel, one pot, one frying pan, one bag rice, paper plates, plastic utensils, and some cans, all fits in one of the black and yellow plastic tubs from costco. If I really wanted to support them I’d add a water filter, but I NEVER find filters at estate or yard sales.)
OK, I’ve got to admit, that is a totally cool idea. That can be a serious need around these parts. We had nothing but candles for Ike so we now have Coleman rugged LED lanterns stashed all around the house. I’ve had people come knock when they see the light during an outage and borrow one. The four D cells last about 2 days or so on low in those LED lanterns.
http://www.amazon.com/Coleman-CPX®-Rugged-LED-Lantern/dp/B00339B0RC/
I’ve got a Dacor dual fuel range/oven, Dacor hood, and a Dacor oven and both have been pretty good. The Range has had 3 repairs in 15 years. Tweaks to the ignition systems, and last month a new computer module and oven door springs.
@OFD
“Then there was the arch-war-criminal LBJ, a sorry piece of rancid cow-chit if ever there was one; and if not a hands-on murderer, close enough.”
Not sure if you’re referring to Vietnam or JFK (or both).
Have you ever heard about …
The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 9 – The Guilty Men (including LBJ)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F-LY1HblmE
“This is a 9 part study into the events surrounding the murder of America’s last legitimate President.”
****************************************************************
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Killed_Kennedy
“The Men Who Killed Kennedy is a United Kingdom ITV video documentary series that depicts the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Originally broadcast in 1988 in two parts (with a subsequent studio discussion), it was rebroadcast in 1991 re-edited to three parts with additional material, and a fourth episode added in 1995. The addition of three further episodes in 2003 caused great controversy, particularly in the final episode implicating Lyndon B. Johnson and the withdrawal of these additional episodes.” …
***************************************************************
Episode #6 was also quite interesting …
The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 6 – The Truth Shall Set You Free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqpW89lhnE0
Did you know that there was evidently a storm drain in the side of the road ahead of the motorcade when/where the assassination took place ? Forget the “grassy knoll”, check out this video and learn of another possibility. I had no idea. Be sure to check out the numerous comments posted.
I’ve got Windows 10 and a new Intel 480 GB SSD drive to upgrade my office pc with next week
W10 is still being developed. I am not brave enough to put such a release on a production machine. Thus I am running W10 in Virtual Box to see how it all works.
The start menu is much better and is now usable. I do like the transition from tablet mode to desktop mode when a keyboard is attached. Saw that on the dog and pony show but have not been able to test it out.
Everyone that is running W7, W8 and W8.1 is supposed to be able to upgrade at no charge. I do wonder how that is going to work. A complete reinstall is not going to happen on my work machines. Hopefully MS works out the upgrade path and the software won’t have to be reinstalled.
there’s no reason you can’t be as productive on an iPad as on a 1980s DOS PC
I can do thinks in seconds in Photoshop that would have taken days back in the late 80’s. The ability to white balance a few hundred digital images in a matter of seconds would have taken hours on a 80’s PC if the capability even existed.
Yeh, I can do more, do it better and do it faster with today’s equipment.
OFD wrote:
Another movie to watch every year, like “The Outlaw Josey Wales…
“Buzzard’s gotta eat, same as worm.”
So many good quotes from that move. I also like Pale Rider.
@Mr. Sam;
Thanks for those links; I’ve read quite a bit about the JFK assassination caper and have come to the conclusion that his VP ordered the hit. I tagged LBJ as a murderer for both that and the debacle in SEA, where I did extremely low-level tasks at the behest of the regime. 50k+ dead Americans and countless Vietnamese and other southeast Asians. For what, exactly?
Slide on back through the history tunnel and find any other of our wars that could not have been avoided, through diplomacy, negotiation, stalling, whatever it takes. I’ve looked at them all and come up empty.
I stumbled across this book in a mall bookstore once. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I have to wonder about a book when the publisher summarizes it like this:
What also gave me pause was a part of the author’s resume revealed by this quote from a review:
So how special was his assistance to LBJ?
Valenti was a genuine war hero but somehow fell in love with Lyndon and worshiped the ground he walked on. PTSD?
@lynn
” I’ve had people come knock when they see the light during an outage and borrow one.”
This right there could be terrifying! During a natural disaster, especially one we have warning of, helping out is just the right thing to do. I provided power, helped clear downed limbs, etc. because I knew help was coming in from outside the area, and the duration would be short. I’m ready to hand out kits to my friends to help spread out the self sufficiency.
In a long term event, where people get desperate, showing your light could get you beaten or killed and your stuff taken.
Even here, after a few days of Ike, tensions were going up. To use a charged reference, the natives were getting restless. If it had been another day or two before the trucks got here, things could have been much worse. It’s actually one of the reasons we are loyal to shopping at HEB. Their response was admirable in every way. They opened stores without electricity, provided trucks to FEMA, used their lots for staging and distribution points, and worked within their communities to help as much as possible. The other reason is low prices and high value.
nick
BTW, I’m surprised you had so little for IKE, but I’m heartened to see you here and getting prepared!
Ransomware is scary stuff. The other day, I found myself on the web-page that says “all your files have been encrypted, pay up”. Or words to that effect. I was under Linux, so after the initial lurch I figured “nah, can’t be”. And it wasn’t. Just some other page I loaded that open that page as a pop-under. Charming.
We do mostly use Gmail here, and also OpenDNS with several filters turned on, and also some extra filtering (mostly for advertising sites) in our local DNS server (that refers to OpenDNS).the firewall. Not perfect, but nothing is…
I’m having trouble putting “last legitimate President”, “murdered”, and “Kennedy” together. The 1960 election was stolen, which is a big hit against Kennedy’s alleged legitimacy. Or maybe legitimacy refers to parents’ marital status, in which case Bush43 was America’s last legitimate President.
BTW, I’m surprised you had so little for IKE, but I’m heartened to see you here and getting prepared!
I used to to walk along in the white zone of awareness, too busy in my daily life to ponder what would happen if XXXX happened. Wild because I have ridden out several hurricanes over the years (except Alicia). Then hurricane Ike happened and I got a total shock. I made sure that we had full gas tanks before the hurricane, etc. But, I had zero preparation for a power outage that lasted three days. I had guns and ammo but nothing else.
So I bought quite a few LED lanterns, store about a hundred D cells, two hundred AA batteries, four person months of food and two person months of water. No way of cooking that food without using a fire pit and wood but most is canned and edible cold. But now, I have decided to move that up to forty person months of food, eight person months of bottled water, two months of dog food, and the means to cook food for a couple of months.
I like your containers and may build a couple. Sounds very proper and may be good also for a throw down cache if someone gets insistent before resorting to gunfire. Things will get insistent after a couple of weeks as very few people have more than one week of food in the house.
I have to admit, one of my current worries is a Cat 5 hurricane in the Houston area. Ike was a Cat 2 with a Cat 3 storm surge. I figure that a Cat 5 would kill around a million people in 24 hours (wave action is tough to withstand). The other seven million would have to do without food, water, gasoline, etc for four to eight weeks. The military would airdrop MREs but not enough. It will be extremely tough and make Katrina look like a walk in the park.
I am also very unnerved by the civil rebellion going on in Baltimore and other cities. While I do not think that Houston is subject to this nonsense, it could happen here if happens everywhere.
Plus I am worried about the Federal government going through financial difficulties and causing the dollar to fall one day. I think that we are 10 to 20 years out on this particular madness but it is definitely on the horizon. We are now over my guessed tipping point, one times the USA GDP. I figure that things go crazy as we approach the high limit, two times the USA GDP.
“I used to to walk along in the white zone of awareness…”
Thus do most people. This is the Condition White of being asleep, deep meditation, or dead. Yet most derps swan around all day like that. It would behoove you to spend your waking time in Condition Yellow. Move to Orange when those skeeters start buzzing around yer head (skeeter-borne diseases?). Deep Orange when being paced by several coyotes. Red when Field Marshal Rodham rings yer doorbell.
“I figure that a Cat 5 would kill around a million people in 24 hours…”
You jumped from Cat 3 to Cat 5; what would Cat 4 do? A bad one on the New England coast even resonates for us here in northern Vermont, usually in the form of high winds and heavy rain. Maybe some flooding with the river surges.
“I am also very unnerved by the civil rebellion going on in Baltimore and other cities.” Don’t get too unnerved just yet; we gonna be in for a lot more of that sorta thing in the near future; keep yer eyes and ears open this summer. It’s one thing if yet another black kid gets murdered by white cops; quite another if the EBT cards and ATMs aint’ working. Nothing is anywhere near yet the level of the shit some of us old enough to remember on this board that occurred during the Glorious Sixties.
Ten years for things to really start crumbling fast. Twenty for Max Max: Redux.
I’d be 82 by then, if I make it that far, and of little use to anybody, though I take my role model from this guy, the very late Jason Russell:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Russell_House
You jumped from Cat 3 to Cat 5; what would Cat 4 do? A bad one on the New England coast even resonates for us here in northern Vermont, usually in the form of high winds and heavy rain. Maybe some flooding with the river surges.
I have no idea. The Cat 5 hurricane is strictly a guess on my part from the fact that a Cat 5 would have wave action probably 20 miles inland of Galveston Bay. Wave action is what kills people during a hurricane. A nice history book about a Cat 5 hurricane in the Houston area is “Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History”. Highly recommended.
http://www.amazon.com/Isaacs-Storm-Deadliest-Hurricane-History/dp/0375708278/
We saw during Rita and Ike how difficult it is to evacuate Houston. I am fairly sure that we cannot get those critical one million people south of 288 and south of I-10 East to high ground in 24 hours.
quite another if the EBT cards and ATMs aint’ working
Somewhere recently I saw a projection that the Federal deficit in 2017 will be three billion dollars as Obamacare fully kicks in. We still have yet to see Obamacare in all its glory. At that rate, the Federal deficit will be growing quickly towards that 2X of the USA GDP. I wonder what the interest rates will be doing at that time?