Friday, 29 July 2016

09:38 – As she was making a skillet dinner last night, Barbara commented that everything she was using was from long-term storage. A can of Costco chicken, a pound of Barilla rigatoni, a pint of Bertolli Alfredo sauce, and a cup of chicken bouillon makes a tasty meal sufficient to feed four at about 600 calories each. For dessert we had fresh peaches, although we could have had canned peaches instead.

I’m trying to get us to the point where we’re eating at least one or two dinners a week entirely from LTS. What we’re finding is that we don’t give up much, if anything, in terms of taste by using LTS food exclusively. We still eat a lot of fresh and frozen foods, but if necessary we could easily make the shift to using only LTS foods. There’s no need for hideously expensive freeze-dried foods, either. Canned and dehydrated foods are a completely acceptable and much cheaper alternative. We have zero freeze-dried foods in our pantry, and I have no intention of changing that.

My next food storage goals are to build up our stocks of bulk staples, add more canned meats, add more supplemental stuff from Augason Farms (cheese, butter, and egg powder, TVP bouillon, and so on), and replace a lot of stuff like spaghetti sauce and applesauce that we’ve been using for the past year without replacing. Although I wouldn’t say that Barbara is 100% on-board with my food goals, I think she’s coming around to my point of view. She’s as aware of the news as anyone else, and understands that things could get very bad very quickly. And, of course, the stuff we’re buying is stuff we’d eventually use anyway. By stocking up now, we’re just buying what we’d buy anyway but at a lower price.

So on our next Costco trip, I intend to buy a lot of bulk staples like sugar, flour, oatmeal, and rice, in addition to restocking our canned goods and replenishing our supply of toilet paper and other non-food consumables. I’ll order what I can from Costco and Walmart on-line. It costs no more to do it that way, and we don’t have to haul it back home.

Work continues on building science kits and subassemblies. We now have over 100 finished kits of all types in stock, but this is the time of year when they start disappearing like dreams.

We’re starting to run out of good stuff to watch on Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming. I suggested the other day that we start re-watching Heartland. I was kind of surprised that Barbara didn’t object. It used to be that she wouldn’t re-watch anything, even if it had been 30 years since we’d seen it. My argument has always been that I’d rather re-watch something that was really good instead of watching something new just because it was new. And anyway we don’t remember much about stuff we watched even five or ten years ago, so in effect it’s new to us.


66 Comments and discussion on "Friday, 29 July 2016"

  1. Chad says:

    The world is screaming about the first female US Presidential candidate. I’ve had to remind several friends and acquaintances about Victoria Woodhull in 1872. Everybody wants to make history. Trump’s campaign should start bragging that he’s the first male candidate to face a major party female candidate in the general election and thus he’s historic and noteworthy too.

  2. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    My impression from what little I’ve read is that Clinton is running scared. I can’t believe anyone would vote for her, but then I thought the same about Obama, twice. There are a lot of idiots out there.

  3. Chad says:

    I don’t have anything against a female President, black President, polygamist President, Native American President, or any of that. However, I’ve always been a firm believer that we should be electing the best most qualified PERSON to the Presidency and stop this obsession with labels. The sheer number of women that are going to vote for Hillary for no reason other than she has a vagina scares the hell out of me. I’ve heard it said that Obama was the “white guilt” President who was elected so Americans can pretend racism is over. Is Hillary the “male guilt” President who may get elected so we can say America is no longer sexist?

  4. JimL says:

    To which I say: Put Condoleeza Rice up there. I’ll vote for her in a heartbeat. She’s better than everyone that ran this time by a wide margin. But she doesn’t want the job.

  5. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Yeah, I can just see that. All the racist progs would probably nickname her brown rice.

  6. MrAtoz says:

    Brown rice! lol!

    I’ve read Cankles almost expired giving her *historic* speech last night coughing and clearing her throat. Another Klinton who is not well.

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    ” but at a lower price.”

    This has been an argument for a long time, and one I’ve used myself. It is certainly generally true when we have an inflated currency, which we do.

    That said, I’m seeing price deflation on some food items. At Costco several of the things I buy have been trending lower. They are items that were subjected to extra-ordinary influences (pig virus, chicken virus) but prices have decreased to levels below the run up.

    (Ignoring the devaluation of the dollar thru inflationary monetary policy)

    Particularly, ham is cheaper than even a couple of years ago in spiral sliced, and “master carved”. Eggs are cheap. Even smoked salmon is now well under a dollar an ounce.

    In contrast to the price deflation, I’m still seeing instances of ‘size inflation’ where you get less for the same price. Notably in toilet paper and bacon. Costco no longer sells the 2 pound pack of premium bacon, substituting their own label 1.5 pound pack, which LOOKS the same size but isn’t.

    Prices for bulk sugar, flour, and rice look lower too, although I don’t buy them often enough to be certain.

    Which brings up something else I’ve noticed at my local Costco. They have moved away from premium brands and now only have a Kirkland branded choice for much more than when we joined a few years ago. While Kirkland branded is generally good, I’m finding more and more Kirkland items that aren’t.

    Things I won’t buy in Kirkland brand:

    peanut butter- has a ‘dry and dusty’ taste and feel in the throat, oil separates

    almond butter- ditto

    bacon- slice thickness is inconsistent, salt is higher, taste varies from package to package

    dishwashing machine ‘pods’- these suck balls. They leave grease on plastic surfaces, don’t remove food, and leave a residue that smells like perfume that can be tasted.

    towels- frayed with one washing

    canned green beans- these are some of the worst tasting and looking canned beans available

    naan bread- after developing a market for this, they got rid of the name brand and substituted kirkland. The problem is that it’s not really naan bread, just a generic dry flatbread. BTW, naan bread freezes and reheats very well. It’s become our primary bread with dinner.

    I’m sure there’s more but that’s what I remember ATM.

    nick

  8. Chad says:

    While Kirkland branded is generally good, I’m finding more and more Kirkland items that aren’t.

    Certain Kirkland Signature products I’ve never even been tempted to try. For example, I’m very brand-loyal to Jif peanut butter, so I would never buy anything else anyway.

    Here are the Costco-branded products we use regularly and really like:

    Kirkland Signature Drawstring Kitchen Bags
    Kirkland Signature Ultra Clean Laundry Detergent Pacs
    Kirkland Signature Organic Marinara (3-pack jars)
    Kirkland Signature Organic Diced Tomatoes (8-pack cans)
    Kirkland Signature Organic Tomato Paste (12-pack cans)
    Kirkland Signature Organic Tomato Sauce (12-pack cans)
    Kirkland Signature Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    Kirkland Signature Grape Seed Oil
    Kirkland Signature Organic Maple Syrup
    Kirkland Signature Chunk Light Skipjack Tuna in Water (funny enough, I think their albacore tuna tastes strange)
    Kirkland Signature Spanish Queen Olives (2-pack jars)
    Kirkland Signature London Dry Gin
    Kirkland Signature American Vodka

    A lot of that says organic, but we don’t buy it for that reason. That’s just the type of that product that Costco has decided to sell. You can get a gallon of organic EVOO at Costco cheaper than you can get a quart of decent quality non-organic at the local grocery. Also, their price on 100% pure maple syrup is awesome. I’m appalled at what a grocery store wants for real maple syrup is some puny pint jar.

  9. nick says:

    @chad, oh yes, there are a bunch of things that are good value.

    I’ll second the drawstring kitchen bags, they come one year to the box 🙂

    So far, both the pod and liquid laundry soaps have been fine.

    nick

  10. Dave Hardy says:

    No peanut butter but Skippy Creamy for us, and no canned tuna but Starkist Solid Albacore in wotta.

    And of critical importance: no maple syrup but Vermont’s, preferably from down the road in plastic gallon jugs at the sugaring shack in the woods.

    Sunny wid blue skies and only 81 today but humid and feels hotter; off to pick up the two 8′ x 5′ bay windows from a guy in Swanton just up the road; we will be ordering three-plus cords of firewood from him, too. Now if I can just finagle a generator here and stock up better on food, we should be OK for the winta.

  11. DadCooks says:

    WRT Kirkland brand: I agree with @Chad’s list, those are items we use. I also agree with @nick’s observations and see a disturbing trend. Sears used to be known for the quality of its Craftsman brand but now the only thing Craftsman has going for it is the replacement policy. Unfortunately the replacement is a far inferior product. Costco seems to be going down the same track, maybe they have hired some former Sears folks.

    I give Kirkland brands a try, only because of Costco’s return policy. I have lost track of how many Kirkland products I have returned (I do recall the dishwasher pods and many canned vegetables and fruits). I do go to the extra bother of sending a letter to Costco explaining what I found wrong with their product. I used to get a “personal” response, but lately have only received form letters.

  12. Miles_Teg says:

    “My impression from what little I’ve read is that Clinton is running scared. I can’t believe anyone would vote for her, but then I thought the same about Obama, twice. There are a lot of idiots out there.”

    Even Jerry Coyne says he’ll hold his nose while voting for Clinton. Many of his fanboys are pro-Clinton though.

    If I had a vote I’d write in Rand Paul or Chris Christie.

  13. lynn says:

    “Domestic Strife is Delicious”
    http://www.gocomics.com/bc/2016/07/29

  14. Paul says:

    WRT pork prices, I put it down to the bacon craze, there’s only so much of that on any one pig and they have to get rid of the rest of the pig somehow; the lower prices attract buyers such as myself. As for chicken and eggs I neither know nor guess why they’ve come down as far as they have, but I’m sure enjoying the current prices. Beef has also come down a bit, at least here on the left coast, but still no where near a few
    years ago. We started using short grain brown rice many years ago, choosing the short grain because it was less expensive and grew to like it better. A couple of years ago the price flip-flopped with long grain, which remains less expensive now.

  15. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    The only Kirkland-branded items we’ve ever had a problem with was their dishwashing liquid, which sucked compared to Dawn, and their kitchen trash bags. We may have gotten a bad batch of the latter, but after about the third one ripped at the seam we discarded them and just started buying name brand ones. I’ve used the dishwasher packets without any problem. I’ve never detected any odor and they seem to work fine. We need to buy some, so I may try the brand name this time. I use two per load, one in the little covered compartment that pops open during the cycle and a second that I just toss in to dissolve in the first part of the cycle. Barbara actually prefers Kirkland bacon to the name brand stuff. I can’t tell any difference.

    As to pancake syrup, we generally buy the HFCS-based stuff like Aunt Gemima. It tastes fine to me, and Barbara hasn’t complained. I wasn’t aware that Costco sold the real stuff at a reasonable price.

  16. SteveF says:

    the HFCS-based stuff like Aunt Gemima

    -gag- -retch- -heave- -convulse-

    No, thanks. Real 100% maple syrup or nothing.

  17. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    But, but. The artificial flavor is delicious.

  18. Spook says:

    “”dishwashing machine ‘pods’- these suck balls. They leave grease on plastic surfaces, don’t remove food, and leave a residue that smells like perfume that can be tasted.””

    All “cleaning” products (dish, laundry, and so on) leave a perfume residue
    odor (and “chemical” or solvent “burn”) that is overwhelming once you get a
    good start on eliminating “fragrance” products from your home and lifestyle.
    Clean does not have a smell.

  19. JimL says:

    Real maple syrup. I almost always win a small bottle at one of the summer races, and I buy the gallon bottles from a friend who does his own in the spring. Real Pennsylvania Maple Syrup is the way to go. (None of that New England stuff – the shipping is just outrageous.)

    Kids prefer the HFCS stuff – my wife is a bad influence. The eldest is coming around, though. I may have something to do with that. They’re allowed to lick the plate for the real stuff. Fake stuff gets rinsed and no licking allowed.

  20. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    The Costco dishwasher packs list only four ingredients: sodium carbonate, sodium perborate, sodium silicate, and enzymes, IIRC. None of those except possibly the last should have any taste other than a vaguely salty taste. And all of the sodium salts are quite soluble, especially in hot water, so there shouldn’t be any residue at all. I suppose I could run a test object through the dishwasher and then put it on an emission spectrometer, but I don’t think it’s worth the trouble.

  21. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    I think of Aunt Jemima as the real stuff, and that 100% maple syrup stuff from Vermont as a pale imitation.

    Besides which, my inventory goals call for 26 gallons of pancake syrup, and there’s no way I’d spend that much on the 100% maple stuff.

  22. nick says:

    The smell is particularly noticeable on plastic cups, since your nose is right there in the cup. (kirkland brand of pods, in a white and yellow tub) I rewashed the last load with Cascade pods and everything came clean, with no odor on the dishes. Costco also sells a pod with a ‘marble’ in the middle which is a PITA to use, as each pod is in a plastic sleeve you must open first. Stick with Cascade, onsale, and ONE to each wash….

    The drawstring kitchen bags rock. Never had a single failure in years of use. Some other brands the drawstrings will break or pull out. Not these. No tears or leaks either.

    WRT maple syrup, the Kirkland brand is a buck or 2 cheaper than similarly sized and packaged 100% maple syrup at our ‘good’ HEB store. Lot’s cheaper than the little glass bottles. Maple syrup is a good sweetener and flavor to have on hand for cooking as well as pancakes. There are a lot of places we prefer it to honey. The ‘flavored’ brands, or worse, plain “pancake syrup”, are nasty once you’ve become accustomed to the real thing. You need less with the real thing too.

    Kirkland batteries seem to be better than the duracells too. There has been much said about duracell failures, so I won’t repeat it. The kirkland batteries WILL leak on occasion, but much less often in my experience, and without swelling and ruining a flashlight. They seem to last about as long. They are usually a lot cheaper. I just wish they made other sizes than AA and AAA.

    nick

  23. SteveF says:

    As with many things, it depends on what you’re used to. I grew up (to the extent I’ve grown up, that is) in sugar maple country, so real maple syrup is “the real stuff”. Poor, benighted clods who grew up on the fake stuff didn’t know any better and that crap probably warped their brains the same way that toxoplasma gondii* makes mice run toward cat urine. Truly, people who are used to artificial syrup are to be pitied.

    “What you’re used to” applies to other things. For instance, evidence suggests that in Australia, Cankles is the epitome of feminine appeal. That being the case, it’s no wonder that some Australian men prefer sheep.

    * Not the only Gandhi which is bad for you.

  24. Dave Hardy says:

    “I wasn’t aware that Costco sold the real stuff at a reasonable price.”

    “…the real stuff….”??? WHAT???

    Heresy!

    Blasphemy!

    If it don’t come from one-gallon plastic jugs down the road it ain’t real.

    “I think of Aunt Jemima as the real stuff, and that 100% maple syrup stuff from Vermont as a pale imitation.”

    Wow. I am at a loss for words.

  25. JimL says:

    Now look what you’ve done. Broken poor ole’ OFD.

  26. brad says:

    She’s better than everyone that ran this time by a wide margin. But she doesn’t want the job.

    Not wanting the job may be the best possible proof of her qualifications.

    – – – – –

    Maple syrup, man, the real stuff is worth it. Buying the darker, heavier flavours is even better. By now, I’ve imported dozens of liters. The oldest son promises to restock us on his return from Canada – that’s gonna be one heavy suitcase.

  27. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    I’m old enough to remember when Log Cabin had actual maple syrup in the bottle.

  28. Dave Hardy says:

    I will say this:

    Yes, the genuine maple syrup is from here and probably costs more and costs more on top of that to ship it wherever.

    And you may have determined through various arcane calculations and economic forecasts that you wish to have on hand for SHTF purposes, ten gallons or so.

    Who has said you need to get all ten gallons at once??? Do a quart at time, buy a quart a month, and after a year you’ll have three whole gallons, assuming that once you’ve discovered the superior taste you and yours haven’t guzzled it all down as soon as it arrived.

    As Vermont’s own Unofficial Food and Beverage Ambassador, I also recommend Grafton Village’s aged cheddar cheese.

    But I am saddened today, both to discover RBT’s evident insanity regarding maple syrup, and the article in the current Guns & Ammo magazine that has our state as Number Two, behind Arizona, as the best state to own firearms in the country. The writer did point out, however, that our main drawback here is the fucking NIMBY newcomers who seek to immediately replicate the shit-holes they came from, and who won’t shut up or stop trying to chip away at our gun rights. It’s also a tiny state by comparison to AZ and we don’t have their plethora of gun ranges and clubs and venues for long-distance shooting. Except over on Fed military grounds to our southeast at Jericho.

  29. Minnesota Dave says:

    I’m going to agree with most of you on using real maple syrup. Of course, I can afford it because of the 70+ big maples in the back yard that we tap every spring (brag). We trade and give away most.
    Lurker.

  30. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Well, as I’ve said I’ll eat anything that’s stopped moving or even is moving slowly. So I use Barbara as my guide. If she really doesn’t like something (and she’s extremely picky) I won’t stock it. Her take on syrup is that the genuine maple syrup is better, but the fake stuff is okay. Given that I’m serious about a stocking goal of 26 gallons of syrup, I simply can’t justify the very high price of 26 gallons of real maple syrup.

    Sure, I could write a check for 26 gallons of real maple syrup, or 2,600 gallons for that matter, but I have to allocate limited resources in the closest I can come to optimal, and I also have to keep Barbara happy. Down here, real maple syrup costs literally ten times as much per gallon as the fake stuff, and I’d rather have 26 gallons of Mrs. Butterworths in the pantry than 2.6 gallons of the real stuff. Is that really unreasonable?

  31. Chad says:

    I dated a woman whose family grew up putting 100% corn syrup on their pancakes. It was horrifying to watch them drizzle Karo onto their flapjacks. We grew up on Log Cabin which is just flavored HFCS, but I switched to real maple syrup in my 20s and never looked back. I was bummed when Cracker Barrel switch from 100% maple syrup to 55% maple syrup and 45% cane syrup. I’ve heard sorghum syrup is a thing in some areas of the county.

    New Englanders do get militant about the geography of their maple syrup. I have a close friend from St. Johnsbury, Vermont, that will rant and rave about 100% pure VERMONT maple syrup and how this or that other brand contains Canadian syrup. As if the Sugar Maples care that much about their latitude and as if 99.9% of Americans have a sharp enough palate to distinguish the terroir of the maple syrup. lol 🙂

  32. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Maybe the next time OFD comes down to visit he’ll haul down a tanker of real maple syrup. We don’t have maples on our property, but we do have apple and black walnut trees.

  33. JimL says:

    See – you’re trying to be reasonable about something that most folks are unreasonably attached to. Like a binky.

    I don’t believe I would be _that_reasonable. Some part of me would insist on, say, 5 gallons of good stuff and 21 gallons of good enough.

    But then, there are probably 40+ maple trees behind my house, so I could reasonably make my own were it to come up.

  34. Chad says:

    As Vermont’s own Unofficial Food and Beverage Ambassador, I also recommend Grafton Village’s aged cheddar cheese.

    I do love me a good 8+ year old aged extra sharp cheddar. The oldest I’ve had is a 13-year from Gardners Wisconsin Cheese. Here in Nebraska we mostly get Wisconsin cheddars.

  35. MrAtoz says:

    Real Maple Surple here. I like that it is not as sweet as the fakes, so I pour enough on that it soaks up in the ‘jacks. Yum. Different strokes on how you were raised. I prefer Coke Zero over Coke, even the real sugar Mexi stuff MrsAtoz guzzles.

  36. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Black walnut syrup gets the nod over maple syrup from most foodies.

  37. Dave Hardy says:

    Hmmmmm…I’m not an unreasonable guy; I’ll take a look around for the black walnut syrup and we’ll give it the Mr. and Mrs. OFD taste test accordingly.

  38. Dave Hardy says:

    Two recent hypotheses from prominent IT security people concerning the coming “election”:

    1.) Disruption via cyber-hacking of vulnerable voting machines to the point that the election is declared null and void

    2.) Half a dozen people call in bomb threats to a bunch of precincts in whichever key swing states.

    3.) Those are just two possible amateur capers; what about active state-sponsored or terrorist cyber attacks?

    So what would happen if the election got sabotaged like that and became NFG?

  39. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    BW syrup is extremely expensive, enough so that it’s often adulterated with pure maple syrup because the latter is so much cheaper.

  40. MrAtoz says:

    The USCoA for the 4th Circuit has struck down NC voter ID rules. You still need an ID for ciggies, booze, guns, gambling, etc., of course.

  41. Dave Hardy says:

    “BW syrup is extremely expensive…”

    I seem to recall it as an option on Bickford’s House of Pancakes waffles and pancakes back in ancient times; dunno if it woulda been the real McCoy or the adulterated stuff.

    “…struck down NC voter ID rules.”

    Just goes to show how way too many of our “jurists” think. Commies, in other words.

    Meanwhile looks like Field Marshal Rodham, if elected, plans to accelerate the immigrant invasions while simultaneously cracking down on firearms ownership. The demographics increasingly, and I’m afraid, inexorably, favor the Evil Half of the Party, and the Stupid Half continues to sappily just go along with whatever they want. We’d be looking at a Dem-controlled Congress, WH and SCOTUS. And depending on what they tried to do, a possible second civil war. (see Pat Buchanan’s latest, on the split America)

    http://buchanan.org/blog/philadelphia-vs-cleveland-divided-stand-125489

  42. MrAtoz says:

    One day the Evil Half will become the Dead Half. I can’t wait for that day. Lock and load.

  43. Ray Thompson says:

    Speaking of Maple Syrup…..

    My last day at the job was today. Still helping the replacement. He is struggling and is making the same mistakes and has difficulty understanding the logic flow. But as my spousal unit said “not your problem” which is a true statement.

    I do have to go back for three hours next month on the 4th to speak with the auditors about IT security since I was involved the entire year. I suspect I will be greeted with a bunch of issues from the replacement.

    I originally told the boss that I would come back as a consultant. But I was stiffed on attending the next convention to take the photographs. So……fuck ’em, they are on their own. I only offered so that I could stay in good graces to be able to attend the convention.

    Now I are a Captain Dunsel.

  44. lynn says:

    It takes me five years to train a programmer replacement …

    Does not matter if the iq is high or low, it take five years to train them (10,000 hours).

  45. SteveF says:

    Wasn’t Dunsel the handsome and charismatic cousin of Hansel and Gretel? He seduced the wicked witch away from a lifetime of kidnapping, murder, and cannibalism.

    Given your self-identification and the current political situation, your mission is clear: Seduce Hateful Hillary away from her life of evil.

    The timing works out conveniently, too. You’re now retired, not going to be occupied with convention stuff, so you have plenty of time to get on with the seducin’.

    Protip: get yourself a sex change operation. The seducin’ will go a lot smoother.

  46. lynn says:

    We got our Voter ID rules struck down in Texas by the fifth circus:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/federal-court-rules-texas-id-law-violates-voting-rights-act.html?_r=0

    I thought that SCOTUS ruler voter id rules are ok ?

  47. DadCooks says:

    SCOTUS does not count, don’t you know that by now.

    Voting rules, as originally designed by Chicago, now universally applicable: Vote Early and Vote Often. You don’t need no stinkin’ ID or even to be alive, what are friends for.

  48. lynn says:

    Meanwhile looks like Field Marshal Rodham, if elected, plans to accelerate the immigrant invasions while simultaneously cracking down on firearms ownership. The demographics increasingly, and I’m afraid, inexorably, favor the Evil Half of the Party, and the Stupid Half continues to sappily just go along with whatever they want. We’d be looking at a Dem-controlled Congress, WH and SCOTUS. And depending on what they tried to do, a possible second civil war. (see Pat Buchanan’s latest, on the split America)

    http://buchanan.org/blog/philadelphia-vs-cleveland-divided-stand-125489

    The civil war will be flyover country versus all of the coasts. This will not go well for anyone.

  49. Dave Hardy says:

    “The civil war will be flyover country versus all of the coasts. This will not go well for anyone.”

    I see also from my current Guns & Ammo mag that Dana Loesch’s column has a little ad at the end for new book, titled “Flyover Country,” which is about exactly this issue. Dana is very hot but Married With Chillun and IIRC, now works full-time for the NRA, too.

    And when I think of Flyover vs. Coasts, and remember that five of the New England states have seacoasts, the sixth one, Vermont, technically does not, though Champlain connects north and south to the Atlantic. So I consider the state part of Flyover Country, like north-country New York and large chunks of the Great Lakes states, ’cause they connect to the Atlantic also. So we’ll define the coasts as the coastal metropoles and their suburbs, the main one and center of power for the world being that which now runs from Portland, Maine to Miami, Florida. With the center of Evil being Mordor-on-the-Potomac, and would that it could be returned to the nasty fetid swamp it once was, gradually overwhelming all the former gummint buildings and monuments, and inhabited by descendants of the current population.

  50. lynn says:

    Nuclear weapons in The Cumberland Gap will ruin everyone’s day.

    Lots of preppers living in that area also in remote cabins.

  51. nick says:

    Clean nukes inthe Cumberland Gap feature prominently in one of John Ringo’s PA novels, in the Aldenata War series.

    https://www.goodreads.com/series/68533-legacy-of-the-aldenata

    n

  52. Dave Hardy says:

    “Lots of preppers living in that area also in remote cabins.”

    My understanding, shallow though it might be, is that the Eastern Murkan Redoubt is in West Virginia and the Western Redoubt in the Rockies, probably Wyoming. The ruling junta will probably use small-yield tactical nukes on any grouped communities.

    And send in SWAT outfits for the isolated cabins and suchlike, probably recruited from the by-then experienced SWATS coming from years of swooping down on library patrons with overdue books, organic celery growers, and guys who don’t register their drones.

    Be the gray man in your small town; help your neighbors; go to church on Sundays; join Kiwanis or Rotary. Keep your damn lawn mowed; I’m talking to YOU, Mr. SteveF.

  53. lynn says:

    Clean nukes inthe Cumberland Gap feature prominently in one of John Ringo’s PA novels, in the Aldenata War series.

    https://www.goodreads.com/series/68533-legacy-of-the-aldenata

    Yup, that is where I got that information from. The Posleen pouring into flyover country from the eastern seaboard were stopped using several nukes from BunBun.

    “At Cumberland Gap, the first great gateway to the west, follow the buffalo, the Native American, the longhunter, the pioneer… all traveled this route through the mountains into the wilderness of Kentucky. Modern day explorers and travelers stand in awe at this great gateway and the many miles of trails and scenic features found in the park. ”
    https://www.nps.gov/cuga/index.htm

    I would love to backpack it before it gets nuked. And I am not sure those were clean nukes.

  54. Dave Hardy says:

    May have forgotten to mention this:

    One of my fellow vets from the group meeting yesterday is very active in VFW stuff and has served in prominent positions over the years. He’d just gotten back from the convention in Charleston and reported that Cankles had made a showing via gigantic tee-vee screen in one of the auditoriums filled with veterans and also VA officials. She blathered on about how much she would do for veterans, etc., etc., and apparently no one in the place bought it; it was obvious to all that she was “…blowing smoke up our asses.” Which we’re all very used to by now.

    And apparently Princess Chelsea looks more and more like her real dad, Web Hubbell, despite the various plastic surgeries done on her, and reportedly sounded like she was either drunk or on Quaaludes. A vid I saw recently of Cankles herself appeared as though she was having a brief petit mal seizure or a stroke, and Larry Klinton himself looks like he has some kind of terminal STD, not a huge shock to anyone who knows of his history in that area over a half-century.

    Meanwhile the Dark Lord Donald is the very picture of robust health.

  55. MrAtoz says:

    and guys who don’t register their drones.

    Hey, I have *documents* Señor!

  56. MrAtoz says:

    Meanwhile the Dark Lord Donald is the very picture of robust health.

    Well, he is a teetotaler.

  57. Miles_Teg says:

    For the perpetually hot-amd-horny SteveF…

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-30/swimsuit-mural-of-hillary-clinton-creates-a-stir/7675142

    No, I didn’t paint this ‘artwork’… 🙂

  58. SteveF says:

    That’s based on a “real” photoshop of Hateful Hillary’s head atop someone else’s body. I’ve used that image, in fact, to nauseate some people. Because that’s the kind of guy I am.

  59. Ray Thompson says:

    head atop someone else’s body

    Good thing. Otherwise using the real Cankles body would have resulted in a terrorism charge and EPA superfund site.

  60. brad says:

    Re voter ID laws: Are blacks disproportionately affected? Sure they are, because they are disproportionately part of a disfunctional subculture: Parents who don’t bother to make sure their kids get educated, make sure their kids know how to hold down a job, make sure their kids are part of a productive society.

    If someone in that subculture wants to get an ID, they will have more problems than someone from a middle class family. That’s a fact, but it has nothing to do with their skin color. I’m sure you’d find the same problem in some of the dirt poor parts of Appalachia, where the poor happen to be mostly white.

  61. nick says:

    re Kirkland dishwasher pods, the one’s I don’t like are in a white tub with pink and blue graphics. Don’t know why I thought yellow.

    n

  62. DadCooks says:

    WRT IDs: there is hardly a town in the entire USofA where you cannot go and buy whatever you want. In my area a simple photo ID is $25. You can get a full set of “documents” for a few hundred dollars. The better the quality, the greater the price.

    Again, as I have stated before, all of this “poor” folks have all the IDs they need to get their gooberment benefits. The Voter ID is a red herring.

  63. Dave Hardy says:

    ” The Voter ID is a red herring.”

    Summarized nicely in one short sentence.

    I’ll do another one: “Gun control” is a red herring.

  64. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    “re Kirkland dishwasher pods, the one’s I don’t like are in a white tub with pink and blue graphics. Don’t know why I thought yellow.”

    The ones we get are in a PP tub with a label that’s mostly green and white with red and yellow highlights.

  65. ech says:

    The only Kirkland-branded items we’ve ever had a problem with was their dishwashing liquid, which sucked compared to Dawn, and their kitchen trash bags.

    No problems with the kitchen bags here. They switched their pepperoni pizzas from being similar to DiGiorno to a thin crust and they aren’t as good.

    I’ve heard sorghum syrup is a thing in some areas of the county.

    It can be really good. Somewhat of a molasses flavor.

    I thought that SCOTUS ruler voter id rules are ok ?

    It did. The circuits are trying to create a case to go back to SCOTUS and get the ruling reversed. Right now, it would be a 4-4 tie, leaving the rulings standing.

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