09:46 – Barbara is off to the gym this morning. She’s volunteering all afternoon at the Friends of the Library bookstore.
Yesterday, wanting to make sure she was aware of the FDA rules change on livestock antibiotics that takes effect January 1st, I asked Lori, our USPS carrier, if she routinely treated her beef cattle with antibiotics. She said she didn’t, and used antibiotics only if one of her cows actually became ill.
In passing, I asked her if, with less than two weeks until the election, she’d made a run yet to stock up on food. She said she’d made a big Sam’s Club run over the weekend, and now had a bunch of canned goods as well as bulk dry staples sitting around in sacks waiting to be repackaged. She washed/sanitized a bunch of two-liter bottles, and is now just waiting for them to dry.
Nick posted a comment this morning that’s worth reading. It links to a Daily Mail article that describes just how ill-prepared the authorities in Washington and Oregon are for the catastrophic earthquake that may occur at any time. Depending on how powerful that quake is, its epicenter, and when it occurs, it might easily kill millions of people, particularly in heavily-populated coastal areas. The authorities are now suggesting that people store two weeks’ worth of food, up from three days. That may help a bit, but of course less than 10% of the population are likely to follow that advice. As always, the authorities want to avoid scaring people, when scaring people is exactly what they should be doing. What they should have announced is something like: “There is going to be a catastrophic earthquake. It may not happen for years, or it may happen later today, but it IS going to happen. When it does, it will be too late to evacuate, and this earthquake and its aftereffects will kill many people, at least tens of thousands and possibly millions. The government will do all it can to render aid, but our ability to do so will be very limited. We strongly recommend that you prepare now by making provisions to provide water, food, heat, sanitation, and other essentials for yourself and your family. You may be on your own for weeks to months.”