09:10 – Barbara is off getting her car inspected and checked over. We did kit stuff yesterday and have more on the schedule for today. We also got about 14 liters of canola oil that we purchased at Sam’s Club in July of 2015 repackaged into 2-liter PET bottles. That’s a one person-year supply of oil.
We also got a bunch of 3-liter PET bottles dried and ready for storing bulk staples, primarily flour. I reserve 3-liter bottles and the one-gallon Costco water bottles for staples that are a PITA to get into the narrower mouths of 2-liter bottles. Rice, sugar, small beans, oats, and even cornmeal go into the 2-liter bottles without any problem, but stuff that’s either chunky (like macaroni) or very fine and puffy (like flour) are either too large for the funnel or tend to pack and jam it.
Two of Barbara’s friends from Winston are coming up tomorrow morning to spend the day, so Colin and I will be on our own.
Why repackage prepackaged oil?
Snowing steadily here in the village this morning, a winter wonderland again.
The oil was in a PE carboy, which is permeable to oxygen and water vapor. Also, a two liter bottle is easier to store and handle than a 4.5 gallon carboy.
“Rise in CO2 has ‘greened Planet Earth'”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36130346
“Carbon dioxide emissions from industrial society have driven a huge growth in trees and other plants.”
“A new study says that if the extra green leaves prompted by rising CO2 levels were laid in a carpet, it would cover twice the continental USA.”
“Climate sceptics argue the findings show that the extra CO2 is actually benefiting the planet.”
“But the researchers say the fertilisation effect diminishes over time.”
“They warn the positives of CO2 are likely to be outweighed by the negatives.”
“”This suggests that projected atmospheric CO2 levels in IPCC scenarios are significantly too high, which implies that global temperature rises projected by IPCC models are also too high, even if the climate is as sensitive to CO2 increases as the models imply.””
“And Prof Judith Curry, the former chair of Earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, added: “It is inappropriate to dismiss the arguments of the so-called contrarians, since their disagreement with the consensus reflects conflicts of values and a preference for the empirical (i.e. what has been observed) versus the hypothetical (i.e. what is projected from climate models).”
“”These disagreements are at the heart of the public debate on climate change, and these issues should be debated, not dismissed.””
Well, this falls in line with what the AGW deniers are saying.
Makes no diff; climateglobalchangewarmist deniers are on the same moral and culpable level as Holocaust deniers and should be punished by imprisonment, torture and death. The nay-shun’s cabal of Dem AG’s is on board with that, as is the current regime, MSM and academia.
I am just amazed at the people who support this AGW hogwash. When they start losing their jobs due to the CO2 taxes, they will be crying and waling. And looking for government handouts, food, and shelter. And spending change.
I am a little bit nervous about the open ended experiment that we are running with dumping huge quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere. But, we are at 0.04% CO2 right now. Come back when we are 0.1% and lets reevaluate then. Plus, nobody is going to force China (2X the USA) and India (0.5 the USA) to do anything without using nuclear weapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
I am not sure of the point that CO2 becomes an irritant but I know that it is above at least 0.5%. Probably above 1.0%.
Everyone ready for our forthcoming EMP test? I am not quite sure how to study for it.
http://www.wnd.com/2016/04/emp-alert-2-n-korean-satellites-now-orbit-over-u-s/
I’d study for it by having a few “critical” electronic gizmos inside Faraday containers and otherwise planning to return to those halcyon days of yesteryear when we had no electricity whatsoever. If it stays down and out, those gizmos will also become increasingly useless. So I’d expect MASS die-off, esp. in the cities and ‘burbs, and then being back at circa 1850-1900 at BEST. More likely, we’d have some variation of Mad Max Land and Europe between and during both world wars and the current failed state of Mexico.
The snow lasted an hour or two, stayed on the trees and ground for an hour and is now completely gone.
Why does everyone apparently assume that we can just return to 1850 (or whatever)? We don’t have the skills any more. We don’t have the hardware, nor the means to make it. We have maybe 0.1% of the draft animals, which don’t breed fast. Even if we did, we don’t have the harness, the manual plows and harvesters, etc. etc. for them to pull.
We wouldn’t be returning to 1850 with 1850-level population. We’d be lucky to sustain even a small fraction of that.
Don’t know about anyone else, but I always figured on harnessing up the People of WalMart™. They’re as big as draft horses, so they should be able to pull a plow, right? And PETA wouldn’t be all on my case for making them work because they’re not animals worthy of any dignity, they’re just People of WalMart™.
“Why does everyone apparently assume that we can just return to 1850 (or whatever)?”
Not any sort of assumption on my part; that scenario would be at BEST and we’d be darned lucky at that. The only saving grace for us up here is that we live smack dab in the middle of extensive farm country, which stretches up and down the Lake Champlain watershed on both sides, NY and VT. And there are quite a few draft horses around, plus we see the occasional oxen. It would take some concerted and organized effort, but assuming relative peace and autonomy, maybe we could get enough of these farms going again via manual and animal labor eventually. The mass-producing, industrial, really, dairy farms, no. But the smaller mixed farming enterprises, why not? There’s certainly enough farmland in this greater AO to support the existing population, rural, semi-rural and small-town, but the cities are probably gonna be lost.
“They’re as big as draft horses, so they should be able to pull a plow, right?”
They’re big enough, alright, but they have no wind, no endurance; they’re mostly smokers and drinkers and junk-food gobblers, and wouldn’t last a half-hour ruck march, no matter the season, let alone used as draft animals. Far more judicious use would be to barter them as BBQ fare to the inner-city denizens in return for whatever weapons, ammo, tools, etc. they can scrounge up.
They’re big enough, alright, but they have no wind, no endurance; they’re mostly smokers and drinkers and junk-food gobblers, and wouldn’t last a half-hour ruck march, no matter the season, let alone used as draft animals. Far more judicious use would be to barter them as BBQ fare to the inner-city denizens in return for whatever weapons, ammo, tools, etc. they can scrounge up.
You get within a mile of the cannibals with your “trade stuff” and they are going to take you also. Cannibals are not known for their intelligence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28disease%29
So either they pull a plow or they die on the hoof. This is known in the trade as a win-win situation.
“You get within a mile of the cannibals with your “trade stuff” and they are going to take you also.”
Hey, you’re talkin’ to Mr. OFD here, hermano; I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck when it comes to OPSEC and watching my 6. I ain’t no Rogue Warrior but I have a bit of common sense and the ability to PLAN and take precautions. It’s the cannibals who’d have to watch out; I’m far more likely to blow them away and take their chit. Otherwise don’t even attempt a deal.
“So either they pull a plow or they die on the hoof.”
I’m tellin’ ya; it ain’t worth the time and trouble to harness ’em up; they’d be goners in minutes.
We wouldn’t be returning to 1850 with 1850-level population. We’d be lucky to sustain even a small fraction of that.
The population of the USA in 1850 was 23 million. Sounds like a 90% die off to me that the AGW crowd wants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States
“So either they pull a plow or they die on the hoof.”
I’m tellin’ ya; it ain’t worth the time and trouble to harness ’em up; they’d be goners in minutes.
Get about a 100 of them in a harness and dangle a Twinkie in front.
“Get about a 100 of them in a harness and dangle a Twinkie in front.”
90% die-off right there, with haht attacks and strokes. You wouldn’t get a single row plowed for stopping to pull out the dead. Take another look, gents, at the Peeps of WallMutt; tell me again how much work they could do on a farm, or anyplace, for that matter. Forget WallMutt; look around downtown and take a random silent poll of the typical Murkan derp pop; see any farm workers there? Or even draft animals for more then ten minutes?
Work smarter, not harder! Have them use their weight! They can serve as ballast in wind-driven tall ships! They can climb up a 20′ tower (with stops to catch their breath every half foot of elevation) and then jump down and drive piles into the ground! They can put on diapers and do sumo wrestling for the TV-less entertainment of the masses!
There are still some groups that live an 1850s life. They are going to be very vulnerable as will be their draft horses, machinery (some allow the use of steam engines), other livestock. Well maybe not too vulnerable, some have no hesitation using lethal force to protect what is their’s. In any case, doesn’t hurt to make friends and see where you can help and fit in. Us “English” are accepted if we are sensitive to their ways and religion.
However, I see us going back about 4,000-years. Better put a loincloth and sharp stick in your go-bag.
“Work smarter, not harder!”
There it is. Mr. SteveF has come up with the Solution again. He’ll be in charge of PeepsOfWallMutt Production Enterprises, covering all the responsibilities of any young, bright, innovative manager of the 21st Century! Outstanding!
“In any case, doesn’t hurt to make friends and see where you can help and fit in. Us “English” are accepted if we are sensitive to their ways and religion.”
None around here anymore; we used to have the Shakers, but with a theology of no-sex, you can guess why they’re not around anymore. Made nice furniture.
“Better put a loin cloth and sharp stick in your go-bag.”
By the time it hits that level, you and I and I’m pretty sure everyone else on this board will be cold in our graves. Meanwhile I’ll at least keep the loincloth. The womyn go nuts when they see me coming for them in it.
And in the inevitable doom department, “Europe will ‘soon have more Muslims than Christians’: Belgium warns against ‘making an enemy of Islam’ at Brussels attacks hearing”:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/7106420/Europe-to-very-soon-have-more-Muslims-than-Christians-Belgian-minister-warns-against-making-an-enemy-of-Islam-at-Brussels-attacks-hearing.html
The actual statement is, “Speaking at the EU Parliament, Mr Geens said: “In Europe, very shortly we’re soon going to have more practising Muslims than practising Christians.””
Ah, key word there, “practicing”. Oops, the Queen’s English, “practising”.
““That is not because there are too many Muslims, it is because Christian are generally less practising¿ Europe does not realise this, but this is the reality.”
“Mr Jambon then added: “I’ve said a thousand times, the worst thing we can do is to make an enemy of Islam. That is the very worst thing we could do. “”
I’m fairly sure that it is too late, Islam has made of enemy of the Europeans, Christian or not. I’m fairly sure that the muslims will not stop to ask you while cutting off your head, “Are you a practicing Christian?”.
How ironic; Monsewer Jambon has the surname of the red meat cut from a hog’s thigh, so HE doesn’t have to worry about the musloid cannibals cutting him up for le petit dejeuner. And he spews rubbish like the musloids don’t consider the Euro Christians enemies, and by the way, the musloids tend to think that we’re ALL Christians, and thus infidels, subject to dhimmi-hood or death. What a worthless tool.
They hate you if you aren’t moooslim. In fact they hate you if you’re the wrong kind of moooslim.
Found the perfect shirt to wear to the next Hillary! rally you attend.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-103835-Clinton-T-Shirt/dp/B01A7N5OS2/ref=cts_ap_1_fbt
Hillary Bitch Clinton is philosophically aligned with a different mountain. C’mon, just try to tell me she wouldn’t unleash a reign of terror if she had the power.
“They hate you if you aren’t moooslim. In fact they hate you if you’re the wrong kind of moooslim.”
Indeed. And if any of them start arriving here in northwest rural Vermont, I’ll make a point of wearing a Roman Catholic Crusader shirt everywhere I go and let’s see how they like them apples. If I see one, I’ll make the sign of the cross on them and bless them, in nomine Patris et Fillii et Spiritus Sancti. Then I’ll start singing in Gregorian Chant. Should be a gas.
“Found the perfect shirt to wear to the next Hillary! rally you attend.”
None scheduled for VT that I know of; this is Bern Country, bigtime. I note that Larry Klinton’s fly is wide open and that the chick is reaching for it and still unable to find any evidence of bonafide manly junk. And so say many of the womyn who’ve spoken out; he ain’t got much and it’s deformed.
“C’mon, just try to tell me she wouldn’t unleash a reign of terror if she had the power.”
Oh, absolutely, but I’m guessing half the troops and cops would balk outright, and any who went along with her program would be eating lead before long. This ain’t 1794 France by a long shot. It ain’t even Kampuchea circa 1975-80.
Speaking of plowing in the 1850’s, isn’t there an individual on the southern part of the globe that would love to “plow” Cankles?
I almost missed this one on VA employee qualifications. I’m applying at the VA before I go on my rampage.
Earlier this year we talked about the strange case of Elizabeth Rivera, a VA worker in Puerto Rico who was dismissed from her government job with the VA because of missing too much time at work. Her reason for poor attendance was rather unique, given that she had been in jail for participating in an armed robbery. Never ones to allow a little thing like that to stand in the way of secure government employment, her union appealed the ruling and had her promptly reinstated at her position with back pay.
Applying for a VA job is pretty tricky if you’re, like me, a member of the majority of citizens here, i.e., Cock-A-Soid, Christian, and cis-hetero. Wait, you think being a vet gets you any preference? Excuse me, while I roll on the floor laughing my guts out. I’ve checked into this, for a peer support position, helping other damaged vets, and so have hundreds of others nationwide, and we’ve gotten ZERO, zilch, nada. Not even acknowledgements, and this is after going through a bale of paperwork and jumping through a bunch of hoops AFTER the VA told the world it desperately wanted people for these jobs.
But no problemo for Senora Rivera, even AFTER doing an armed robbery. Amazing. Almost as amazing as the city of Houston hiring two former NVA cadres as police officers back in the 80s while Murkan vets couldn’t get the time of day there then.
Good luck with your application, Senor Atoz; be sure to Hispanisize your name, speak with a heavy accent, and say nothing about your veteran status. Maybe consider a tranny operation, too, just to be sure.
Did I mention here that Son#1 and I were kicking ourselves for not giving him a hispanic name when he got his green card at about age 11? It would have given him a serious leg up in his college applications, likely giving him a free ride at his first choice school. Instead, like a pair of imbeciles, we left him with a Chinese name and he had to fight uphill against the stereotype of “yet another Chinese kid with perfect grades” applying to engineering school. (He was, however, highly resistant to my suggestion that we could have made him a girl while we were at it. Made me wonder just how serious he was about getting into a good school.)
And everywhere the dumbocrats are in charge they’re going to let convicted felons vote again. Why not? They are fully rehabilitated. In fact ones on parole or probation are also to be allowed to vote. Just be sure to remember who has your back.
Maybe consider a tranny operation, too, just to be sure.
Is your loincloth available? Maybe a codpiece whilst the whang heals.
“Made me wonder just how serious he was about getting into a good school.)”
No kidding. He needs to get clued in to How Things Are Now, sounds like.
“And everywhere the dumbocrats are in charge they’re going to let convicted felons vote again. ”
Yeah, the Evil Half of the Party seems to have always had a thing for criminals.
“Maybe a codpiece whilst the whang heals.”
Hey man, nothing that drastic; take a page from the Bruce Jenner Playbook; you don’t gotta go all the way; just get a boob job, some facial re-arrangement, and dress the part. It’ll fly; you’re in “transition,” and evaluating surgical options.
Speaking of transgender, it’s now the excuse du jour for any crime apparently:
Jacobus van Nierop was found guilty of aggravated assault and fraud after leaving at least 50 patients in a remote French village with broken jaws, recurrent abscesses and septicemia in a spree of “butchery” from 2008 to 2012.
Van Nierop sought to block his extradition, first to the Netherlands and then France, claiming to suffer from “psychological problems” including gender identity issues and suicidal tendencies.
Looks like Calgary Ted ain’t gonna make it; Mr. DadCooks will be all bummed out.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/04/official-ted-cruz-mathematically-eliminated-gop-race/
Gee, what will the Repub nabobs try to do next? And other polls are currently showing Trump and Cankles in a dead heat if they make it to the general “election.”
I guess if I still cared, I’d prefer the bloviating carny barker to the fugly psycho pig and war criminal. Trump hasn’t had a chance yet to become a bonafide war criminal, like all the Presidents going back quite a ways now.
Mrs. OFD is sweating out the current tornado warning in effect until midnight out in OK City, OK. And I’ve recovered from our morning snow whiteout and it’s all long gone now.
Is your loincloth available? Maybe a codpiece whilst the whang heals.
A friend got his vasectomy reversed when wife #3 wanted to have a baby. He paid $5,000 for the reversal with no guarantee of success. His unit swelled up to the size of an elephants and he walked everywhere with his arm out in front of him for six weeks just to make sure nobody ran into him. I told him at the time that he needed a codpiece. His reply was they did not make them that big.
Wife got pregnant and had a beautiful baby girl (who is now 20). He promptly had another vasectomy so they did not have another beautiful baby.
I guess if I still cared, I’d prefer the bloviating carny barker to the fugly psycho pig and war criminal. Trump hasn’t had a chance yet to become a bonafide war criminal, like all the Presidents going back quite a ways now.
If nothing else, I am looking forward to Trump being President for the entertainment value alone should he succeed in his quest. And then, I want him to walk into the Congress with a pair of machine guns and light up the ceiling. BTW, I am quite tired of being lectured by the lawyer Obola.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
I am rather pleased that Trump is still alive. And I hope he stays that way for quite a while. I must admit that I am worried.
Off on vacation with the wife, leaving the house in care of the two young-adult sons. Now that is a luxury. Not taking a computer, because we won’t even have an Internet connection most of the time. Withdrawal symptoms? Nah…
Oh, a minor thing: the new blog-feature – the button at the bottom right that jumps to the top. It works, but whatever the image is, or would be, is blocked by my ad blocker. I just see an empty square.
You can safely disable your ad blocker for this site. I’ve never run ads here and never will. If I didn’t run them back when I was sometimes getting 30,000 or 40,000 views a day, I’m sure not going to start now that I’m averaging 1,000 a day.
am quite tired of being lectured by the lawyer Obola.
Just borrowed a copy from the Great Internet Library ™
Speaking of Obola, Bill Gates, and the rest of the “everybody should go to college” crowd:
Just 37% of U.S. High School Seniors Prepared for College Math and Reading, Test Shows
Maybe they should start in High School.
“… back when I was sometimes getting 30,000 or 40,000 views a day, I’m sure not going to start now that I’m averaging 1,000 a day.”
You may have discussed this before, but memory is a fleeting thing with me; why such a drastic drop?
Because I stopped writing about PC hardware.
Well, the world in general stopped caring about pc hardware.
As Dr Pournelle says, it’s now pretty much “good enough”. Unless you have specific needs, almost anything you buy now will just work.
nick
@OFD — “Looks like Calgary Ted ain’t gonna make it; Mr. DadCooks will be all bummed out.”
Those are crocodile tears.
@RBT — “Because I stopped writing about PC hardware.”
FWIW, Hardware Guys 2 let its domain registration expire recently and some troglodyte redirected it to a ransomware site. Looks like it is back in Jim’s hands again. Lesson is don’t ever go surfing, even in familiar waters, without multiple layers of prophylaxis.
Garden report: first flowers on some tomato plants, not going to beat my record of a tomato on May 1. Bee population appears to be low this year.
“Because I stopped writing about PC hardware.”
Wow. I wouldn’t have thought such a huge drop as a result.
“…the world in general stopped caring about pc hardware.”
And there must still be zillions of PCs all over the world. I’ve got three right here, one Windows 8.1, and two more that will have one or another Linux server distro on them. Three laptops, two netbooks, and the Kindle.
Garden report here: a few flowers starting to pop out, others rising. We’ve got to rehab our existing six raised beds and put in six more this spring. And a plethora of containers. Also doing some seed-starting experimentation for the first time.
I drove the long way back home yesterday after another bunch of errands and was again amazed at the dozens of square miles of flat, fertile, watershed farmland that stretches from Quebec down to the NY/MA/VT border. With judicious organization and cooperation of property owners, this could be the breadbasket of New England, north-country NY and the Canadian border areas. Instead, it will be primarily used to grow feed and fuel corn, and have large parcels sold out to developers for more conglomerations of McMansions on treeless plains. As the wind howls across them, the residents will be commuting to whatever jobs and shopping at the usual strip malls many miles away, at least until the days of Happy Motoring end and the strip malls are abandoned, like so many already. Eventually the McMansions will be empty (or stay empty, having never been bought and occupied) and be stripped for scrap and end up as bonfires in the night.
Sure, but nick’s right – a commodity PC is good enough for most purposes. Reading up on the point-by-point comparisons of hard drives and boards is no longer needed. Learning the specific tricks for each hard drive board model to eke out 5% better performance certainly isn’t needed for the vast majority of computer buyers or users.
For the kids, I bought a refurb Dell instead of new. It runs as well as any new PC would, and is “good enough”. I am _seriously_ considering a NUC for my main PC, and retire my desktop to file share status.
Naw – I’m the Big Daddy. My desktop is the best in the house. Even s0, i5 with 16 GBytes and a 256GB SSD is more than enough. And at that it’s a Franken-PC. Every piece in it was purchased at a different time (counting CPU and Mobo as one unit).
Good deal! They mention that if you live on or near the East Coast, you should try heading for the Appalachians and “northern New England,” like, NH and Maine, haha. They don’t mention Vermont as being in northern New England. Good! Southern NH has long since been taken over by fleeing Massholes and Maine is one of the poorest rural states in the country and enjoys very bitter winters. The pop there is mostly along the coast, too, and beeyooteeful Route 1, which is jammed in the summers.
http://preparedgunowners.com/?p=1217
Here in northern Vermont by the lake, we’re at roughly the same distances between the Adirondacks and the western Maine mountains. And Montreal, while only 65-70 miles north of here, is on an island, connected by bridges, likely to be jammed shut if there’s a SHTF event there. Then to get down here any refugees would have to traverse that distance, crossing mostly open farmland, which in the winter is like Siberia. Plus a lot of wotta hazards, ditches, fences, wire, etc. They’d be more likely to head south along the St. Lawrence toward Ottawa.
“My desktop is the best in the house.”
This Winblows 8.1 machine has 32 GB RAM but only a 1TB spinning drive; I have the whole of it backed up to a 4TB external drive and will eventually replace the current drive with an SSD; maybe by then will have convinced wife to dump Windows. The new home workshop/biz machine in the attic will have 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD, and an 8TB RAID2 external drive, running CentOS 7, NethServer and OwnCloud. Not sure what I’ll do with the remaining desktop w/16GB RAM and running RHEL 7, as it looks like my RH sys admin days for pay are over, which was the point of cert studies on it. I may run whatever o.s. on it for webcams/security, not sure yet.
“By the time it hits that level, you and I and I’m pretty sure everyone else on this board will be cold in our graves. Meanwhile I’ll at least keep the loincloth. The womyn go nuts when they see me coming for them in it.”
Not your southern correspondent. We’ll probably miss the EMP from the orbiting nukes the Norks already have up there.
Lynn wrote:
“He promptly had another vasectomy so they did not have another beautiful baby.”
How unromantic of him.
It was kid #3. That is enough.