Friday, 7 July 2017

08:53 – It was 68.1F (20C) when I took Colin out at 0710, overcast and drippy.

For the second time since we’ve lived here, Colin made a break for it. When I walked out the drive to pick up the paper, he headed over to Bonnie’s field to sniff around. As I walked back toward the house, he trotted back over toward me, but instead of coming up toward the front door he went down behind the house. I walked over to the other side of the house, expecting him to come into view down along the fence line. He didn’t. So I walked back over to Bonnie’s side of the house, expecting that he’d turned around and was back in Bonnie’s back field. Nope. So I walked down behind the house, expecting to see him there. Nope. Neither was he in our other neighbor’s yard, 100 yards/meters or so down the road. So I came back to the house and woke Barbara to let her know he was missing. She found him sniffing around a couple hundred yards down the road, near where a skunk had gotten run over the other day. We both chastised him.


Another screed today.

I got email the other day from a woman who was about to pull the trigger on a $6,000 “one-year food supply for four people” from Costco for them and their two teenage kids. She said her husband was on-board with the idea, but asked if I had any thoughts.

Hell, yes, I had some thoughts. I told her she didn’t need to spend anything close to $6,000 on a four person-year LTS food supply, and if she did choose to spend that much she could get a hell of a lot better supply than companies like that sell.

Let’s get the good part out of the way first. This LTS food collection provides 2,000 calories per day for four people for a year, or about 2,920,000 total calories. I think 2,000 calories/day is inadequate. I’d shoot for 3,000 or more calories/day, but at least this package provides more calories than most similar packages. Some of those provide as little as 350 calories/day. Seriously. The only thing that would accomplish is letting you starve to death a bit more slowly.

Now the bad news. A very high price, and no meat. The vast majority of the calories in this package come from grains and other cheap bulk carbohydrate foods. Well, what should be cheap bulk foods. But they’re not priced that way here. At $1,500 per person per year for 730,000 calories, that amounts to about 487 calories per dollar spent, which are pretty expensive calories.

Contrast that to the cost of calories in bulk foods that you repackage yourself. The cheapest of those is flour, at around $25 per 100 pounds at Costco or Sams. That 100 pounds of flour contains about 170,000 calories, give or take, or about 6,800 calories per dollar spent. Rice and sugar cost more per pound, but not THAT much more. If you want bulk LTS food, it is much, much, MUCH cheaper to repackage it yourself from 50-pound bags.

But let’s put things on an oranges-to-oranges basis. Let’s say you want to buy your bulk food already packaged for LTS. Go visit your nearest LDS Home Storage Center. A 4-pound #10 can of flour costs $3 there. That’s three times the price of flour in 50-pound bags, but you don’t have to repackage it yourself. That #10 can contains about 6,800 calories, or about 2,267 calories per dollar spent. LDS HSC prices on other bulk foods like sugar, rice, pasta, oats, dry milk, beans, etc. are similarly low in price, considerably more expensive than repackaging bulk food yourself, but much cheaper than what commerical vendors charge for the same #10 can or foil retort pouch.

So let’s say you choose to buy all of your bulk carbohydrates, beans (protein), dry milk, etc. from the LDS HSC. (You don’t have to be a Mormon to buy there.) The average cost/pound will vary, depending on the mix you choose (wheat berries are cheaper than anything, flour/sugar/oats cost more, as do beans, and dry milk is the most expensive). If you buy one pound/day per person, that’s a total of 1,460 pounds. Let’s say the cost averages $1/pound, which is a reasonable estimate. You’ll end up with roughly 360 cans, 60 cases. And you’ll have more than $4,500 remaining from that $6,000. But we still have more to buy.

First, buy three gallons or 12 liters (call it 25 pounds) of vegetable oil, shortening, and other oils/fats per person-year. Again, your total cost will vary, depending on what exactly you choose. At the low-end (canola oil, Crisco, etc.) your oil/fat supply will be $15 to $30 per person year, or $60 to $120 total. If you instead buy expensive premium oils (think genuine extra-virgin olive oil) it may be five times that much or more. Call it $140 total, which takes our grand total to $1,600 so far.

The next item is table salt. The average American consumes about seven pounds per year, so you’ll need at least 28 pounds for the four of you for a one-year supply. Sam’s sells 4-pound boxes of Morton’s iodized table salt for about $1.50. You’ll need seven or more boxes, so add another $10.

Then start adding bulk herbs and spices. For onion, if you like it, the cheapest source is again the LDS Home Storage Center. A 2.4-pound #10 can of dry onions costs $9.00 at the HSC, noticeably less than what Costco or Sam’s charges for large plastic bottles of it. But you’ll want a bunch of those large plastic bottles as well. Hit Costco or Sam’s and buy a bunch of whatever herbs and spices you like. Plan on spending at least $100 on herbs/spices, and more is better. That’s a tiny fraction of your budget, and goes a long way toward making those boring bulk foods appetizing. It’s far better to have too much than too little.

Next up is meat. If you’re like most Americans, you average about 200 pounds of meat per year, almost 9 ounces per day. That doesn’t mean you’ll need 800 pounds of meat for your deep pantry. In normal times, meat is often a major component of a meal, but you can instead plan to use meats in the same way you use herbs and spices–as flavoring rather than bulk. (We keep enough canned meat on hand to provide about eight ounces per person per day, but even a quarter of that amount goes a long way toward making appetizing meals possible.) For the last couple of years, we’ve been buying almost exclusively Keystone Meats canned meats in 28-ounce cans. They offer beef chunks, ground beef, pork, chicken, and turkey. All cost $6.28/can at Walmart, except the beef chunks, at $7.74. All of them are pure meat, with no water added, so you get the weight of meat you’re paying for. We still buy fresh/frozen meats, but probably 33% to 50% of our meat consumption is from Keystone cans.

So, if you want to provide 7 ounces of meat per day per person, you’d need 365 cans for a one-year supply. That would cost you about $2,300, assuming you didn’t buy many cans of beef chunks. Obviously, before you order 365 cans of Keystone Meats, you should buy a couple test cans of each type and try using them to cook meals. Assuming you’re happy with them, that would add $2,300 to your one-year deep pantry bill, for a total of about $4,100.

Next up is #10 cans of stuff that LDS doesn’t offer at the Home Storage Center, but are important for making palatable meals. For that, we recommend Augason Farms products purchased from Walmart. The Big Four are powdered eggs, powdered butter, powdered cheese, and bouillon, which they offer in several flavors as a meat substitute. For four people for a year, I’d recommend at least eight cans of powdered whole eggs, which is equivalent to about 48 dozen whole eggs. You won’t be using these for omelets, but rather in baked goods that call for eggs. Eight cans give you roughly a dozen eggs per week for baking, making pancakes, and so on. The powdered butter is primarily for flavoring. Incidentally, it’s much better to mix it with vegetable oil than water. (You can substitute for this in whole or in part with Crisco butter-flavor shortening, which is fine for baking but sucks as a butter replacement for use as a spread.) Depending on how much butter you normally use, you’ll probably want three to eight cans of powdered butter on the shelf. The cheese powder is for making up sauces or just flavoring skillet meals. The mixing instructions for it specify way too little water. For most purposes, you can get by using 1.5 to 3 times the recommended amount of water. We keep about eight cans of cheese powder on hand for four people for a year, but YMMV. The bouillon granules are for making up soups, adding meat flavor to meatless meals, and so on. We keep a can or two of each flavor. We’d stock more if we didn’t stock as much canned meat as we do. Again, different people will want widely differing amounts of all four of these products depending on their cooking habits, but plan to spend $400 and up on these items. That takes us to $4,500 or more total.

Next up is cooking/baking essentials. If you’re baking bread and other baked goods, you’ll want lots of baking soda (one or more large bags), baking powder (at least four 10-ounce cans), three or four pounds of instant dry yeast, a couple large bottles of vanilla extract, a couple gallons of vinegar, and so on. Find recipes you like, note the ingredients they call for, and multiply them out. Even if you buy very large quantities of all of these, the total bill should come to $100 or less. Call it $4,600 total.

Next up is soups/sauces/condiments/syrups, which you can use to turn simple bulk-based meals into something appetizing. Think soups/sauces to use in making casseroles or skillet meals with pasta or rice, pancake syrup to use with pancakes, waffles or oatmeal, and so on. You’ll want 365 or more containers of these items, which can range from one-gallon jugs of pancake syrup down to jars of pasta sauce to small cans of tomato paste and various soups. For a one-year supply for four people, plan to spend at least $400 on these items, although you can easily spend three or four times that much depending on your own preferences. Call it $400 or more, for a total of $5,000 or more.

Finally, you might want to stock up on canned and/or dried fruits and vegetables. These aren’t essential for good nutrition, but many people will want them on hand for flavor. Buy canned versions rather than dehydrated, let alone freeze-dried. A #10 can of corn or peas or green beans or fruit at Sam’s costs anything from $3.50 to maybe twice that, and provides a lot of veggies for the money. If you like vegetables and/or fruit, plan on spending maybe $500 or $600 on these items, which takes you up to maybe $5,600. Oh, and don’t forget to buy several Costco-size bottles of multivitamins.

All told, you’ll spend a bit less than your $6,000 budget, and you’ll be eating immensely better than you would be with that four person-year kit. You’ll have many more calories stored, and you’ll have enough meat to make those meals worth eating.

But what about that 25-year shelf life? It doesn’t matter. Nearly all of the dry stuff in #10 cans and retort bags has best-by dates 10 years or more out, and most of it is 20 or 30 years. And even that is pessimistic, as I know from personal testing of very old LTS food.

The canned meats and other wet foods have realistic use-by dates five years or more out, and nearly all of them will remain nutritious and tasty for much, much longer. And anyway, you should be using canned meats and other wet foods routinely in your everyday cooking, so nothing is going to go bad.

59 Comments and discussion on "Friday, 7 July 2017"

  1. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Liz Reardon? Hank’s daughter, right?

    Seriously, Mrs. OFD was pretty impressive. There was a time when I would have kicked ass on Jeopardy, but no longer. She’s close to my age, and she’d probably kick my ass now.

  2. nick flandrey says:

    One other reason not to buy the “Kit” of LTS food is the high proportion of soy and TVP in the items. Every time I look at one of the labels, (for “pasta” or some other dish that would be a side dish for meat in any normal time) they are full of soy and TVP.

    TVP makes me vomit. Really. Like serious allergic reaction, tunnel vision, and out to the parking lot to puke.

    Some people have a problem with soy, believing it mimics some female hormones, and is bad for men. No opinion on the subject myself, but it’s a consideration.

    I like whole foods with minimal processing and additives. The packaged “meals4ayear” are a chemistry set, made with the cheapest stuff possible, and all the bulk and fillers allowed by law.

    I except Mountain House Brand from the ‘cheapest possible’ comments. Anything marketed for daily use by regular people (backpackers, campers, etc) is likely to be much better than the stuff marketed as “emergency food.” After all, they’re hoping you never actually USE their product. Some of them are COUNTING on it.

    n

  3. Dave Hardy says:

    “Liz Reardon? Hank’s daughter, right?”

    Hank spelled it with an “e.” Rearden.

    Mrs. OFD is the daughter of Edward and Barbara. She is descended from a very long line of Irish clan people, to at least the Middle Ages. I am likewise, only on the English side. We are what is derisively referred to as “Old Americans,” and the sooner we are all exterminated, the better it will be to the liking of commies, SJWs, progs, BLM, antifas, etc., etc. Good luck to them getting that done, though.

    “Seriously, Mrs. OFD was pretty impressive…”

    Thanks; I keep telling her that and so does everyone else but she keeps kicking herself for LOSING. I think she made the right call on that $7k bet in Final Jeopardy; if by some miracle the guy had failed on that and bet enough, she would have won.

    She showed me the old Al Yankovic vid on the Toob “I Lost on Jeopardy,” which was kinda funny.

    We are off shortly to beeyooteeful Glens Falls, NY, where she grew up; another north-country defunct old mill town. Wake this afternoon, funeral tomorrow at 09:00.

    I may get online again tonight at some point, we’ll see. Nice list of tips there from RBT above…gotta print it out when I get back.

  4. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    “Nice list of tips there from RBT above…gotta print it out when I get back.”

    More on that tomorrow.

  5. Ray Thompson says:

    she keeps kicking herself for LOSING

    she keeps kicking herself for NOT WINNING.

    Fixed it for you. Big difference. Anyone that makes it on Jeopardy is far from losing. Just getting on the show is a major win in my opinion.

    she made the right call on that $7k bet in Final Jeopardy

    Absolutely. A tough wager but a correct wager in my opinion. The danger was the guy that won getting the question wrong and then wagering nothing. He still would have won as your spousal unit could not catch him. Her only hope was him not getting the answer correct, same as the guy to her left.

  6. Dave Hardy says:

    Right on, Mr. Ray; I will pass this on to her accordingly.

    C U all later, maybe, via my Kindle Fire….

    Have a good day, fratres….

  7. CowboySlim says:

    DOTD (Denial of the Day)

    Source: Full Page Ad in Today’s LA Times (among others)
    Subject: Hydrogen-Fueled Toyota MIRAI

    Lies:
    1. “California Zero Emission Vehicle”
    2. “Its Only Emission Is Water”

    Reality:
    1. 90+% of H2 produced by a chemical reaction called steam reforming
    2. CH4 + 2H2O = 4H2 + CO2 (overall reaction)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming
    3. Yes, the CO2 is not emitted at the rear bumper
    4. OTOH, CO2 emitted at the production facility (many facilities in Texas)

    Comments: Lynn? Bob?

    Slim, who is a global warming denier

  8. lynn says:

    Have a good day, fratres….

    I get the feeling that a lot of ladies do hang around here, they just don’t comment. I don’t think that we have heard from Jenny in quite a while though.

  9. CowboySlim says:

    @Miles

    Wearing my Dinki-Di tee shirt.

  10. lynn says:

    Reality:
    1. 90+% of H2 produced by a chemical reaction called steam reforming
    2. CH4 + 2H2O = 4H2 + CO2 (overall reaction)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming
    3. Yes, the CO2 is not emitted at the rear bumper
    4. OTOH, CO2 emitted at the production facility (many facilities in Texas)

    Comments: Lynn? Bob?

    Yup. I thought it was 98% of H2 is made via steam reforming of natural gas. But 90% works for me also. BTW, all refineries, including the six ??? left in California, make hydrogen via steam reforming for the hydrogenation of sulfur in the crude oil.

    And remember, hydrogen wants to be FREE ! Never park a hydrogen vehicle in an enclosed area.

    Lynn, who is a global warming skeptic.

    I used to know a man who had six numbers tattooed on his forearm. I made the mistake of asking him one day what that was for. I got a very short explanation of Auschwitz camp where he lived during WWII as a young boy. His other family members did not make it out so he grew up an orphan.

  11. DadCooks says:

    IMHO, and has been mentioned on here before, eat what you store.

    If people would try living for just one week (if they can last that long) on these “kits” they would realize that they just threw a ton of money down the crapper/latrine. They also need to not use water out of the tap, as it will most likely be one of the first things to go after the electricity goes out followed by natural gas.

    The family that @RBT wrote about is actually in worse shape, again IMHO.

  12. lynn says:

    “Giant, Panda-Shaped Solar Panels Activated in China”
    https://www.pcmag.com/news/354789/giant-panda-shaped-solar-panels-activated-in-china

    Wild.

  13. lynn says:

    The Internet of Cars Will Ruin the Roads
    https://www.pcmag.com/commentary/354742/the-internet-of-cars-will-ruin-the-roads

    “For safety’s sake, it would be better if self-driving cars were kept totally autonomous, as in unable to chat with other cars or any system outside the car.”

    Yup, John Dvorak gets it. Again and again and again.

  14. Miles_Teg says:

    “Wearing my Dinki-Di tee shirt.”

    Bust a deal and face the wheel.

  15. lynn says:

    They also need to not use water out of the tap, as it will most likely be one of the first things to go after the electricity goes out followed by natural gas.

    After hurricane Ike in the Houston area in 2009, 60% of the independent water suppliers in the Houston metropolitan area either did not have generators, or diesel to even last a day without grid electricity. The Great State of Texas requires generators and seven days of fuel for independent water suppliers (MUDs, municipal utility districts). Many were fined after Ike but I doubt that very many were fixed.

    I am guilty of this also. I do not have a generator for my water well pump at the office. But then again, I am not a MUD. I am thinking about isolating my water well pump and putting it on its own meter which would be the first step in that process.

  16. nick flandrey says:

    I used to know a man who had six numbers tattooed on his forearm.”

    My neighbor in Arizona had a tattoo like that. She was a pretty spry and hardy old lady at the time.

    Every day free was a good day.

    As these eye witnesses die off, it will be harder and harder to fight the revisionists.

    Think about this in terms of the Sandy Hook ‘truther’ stories recently in the ‘news’. How do we REALLY KNOW? We think we can know, but we know they lie, fabricate, edit, misdirect and omit. It happened ‘way over there’ and a small number of people were involved. How can we be certain we know what we know?

    n

    (not in any way suggesting that I think Sandy Hook massacre didn’t happen, just occurred to me during the recent discussions that there isn’t any way to know for sure, unless you were there, and even then, we know eye witness testimony is unreliable)

  17. nick flandrey says:

    Bug out BOAT- needs a bit of work

    https://www.publicsurplus.com/sms/auction/view?auc=1884405

    Nice classic coastal cruiser, needs loving owner!

    (in nice working condition, these sell for ~$20k

    n

  18. Bill F. says:

    “For safety’s sake, it would be better if self-driving cars were kept totally autonomous, as in unable to chat with other cars or any system outside the car.”

    We did some traffic modeling in a math class back in grad school. One of the models was the traffic capacity of a road. Once it reaches a limit you get compression waves – one car taps brakes and it ripples down the line – bringing traffic to a stop eventually. This could easily be eliminated if self driving cars could communicate. Maybe this could be done if the cars can communicate with some master traffic controller but seems easier if they can just talk with all the traffic in a certain radius. I get the hackers argument but we need to solve that for more reasons than just self driving cars.

  19. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Yeah, I met and talked with a guy back in about 1972. He was former SS junior officer, from the 1st SS Liebstandarte. We talked for several hours. He had personally never abused, let alone killed, a Jew, or actually seen it going on, or so he said. And I believed him. However, he said that by the end of the war, everyone, civilian and military alike, was completely aware of what was going on. I’ve never understood how anyone could deny that this occurred, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

  20. lynn says:

    “For safety’s sake, it would be better if self-driving cars were kept totally autonomous, as in unable to chat with other cars or any system outside the car.”

    We did some traffic modeling in a math class back in grad school. One of the models was the traffic capacity of a road. Once it reaches a limit you get compression waves – one car taps brakes and it ripples down the line – bringing traffic to a stop eventually. This could easily be eliminated if self driving cars could communicate. Maybe this could be done if the cars can communicate with some master traffic controller but seems easier if they can just talk with all the traffic in a certain radius. I get the hackers argument but we need to solve that for more reasons than just self driving cars.

    One word, ransomware.

    I can hardly wait until all of the autonomous cars put “send 100 bitcoin to XXXXXX to travel in this vehicle” on their display. Then the automakers will say, “we never imagined that could happen”.

  21. Bill F. says:

    We were doing some computer work in Krakow for Y2K and the company provided a guide to show us around. It turned out he knew a lot about Auschwitz and gave us a full tour. He was Polish and was stressing the number of political prisoners that died there. Near the end, he took us over to an ash pile. He was handing us pieces of bone and trying to talk us into taking them with us to show to people that did not think it happened. We passed on that. It is the worst place I have ever been, but everyone should go see one of these things. It was not that long ago that this was going on (edit – still going on in places like North Korea)

  22. Bill F. says:

    “I can hardly wait until all of the autonomous cars put “send 100 bitcoin to XXXXXX to travel in this vehicle” on their display. Then the automakers will say, “we never imagined that could happen”.”

    I will never buy an autonomous car that can’t be driven like a “regular” car. Or, if that is not possible, I will still be driving something with points and a carburetor and no dadgum computer (OK I might put up with electronic ignition and mechanical fuel injection).

  23. lynn says:

    I will never buy an autonomous car that can’t be driven like a “regular” car. Or, if that is not possible, I will still be driving something with points and a carburetor and no dadgum computer (OK I might put up with electronic ignition and mechanical fuel injection).

    I would like to have a 1969 four wheel drive Jeep Wagoneer as my bugout vehicle.
    https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/1969-Jeep-Wagoneer-Overview-c6807

  24. SteveF says:

    I’ve never understood how anyone could deny that this occurred, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

    Awful lot of Jew hatred going around.

  25. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    What does hatred have to do with denying facts?

  26. SteveF says:

    -shrug- Filtering facts to fit what you already believe. Not everyone does this so blatantly as to be obvious, probably only half, but it’s a thing.

    For the record, I do not view those who do such as fully human. They’re falling down on the “sapiens” part of Homo sapiens sapiens.

  27. Eugen (Romania) says:

    I visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau, too. It was a cold winter day with subfreezing temperatures. When going to a place like that, you prepare yourself mentally beforehand. You expect to learn about evil and tragic and try to hold on emotionally… while facing also that cold weather.

    So I was visiting around, and got to some interior exhibitions. One has behind a glass more than a ton of women hair. Unbelievable to see all that hair there and still braided. It was used to make military uniforms among other stuff.. And then, there was an exhibition with objects from the prisoners. And one of those object broke me. I was overwhelmed emotionally and with tears when I saw this toy doll that even it was mutilated – half burned or something. A child came to my mind associated with that doll…

    Next, I passed by the wall where those who broke the rules (dissidents) were shot by fire squad. Then saw the prison basement where they put 4 persons on a square meter obligating them to stand up all the time…

    There still exist a gas chamber (or incinerator, I don’t remember exactly its kind). But inside it, I had another difficult moment as I started to cough and had to clear the nose frequently (cold weather). I was glad when I got outside of that… alive.

    Then we went across the road to the Birkenau camp. This one looked more like a camp with its wooden barracks (Auschwitz has multi-store brick buildings). Much more looking like a prison on a field with barbed-wire fences – harsh conditions especially in winter. IIRC, there existed 4 incinerators that was destroyed by the Nazis at the end of the war.

    Sometimes it reminds me of all that extermination of human beings (by millions), that happened only 70 years ago, and makes me fear more the savageness the humans are capable of.

  28. Bill F. says:

    The hair, eye glasses, artificial limbs, etc – truly terrible. It was a factory. I struggle to get the images out of my mind.

  29. Greg Norton says:

    One word, ransomware.

    I can hardly wait until all of the autonomous cars put “send 100 bitcoin to XXXXXX to travel in this vehicle” on their display. Then the automakers will say, “we never imagined that could happen”.

    How could it possibly happen. No one is going to surf porn to kill time in their self driving car.

  30. ech says:

    If you instead buy expensive premium oils (think genuine extra-virgin olive oil) it may be five times that much or more.

    Extra virgin olive oil isn’t a cooking oil. It’s for salad dressings, emulsions, and finishing. Canola is much better for everyday cooking.

    He had personally never abused, let alone killed, a Jew, or actually seen it going on, or so he said. And I believed him.

    He had his blinders on. LSSAH was involved in civilian mass shootings starting with Poland. They were routinely involved in shooting POWs and civilians in the USSR. They were involved in rounding up many of the remaining Jews in Germany. As a reward, they were sent watches and winter clothes taken from Jews. They also were the troops at the Malmedy massacre. Maybe they weren’t the flying squads that followed the troops to round up and shoot Jews, but they had blood on their hands.

    Awful lot of Jew hatred going around.

    Yeah. A number of the alt-Right writers are very, very anti-Semitic. They try to disguise it, but it comes through.

  31. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    “He had his blinders on.”

    Maybe, but I don’t think so. He was a very young junior officer who IIRC first deployed with LSSAH to France after D-Day. He may have been on the Eastern Front very briefly before Hitler rushed LSSAH to France, but if so he was fighting what amounted to a rear-guard action against the Red Army. I don’t doubt there were atrocities, but I believe that he was personally not involved in them.

  32. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Oh, yeah. And I think he said that he was in the vicinity of Malmedy during the Ardennes Offensive, and heard about what had happened there, but again was not personally involved. I don’t think he was trying to cover up any personal actions. I think I remember him saying that he’d personally shot or shot at US or Brit soldiers and partisans. But no one who wasn’t shooting back at him. I can’t blame a guy for that.

  33. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    I have visited Germany once, and considered at that time making a pilgrimage to such places, but for one reason or another I didn’t end up doing it. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t. It’s bad enough to know about it; actually seeing it would probably still be giving me nightmares.

    I’ve talked to more than one US soldier who was actually there when there were still prisoners in the camps, and they all said pretty much the same thing; that after 30 years or more they still woke up from nightmares from what they’d seen.

  34. lynn says:

    How could it possibly happen. No one is going to surf porn to kill time in their self driving car.

    This is sarcasm, right ?

  35. CowboySlim says:

    WRT autonomous cars:

    The I405 between my daughter’s house and mine, a 5 mile segment, goes about 10 mph every afternoon with less than a car length between. Getting on NB at Bristol St and getting off a Warner Ave requires a transition of 3 lanes to the left as the rightmost become exit only for the next three exits.

    How does your math modeling do this without car to car (currently driver to driver eye contact) autonomous communication? Like car1 to car2: “Please brake back 10 feet to let me in”.

  36. CowboySlim says:

    WRT to tattoos: Quite the fashion here the last decade or so. Some streets have a tattoo parlor every 1/4 mile. How do they do this in Mpls, where here they can wear wifebeaters and shorts 24/7/52?

  37. Greg Norton says:

    This is sarcasm, right ?

    Yes.

    WRT to tattoos: Quite the fashion here the last decade or so. Some streets have a tattoo parlor every 1/4 mile.

    What? You live in Portland?

    (More sarcasm)

  38. lynn says:

    How do they do this in Mpls, where here they can wear wifebeaters and shorts 24/7/52?

    Mpls = Minneapolis ??? Mount Pleasant ???

  39. SteveF says:

    Mpls = Maples. It’s a reference to Canada. Canadians get tattoos, but apologize before showing them to you.

  40. lynn says:

    Mpls = Maples. It’s a reference to Canada. Canadians get tattoos, but apologize before showing them to you.

    Ah, we don’t do much Canadian stuff down here in Texas. Canada is about 1,800 miles (3,000 km) north of here.

    And call me a male chauvinist pig, as one of my employees did earlier this year to me, but women getting sleeve tattoos just freaks me out.

  41. Miles_Teg says:

    I read a magazine article to the effect that US troops rounded up local civilians and forced them to tour the camps to see what was being done in their name. Some of them looked pretty shocked.

    Dachau is the only camp I’ve visited, in 2003.

  42. Greg Norton says:

    And call me a male chauvinist pig, as one of my employees did earlier this year to me, but women getting sleeve tattoos just freaks me out.

    Anyone getting sleeve tattoos freaks me out.

    In Seattle, I briefly worked for CoCo Communications/Unium Wifi. The development manager had a full set of sleeves which he hid with a long sleeve shirt for the interview — the first of many deceptions they pulled during my time working there.

    If it wasn’t a big deal, why hide the sleeves? In retrospect, I should have considered the long sleeve shirt hiding the tattoos to be an omen, but I tried not to judge, especially living up in Vantucky.

  43. CowboySlim says:

    Apologies, Mpls = Minneapolis. Kinda like Chicongo = Chicago, and Frisco = San Francisco

    Every 1/4 mi is along Newport Blvd in Costa Mesa, CA. And, Oh yeah, same stretch and like hand in glove pairs, Massage Parlors every 1/4 mi in the same buildings or strip mall. You what Confucious say: “What goes in must come out”.

  44. nick flandrey says:

    bug out boat sold for $1600

    Don’t know if that was a steal or a rip off, but I’m leaning toward “steal.”

    There’s gotta be $1600 worth of stuff, like engines, on a sailboat….

    n

  45. lynn says:

    Don’t know if that was a steal or a rip off, but I’m leaning toward “steal.”

    There’s gotta be $1600 worth of stuff, like engines, on a sailboat….

    Maybe. Probably not. I did not see the sails and those are expensive.

    We had a sailboat back in the 1970s. We melted the 40 hp diesel one day when the radiator sprang a leak and all of the fresh water went into Galveston bay via the salt water side. The temperature gauge was about four foot below the wheel so you never looked at it. The first sign there was trouble was the engine locking up. I went below the cockpit and the engine was glowing .

  46. CowboySlim says:

    Hottest day of year here: 83°F, Dew Point 60°F, RH 45%, 29.85inHg.

  47. Ray Thompson says:

    Dachau is the only camp I’ve visited

    I visited Dachau in 2013 on one of my trips to Germany. I had always wanted to visit a concentration camp, glad I went, will never go back.

    It was extremely depressing. Especially looking at the “showers” and the crematories. Reading the exhibits in the museum it boggles the mind how one human could do such atrocities to another human. It also boggles the mind how the people in the town did not realize what was taking place under their noses.

    When I was working for EDS we installed a computer system in a Jewish nursing home. All the people in the facility were Jewish, some former residents of concentration camps. People in the facility turned over all their assets to the facility and the facility took care of them for the rest of their lives, from small apartment living to totally bedridden.

    During down time during the installation I took the time to talk with an older lady with the tattoo on her arm. My only regret is not taking more time with her. Her stories about life in the camp, people starving, parents ripped from children and spouses never to be seen again, the struggle for food, the constant beatings, fighting over insects for something to eat. I wish I would have had a recorder or taken notes as my memory of many of her words have long since faded.

  48. SteveF says:

    The temperature gauge was about four foot below the wheel so you never looked at it.

    Grr. Dumbass decisions like that always piss me off. It does happen that engineers screw up, but most of the time these decisions are driven by marketing (who want a sleek look regardless of functionality) or the product manager (who wants to save a nickel per unit and so some user-unfriendly compromises have to be made).

  49. SteveF says:

    it boggles the mind how one human could do such atrocities to another human

    The SS and the concentration camp guards weren’t committing atrocities on other humans. They were doing things to Jews and gypsies and homosexuals and retards. Never underestimate the ability of the human mind to bullshit itself.

    (Yes, I’m in an I-hate-everyone mood today. Nothing personal, anyone reading this, except to the extent that you are persons.)

  50. MrAtoz says:

    I hate me, too. That didn’t come out right.

  51. Miles_Teg says:

    Ray wrote:

    “My only regret is not taking more time with her. Her stories about life in the camp…”

    My Year 11 history teacher told one story about the camps: People would totally freak out if a small amount of toilet paper they’d stashed was stolen. Something we all take for granted.

  52. ech says:

    He was a very young junior officer who IIRC first deployed with LSSAH to France after D-Day.

    Well, that was after most of the bad actions by the unit. But he had to have been a committed Nazi to get into LSSAH.

    During down time during the installation I took the time to talk with an older lady with the tattoo on her arm.

    One of my brothers worked for a few days as a cameraman for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation. Their mission:

    Between 1994 and 1999, the Foundation conducted nearly 52,000 interviews in 56 countries and in 32 languages. Interviewees included Jewish survivors, Jehovah’s Witness survivors, homosexual survivors, liberators and liberation witnesses, political prisoners, rescuers and aid providers, Roma and Sinti survivors, survivors of eugenics policies, and war crimes trials participants.

    Never forget this. I wish there was a way to do the equivalent about the USSR and ChiCom atrocities.

  53. nick flandrey says:

    Bet there were people here in Gwinnett County, Georgia that didn’t think teh diversite’ was right around the corner.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4674994/Teen-lookout-arrested-helping-Georgia-attackers.html

    “Girl, 18, ‘acted as a lookout while two teenage boys scalded a mother with boiling water, shocked her with a stun gun and then raped her in front of her young son’

    Angela Garcia, 18, was arrested for being the lookout while two teens attacked a woman in her home
    Francisco Palencia, 17, and Josue Ramirez, 19, face charges including rape, aggravated sodomy and home invasion

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4674994/Teen-lookout-arrested-helping-Georgia-attackers.html

    anchor babies??

    n

  54. Eugen (Romania) says:

    Holocaust in Romania:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ia%C8%99i_pogrom

    FTA:

    “It was widely believed in interwar Romania that Communism was the work of the Jews, and Romania’s coming entry into the war against the Soviet Union – a war billed as a struggle to “annihilate” the forces of “Judeo-Bolshevism”- greatly served to increase the anti-Semitic paranoia of the Romanian government.
    […]
    On 24 June 1941, Iaşi was bombed by the Soviet Air Force. The raid did little damage, but it produced a hysterical reaction, with rumors flying fast that the entire Jewish population of Iaşi were Communist Party members and had lit beacons to guide the Soviet bombers.
    […]
    On June 27, the authorities officially accused the Jewish community of sabotage, and assembled the soldiers and police who would spearhead the pogrom, where they were falsely told that Jews had attacked soldiers in the streets.
    […]
    Unlike the Nazi German evacuations and exterminations, which involved black-ops, secrecy and deceit, this pogrom was perpetrated in “broad daylight” by Romanian authorities and the Romanian Army on Romanian citizens of Jewish origin in Romania proper.”

    Over 13,000 people were massacred in that pogrom, but the totals during the war were much much higher:

    “The report assessed that between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews were murdered or died under the supervision and as a result of the deliberate policies of Romanian civilian and military authorities. Over 11,000 Romani were also killed.”

    From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiesel_Commission

    Hmm… until today I had the impression that the number was in tens of thousands not hundred of thousands…

    Surely, the Not.Like.Us can NOT be used by Romanians (considering also the atrocities done by the communist regime that followed – although those were more secretive in nature).

  55. Eugen (Romania) says:

    And I didn’t knew about this:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1941_Odessa_massacre

    Terrible.

    Since then, under the communists, generations of Romanians have been taught a censored and patriotic history. We still have a lot to relearn, and probably most of us won’t have that truth put in our faces to learn it. And when we see it, it’s hard to believe it.

  56. Greg Norton says:

    anchor babies??

    You’ll have to go dig for the information yourself. Don’t expect the AJC to provide that kind of detail, especially now that Neal Boortz retired to Naples, FL.

    The teens probably lived in the complex on a Section 8 voucher. That area of Atlanta used to be nice suburbs.

  57. SteveF says:

    Since then, under the communists, generations of Romanians have been taught a censored and patriotic history.

    “Censored and patriotic” versions are the norms in schools.* Going into bald-faced lies are characteristic of Communist education in the modern era. My wife and some other acquaintances, all educated in the People’s Republic of China, were taught some fantastic history: the Chinese invented practically everything in use today or at least invented the foundations, all of Mongolia has always been Chinese, all of Tibet has always been Chinese, a lot more land has always been Chinese until others stole it, China has never attacked its neighbors but has always been attacked because they’re so rich and wonderful that everyone else wants to get some of that. Objectively, most of the people I talk to know that’s not all true, but they fall back to believing it when they’re not paying attention. Propaganda works, and “give me a child in his early years and he is mine for life”.

    * Not in the modern US. When I was in public schools, 1970s, the younger teachers had been nicely indoctrinated in anti-Americanism in college. By the 2000s, American public schools pretty well taught that the US is the worst country ever to exist. This inversion is unique, so far as I know.

  58. SteveF says:

    That area of Atlanta used to be nice suburbs.

    The section of Rochester, NY, where my grandparents lived was upscale. Not Kodak Mansion or anything, but appropriate for a manager at a big corporation. It’s conspicuously not upscale now.

  59. Greg Norton says:

    The section of Rochester, NY, where my grandparents lived was upscale. Not Kodak Mansion or anything, but appropriate for a manager at a big corporation. It’s conspicuously not upscale now.

    Not surprising considering what Kodak pissed away over the last 30 years.

    Everyone responsible for those decisions retired to Florida decades ago.

    In Atlanta, Fulton County has been done for a while, but the suburbs stayed fairly nice. I guess things have changed.

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