07:58 – There’s usually no actual news in our morning paper, other than local stuff. But this morning I did read a new-to-me article about a 100% effective Ebola vaccine being rolled out in Africa. That’s very good news. There’s apparently some question about its long-term effectiveness, but that doesn’t really matter. Even if it’s effective for only six months, that’s more than sufficient to break the chain and prevent Ebola from spreading. There’s also apparently some question about the vaccine’s “safety” in children, which is obviously a non-issue compared to the alternative. If the US government and other first-world governments have any sense, they’ll require proof of recent inoculation for anyone attempting to enter the country after having been in Africa.
There was also an article about an unfortunate bakery owner in Denver who refused to bake a cake with an anti-gay message, as is that business owner’s right, and has now been sued for discrimination. A business owner has the absolute right to refuse service to anyone for any reason or for no reason at all. Laws that attempt to force business owners to comply with the progressive agenda are unconstitutional on the face of them, and should be strongly opposed regardless of one’s own political beliefs or those of the business owners whose rights are being trampled.
And there was a front-page article about a business owner downtown who discovered in his basement a large cache of Civil Defense food that was packaged in 1963. At that time, Winston-Salem was thought to be a high-priority target for Soviet nukes, and there were more than 50 public CD fallout shelters in Winston-Salem, not counting the hundreds more shelters in private homes and businesses. The food discovered in the basement was standard-issue CD hardtack biscuits and candy, and I’d bet that the food in the undamaged cans is still as good as it was the day it was packaged. The business owner discarded the damaged cans and restacked the good ones on shelves elsewhere in his basement.
Today I’ll be shipping science kits and building more. Lather, rinse, and repeat for the next couple of months.
10:47 – Another email from someone who wants to remain anonymous. He’s dipping his toe in the water as far as prepping, which is a good start. Few people make it further than just thinking about it.
I finally made two small steps in prepping. I now have a shelf for the basement, so I have someplace to store the food I buy on my first trip to Sam’s Club. I also bought a backpack to use as a bug out bag, and spent a couple of days at Gencon carrying ten to fifteen pounds of stuff with me. After a few miles of walking, I completely agree with your criticism of the book with the 260 pound thirty something carrying a 60 pound pack for 250 miles. I am taller and lighter than the fictional character, and I wouldn’t try 2.5 miles with a 60 pound pack. Although it has been a while since I was a 30 something.
I have decided to do a little bit every weekend to be more prepared.
For the next two weekends, I’m going to make runs to Sam’s Club for food and water.
The following weekend I’m going to make a bug out bag for my car.
The following weekend I’ll make a bug out bag for my wife’s car.
In four weeks I will be more prepared than 90 percent of the population. Which is really just a starting point.
I also need to keep developing my mind. More importantly, I need to develop the habit of regular exercise, because I’m carrying some weight that I don’t need to carry.
I agree with your premise that we are headed toward a dystopia. I suspect life will be filled with lots of little problems. The one potential big problem is that with all of President Obama’s forcing the electricity generation industry to quickly switch from coal to natural gas, we could have a natural gas shortage. Actually I think we would be in the midst of a natural gas shortage if not for hydraulic fracturing. If the environmentalists can figure out how to kill fracking, we’ll have a terrible natural gas (and electricity) shortage.
a 100% effective Ebola vaccine being rolled out in Africa
Maybe they could administer it while spraying DDT.
As usual, the scientists are the real heroes.
I wouldn’t work in an Ebola lab on a bet…
“as good as it was the day it was packaged.”
Or pretty bad if it is hard tack and candy.
My day is off to a fantastic start, with a dead fridge. Replacement mainboard is on order, food is transferred to the garage fridge and coolers. Colman thermoelectric cooler was working at bedtime, but not now. I guess I’ll take a look at that sometime today.
Add this on to my tenants needing bug spraying today, some tax issues for the business, and some personal issues relating to 30 year old legal stuff in obscure databases, and it is going to be a busy day. Thank goodness I’m tired, and fuzzy from the cough suppressant too.
/sarc
From a prepping standpoint, I’ve got the coolers, and the backup fridge and freezer. Unfortunately, the freezer is full and the fridge is normally pretty full in use. Even if we don’t get it fixed soon, we won’t lose much food. Wife found the replacement board on amazon, and it’s a straightforward swap, so we’ll try that first. If it doesn’t work, we’ll be shopping for a fridge. We didn’t see the need to throw $500 at a repair call with the same timeline or longer, and we’ve been looking at replacement fridges for a while. I just didn’t need to deal with it THIS week.
I see that greek stocks are dropping. No surprise. And bloomberg is running a front page story on why gold is attractive to private equity funds. This after weeks of negative articles about gold. I guess the PTB have decided to run the price back up after keeping it down.
busy busy me
nick
Remember that company, Gravity Payments, that set a minimum wage of $70,000/year for all of its employees last April? It seems that’s not working out so well. Apparently, if you can make $70,000/year to simply clock in/out to a mindless entry level job, then the people with skilled positions see no point in really putting in any effort.
Ayup. What an idiot. Progressive ideas in action.
The increased supply of natural gas through fracking came first. The push to burn NG rather than coal for power came second. The person quoted had cause and effect reversed.
We didn’t see the need to throw $500 at a repair call
Woof. Do you have one of those Arctic Zero fridges, Mr. Nick. The last out of warranty call on our fridge was $49.95 plus parts. The ice maker circuit was replaced and the total call was under $100. GE.
@Mr Atoz,
actually, yes.
We got it for a couple of $thousand off as a scratch and dent about 8 years ago. Normally it costs more than my dad paid for a brand new Chevy Citation, straight from the factory in ’85.
The interwebs have a fair amount of commentary on this particular line of fridges, and the problems almost all boil down to “replace the MB.” I can do that, or my wife can if my head is particularly muddled by cough syrup. She shopped around for a good price on the board. (as shared previously, she’s a pretty technical girl) I figure we’ll save the truck roll, a day or 2 on shipping after the problem is diagnosed, and get a competitive price on the part.
Of course, it’s all wasted if the problem isn’t fixed, but the ‘net is pretty sure this should work, given the symptoms. We can always throw another $50-100 at it if we need further diagnostic help. But given that everything but the interior lights has shut down, it looks like the main board. There are only 2 and the other is just for the ice/water dispenser.
8 years is approaching end of life for a modern major appliance these days. It sucks, but I don’t think even the financial weinies call them “durable goods” any more. The problem is they are d@mned computers now, and subject to all the problems consumer electronics have. It’s probably down to bad caps. There may have been damage during electrical storms or running off generator power in previous hurricanes, but I suspect just cost cutting, even on the nominally high end product.
nick
I know home warranty companies and some manufacturers will void your warranty if your refrigerator/freezer is kept in an unheated/uncooled part of the house like the garage. Lots of people with chest freezers in their garage have found that out the hard way. It’s best to get some buddies to help you carry it into the house before making the service call. 🙂
“There’s usually no actual news in our morning paper, other than local stuff.”
Ditto: “Cat runs away.” “Clothesline snaps.”
“If the US government and other first-world governments have any sense…”
Wow. Put a little extra something in your coffee or tea this morning? Or in your pipe?
“I am taller and lighter than the fictional character, and I wouldn’t try 2.5 miles with a 60 pound pack.”
Ditto, 6’5″ and 245 currently. I did two miles with the 30-pound ruck the other day and I can do it but it kicks my ass somewhat; fatigue pants, combat boots and tee-shirt. I think I can manage the 60-pounder. We’ll see in another month or two. I am newly 62.
I’m hoping for decent snowfall this coming wintuh so I can try this stuff on x-c skis and snowshoes, too.
Jeezum Crow, Mr. nick; I hope you get to feeling bettuh this week and that the swarms of locusts consuming your day disappear forthwith. Have that wizard down in NC cast a spell or sumthin’ and I’ll offer up a fully-authorized Roman Catholic prayer.
I wonder if the NRA will step behind this Lady:
http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/9-11-memorial-visitor-arrested-on-gun-charge-6421635.php
We should be able to carry in any state. The USA constitution says so in multiple places.
“Driving”
http://xkcd.com/1559/
Yup, that is a logic hole big enough to drive through.
I made a Sam’s club run yesterday and got us back up to 50+ cases of 35 bottle 0.5L water. The wife then put her foot down and said that was enough. She thinks that the water will acquire a bad taste in the 120 F garage over time. We do go through about 3 cases of this water per week. Any opinions on the water taste over time in the very hot garage?
Any assistance from any mysterious powers accepted.
The prepper lesson is, we had no panic last night (discovered the failure around midnight) as we just brought in the coolers, and overpacked the other fridge. And we’ve got experience fixing appliances ourselves (tvs, stove, oven, washer, and the usual small engines for yard machines.) We have a fund for emergencies like replacing broken stuff, so that is a strain removed as well, albeit I’m not in any hurry to spend that money!. All a good example of how prepping can be used and can smooth out the normal daily problems of life.
It just sucks that I’m sick as an illegal immigrant from some 3rd world hellhole on top of everything else (but that has a prepper lesson in it too.) Bad things can happen when you AREN’T particularly ready for them.
nick
I don’t believe in AGW, but I think burning natural gas instead of coal would be a good idea for the environment. I just think the government is pushing the idea too hard.
While the fracking boom happened first, I think the Obama administration would be pushing just as hard for lower emissions even if there wasn’t more natural gas available because of fracking.
I think the current administration is pushing for this without considering whether our natural gas infrastructure can handle the demand or not. I don’t think anyone in the White House understands (or cares) that just because they require something doesn’t make it possible.
@lynn,
The water will taste ‘flat’ or might pick up a plastic-y taste. Some brands more than others. I find poland springs to be particularly bad.
Taste is why I pick up Britta pitcher filters when I see them cheap (or just buy one at costco). Pour the water thru there and it tastes fine.
nick
(there are some concerns about the heated plastic releasing ‘bad’ things into the water. I don’t worry about anything with such a long term problem when it comes to preps. Better not to die of thirst than to be worried about PBAs in the water.)
I don’t know what happens if you keep water in plastic bottles at 120F for a long period. PETE shouldn’t leach into the water, but the human sense of taste is incredible sensitive, so you may end up with an off taste. The human sense of smell and/or taste can detect more than a few chemical compounds at or below the instrumental detection threshold, which is saying something. I wouldn’t be concerned about health problems from drinking it, but taste is another matter.
The old chemistry rule of thumb is that chemical reaction rates double or halve with each 10C change in temperature. You’re storing those bottles at about 50C, which is 30C to 40C higher than ideal long-term storage temperature, so every month they sit on the shelf at 50C is like a year at a normal temperature.
For some first hand info, I store in 7 gal Aquatainers, and now 40 gal stainless steel tanks, primarily.
I drank 3+ year old water from the aquatainer with no problem. It tasted flat, but no plastic taste. I did run it thru the Britta generally though. It was in the garage, and various storage units during those 3 plus years.
The water was stored chlorinated.
nick
There’s a whole thing with making Ziploc Omelets (aka Omelet in a Bag). You put all of the ingredients in a Ziploc (or equivalent). Zip it shut leaving as little air as possible in the bag and then you toss the bag into boiling water for x number of minutes. Ziploc won’t come out and officially endorse the practice as their bags are not rated for that level of heat, but I’m sure they love the additional sales every time the concept floats around social networking. There is some concern about what kinds of chemicals leech into the food when its boiled in a consumer plastic bag like a Ziploc.
Ziploc’s are PE, which should stand up to boiling water without disintegrating, although 100C is right on the edge for PE.
PP will stand up to autoclaving at ~121C/250F.
I have just been offered nine 10L bottles (square, Nalgene brand) for the right price (free). They are polycarbonate not PETE but should be fine for long term storage of water at room temp. These are left overs from an abandoned manufacturing process and were never used, they are still in their sterile packaging.
[snip] Any opinions on the water taste over time in the very hot garage? [snip]
Time for a simple experiment. Go buy a dozen or so cases of 0.5l water bottles, date stamp them, and then store them together in your garage. Wait three months, and test the first case. After that, wait six week intervals and taste each sequential case. No filtration, just bring it to room temperature and try it. Or better yet, try some bottles at room temperature and some after a day’s refrigeration. We’ll expect a full report.
Time for a simple experiment. Go buy a dozen or so cases of 0.5l water bottles, date stamp them, and then store them together in your garage. Wait three months, and test the first case. After that, wait six week intervals and taste each sequential case. No filtration, just bring it to room temperature and try it. Or better yet, try some bottles at room temperature and some after a day’s refrigeration. We’ll expect a full report.
I pulled two cases of June bottles out last night for cool down in both refrigerators (kitchen and daughters). I do have each case in the stash purchase date labeled with a sharpie. BTW, I use Ozarka half liters, the best bottled water in Texas, half ground and half filtered river.
And I bet that I will forget to report. (BFG)
I think the current administration is pushing for this without considering whether our natural gas infrastructure can handle the demand or not. I don’t think anyone in the White House understands (or cares) that just because they require something doesn’t make it possible.
Kinder-Morgan is considering building a new natural gas pipeline from Louisiana to New York State for peaking use. They have quoted the cost to be $10 million per mile for 1,500 miles. I can see doing it for base load but not for peaking use. Of course, over time the pipeline will probably switch from peaking to base load due to increased demand as the USA switches to natural gas from liquid fuels.
Legal submitted, taxes pushed off, bug spraying delayed.
I’m headed back to bed.
nick
I don’t know what happens if you keep water in plastic bottles at 120F for a long period.
I wonder what you mean by a long period. The garage temperature is typically sinusoidal over twelve months, peaking at 120 F in July / August and peaking at 60 F in January. The months in between are somewhere between those two peaks as February can be surprisingly warm or bitterly cold (down in the 40s).
What’s the mean temperature, 90F?
Yes, that might be a good daily (new word) mean peak temperature. The daily minimum temperature is probably 15 to 20 F below that. The average temperature for the entire year might be 80 F.
The interwebs have a fair amount of commentary on this particular line of fridges, and the problems almost all boil down to “replace the MB.” I can do that, or my wife can if my head is particularly muddled by cough syrup. She shopped around for a good price on the board. (as shared previously, she’s a pretty technical girl) I figure we’ll save the truck roll, a day or 2 on shipping after the problem is diagnosed, and get a competitive price on the part.
And she will replace the board? And she bore your children? Dude, you married up.
Blessed is the man who married up. Unfortunate is the man who married down. You know who you are.
Mr. OFD married so far up he can inspect his own hemorrhoids.
And so once again “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/general-army-breaking-down_1003563.html
Add to that Obummer’s destruction of our energy system and that slow slide into dystopia is bound to accelerate.
And from my favorite meteorologist Joe Bastardi: “All This for .01 Degrees Celsius?”
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/36771
I did marry up 🙂
And she works at a job she loves and is good at, while I mess around at home.
Woke up to have dinner. Between the c on trolled s ubstan ce for cough syrup and the antibiotic doing it’s thing, I’m pancaked.
I can’t face the thought of actually doing anything in the 100+ deg heat, but tomorrow, things will need doing.
I’m gonna get the kids their stories and get back to bed…
nick
“I did marry up :-)”
I married up twice. Sort of. They both got a Mayflower descendant with English ancestry documented back to the 1300s. Not that that means diddly-squat anymore.
Comcast net/phone/TV down most of today; sort of a windy day but otherwise sunny with blue skies here on the bay; severe t-storm activity to our south and east earlier, however. That mighta done it.
Mrs. OFD is in a remote cabin in the mountains near Fort Bragg/Mendocino, Kalifornia for a couple of days collecting beach glass. She’ll be back Wednesday night for a week, and then off to the cottage in NB to stay with Grandma for a week or two and drive her back down here, I guess. I am on the massive to-do list throughout.
No Nukes! No Nukes! No Nukes!
Wait, wait, wait!
New Nukes! New Nukes! New Nukes!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-03/new-nuclear-power-seen-as-big-winner-in-obama-s-power-plan
Wild, I did not expect that.
But…but…but…
…Cherynobyl…
….Fukishamayokohama….
….Three Mile Island….
Hiroshima…
Nagasaki….
I used to see anti-nuke protest signs making the nooz from Germany thirty years ago:
“Atomkraft? Nein!”
Yo, NC be a dangerous place to live, evidently…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CONSPIRACY_ARRESTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-08-03-16-34-13
Of course, as Nick says, the problem is that refrigerators need a mainboard. As a nice temperature display, fine, but as a critical component? Then the mainboard ought to be so overengineered that it doesn’t fail. When we moved into our house, there was a fridge here from the 1960s, still working fine. We only discarded it because it hadn’t been cared for, and the interior had serious rust problems.
Lynn, maybe this is a silly question, but: is your garage insulated? If you had just two or three inches of insulation on all exterior surfaces (walls and roof, depending), I’ll bet the garage wouldn’t get that hot, and would remain usable in the summer. Reminds me of our basement here: it’s a lovely, huge basement, and it was fricking cold in the winter (lots of external walls, because we’re on a slope, plus floor and even the ceiling in one room). After insulating everything exposed to the outside, we can use it the whole year. Big effort, but worth it.
RBT wrote:
” Winston-Salem was thought to be a high-priority target for Soviet nukes”
Why?
I’d never heard of W-S ’till I started reading this site.
At the time, the Triad was a major manufacturing center.
“Yo, NC be a dangerous place to live, evidently…”
It’s pretty stupid to mess around with explosives. If it doesn’t get you arrested, it’s likely to get you shredded. Tennis balls? Geez.
Lynn, maybe this is a silly question, but: is your garage insulated? If you had just two or three inches of insulation on all exterior surfaces (walls and roof, depending), I’ll bet the garage wouldn’t get that hot, and would remain usable in the summer. Reminds me of our basement here: it’s a lovely, huge basement, and it was fricking cold in the winter (lots of external walls, because we’re on a slope, plus floor and even the ceiling in one room). After insulating everything exposed to the outside, we can use it the whole year. Big effort, but worth it.
No. It is a detached 22 ft by 31 ft building. Just 2x4s and 2×8’s covered with shingles and hardee plank. And a 16 ft wide door in one end. And two 32″ entry doors at the side and back. Insulating would be a tremendous amount of work. Plus I use the exposed studs and rafters for storage.
So I’m feeling a little better this am. And then I see this story from your link above. Ah the stupid, it burns. It also has a bunch of lessons for those who would see….
Note the conflation of the LEGAL and PRUDENT activity with the illegal.
NOT ILLEGAL
Illegal
hence conspiracy charges. Did they actually make any?
Constitutionally protected speech, cast by the reporting as a criminal act. Also, if you are illegally trying to make explosives, pretty dumb
.
Note how they have spun this around so that it sounds extreme. The original and well thought out opposition to JH was that it conditions the public and the military to operating on US soil as a NORMAL activity. There is also the involvement of domestic law enforcement agencies that would have no role in an overseas adventure, which belies the idea that the training has no domestic use.
Again, NOT ILLEGAL, but conflated with the illegal activities.
Now here is an actual crime IF HE’D DONE IT. Straw purchases are illegal, not so sure PLANNING one is. Oh, and note the mythical ‘assault rifle’.
So they have eyewitness testimony from someone this guy talked to. Not smart, but again, constitutionally protected free speech.
That’s quite a lot of LE resources tied up for a month. If nothing else, this loudmouth provided cover for some other, more stealthy, conspirators.
OR to translate, as is normal, the accused but presumed innocent men will spend a couple days in jail until bail can be set. Note how it sounds a lot more ominous as ‘federal custody’ and ‘detention hearings.’
So, IANAL, but I don’t see anywhere in the reporting where they ACTED, which is a necessary part of a conspiracy charge.
I see some LEGAL activity, a specific ILLEGAL activity discussed (making explosive devices, and the straw purchase, both the jurisdiction of the ATFEIEIO), and a bunch of TALKING.
On a more meta level, notice how they broke up the HEADLINE to “Accused of prepping” and “for martial law.” Those lines stay that way at various zoom levels so I think it’s deliberate. Note too that there is nothing inherently illegal with the activity spelled out in the headline, but it conditions the audience to see it as such.
A close read doesn’t reveal what Campbell’s firearms charge is, nor how he is related (if at all) to the other two.
So this is a mess. Two guys bought some legal stuff. They talked about doing some illegal stuff. Some third guy also talked too much. A dozen agencies climbed on the bandwagon, including the ?air marshals!!?
It does give the press a nice propaganda piece with which to ‘prep the battle space’ by conflating a bunch of legal things with illegal things. One more chance to demonize preppers and delegitimize any opposition to the .gov.
How long do you think it will be before an article calls them “survivalists?”
nick
You’re just a selfish hoarder…
Ah, and just wait for the ‘deranged ex-military’ meme to come out.
This breathless, sensational, and speculative tv report has more info. These are not nice guys.
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/official-fbi-operation-being-conducted-belmont/nnBSL/
autostart warning!
Again look at the parts they’ve chosen to emphasize.
nick
And it is comforting to know I’m not the only one who sees it.
http://libertyunyielding.com/2015/08/03/propaganda-101-ap-says-north-carolina-men-arrested-for-being-preppers/
Article breaks down the reporting.
nick
Typical MSM agitprop nonsense. For every reason and point that Mr. nick brings up above.
And yes, while all that rubbish was going on, there were REAL actors out there doing their thing, under the radar and much more sensibly; I am given to understand that several southern states are veritable HOTBEDS of this kind of activity, as is the vaunted “American Redoubt” in the Rockies. Not so much here in the Northeast; we get the occasional lone nut job who goes on a rampage somewhere and the MSM pump it up like we’re surrounded by mad-dog rayciss maniacs wielding “assault rifles.”
You have to wonder, also, how much of that caper down in NC was a LE “sting” operation, too.
Most if not ALL the F B I’s recent ‘successes’ with domestic terror look like entrapment, if not created from the whole cloth.
These guys look like career criminals who did a bunch of talking while sitting around their business. Tattoo shops apparently have a lot of down time to just shoot the bull.
We’ll see if the story grows wings in the media. If it does, I expect to see the disgruntled vet angle, and the survivalist meme both floated. I also expect more JH wackiness.
What I don’t see is a bunch of comments calling them on their obvious agenda. (Or on the laziness of just running the AP release with minor edits.)
nick
And we won’t.
Oh, look, a squirrel!
One of the Kardashian strumpets is apparently flaunting a skimpy bikini and soon Bruce will do likewise, no doubt.