10:03 – Rats! Barbara and I early-voted Thursday, and she won’t let me go to vote again. I figured I’d go vote again yesterday, today, and Tuesday, for a total of four votes. I thought that was my duty, to help offset the number of dead people that will be voting for Clinton. But Barbara says once is enough, and refuses to go vote again or even let me go vote again. Oh, well. According to my poll figures, Trump is the certain winner anyway.
With only three days left until the election, things are really starting to get tense. Trump will win if there’s anything near an honest count. Everyone knows that, and the FSA/BLM terrorists are no doubt champing at the bit awaiting the opportunity to go out and riot, loot, and burn. Fortunately, although Barbara pointed out an article in the paper yesterday that reported that one sixth of the population of this county is on food stamps, we really don’t have any FSA/BLM problem here. But I sure wouldn’t want to be down in Winston or any other large city on Tuesday or the rest of next week. Things may get a bit exciting in urban/suburban areas if Trump is declared the winner.
If you aren’t yet prepared for civil unrest, which there’s a very good chance of, now is the time to get prepared. You have the rest of today through Monday to do so. With gangsters running the country and millions of their clients thick on the ground in urban areas, we Normals have to be prepared for any eventuality. So go out to vote, early and often, and then head home, load up, and batten down the hatches. Nothing major may happen, but then again it might.
I keep thinking about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Right up until the barbarians started streaming through the gates, most Romans thought everything was completely normal. They were shocked when they found themselves being run though with barbarian spears. The point is, collapse happens very quickly. That’s not to say that this country is imminently in danger of complete collapse, but the prospect is there and if/when it does happen it will come as a complete surprise to most people. Don’t be one of those.
And I just put in a Walmart order for another 100 pounds of macaroni and 80 pounds of dry beans. Total $150. Call it another six person-months worth of nutrition, or another month+ for the five of us.
We have our own barbarians already within our gates, but we vastly outnumber them and are orders of magnitude better armed.
More likely imperial-collapse role models might be found in modern times, however, like the British decline over a century, and the Russian empires twice, now surging again, maybe, under Prince Vlad. Plus the other European empires, like the Italian, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish. And individual countries like the former Yugoslavia.
But ours is gigantic and bordered by two oceans and contains the third-largest population in the world, and I won’t bother mentioning again how many firearms and mountains of ammo in our possession, or how many trained and experienced veterans, all too many combat-experienced as well.
OTOH, we have a bigger probability than the Romans or British of sustaining a major Black Swan event and a society that is much more dependent on external fuel and food supplies.
I say again we may be approaching entirely new historical territory based on these and other factors.
Overcast again here, working on organizing preps for this next week throughout.
I forgot to mention that we had our first frost last night. The average first night at 32F or below is 10/31, so we were a few days late. I blame it on Global Warming.
If this is going to happen, I sure wish it’d happened when I was 33 instead of 63. Thirty years ago, I was a lot smarter and still in pretty good physical condition. The same was true of the US itself, which is now a lot more interdependent and subject to cascading failures from our Rube Goldberg infrastructure.
That’s why my plan is to hunker down in-place no matter what. We’re not going anywhere. If we’re invaded by hordes of rampaging zombies, we’ll fight them until the ammo runs out and then end up getting eaten. Oh, well.
Which reminds me that I need to bury more land mines before the ground freezes solid.
No frost or snow here yet. Rathuh unusual this time of year. Wife and I sat outside the other late afternoon/early evening, also unusual this time of year. Sure, gets cooler faster once the sun goes down but still, did I mention that it’s unusual? I blame Twelve Years of Reagan-Bush and Donald Trump.
“…I sure wish it’d happened when I was 33 instead of 63. Thirty years ago, I was a lot smarter and still in pretty good physical condition.”
I won’t cop to being smarter then; I believe I’ve learned a lot since then and am a tad smahtuh. We won’t discuss physical condition this early in the day, if you don’t mind.
“…subject to cascading failures from our Rube Goldberg infrastructure.”
This. Along with the house-of-cards financial mess. Those are my two biggest worries, not Prince Vlad and the Russian nukular forces, or that little piece of blubber over in North Korea, or the Chicoms, or even musloid scum be-bopping around our AO up here. I don’t see how the empire’s shaky infrastructure and finances can hold up much longer.
“That’s why my plan is to hunker down in-place no matter what. We’re not going anywhere.”
Ditto.
“If we’re invaded by hordes of rampaging zombies, we’ll fight them until the ammo runs out and then end up getting eaten.”
Ditto, and if it gets to the point where we’re about to be eaten, I’ll have us wired up real good with explosives like they did in that last “Predators” flick. The zombies will get a real bang out of us!
30 years ago this wouldn’t be happening.
n
Thirty years ago I left the cop jobs behind and good riddance; most of our stress came from the brass/management, political bullshit, the new Diversity Worship Guidelines, Affirmative Action, etc., etc., and it was JUST getting started. The armed robberies, domestics, bar brawls, car wrecks, suicides and drug ODs were as nothing by comparison. Training sucked and it was just getting going with the SJW bullshit and stuff that had/has nada to do with Life On the Street. Boy, did I ever make one of my few rational decisions then! GTFO.
I was also two years away from getting married for the first time and three years away from finishing a BA in English Literature. So, what can I say? One rational decision outta three.
My former colleagues are all either retired or deceased. And one look at the way “law enforcement” operates these days in this country and good riddance. I am given to understand, also, that the older guys are getting out as fast as they can, and the good younger guys likewise; it’s just not worth it. So we’ll increasingly be left with the dregs.
As for all of “this” not happening 30 years ago, the opening phases had already begun, just like in cop work. PC bullshit, SJWs, progs endlessly since the late 19th-C, worship of the Goddess Diversity, Affirmative Action, “management by objectives,” and the last stages of the commies’ Long March through all our cultural and political institutions, especially education and media. A shit-ton of my fellow English majors went into the Newspeak and professional lying and bullshit fields to make their livings and feel wunnerful about themselves doing so. Pretending to give a blind rat’s syphilitic ass about The Oppressed.
So today we have what we have. It’s been in the works for a very long time, almost a century. I find it helps to know the history; YMMV, of course.
How much worse would the S&L crisis had to have been for it to have happened 30 years ago?
That can be taken several ways. The best is, today’s technology lets people other than the established media and eminences grise have a say in the elections, as well as what scandals make it to public awareness. If we today were limited to the communications and document dredging of thirty years ago, the securely plugged-in Clintons would be extremely rich traitors and sexual abusers and no one would be the wiser.
Regarding early voting and no-reason-needed voting by mail, why do a lot of government employees still get Election Day off as a paid holiday? Even if they were limited to voting on election day, it’s not like that takes a full day, and now there’s no reason at all for giving them paid time off. You don’t suppose it’s yet another pay-off of the government “workers”, do you?
That does seem rather unfair. What have dead people got that you haven’t got? Aside from an unbroken series of straight-line Democrat votes, I mean.
“…You don’t suppose it’s yet another pay-off of the government “workers”, do you?”
That would be very cynical. I’m surprised at you. The nerve of you. They work tirelessly for our benefit and hardly ever get any thanks or credit for it. The nerve of you. Where do you get off?
“What have dead people got that you haven’t got?”
You’re trolling us here, aren’t you? That’s an easy one: fucking PEACE AND QUIET. And all those pesky biological and anthropological impulses have finally settled down.
For those of you with nothing to do on this fine Saturday here are senior pictures of a local high school person.
http://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/Karney
Link must be exactly as shown.
That’s odd. She’s not dressed like a carney. And I thought carneys usually held hooked canes to snag the marks. -sigh- I guess I just don’t understand anything anymore.
Well I could have used a folder name of “LookAtThisYouIdiots” but decided to use her last name instead as she and her family will be using the albums. You chaps would have understood, I doubt her family would.
That’s what symbolic links and aliases are for. You give the parents the URL “PreciousWonderfulHighSchoolerSeniorPictures” and give everyone else the URL “PicturesOfATeenagerWithSuchBadGasIWasAfraidMyLensesWouldFog”.
“For those of you with nothing to do on this fine Saturday…”
R U nuts? Nothing to do? We’re getting ready for The Apocalypse and you ask us THAT??? Wuss wrong wid U, son??
Or R U just all set now and got nuthin’ to fret about down there in Tropical Tennessee? Got all yer ducks lined up, have ya? Piece a’ cake?
Jeezum Crow. I gots my hands full here. Cleaned out the RAV4, gassed it and updated the two go-bags. And now we gotta put Princess’s Matrix in her great-aunt’s garage for the winter down in Burlap; I’ll top that off, too. And then I’ll clean out the Saab when we get it back from her and gas that up, load a couple of go-bags, etc. Hauled in more firewood and got the stove cookin’ like a mofo downstairs now. Heat is up to around 68 and climbing inside the house; 30s outside, no wind.
And I just LOVE the super-dooper prep lists coming at me from all sides now in the emails; a list of Ten Things to Get NOW and a list of Twenty Things to DO NOW, before the Apocalypse on 11/8—-? whenever. If only I had a spare ten or twenty thou just layin’ around here and could learn about a dozen critical SHTF disciplines by Tuesday…what a lazy sodding bastid I am.
Tell ya what; if nuthin’ happens this next week I’m gonna fly somewhere and kick some ass and get something STARTED, goddammit!
Rant Over. Now back to hauling some ass around here. Organization is KEY. Know where the fuck everything IS. Especially FLASHLIGHTS.
“That’s what symbolic links and aliases are for.”
Wot Brother SteveF said; U could have a ton of fun with that.
The political pundits in Knee-vaduh have called it for Cankles. That’s not surprising seeing the majority of voters are minorities with no skills and little intelligence. The Dumbocrats really get out to them and use union leverage since most are in unions. Yesterday, I received 11 flyers in the mail. 10 of them were for Dumbo’s, 1 for a Redumbo. My only hope now is that the Redumbo’s get the Senate nod.
“Donald Trump’s Argument For America”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vST61W4bGm8&feature=youtu.be
hat tip to:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/152747601271/trump-the-closer
I just read Jerry Pournelle’s wife suffered a stroke. My best for her. I don’t stop in there as often, but got an email today with an update on her.
The platinum subscriber newsletter hit today too.
I don’t stop by chaos manor much anymore. It used to be on my daily must read list. Jerry is still sharp and insightful, but “it’s hard to time the market” and we’ve all been wrong so many times, it’s hard to keep hearing it. And my focus has changed, so I spend my time differently.
I read very little pure political thought anymore. Most of the ‘thinkers’ I used to read have said all they had to say. The EU still exists, so do we, and it is so clear that it can’t continue I don’t need any more convincing. I didn’t read many ‘linkers’ so that hasn’t changed (except I now read The Woodpile Report, which is a bit of both.)
Jerry always had good analysis, mixed with cultural and computer stuff, and he’s got some of the smartest readers on the web. I often saw his thoughts diffused out into the general zeitgeist some time after seeing them at CM. still, somehow, I stopped stopping in. I dread the day he’s no longer there.
nick
“Yesterday, I received 11 flyers in the mail. 10 of them were for Dumbo’s, 1 for a Redumbo.”
Pretty much the same ratio here. And several of the Dem womyn candidates seem to be focusing on, you know, “…a womyn’s right to CHOOSE…” and even Mrs. OFD has had enough of that, like she said “…as if it’s the only fucking thing women care about.”
Gee, I thought that the wholesale murder of human babies, in the tens of millions, was fully authorized by some Constitutional penumbra related somehow to a “right” to “privacy” and thus “settled law.” So why are they still harping about it?? Half the country thinks it’s wunnerful, especially men, for some odd reason.
I’ll be doing the “voting” thing on Tuesday mainly so I can check the turnout in this AO and interrogate the ancient staff on hand about it. And of course “thank them for their service”, lol, like peeps do with us vets all the time. (I feel like telling them that my service included machine-gunning hundreds of people from the air and now their country is our best-ever bud and millionaires are making more millions over there, so WTF was I there for???) But I don’t. Makes peeps nervous. Don’t wanna hear it. Least of all most of my fellow vets. But I still see a major disconnect. Isn’t this what they mean when they keep spouting about “cognitive dissonance?”
I also got Jerry’s newsletter today and hope and pray he and his wife will be around a lot longer and in good health and spirits; I concur with what Mr. Nick said above. I’ve read Jerry’s stuff since the 1980s (and RBT’s almost as long) and they are both national treasures and have inspired countless people over the decades.
For “pure political thought” I’ve been diddling around for some time now with the very late Thomas Hobbes and the later Anti-Federalists; also the writing of our best living historian, Professor Clyde Wilson. Not much time for it, because it means slow and focused reading and note-taking; gotta get ready for The Apocalypse.
“Gee, I thought that the wholesale murder of human babies, in the tens of millions, was fully authorized by some Constitutional penumbra related somehow to a “right” to “privacy” and thus “settled law.” ”
I unreservedly support abortion on demand without any restrictions whatsoever, for two reasons. One is philosophical. None of us have any right to tell anyone else what to do with their bodies. Period. Exclamation point. The other is practical. We would all be a lot better off if the mothers of those tens of millions of FSA had decided to abort the little bastards instead of letting them grow up into gang bangers. I have long said that any woman who applies for welfare/food stamps, etc. should have to undergo irreversible sterilization before being given any benefits.
Gee, thanks. I’ve never been a National Treasure before.
-blink- Why did I never think of that? “My service included helping one group of AK-47-armed Bronze Age tribesmen overthrow their nation’s government and try to commit genocide on other Bronze Age tribesmen.”
The results where I was (or rather, where I never was and neither was any other American soldier) were not quite as the American political establishment might have wished. The “good guys” won, thanks in large part to funding and arms from sources that need not be detailed, but the end result didn’t happen quite the way the brain trusts in Mordor expected. Try to contain your surprise. (And I’m pretty sure that no classified information was given away there, as the same could be said practically everywhere the US meddled in local affairs.)
On the plus side, the surveillance aircraft project I worked on when I wasn’t off galavanting elsewhere was a raging success. During the first US-Iraq war, Schwartzkopf demanded that every Guardrail and Guardrail/Common Sensor be sent to him, or he’d skullfuck the Secretary of Defense and his dog. I’m paraphrasing there, but not much. Stormin Norman really really wanted those birds. IIRC, he got them all. Every one in the world. And they exceeded expectations and helped materially with the curb-stomping the Iraqis got. I can feel some sense of achievement about that part of my service, anyway.
“…but the end result didn’t happen quite the way the brain trusts in Mordor expected. Try to contain your surprise.”
Roger that. And winning the hahts and minds of the peepul never seems to catch on for some odd reason.
“…exceeded expectations and helped materially with the curb-stomping the Iraqis got. I can feel some sense of achievement about that part of my service, anyway.”
Well there ya go; hope ya got an Achievement Medal. And you contributed to whacking musloids and I did the same, directly in my case, with commies. I only wish I’d been whacking commies in Mordor instead. And NYC. And Kalifornia.
In other prep nooz from this immediate AO; Mrs. OFD is taking the NRA’s online pistol course, Phase I, and will move on to Phase II on the range up the road in the next month or two as schedules allow. I hope to keep her going with other classes but that’s the big one right there; she needs to learn from someone other than me how to work the stuff here. And I’d like her to CCW also, at least while she’s home in the great Green Mountain State. Later, if things keep going well, we’ll get her the Utah and Virginia CCW permits with reciprocity to around thirty or thirty-five states, altogether.
And just did the measurements for putting up a combined one-vehicle garage and attached lean-to tool shed adjacent to the house, which will accomplish many things, like indoor storage for tools, the Saab during the winters, and block off the view of the denizens across the street and their dumpster, the Shell station sign, and the neighbor’s beat-up fence and pool area. Also secure indoor storage for fuels. The guy who owns the company for these garages and sheds down in White River Junction is a two-tour ‘Nam vet, so there’s that.
We won’t be able to do this for a while, as we have other priorities, but we’ll look further into it; I want a generator first, along with an electrician and plumber.
A MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN
To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for
President of the USA, and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give
notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical
duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except North
Dakota, which she does not fancy).
Our new Prime Minister, Theresa May, will appoint a Governor for
America without the need for further elections. Congress and the
Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year
to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following
rules are introduced with immediate effect:
———————–
1. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour,’
‘favour,’ ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell
‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix ‘-ize’
will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise.’ Generally, you will be expected
to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’).
————————
2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises
such as ‘like’ and ‘you know’ is an unacceptable and inefficient form
of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let
Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be
adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the
elimination of ‘-ize.’
——————-
3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
—————–
4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns,
lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and
therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent. Guns
should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can’t sort things out
without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not
ready to shoot grouse.
———————-
5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything
more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be
required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
———————-
6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will
start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same
time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit
of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you
understand the British sense of humour.
——————–
7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been
calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.
——————-
8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French
fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling
potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut,
fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
——————-
9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not
actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be
referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted
provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also
acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation
on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the
British Commonwealth – see what it did for them. American brands will
be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold
without risk of further confusion.
———————
10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as
good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to
play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English
dialect in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to
having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.
———————
11. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind
of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough
will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities
to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every
twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of
nancies).
———————
12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to
host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played
outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world
beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn
cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the
sting out of their deliveries.
——————–
13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.
—————–
14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s
Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all
monies due (backdated to 1776).
—————
15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with
saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and
cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.
God Save the Queen!
Oh, well. According to my poll figures, Trump is the certain winner anyway.
Unfortunately, my poll numbers point the other way. Here in the most liberal city in the country my poll shows Clinton with about 90% of the vote. This is probably true in many, if not most large city. There are a lot of people in big cities.
Most people I know don’t know any Trump supporters and the Trump supporters have kept pretty quiet. I voted Libertarian as I figured my vote wouldn’t count in any scenario. Oregon will almost certainly vote Democratic. If it got to the point where Trump had any chance of winning in Oregon, that would mean game over for Clinton as it would mean a Trump landslide nationally. I think a landslide is unlikely.
I think an imminent collapse is highly unlikely, although I am prepared to hole up, if necessary. I think Bob’s prediction of a slow deterioration is more likely. The best thing I can do is to help my kids prepare for the worst as I probably won’t be around long enough for it to be a problem.
Rick in Portland
You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.
That question was answered. It was Ted Cruz’s father. http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/ted-cruz-scandal-father-jfk-assassination/
Rick in Portland
In Oregon, dead people can legally vote: http://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2016/11/oregon_woman_90_died_happy_after_voting_for_hillary_clinton_for_president.html#incart_river_home
Rick in Portland
Fortunately, although Barbara pointed out an article in the paper yesterday that reported that one sixth of the population of this county is on food stamps, we really don’t have any FSA/BLM problem here.
We need to change the food stamp program to handing out 2,500 calorie MREs instead of cash cards. And one MRE per day per person. If someone is hungry, just go over to the local Post Office and get your daily MRE issued. No cards, no authorization, with 60 million people getting food stamps there is no qualification going on anyway.
My “sign poll” today has Trump off the charts. At least 15-1 for Trump. There is an enormous enthusiasm gap out there.
I’ll be working for the County on Tuesday, helping to make sure the voting machines work and the polling places have their supplies. It’s not much, but it’s a day away from the 9-5 and it makes me feel like I’m doing something useful. Unfortunately this year I drew a rather liberal set of precincts, so I don’t get to feel the satisfaction of seeing the numbers first hand.
I’ll also be at the courthouse at the end, so I’ll know how the County goes. Given the past, and the ratio of county to city (roughly 2-1), I think the county is likely to go to Trump. Especially with the enthusiasm gap. But we’ll see.
The only poll that really counts is the one on Tuesday.
I like the way Mr. Lynn thinks. 2500 calories ought to be enough for anyone.
Nice to see you have a lively sense of humor. Or a solid sense of bitter cynicism. Either works.
No, my list of medals and official commendations is mighty slim. I got one ARCOM after leaving Korea; that was automatic for any company-grade officer who did a year in the 2nd Infantry Division without screwing up too badly. The other places I was stationed and the extra stuff I did, including several things which were accomplishments above all reasonable expectation… I usually got verbal praise from some higher-ranking officer, up to 3-star generals or the civilian “Special Executive Service” equivalent, and promises that they’d write up letters of commendation and/or put me in for medals. Total number who followed through: 0.
I’m not exactly bitter about it, but definitely cynical. I have very little to show for seven years in the Army. A couple more rows of ribbons wouldn’t have made up for the effort and danger and lower pay, but they would have been something. -shrug- I had a bad night last night. I’ll probably have a more positive view of the whole thing when my usual sunny disposition is restored.
However, the universal failure of members of the chain of command to show anything like appreciation has made me very determined in making sure that official appreciation is shown for others, anything from a formal letter of appreciation to PFC who lost his weekend because of some last-minute crap detail to email to a project manager and a consulting company’s owner to let them know one of the consultants has been doing a really good job and should definitely be kept on even after this contract ends.
Unfortunate? What are you talking about? That’s a great place to be assigned. Show up pulling a cart with your diagnostic equipment, or whatever it is you need for the assigned job, and also a shotgun and several boxes of shells. Shoot every fifth person who walks through the door. If you’re in a liberal precinct, the odds are very good that you won’t be hitting a worthwhile human being.
Couple observations.
Yesterday whilst making my rounds of the ‘pay us to carry off our trash’ sales, I spoke at length with an elderly woman and (quite a bit less, with her husband) about politics, and the economy. While generally aligned with reality regarding the civil unrest situation and the true state of the economy, she asserted that if things get bad enough, she’ll call and write her representatives and make them fix it. So turns out, she’s completely loony toons… One interesting thing she said was if we were really in a great depression (her biggest fear), we’d see the return of soup kitchens. I pointed out that with 50% of the citizenry receiving govt aid of some sort, we were already LONG PAST that point, but it’s hidden behind school lunch programs, snap, section 8, etc. She frankly didn’t believe it.
So, hurray for preps. Ordinary life. Took the truck to the local tire place as I’ve needed new tires for a long time, going so far as to be without a spare. This is my pickup which I mostly use for local hauling. Last night I picked up a screw, had one tire down most of the way, no spare, and dry rot on the rest. Pumped it up (using my rescue compressor from the truck) and drove over, got 4 like-new tires at a significant discount, had them balanced and installed. TIME TO PAY. NO WALLET. Oops! Hit my in-car ‘hidden prep money’ and with what was in my cash clip I was able to pay the bill. Being prepared got my car fixed. Imagine if I was away from home, and had lost my wallet, or had it stolen….
Hit one good estate sale after all, and picked up some medical preps. One liter of sterile saline, some Tegaderm patches (as chest seals), a bunch of new in wrapper Ace bandages, and misc pads and gauzes….
Also 12 two pound propane bottles for $1 each and some bottles for the torch at the same price. Misc paint and other garage chemicals rounded out the day.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll get some gardening done………..
nick
(oh, and a base station antenna, NOS in the box. )
I got one ARCOM after leaving Korea; that was automatic for any company-grade officer who did a year in the 2nd Infantry Division without screwing up too badly.
lol! I left with two during the same time (one impact). You obviously didn’t suck enough cock like I did. Wait, that came out wrong…
I’m trying to figure out what to say to MrsAtoz if Cankles takes one through the head?
“That c*nt deserved it!” Too much?
“Oh my God nooooooo!” Too little?
Any ideas? I want to be prepared!
Why not strike a balance? Something like, “Poor, stupid, psycho cunt”.
Any ideas? I want to be prepared!
Perhaps your Southern Belle impersonation? Something along the lines of “How Nice”.
Almost everyone I know seems to be for Trump. Yard signs? A couple of dozen for Trump, one for Hillary, and one “Hillery for Jail”. Not many signs compared to past elections. Not that I spend much time driving around neighborhoods….
I haven’t looked for signs in Austin because I’m too busy avoiding being run over.
I’ve seen a couple of Hillarity signs, more trump signs by far.
I don’t know anyone who will admit to voting for corruption and evil. Most will admit to voting against her, while wishing T were able to keep his gob shut for a day at a time.
One wasted vote for Johnson.
Gonna be two for T here….
n
“2500 calories ought to be enough for anyone.”
Bullshit!!! I need 4,000-5,000; I’m a 245-pound 6’5″ more or less active Caucasian male during the cold season in northern New England hauling firewood and suchlike. Meat and potatoes, bud! Lots!
“A couple more rows of ribbons wouldn’t have made up for the effort and danger and lower pay, but they would have been something.”
Fruit salad. I wore mine home when I got out and received a snarky comment from the old man. Never again.
“…very determined in making sure that official appreciation is shown for others…”
Ditto. I go out of my way to send or say thanks to other Normals out here. And to their managers or supervisors.
“That’s a great place to be assigned.”
Indeed. I like the way you think. But make it every third person. For extra kicks, if multiple kids are tagging along, make the parent/s choose one or the other, like in that flick “Sophie’s Choice.” We don’t want kids growing up to be libturds or progs.
“So turns out, she’s completely loony toons… ”
No kidding. Jeezum, I woulda busted a gut laughing right there in front of her.
“Being prepared got my car fixed. Imagine if I was away from home, and had lost my wallet, or had it stolen….”
And there’s a LESSON right there, you buggers! Stuff your ride with cash and don’t be caught short when you go buy goods or services, leaving your wallet at home like senile old OFD. Who’s done it a few times. Also has the driver’s license in it, so getting stopped woulda sucked extra.
“Wait, that came out wrong…”
We sure hope so.
“Any ideas? I want to be prepared!”
Sniff a little, hand out tissues, weep a bit, retire to a private space in your abode and laugh like a fucking maniac. Extra points if you can approximate the Cankles cackle.
“Not that I spend much time driving around neighborhoods…. ”
I’ve started doing that; I wanna know the local AO infrastructure bettah and also who else lives in it. A few small surprises so fah; one being the number of trailer parks in the area, ranging from pretty cruddy to relatively upscale. Plenty of new vehicles and satellite dishes, though. At night, monster tee-vee screens and they obviously have either satellite or cable, plus innernet for whatever. And then we have the McMansions, usually sited on tree-less former wetland, with three- and four-car garages, taking up more space than the fucking living quarters.
Also, LOTS of electrical infrastructure, so I’m taking my handy little guidebook out with me and making notes on my Kindle, with pictures.
Back to organizing now…
-snap fingers- Yep, that’s the term I was forgetting. Yes, I was promised two impact ARCOMs while in Korea, and then several more during the surveillance aircraft development posting. As well as a ream of various letters of commendation and such. The extra stuff I did should have resulted in a couple of medals, combat medals and probably one with a Valor widget, except it wasn’t a combat zone, at least not officially, not for US troops, and I wasn’t eligible for whatever special stuff the Special Forces guys got because I wasn’t a green beret, and anyway doing the paperwork would have been work and everyone was too busy.
More like poor selection of superior officers. There was the one captain in Korea who wrote up my annual OER and I walked on water, and that’s the one I signed before it was sent up to the battalion commander. The LTC couldn’t stand me, for no known reason, and according to one of the enlisted men who overheard the conversation he told the captain “That son of a bitch isn’t that good. Rewrite it.” The captain showed the moral courage I’ve by now grown accustomed to and rewrote the evaluation to show I was slightly below average and told me I had to sign the revised version. I refused, was directly ordered to sign it, refused, was threatened with court martial by the headquarters company commander*, and eventually the thing was filed without my signature. About a month later the LTC wrote a special OER for me that suggested I was bottom-end in every way and that I really didn’t need to be in the Army. I filed an official complaint about the whole mess, but nothing officially came of it. However, something must have made its way through official channels, because if those bad OERs were the only thing in my file for the year+ I was there, I wouldn’t have been given the extra activities on my next posting, nor slotted for the extra training. -shrug- Decades in the past, water under the bridge, horse has already been stolen and eaten by Frenchies, or whatever homily is most appropriate.
* One of approximately three times I was threatened with a court martial for not following illegal orders, like being ordered to write a Report of Survey saying the brigade commander was not at fault for equipment loss even though he clearly was. And the “superior” officers making the orders refused to put them in writing when I demanded them, as was my right. Funny how that works. Oh, and I never was court martialed, and declined a separate Article 15 by the bn commander, insisting on a court martial instead. That fizzled, too, on account of him having no valid grounds for an article 15. For what it’s worth, a different captain, not my boss, told me that that battalion commander was the worst officer he’d ever seen in over a decade in the Army. He also told me to watch out for my direct boss because he was a weasel. Alas, I didn’t take that advice.
Bless her heart.
No, wait, that doesn’t work. Does anyone have any evidence Coffin Cankles even has a heart?
I did my early voting today, I’m on the road for the rest of the week working.
It was three hours in line – a huge turnout. A diverse but friendly bunch – when someone fainted in the heat it was a crowd of male, female, black, white and Hispanic running to help.
Not a single t-shirt or button for party or candidate to be seen though, and not a single comment by anyone on their choices that I heard.
When I finished the line was as long as when I arrived.
“Not a single t-shirt or button for party or candidate to be seen though”
After the “respect mah athoritay” arrest here in TX, maybe the word got out that those are verboten.
nick
(why does oppression sound so good in German?)
Because Germans are good at it. Ja!
“verboten” is “forbidden” and you can get the translation/definition almost by the sound of it itself. “Das ist verboten.” Which, depending on who is doing the forbidding, could be classified as “oppression.”
Word has it that several LE agencies/organizations will be releasing some really damning stuff on Larry Klinton and Podesta and others, including six other gummint officials, regarding sexual abuse of minor children, BEFORE the election. If so, then charges must be pending, including arrests. If not, then we either have another bullshit story or it got squashed yet again for the Clinton Crime Family. Supposedly Cankles herself was involved, as was Huma. That would be way beyond a trifecta.
I can mangle my way around with Spanish, er, what passes for Spanish around here…. enough to understand what is being said. It’s good enough.
I don’t speak German. I can sort of read it. I went through a set of 10 inch records and the books to learn it but, down in the RGV, who ya gonna sprechen with? I have a stamp collection, ok? To me German sounds like English but I don’t know the words.
And Missy got in my face and wanted out and petting. I forgot where I was going here.
Missy? Cat? Dog? Girl you keep in a cage?
“I have a stamp collection, ok? To me German sounds like English but I don’t know the words.”
That is not a coincidence; English is a Germanic language. And the Anglo-Saxons from whom many of us here are descended originally came across the North Sea from what is now Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark. Crazy, devious, warlike sons of bitches. To this day. We like to fish and farm and sit by the fire at night with our women but keep fucking with us and reap the fucking whirlwind.
Stamp collection? I had three H.E. Harris stamp albums from when I was a kid; one loaded with stamps from all over the world, where I learned a shit-ton of geography and history. Another one, the Liberty album, for just U.S. And a U.S. plate block album. All lost in one of two floods at our first house back in Montpeculiar.
I collected stamps, ancient coins and built models of tanks, ships, planes, etc. as a kid, when not out raising hell all over the AO and in skool. Peeps wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. Including parents. Hey, reap the whirlwind, then, fummamuckers.
Dog. “Lab” (big black dog that jumped over the fence) over Pit. She was the runt.
Was. I grew her out on Diamond Lamb and Rice. 105 pounds of love. Vet says she’s too fat. She’s not fat, she’s a really big dog.
Here is a picture. http://remsset.com/files/DSC01515.JPG
Penny and Missy. Penny is about 40# here.
And for grins, Fred and Beau.
http://remsset.com/files/fred%20and%20beau.jpg
Fred is the Britanny….fed him lamb and rice when a puppy and I had a 65# dog. A beer lover, too.
We need to change the food stamp program to handing out 2,500 calorie MREs instead of cash cards. And one MRE per day per person. If someone is hungry, just go over to the local Post Office and get your daily MRE issued. No cards, no authorization, with 60 million people getting food stamps there is no qualification going on anyway.
In the Northwest, they just take the cards to the “take and bake” pizza chain anyway. Skip the middleman and issue the pizzas directly.
Actually, go back to actual Food Stamp bills. Instead of the debit card now used because “they don’t need to be embarrassed”.
Stuff pisses me off, working in a grocery store and the effers have a cart full of crap food for a party and THEN roll off the big bills for cigs and beer. And it all goes into the back of a Cadillac.
The bestest ever part is when their effen card doesn’t work and somehow it’s all my fault.
I’m done with retail.
Stamps. Ok, I started this in 5th or 6th grade. A friend and I would wander around and collect coke bottles on the weekend and make maybe $8 each. At 10 cents a bottle, we were pros at that shit in 1970. Penny approvals in the mail rocked. Lynn’s Stamp News rocked.
Haven’t opened the trunk in a couple of years. Have not actually worked on my collection for a bit over 25 years. 2 H E Harris binders about 4 inches thick, then the BIG one that is almost 8 inches thick. Pretty much all full. I forget the count, it’s in the trunk. Just have to find the keys.
@Mr. paul; yeah, the black lab is a big one; you can tell by the size of the head, and it matches the body, which doesn’t always happen.
“…the effers have a cart full of crap food for a party and THEN roll off the big bills for cigs and beer. And it all goes into the back of a Cadillac.”
While we, working the register or bagging their chit, make chit for pay and then get bled white for taxes to support the high life for these cocksuckers. I bet there’s a LOT of pissed off people in this country by now over stuff like this. I’m also WAY done with retail or even anything to do with customers I haven’t lined up for myself and my own goods.
“Penny approvals in the mail rocked. Lynn’s Stamp News rocked.”
Indeed. I had started in the early 1960s; one thing I appreciated back then and still do was the fine engraving done on the early 20th-C stamps, and then it all went to shit in the 60s on. There even used to be stores in a couple of the towns we lived in down in MA that specialized in stamp collecting. I guess it’s still going on out there but I haven’t investigated it lately. It was a tremendous amount of fun for me back then, though.
Off to the recliner again, and I’ll nod myself off to sleep by first reading through some cheat sheet cards for shortwave and DX’ing, and the Yaesu FT60 instructions, and then I sit in the dark by the woodstove and begin running through the list of chit we gotta do here, or I am planning to do, and I usually don’t get beyond a dozen or so before I fall out dead asleep.
Pax vobiscum, fratres,
And set yer clocks back. Wheeeeeeee….more time to prep!
DH, I only recently learned that Guy Fawks comitted a mortal sin the instant before he died. Does that mean he gets to spend eternity in hell?
Election Chaos Fears Have Preppers Stockpiling Survival Food
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/election-chaos-fears-have-preppers-stockpiling-survival-food-n678161
Somebody is noticing.
Okay – how about “2500 calories ought to be enough for anyone on the dole and not making any effort to improve their lot in life”.
When I was in I could live on 2 MREs/day, but always welcomed the chow hall for supplemental food.
Red Beans and Rice with cornbread. Bologna Sammiches, Chili and Spaghetti, light on meat. Boring but filling. Feed it to whoever wants it, and get rid of ALL the paperwork and overhead. Didn’t the Sheriff in Az. get it down to 50 cents a meal? Instead of paying farmers not to farm, buy the surplus and feed peeps.
Red Beans and Rice with cornbread. Bologna Sammiches, Chili and Spaghetti, light on meat. Boring but filling. Feed it to whoever wants it, and get rid of ALL the paperwork and overhead. Didn’t the Sheriff in Az. get it down to 50 cents a meal? Instead of paying farmers not to farm, buy the surplus and feed peeps.
We need something that can feed a person for a day and that you can back up an 18 wheeler full of at the Post Office. The package needs to be good for a couple of years and not require refrigeration.
An MRE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat
I’ve eaten a couple over the years. I’ve got three cases in my house. My former USMC son has eaten hundreds of them in the Marine Corps. Maybe thousands. When he was based in California, he would take several of them with him to LA and park at the beach if he got a weekend off. The Kalifornia girls used to stop by his truck and ask him to take them to a restaurant. He would say sure and hand them a MRE.
Bologna Sammiches
Surely you jest.
When Katrina hit New Orleans several dozen families were relocated to Kelly AFB in San Antonio. Mother in-law and members of her church along with others got together to help feed the people. They prepared bologna sandwiches. The relocated people refused to eat the sandwiches and demanded better food. MIL said never again will she attempt to help such people. They have become too accustomed to the public dole and eating expensive food. She called them a bunch of ungrateful assholes.
MREs are hideously expensive. I’ve suggested before that we replace food stamps with food giveaways. A one-day ration for one person would be be a pound of fortified flour or other starch, three ounces of dry beans, an ounce of vegetable oil, and a few grams of salt. That’s it. One small bag. No meat or other expensive food. Plenty of calories Complete nutrition.
“They have become too accustomed to the public dole…”
Sort of related up here; a punkass dolt got jammed up for sexting underage grrls, among other infractions, and he’s in court with his mom, and one of the bail conditions was to stay off social nets and he put up a fuss and told his mom he won’t agree to that because “that’s how people communicate nowadays.”
The Entitled Generation. Across racial and ethnic lines.
@rbt, all that needs cooking. they’ll demand a place to do the cooking, subsidy for the gas, state issued pans, and inthe end, we’ll give it up as too expensive and complex.
Give um a couple of old school powerbars. The ones made from sawdust, glue, and peanutbutter. (not really but that’s what they tasted like.) The ones from back when there was ONE flavor. add a vitamin pill and contraceptives.
Seriously though, Ringo addresses this in his novel The Centurions. He makes the ration bar complete, but hard to eat and nasty tasting. Figures it’s the only way to keep the slugs from living on it exclusively. Want better? WORK.
nick
Grow a nutritionally-complete variety of mushrooms from the Free Shit Army’s shit. Make them tend the mushrooms, so they know where their food is coming from. If they don’t like it or don’t do the work to raise and harvest them, then they can starve.
I forgot PB&J. It has to be complete, Protein, fat, carbs, v&m. It should be filling. It should be edible. Tasty even. Don’t want it? Get your own.
I would do free lunch in schools. I don’t want the children to suffer for their bad choice of parents.
All of the items I mentioned could be provided as ration bars, which would not require refrigeration, and would remain safe and nutritious for many years even stored at room temperature. Score each of them into three chunks, one each for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
With government bulk purchasing discounts, it shouldn’t cost more than $0.10 per ration bar, and that’s actually more than I want to pay to keep some worthless piece of shit fed.
Give school kids who can’t afford better all the ration bars they want.
We are already feeding the kids at school. Feeding them crap that goes straight into the trash can.
We are a ‘wealthy’ district that gets Robin Hooded to support other ‘disadvantaged’ districts, and we feed most of the kids at least 2 meals and usually 3 per day. In the summer we have “feeding programs” at libraries and schools.
Most of the food goes untouched and uneaten from what I’ve seen.
n
Which reminds me of something I told one of my friends, who has to be the luckiest person I know. I just haven’t figured out yet whether it’s good luck or bad luck. I told him to come over any time he wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He told me he hates them. I said, I know, but the offer still stands.
Put Moochelle in charge of all the nationalized food programs; she’s a proven expert who knows what’s best for us and our chillunz. You go, girl!
yep, that’s the mandatory crap that’s going straight into the trash.
They MUST have a fruit, so every tray gets an orange, whether the kid eats oranges or not. Almost every orange ends up in the trash can.
The food is so low grade it’s almost inedible.
n
and don’t get me started on the NO SALT policy. Salt would make some of this crap edible. Salt has little to no impact on blood pressure, was only ever restricted for DIAGNOSED hypertensive persons (and has little effect on them), and is an essential mineral for proper development and bodily function.
And HERE”S the pot calling the kettle black–
“Tim Kaine brands FBI a ‘leaky sieve’ as he claims some in the bureau are ‘actively working’ to help Trump”
Maybe there are a few of the rank and file left who are saying to themselves “I didn’t join the FBI to protect pedophiles”.
Mr Kaine, you see what happens when you weaponize an agency? Swords can cut both ways.
nick
All of the items I mentioned could be provided as ration bars, which would not require refrigeration, and would remain safe and nutritious for many years even stored at room temperature. Score each of them into three chunks, one each for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
With government bulk purchasing discounts, it shouldn’t cost more than $0.10 per ration bar, and that’s actually more than I want to pay to keep some worthless piece of s*** fed.
Works for me ! I’m not sure about your cost estimate though. I am a government contractor and dealing with them is … difficult.
Give school kids who can’t afford better all the ration bars they want.
Again, works for me. Just park an 18 wheeler trailer full of them at the local Post Office. They can come stand in line to get ONE days worth of bar(s) per line standing.
From The Last Centurions- John Ringo
In the novel a plague combined with global cooling, and a democratic coup basically knocks everyone back a few decades.
n
(it was written very quickly, reads very quickly, and has some really interesting ideas- recommended as PA lit…)
When I was in HS, (yay Bi-Centennial Seniors) about half way through 11th grade they made lunch free. You had to pay for extra milk, haters.
The HS had about 650 kids. 120 in my class, maybe 8 non-mexican. Maybe 60 total in the school paying for lunch. So they gave the lady that collected the money a job on the serving line.
It was a weird. A brand new million dollar high school and they didn’t use the fully equipped kitchen. No, they liked the old kitchen at what was now the Jr High. So they would load trays of food into a van and haul it a mile to the high school. Tell ya what, those women could cook! And if they liked you, you would get a chicken neck with your spanish rice. At least that is what everyone said. I got a lot of necks. Ick. Just smile and say thank you and move on down the line….
No problems with swapping a neck for whatever the fruit was.
PA announcements would be in Spanish. Would. I went and talked to the Principal. Mr Salinas got my point and that pretty much ended the Spanish announcements.
I putzed around in the library during lunch and study hall period. Read some books, help the librarian re-shelve books. Just putter. Beat sitting in a “study hall” supervised by a coach that was obviously brain damaged.
Then we got a Xerox. 720II best as I remember. A dime a page. It was the /only/ Xerox in the school district. Back then, there was only Xerox.
Sweet! Way more fun than messing with 16mm projectors, film strip projectors, and record players.
I looked inside. Hmm. Asked the librarian to pull me from class when the Xerox dude would show up. She did. And I watched him work. It was interesting and he showed me a lot of the maintenance details.
At the time, Xerox came from Corpus Christi. So when the machine puked it was usually a week before the tech showed. Sometime two weeks. A different guy every time.
I figured the machine out. I would get pulled from class to fix the copier. Paper jams most of the time. Usually “pulled from class” was someone telling the teacher Salinas wanted to see me. Crap, what did I do now?
Fix the copier? Oh, sweet. I’m not in trouble. 🙂
One day, after three weeks of waiting for Xerox to show, I pretty much gutted the machine. Cleaned what needed cleaning with alcohol and added the personal touch of 3inOne oil to a few spots. I had parts all over the place. And here shows the Xerox dude! With a chip on his shoulder. He started to chew me out and pretty much STFU when I said I’ve been calling for a month for you to service the machine. Yes, me, a HS kid dealt with calling Xerox.
He blustered a bit more. I took him to the boss, Salinas, and he complained about a bunch of shit. They both watched me put it all back together. I powered up the beast, hit Copy, and it was PERFECT.
Score.
After that, when we called, Xerox showed up pretty quick. Like, next day.
I got my first consulting gig in HS. My good friend the head librarian in our smallish town was picked to help decide which of two competing computer systems would be put in the whole library district. She knew nothing about computers (and this is still the mini era at best, no pcs.) She paid me $100 to read thru the proposals (half inch thick) and recommend to her which one, and why. I did, and the district picked the other system. I don’t know if my choice would have actually been better, but they were never happy with the one they did pick.
Got my second consulting gig from a friend’s father in HS. He wanted to get a personal computer to build a database and sort and print addresses for his mailing list business. They had been doing it by hand with cards, typewriters, and a copy machine. His son and I surveyed the apple product (III) and the new pc (which we wrote off as a joke- it was so under whelming) the Tandy business computers, and probably the Commodore too. We picked the apple III, and a 5meg external HD, with a daisy wheel printer. Had the tech, had the printer, had the HD, and had the software. It was a good choice for them, even if the pc did eventually close the tech gap. (that apple III taught me a good lesson too. Never remove power from the HD before it has spun up completely. That leads to actual head crashes….)
good times!
nick
I had no idea about consulting. I mean, for me HS at La Joya was totally “get outta jail” in ’76. That the bus ride was about an hour and a half each way…. yeah, 3+ hours a day on a school bus. We lived in the middle of where the fuck are we?
I did ask the Xerox guy about a job. Gotta have a degree in something unrelated to actually effing with the hardware. So, that didn’t happen.
I didn’t know about ‘consulting’ as such, but I figured that getting paid was a good thing. Beat the heck out of cutting lawns.
n
“Beat the heck out of cutting lawns.”
I mowed neighbors’ lawns every summah for five bucks a pop and shoveled driveways in the winta likewise. Also worked part-time as a bag-boy at the local Stop & Shop and as an usher at two local movie theaters. Later, stockboy and then Campus Shop apparel salesman at the Jordan Marsh department store at Shopper’s World, Framingham, MA, on the Golden Mile, i.e., Route 9, the Boston-Worcester Turnpike, an old Native Murkan path from Boston Hahbuh to the western MA lakes and streams. Now clogged with traffic and malls and stores, natch. No one driving on it has a fucking clue.
When I was in junior high we were forced to take a Spanish class. The teacher and I never got along well because on the first day he asked everyone their first name in Spanish. I knew no Spanish so just gave him a blank stare. The interface never improved on that level and I was failing the class which was a required element.
But they had a tape machine with Spanish tapes and multiple booths in the back of the room where students could listen to the tapes. The system did not work. I struck a deal with the Spanish teacher where he would give me a C and I would fix the machine and operate the machine. Thus I got out of actually learning any Spanish and it was a win for both of us.
I took Latin for two years, having had French for three years in middle skool, but I was a bored and lazy sodding bastid and did not apply myself. More fun to get all A’s in English and history classes and otherwise screw off and smoke dope in the adjacent woods overlooking the Sudbury River.