09:44 – I understand there was another presidential debate last night. Barbara and I watched a Dalziel and Pascoe DVD instead. These debates are all boring. Talk, talk, talk. They need to adopt my proposed debate format: give each of the participants armor and a short sword, and let them have at it.
Although October is one of the slower months for kit sales, we’re still on track to sell maybe 40 kits this month. November should be similarly slow until about Thanksgiving, when sales for Christmas and second semester start to kick in. But we’re in perilously low inventory status on the chemistry kits and particularly the biology kits. Those 15 chemistry kits we just built are dwindling fast, and the new batch of 30 biology kits isn’t ready to go yet. So, the first goal is to get those 30 biology kits finished and ready to ship, followed by a new batch of 60 chemistry kits, followed by yet another batch of 30 biology kits. Oh, and the first batch of 30 life science kits. Those should carry us through the end of the year, or nearly so.
10:37 – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard nails it: Britain has left the European Union in all but name
It has never been in Britain’s best interests to be a member of the EU, other than the common market. For at least a couple of years now, it’s been obvious to anyone paying attention that that’s exactly where Britain is heading. In terms of the common market, the EU needs Britain more than Britain needs the EU, so it’s unlikely that the EU will put up much resistance as Britain continues to withdraw from the other aspects of the EU. As the EU continues to decline and the euro crashes, I expect to see other member countries and countries with strong links to the EU also withdraw, starting with Norway and then Sweden, followed perhaps by Finland and Ireland. It is in the interests particularly of Britain, Norway, and Sweden to remain as far as possible at arm’s length from the EU, and to focus their trade-development efforts on the English-speaking countries and the developing world rather than continental Europe and distance themselves from the increasingly command-driven economies of the core EU members. I suspect that the current UK government is the last that will pay even lip service to maintaining full EU membership.
Agreed on all counts, Bob. Britain never had the heart or stomach for the EU malarkey. It was their brilliant and oh-so-clever librul leadership, like our own, that thought it was a dandy idea. The rank and file pissed on it throughout, and rightly so.
I’ve read several of the Dalziel and Pascoe books but was unaware, or forgot, that they were on DVD, too; who’d they get for Dalziel and are they more or less faithful to the books? I would picture an Orson Wells or William Conrad type for the role.
I haven’t seen any of the debates, not even online; zero interest in watching or listening to any more of this shameless charade than I otherwise have to; I will probably vote after all, but only for local and state offices, with an eye to their stances on local issues, mostly, as the hot-button stuff is at the national level and beyond their purview. Spent last night on household chores, reading, and listening to the FM album station.
The BBC Dalziel and Pascoe series wasn’t available at all on Netflix until a couple years ago, when they got series one and two. There are twelve series totaling 61 episodes, each of which is 90-minutes. Netflix finally got series three, four, and five not long ago, so Barbara and I have been devouring them.
Warren Clarke plays Dalziel, and is excellent except for the fact that he’s about a foot too short. Colin Buchanan is Pascoe and David Royle is Wield. Both are well cast, except that Royle isn’t ugly enough. But the best cast member is Susannah Corbett as Ellie. She nails Ellie to the same degree that Brett nailed Holmes and Suchet nailed Poirot.
FYI – Norway is not a member of the EU – why should they be with all that oil and gas! As a Brit, I voted for membership of the Common Market, I was naive as to the aims of European politicians. Even so, they ignore subsidiarity as a key principle of the Union!! I would be delighted for the UK to return to only a free trade area and remove ourselves from the European death spiral.
Of course, Norway is not in the EU. That’s why I said “countries with strong links to the EU”.
I’m surprised the UK hasn’t already revolted against the diktats of the EU. England’s common law is fundamentally incompatible with the European system. The UK has strong free market beliefs that are incompatible with the socialist command-driven economies beloved by the eurocrats. And, most importantly, the EU system is fundamentally incompatible with democratic government.
The UK populace has apparently also lost heart for resisting or revolting against any of their own government’s diktats, particularly with regard to firearms over the years, or against all the super-PC nonsense and surveillance cameras everywhere; Eric Blair must be having a bloody fit. And most folks in this country are the same way, much in the line of the frog in the pot of slowly boiling water; we get used to any long train of abuses if they are implemented incrementally.
So here we have most sheeple glued to the stupid debates and then throwing brickbats at each other in all the media, blogs, FB, Twitter, whatever, apparently in the amazing belief that any of this dog-and-pony show means anything at all. And some of my fellow conservatives bitch and crab at me that I simply MUST vote for Mittens if only to get Barack Hussein out of office. Well screw that; a few more elections from now and they’ll be telling me I gotta vote for Hitler because Stalin is just too darn radical. Not doing it anymore; can’t, and look myself in the face of a Vermont fall morning.
Then, the latest brickbat thrown at me (not here) because I voiced the thought that I am getting as heartily sick of Mr. and Mrs. Boobus Americanus and this country as I am of its damnable Leviathan imperial government, then I must hate America, and hate its people, and hate the country I grew up in (actual accusations!). And furthermore, I am now sounding “suspicious.” Whatever that means. Am I a secret agent for Barack and his goon squads and being rewarded with nights of ecstasy in bed with the Mooch and HILLARY!? Am I working for Putin’s KGB?
So now I am a target once again of the jingo “America, Love it or Leave It” crowd and these same fellow “conservatives” show their true colors as neocons and Faux Nooz fanboys and fangirls, not even realizing that their neocon ideology stems in a direct line from U.S. and Euro Trotskyites.
They’re in for a very big surprise, coming soon.
Point of correction: Some years ago some scientists tested the “boil a frog slowly” calumny. Once the water got too hot, the frogs hopped out.
Which I believe demonstrates that Brits and Americans are stupider than frogs. (The green, hopping kind, not the French kind.)
Well, gosh-dahn it all to hell; I was blissfully unaware of that particular scientific study, but hope like hell it was not funded by our tax dollars. I’m wrong about that, aren’t I….
Yes, way too many Brits and Americans are stupider than frogs, if the tee-vee audience for the debates and the subsequent viral internet presence is any indication…
To despair is a sin, as Jerry Pournelle keeps saying, but man, it gets hahduh by the day…
“To despair is a sin.” Yah, that’s not exactly a mantra, but I find myself telling myself that fairly often. I’m not really the despairing type in the sense of getting all depressed and mopey and not doing anything about problems because there’s nothing to be done about them. Instead I’m the cynical, sociopathic type, who sees that almost all of the competitors for political office and almost all big businessmen and virtually everyone else who has or wants any kind of power is corrupt and unworthy of their position, and despairs of keeping dishonest and incompetent people away from power, and so there’s not really any good reason not to kill every fucking one of them.
I hear that loud and clear. After all, their continued presence and behavior constitutes a clear potential lethal threat to me and mine and you and yours and us and ours.
So as fah as I am concerned, it is self-defense.
Or…a just war.
Careful you two, you’re starting to sound like anarchists!
Anarchy would be fah more preferable at this point to the criminal felon regime that rules us now. We have gone leftwing totalitarian and Russia and China are now rightwing. Mirror world. Bizarro World. And the rest of the supposedly benighted world doesn’t want any part of our Wilsonian democracy crusade or our brand of democracy. Meanwhile the dollar continues to lose ground, being fiat currency after all, and the renminbe is climbing.
No, they haven’t started shoving us into boxcars yet and sent us to camps but they’ve been making the justifications for it and the preparations. It doesn’t take a weatherman….
Well, I used to say that I part ways with the libertarians because they’re entirely too supportive of big government.
I’m not an anarchist only because almost no one has any tolerance for it. Not just the modern-day, hothouse flower suburban American yuppie scum that I deal with on a daily basis, but humans throughout history. They don’t like anarchy and will accept any tyrant who will put an end to it.
Now, if you want to think about improving humanity, and I do if only for story purposes, then it would be interesting to speculate on removing this flaw.
Well, as an anarchist, I’d point out that government inevitably devolves into what you guys are bitching about.
You guys remind me of someone who supports “limited pregnancy” and are then surprised when a baby results. It’s what happens, guys, every time.
I’m getting closer to it, Robert. Time will tell.
Frost here again last night and this morning; still plenty of gorgeous foliage, though, mostly yellow, gold and yellow-orange.
Another take on the Italian earthquake scientists:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-24/scientists-jailed-over-earthquake-had-case-to-answer-says-expert/4332092
RBT, I don’t think your analogy is quite apt. It’s not that I support limited pregnancy, it’s that I recognize that pregnancy is inevitable. And that analogy isn’t apt, either, because pregnancy is evitable but I don’t think government is.
Dispensing with the analogies, you’re right that governments inevitably devolve to tyranny. What you left out is that anarchy devolves to tyranny, too, and faster. The general pattern is anarchy, warlords, tyranny, with the anarchy phase having the shortest duration. In pushing for a republic with a limited government, we can hope to reach a not-too-unhappy medium which will last for a while, before it devolves into tyranny.
A near anarchy might be sustainable with a much lower population, and population density. I don’t see any way to test that, and to see if such a condition would allow anything resembling a modern standard of living.
then I must hate
America
Sounds like half of my family. Criticize the actions of GWB, and I was unpatriotic and anti-American. Hey, I’ve found something to like about Obama! I can say anything (bad) about him that want without causing a family meltdown.
I thought you were the meat in a Sonia Sotomayor-Nancy Pelosi sandwich. That’s what I heard…
(That little bit of vomit in the back of your throat? It’s sort of like a present, just for you. Enjoy!)
Isn’t this pretty much what OFD expects?
I was talking about a world population of less than 5% of current. Room enough for anarchists to spread out and not aggravate each other. I think that’s much lower than OFD’s prognostications of doom, famine, and zombie apocalypse. (Though I should point out that a genuine zombie apocalypse would not much readily distinguished from today’s situation in which we have the mentally dead attempting to eat the productive. OFD also refers to New York as the Vampire State, which is all too true.)
Anarchists tend to get along a lot better than most. We pretty much don’t care what other people do as long as they don’t injure or threaten us or our property or intrude upon our peaceful enjoyment of our property.
Frankly, I wouldn’t care if our neighbors engaged in human sacrifice, as long as the victims were willing and as long as they sacrificed their victims in a soundproofed room to keep the screams from bothering us. Well, I’d demand those restrictions only if the victims were non-politicians. For politicians, I’d make some popcorn and watch the show.
Agreed. If you could figure out how to kill off those with a low tolerance for anachy (at a rough estimate, 97% of the human race), I’m sure the rest of us would be fine. Alternatively, find a place for anarchists to go — an orbital, a habitable extraterrestrial planet, something — and it could work.
But failing that, attempting to impose an anarchy on the human population as-is, is doomed to failure because most people don’t want it and will do anything to stop it.
Umm. Anarchy isn’t imposed. It’s pretty much the natural state of affairs. And although I agree that many people are frightened by the word, confusing it with chaos, most people are pretty comfortable with the concept itself, which is generally stated as “live-and-let-live”.
There will probably be anarchy in some parts of the country on and off for a while but it will be the chaotic kind, not the kind and gentle leaving-alone that people should engage in with each other, with the tolerance and understanding that Robert has, with the obvious exception of politicians.
And then we’ll have tyranny, of course. People will gratefully accept a warlord, county commissioner, town mangler, fuhrer, whatever it takes, to restore order at whatever price of liberty.
But I also think the farther from the cities and the more rural the environment, population density and experience in self-reliance, the better off people will be, and maybe there will be a chance of peaceful anarchy, or limited town meeting government. Folks in rural northern New England did OK for a long, long time without the tender ministrations of the poo-bahs and potentates in Boston and NYC. Life was a tad harsh before outdoor plumbing and the Grid but they managed.
But maybe I’m full of shit and don’t know WTF I’m talking about; we may just be able to muddle along with cutbacks in this and that, here and there, and not too much really bad pain and heartache. We’re a huge country with tons of money and resources and there are lots of decent people here who will try to do the right thing. We can think good thoughts and some of us can pray, while also simply getting prepped as we would anyway for a blizzard, ice storm, whatever, that knocks out all the usual modern services for few days, or a week or a month.
Even with the Grid and tee-vee and suchlike, as a kid growing up in small-town Maffachufetts we had “hurricane” lanterns (my parents vividly remembered the 1938 monster), a supply of canned goods, Sterno cans, matches, blankets, a battery radio, etc. Plenty of info and resources online for all this stuff.
The temp has rocketed up to 47 from 30 earlier this morning…kind of pahtly sunny, pahtly cloudy. And carpets of orange leaves on the ground everywhere.
Sounds like I better buy more ammo. 2,000 rounds is not enough.
The Mormon edict to store one year of food is also sounding better. Although, my Mormon friends store mostly peanut butter. Can you imagine eating peanut butter for a year? I watched “Cast Away” again last weekend. Tom Hanks ate coconuts and crabs for four years in the movie.
The federal spending cuts require dumping Medicaid, Department of Housing, Department of Education and Department of Energy on the first day in office for Romney. That will announce to people that we are serious. I do not think that this will happen.
I’d imagine so.
My son lived in Iraq for almost two years with outdoor plumbing in 2004 through 2006. To pee, they had pvc tubes into a common waste area. To poop, they had toilet seats on top of diesel drums. They burned those diesel drums occasionally (was punishment duty for bad marines). The real problem with the poop containers was that the varmints, especially camel spiders, liked to hang out in there due to the sun protection. One of his buddies had a camel spider drop in his lap one day and refused to close the door after that in case he needed to leave in a hurry.
The lack of pressurized CLEAN water is a BIG deal.
Outdoor plumbing, indoor plumbing; when ya gotta go, ya gotta GO!
New InTrade data:
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2012/10/24/romney-pulls-ahead-on-intrades-electoral-map/
“That will announce to people that we are serious. I do not think that this will happen.”
Me, neither. We are about as serious as Greece is.
Quite frankly, I can’t imaging eating peanut butter for a year. On the other hand, I imagine a lot of people in Greece are about to go from being incapable of imagining it to dreaming of it.
We’re working on improving our source of potable water and means of keeping it potable. We’re stockpiling flour, cornmeal, rice, beans, pasta, tomato sauce, tuna, and PEANUT BUTTER. Also, dry milk, powdered eggs, butter and cheese. Means of cooking, lighting and heating. Common ammo and means of making more. Etc.
The scenario could be a few days or a week off the Grid because of weather or “terrorist sabotage.” Or a couple of months of nationwide
“general unpleasantness.” While working up to a couple of years or maybe permanently going back in the time machine to circa 1900 here. Or we could have a real total shit-storm of apocalyptic proportions, in which case our measly preps are probably not gonna make the cut. Still, a lot of Euros managed to survive the post-Great War period there and again the post-Good War period. A lot of our own families made it through the Depression and subsequent war, and all that stuff is pretty apocalyptic.
I guess we shall see. But it can’t hurt to be as ready as we can, as my late dad’s Coast Guard motto sez: Semper Paratus.
I made bacon and eggs for breakfast. Then I voted for Romney/Ryan six times. lol
As to water purification, keep a few gallons of chlorine bleach on hand. The cheapest generic stuff you can find. Stored unopened, it keeps a long time. Also, keep some colorless PET 2-liter soda bottles. Most people aren’t aware that just filling these with water contaminated by microorganisms and allowing them to sit in direct sunlight for a day or two will kill anything in there. Bugs never remember to bring along sun block, and a day or two of UV exposure burns them to a crisp.
How are you storing your bulk solids? Five gallon plastic pails from Home Depot? And what do you do for oxygen absorbers?
Costco online has a selection of freeze dried goodies. Up to 25 years for some:
http://www.costco.com/CatalogSearch?storeId=10301&catalogId=10701&langId=-1&keyword=emergency
See http://www.emergency-preps.com/
Cheap water storage
Plenty more interesting topics, but I don’t want to blow the link limit.
The chlorine bleach is a good idea; we also have a well and are looking at the best and most reasonable-cost means might be of pumping from it (electric) if the juice cuts out here. Good tip on the soder bottles, too.
We’ve so fah got our bulk solids inside plastic liner bags inside 5- and 10-gallon pails and we use these oxygen absorbers:
http://beprepared.com/product.asp?pn=QM%20A101&sid=GOOGLE&gclid=CKKv3d6pmrMCFREx4AodeHAAhQ
I also forgot to mention we’re experimenting (new house and all) with how best to do our root cellar storage in our nice tight and dry basement; i.e., potatoes, carrots, beets, turnips, onions, garlic, etc, and the rest of the bulk storage. And in the spring we’ll be starting up a series of raised-bed projects and attached solar greenhouse operations on the shed out back. Also looking into the new solar roof panels that tack down like shingles.
We store water in PET soda bottles. There are hundreds of them around here. Some date back quite a while (as in pre-9/11). They’re 3-liter bottles, which I haven’t seen on supermarket shelves for years.
Regarding potable water, P&G developed something sold in developing countries that is pretty amazing. The packet combines something to kill live stuff with a floculant to settle out solids that can then be strained out. Initial development was for a commercial product but they eventually decided it would instead be sold near cost or perhaps below, and be part of their charitable efforts. As far as I know it is not available here, and I guessing it is because it can’t get approved. It would make a great addition to any survival stash.