09:21 – Barbara spent the night over at her dad’s place. She’s home tonight and then pulling a double over at her dad’s place Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Frances is doing Thursday and Friday nights.
Frances called yesterday because she was concerned about a redness around their dad’s injury. She decided to haul Dutch over to the private emergency care place to have it looked at. They said it was no big deal, but prescribed an antibiotic and saline irrigation. Frances picked up the antibiotic, but Barbara said she’d stop on her way over after dinner to pick up the 0.9% saline wash they’d suggested. I told Barbara I’d make it up right here in the sink and save her the trouble of stopping at the drugstore. I just dissolved 9 grams of table salt in a liter of tap water, and didn’t bother to autoclave it. After all, more airborne bacteria will settle on Dutch’s skin during the irrigation than are present in a whole liter of tap water.
Science kit sales have picked up over last month. In the first three days of March, we’ve sold five kits, and we’re averaging about 0.80 kits/day year-to-date. That’s pretty scary, given that in the first three months of 2012 we averaged about 0.12 kits/day. This is our slowest time of year. Factoring in seasonality, that puts us on track to sell 1,500 kits in 2013, assuming we can build and ship that many.
13:01 – I see that Latvia has formally applied to join the eurozone, which is kind of like formally applying to board the Titanic. After it’s already hit the iceberg.
I think it’s safe to say that no sane person, including sane politicians (if there is such a thing), would want to be a member of the eurozone. If you’re in one of the dozen or so worse-off countries, the euro is choking the life out of your economy and causing severe social unrest that may end in revolution. If you’re in Germany or (decreasingly) Austria, Finland, Holland, or Luxembourg, being in the euro means you’re on the hook for paying the multi-trillion euro bills of the worse off eurozone countries. What’s not to hate? Crappy taste. More filling. Geez.
I told Barbara I’d make it up right here in the sink and save her the trouble of stopping at the drugstore
She bent down and turned around and gave me a wink
She said “I’m gonna make it up right here in the sink”
It smelled like turpentine and looked like India ink
I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink
Why does DHS need APCs? Isn’t that why we have a military? Oh, wait, Obummer has them all out of country.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/03/obama-dhs-purchases-2700-light-armored-tanks-to-go-with-their-1-6-billion-bullet-stockpile/
http://www.fritchman.com/journal/?p=1223
If this worries you, just wait until they start ordering M1A2 Abrams tanks. Or maybe they’ll settle for the older models currently in NG inventory.
Well, it may turn out to be very interesting at some point in this country; let’s look at the recent nooz concerning Leviathan’s continuing acquisition of armaments and personnel and loose scuttlebutt about ‘civil unrest,” and the like; here are some possible questions:
Where is civil unrest most likely to take place in CONUS?
Why does there seem to be more Fed concern about civil unrest than terrorist attacks lately?
Isn’t it odd that there has been one horrible mass murder after another in the country with firearms in the hands of young male lunatics who’ve been on various forms of psychiatric treatment and psychotropic drugs? Followed by gummint and media squalling about gun control and subsequent legislation, or attempted legislation, accompanied by bald-ass threats to do even more?
Assuming Leviathan’s armor, aircraft and troops ever get directed at American citizens, what would be the appropriate and best tactical responses, if any?
And last, but not least, how many casualties is Leviathan prepared to create to retain its hegemony and rule in this country? The last time this came up, the rulers were prepared to keep going, evidently, but managed to establish control by the time a million or so Americans were dead and millions more wounded or injured and half the country in an economic and political shambles.
Carry those figures forward to current population levels, we could be looking at around 7-million dead and a score of millions wounded, injured, or in prison. With the national economy and political infrastructure in ruins. Followed by famine, disease, etc.
Are the One Percent and their stooges willing to inflict this kind of damage to stay in power?
OFD, you are paranoid. Of course, you know the saying: “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you”.
Seriously, DHS stockpiling ammo, the feds subsidizing military equipment for local police forces, etc, etc. It seems entirely clear that someone is considering civil unrest to be a real possibility. What’s unfortunate: if civil unrest is becoming likely, they could also have taken the opposite tack, namely, address the root causes. Of course, building an army designed for domestic deployment is probably easier…
“…address the root causes.”
Yeah. When elephants fly and pigs learn to whistle. Much easier to crush opposition or perceived opposition with blunt force.
“… they’re not after you”.
Oh, I didn’t say or necessarily even think that anyone is after me personally; not yet, anyway. Mass civil unrest has occurred in this country before, but it may come again on a much larger scale; inner cities could blow up again, for example. Or if people are truly hurting and desperate, so could the ‘burbs and exurbs.
Or maybe we will all just continue to roll merrily along, somehow muddling through, while our rulers keep kicking the cans down the road indefinitely. A lot of folks clearly want to believe this and find it difficult to believe otherwise; we couldn’t possibly end up as bad off as Europe between, during and after the world wars, or Greece currently; could we? We are so rich and powerful and smart, ya know.
Like the Germans circa 1914 and 1938.
And the Russians 1945-1990s.
Yeah, but as I keep saying, it doesn’t work. It’s never worked, at least not for long. That’s why governments through history have always brought in mercenaries from far away. Sure, it may work for a while, and civilians may be slaughtered by military forces. But sooner or later, usually sooner, the ranks get tired of slaughtering civilians that are much like they are. Maine and Vermont boys aren’t going to continue gunning down North Carolina civilians any more than North Carolina boys are going to keep gunning down Oregon and Idaho civilians. Eventually, they turn on their officers, if indeed the officers haven’t already turned on their commanders. And then they go over to the other side, taking their equipment with them.
Governments always try to demonize the other side. Again, that may work for a while, but not for long in homogenized America.
I seriously don’t know if troops from different states would willingly shoot people in other more distant states for even a short time. Not on a large scale, anyway; probably more so for small, targeted ops, but even that would get old after a while. Which is one reason, maybe, when we see movies and tee-vee shows about troops occupying American towns and regions it’s always guys from Cuba, Russia, North Korea, China, wherever. And if they take this tack, those guys from them other places ain’t gonna last too long.
On the other hand if the rulers are OK with a few million citizens being killed to stay in power, they won’t hesitate to roll out the tanks and Warthogs. I suspect, though, that tank drivers and Warthog pilots may hesitate to blow up fellow Americans. And if not, there are ways of getting to them.
I really hope and pray that it doesn’t come anywhere near this level of violence but I also read history books a lot and don’t put much past any given State at any given time.
That’s the thing that keeps governments awake at night: people can be pushed only so far.
We’re seeing that now in Greece, and to a (for now) lesser extent in Spain, Italy, and the rest of the southern tier. These governments are sitting on powder kegs.
Yeah, we haven’t reached the powder keg stage yet here. Maybe we won’t. But somebody in Leviathan apparently thinks we may, due to their stocking up on armaments and ammo and heavy weapons systems. Not to mention stockpiling large stores of ammo in remote locations around the country, and ramping up domestic drone programs and the NSA spying on all communications. Do they know something we don’t?
This still brings up the question of just how perhaps two or three million Leviathan employees are gonna control and repress over 300-million other people armed with a billion firearms. New historical territory, as will be the Great Default when it happens.
Maine and Vermont boys aren’t going to continue gunning down North Carolina civilians any more than North Carolina boys are going to keep gunning down Oregon and Idaho civilians.
Everyone hates or envies California (though I note we have a lot less to envy nowadays). We’re DOOMED I tell ya.
But then again we’ve mostly been occupied by Mexico anyway.
Yes, that region is increasingly referred to as Mexifornia, Aztlan, La Reconquista, etc. To include AZ, NM and pahts of TX and CO. Habla Espanol, senor?
Our little region was becoming occupied by NFAH’s (Not From Around Here) types, usually arriving from places like Babylon On The Hudson, Long Island, CT, Nova Caesarea, and Maffachufetts. They like to, upon arrival, set about assiduously recreating the places they came from while somehow still maintaining the park-like quality and scenic beauty they supposedly came here for. So a lot of the Lake Champlain watershed from Rut-Vegas (Rutland) up to Burlap (Burlington) looks amazingly like NJ and MA, except for the several hundred square miles of farmland directly to the east.
Our little village on the bay has so fah been spared this stuff, but I dread, and have bad dreams about, old farmers nearby retiring soon with kids who want no part of farming, and who then sell off acreage to rapacious developers who immediately bulldoze everything in sight flat and construct hundreds of cookie-cutter McMansions. If that happens, we will seriously consider moving to the western Maine mountains or further northeast to the coastal Maritimes.
Maybe Greenland, which, according to the global warming climate change crowd will soon be the new Banana Belt, as Megalopolis slips beneath the waves…
I see that Latvia has formally applied to join the eurozone, which is kind of like formally applying to board the Titanic. After it’s already hit the iceberg.
Genuine LOL chuckle there. Going to pass it along.
Do try and catch Ripper Street. It’s really good.
WTF happened to the people in Latvia? Did a flying saucer scan them from above and turn them into Euro-imbeciles? Is the water there bad? Something in the air?
Jeezum Crow, that is sad. After all they’ve been through, with the other Baltic states. Sad.
In line with Bob’s recommendations on Netflix stuff, my next choice will be “Homeland,” just as soon as I catch the rest of the Skynyrd concert they did in Germany a few years ago; Mrs. OFD doesn’t care for them but I kinda like Southern rock and blues.
22 here in the Bay; it had hit fotty down in the Plantation Banana Belt while I was at work for a gigantic global corporation or two; which leads me to this:
(rant/vent) ON: Jackass cretins who insist on displaying themselves as jogging, in shorts and/or spandex, during the afternoon rush hour on a state highway very close to several very large companies and a number of businesses, in frigid weather with snow squall in progress. I so, so, so wish I had a Nerf Bar on the truck in order to sweep them off the damn road….
(rant/vent) OFF
Brad wrote:
‘OFD, you are paranoid. Of course, you know the saying: “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you”.’
Everybody’s jealous of me now that I’m no longer paranoid.
That was a near-miss, Miles_Teg. How about, Everybody’s jealous of me now that I’m no longer paranoid. They just can’t stand it when someone is happy. They can’t stand it and they’re all trying to ruin my happiness.
Daily Pundit mentioned this, with chest-thumping comments on how to torch ACs. I stick with what I said there: get away from the hard targets and hit the soft targets. Insurgents (aka domestic terrorists, preppers, civil unresters, TEA party members, and individualists) almost always lose when going against a professional military force. (And while the training and discipline of the typical stupid pig is far from professional, their equipment is certainly first-rate.) In fact, I can’t think of any insurgents who could stand up to professional forces unless they had very good support from another state power.
Drifting a bit from the topic, I suppose an idea is to go to the Chinese or Norks for RPGs and such, to assist in the resistance to the totalitarian government we currently have, but I don’t think that’s a step anyone wants to take and I can’t see any good coming of it anyway.
“I suppose an idea is to go to the Chinese or Norks for RPGs…”
Hm, Norks is a South Australian word for breasts, so I assume you meant something else 🙂
Wow! Does she have a pair of RPGs under that sweater or what?
Am in nevada this week learning how to fire my xdm .40 the Front Sight way. Am freaking exhausted and only fired 100 rounds, 2 at a time. My firing line partner is shooting a 1911 which is a little tricky for me.
There are 1000 people here training. It is an amazing place.
Admit it Lynn, you’re just getting old. I wasn’t sure exactly what an xdm .40 looked like so I Googled it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Necz8XJeaI
Did you post a link to one a few months ago? Looked a bit science fictionistic to me.
I seem to recall one instance from history class where it worked. I think it was somewhere in North America in the 18th Century.
It worked here mainly because the Brits didn’t really have their hearts and minds in it fully, Washington played cat-and-mouse with them long enough, and we had help from the French. So in future, maybe the current regime won’t have their hearts in it, either, and we can get help from…???? Any ideas?
The second American Revolution may be more pertinent.
The Third, you mean. The Second ended in failure in 1865.
No, I was referring to the second one.
The War of 1812 was/is sometimes referred to as the Second American Revolution but perhaps Bob has this in mind instead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Samuel Williams of Vermont wanted to keep these things going.
Down with the rebels!
Long Live Her Majesty!
Miles, do they deserve the benefits of a Constitutional Monarchy? Or should we conserve our energies, leaving them to suffer as they are, under the
masterspoliticians they have, working within the system(?) they have?Hey guys; speaking for myself only, but I suspect I may have like-minded people here; we’ll trade you O-Bummer, the Mooch, Nanny Bloomberg, Vampire State Governor Cuomo, and Larry Klinton and his lovely wife Bruno for: wassername that just married into the Royal Family. Kate, is it? Yeah. Bring her and you can take the above with our blessings.
Hey! You guys created them, you can keep them.
Ya gotta come back begging, BEGGING I say, asking Her Majesty to let y’all back into the fold. Execute your political class, all 10,000,000 of them, disinter those traitorous rebels that started you down this path and do with their remains what Charles II did with the regicides.