09:22 – Work on The Ultimate Family Prepping Guide continues. I’d forgotten just how much I enjoy heads-down writing: organizing thoughts, checking facts, constructing sentences that say exactly what I want to say without ambiguity.
I’ve decided to organize the book in three sections: I. The First Month; II. The First Year; and III. Long Term. That inevitably means some duplication, but the overall structure is more important than wasting some space.
I was stubbing out Appendix A yesterday. It’s about building a library, and I suggest getting both print books and ebooks. (There’s no reason ebooks wouldn’t be useful in an emergency, assuming you have a solar charger or other means of keeping your Kindle operating.) Just out of curiosity, I visited Pirate Bay and searched for “prepping”. They had 29 items available, most of which were collections with anything from dozens to hundreds of titles. Many of those were military field/training manuals, short essays, and so on, but there were scores of actual prepping books. After taking a quick look at several of those, I came to three conclusions: (1) most people can’t write; (2) most people don’t know what they’re talking about; and (3) there is a great deal overlap between those two groups.
11:51 – More bad news from Texas. A second health-care worker who cared for Duncan has been diagnosed with Ebola. Like the first one, no one knows how she caught it. And yet the propaganda machine keeps spewing out statements about how difficult it is to become infected with Ebola and that it requires intimate contact with the body fluids of patients showing symptoms. These statements are false, or at best wishful thinking. The truth is that no one knows for sure how easily transmissible this new strain of Ebola is, whether or not infected people who are asymptomatic can infect others, or what length of quarantine is necessary for people who have been exposed to the virus.
The fundamental principle of epidemiology is to stop the spread of an infection as the absolute top priority, which means isolating/quarantining those who are infected and those who may be infected. That’s not being done here. We continue to allow potential carriers from West Africa into the US, and even people known to be infected. Obama should have deployed a carrier battle group to the west coast of Africa a month ago, with orders to shoot down any airliner that tried to take off and to cut road and railway transport to and from the affected areas. Deliver medical supplies by parachute. Those in the affected areas should not be allowed to leave, including volunteers who traveled there to help treat the victims. I don’t care if they are American citizens. If you’re there, you stay there until it can be guaranteed absolutely that you are not a threat to those outside the affected areas. Period.
13:22 – I’ve been reading more of the details about how ill-prepared that Texas hospital was and is to deal with a BSL-4 pathogen. Infected materials stacked in open areas, nurses told to cover their necks with surgical tape(!), a complete lack of appropriate procedures. The irony is that the government has been telling us for weeks now that Ebola cannot break out in the US because our facilities and procedures are so much better than those in West Africa, when the reality seems to be that even bush hospitals in West Africa are better at preventing the spread of the virus.
And in more joyful news, Novant Health, one of the largest hospital operators in the Southeast, announced that Ebola cases would be concentrated in three of their hospitals, one in Charlotte, one in Virginia, and Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem. There’s a front-page article in this morning’s paper, Birthing Center is far from Ebola area. I guess it depends on one’s definition of “far”. The Ebola area is on the first floor. Women’s specialties are on floors three and four, an entire two or three floors away from the plague carriers. Geez.
Wow! HIllary is definitely dropping the pounds. Can only mean one thing.
Robert – May I suggest you take a look at the Personal Defense Network (PDN) http://www.personaldefensenetwork.com/ site. If you sign up for their newsletter you will get some good information, and yes also pitches for their products but not at the spam level of way too many newsletters. The PDN occasionally has membership sales that get you unlimited access to premium content. I got a deal last year for $9.95 and have found it well worth it. They have information for kids and the ladies, not just for us macho men š .
Thanks, but I doubt that I can learn much about defense from such sites. I started shooting and hunting when I was 12, studied martial arts extensively, attended Jeff Cooper’s Gunsite Raven when Cooper was running it, misspent much of my youth making and using explosives, and on and on. My time is limited, so I intend to focus my research time on things I’m less conversant with.
Thereās no reason ebooks wouldnāt be useful in an emergency, assuming you have a solar charger or other means of keeping your Kindle operating.
I would want a flash drive backup of all of my ebooks in an unprotected format. I don’t want to only rely on the DRM infested Kindle.
Rick in Portland
Thanks, but I doubt that I can learn much about defense from such sites.
For those of us who could learn something, I suggest a chapter on armed and unarmed defense, including recommended resources. Even if I had an arsenal at home, I can’t carry it with me everywhere.
Rick in Portland
Yeah, I’m covering stuff like cracking DRM, downloading torrents, etc. in great detail.
And I’ll be writing in detail about defense. In practical terms for most people, the best choice for home defense is a short-barrel open-choke shotgun loaded with buck or birdshot. (At in-home distances, birdshot is just as devastating as buck. It’s the same ounce to ounce-and-a-half of lead pellets impacting an area 2″ to 6″ in diameter. In fact, large birdshot–#4, 3, 2, or BB–is still pretty effective out to 20 yards or so.) For carry, if it’s legally permissible, a heavy-caliber pistol or revolver is the best choice. Otherwise, a can of bear spray.
I donāt want to only rely on the DRM infested Kindle.
As posted here many times, I use Calibre for library management and run all my Kindle purchases through it to remove DRM. Great piece of software for multiple platforms.
I ordered the new Kindle Voyage (since I get a fat military pension, thanks all you tax payers). I expect if the hardware has changed, Calibre will support it shortly.
Question for Dr. Bob, do “all” Kindle books come DRM’d? I’ve never checked, just plop them into Calibre for management and reading on other devices as epub.
A second health-care worker who cared for Duncan has been diagnosed with Ebola.
I read in the Duncan case, medical waste was piled floor to ceiling just for him. Blood, vomit, piss and feces soaked items. Just sitting somewhere. This hospital was not the place for him. People should be scared shitless. Medical waste disposal goes to the lowest bidder. They will probably say it was incinerated, but it was just taken to the nearest dump and buried. In Lousiana I hear.
Robert, my point was not that you, or many others who frequent your site, needed this but this would be a good refresher and maybe model. These folks are pros and not gun/prepper wackos.
Right now the highest level of staff protection in the vast majority of hospitals is paper suits, vinyl backed paper aprons, standard sterile nitrile gloves standard face masks, plastic splash hood, and cloth booties. At best this is a Level D Hazmat suit. And none really have a dedicated true isolation unit. The level of NBC training is a joke.
Even Level 1 Trauma Centers do not have anything above a Level C Hazmat suit.
I still contend though that the Enterovirus D68 recently brought across the border and now in all 50 states is a crisis that has been bumped off the news and front page by the Ebola talk and it is affecting many more people, mostly children but also 20 and 30 somethings.
Not all. Those that list device usage as “unlimited” (including my O’Reilly/MAKE titles) have no copy-protection. You get the choice of DRM or not when you first publish the book on Amazon. Probably the majority of self-pubbed titles nowadays have no DRM, and an increasing percentage from traditional publishers as well.
Certainly. I didn’t mean to sound arrogant. I learn new things every day. But it’s a matter of time allocation. I’m already at what I’d estimate as 99% on defense, including not just small arms, IEDs, and so on, but stuff like fortifications, obstacles and fields of fire, small-unit tactics, etc. So the time I do have available is better spent researching and checking stuff that I’m not so well qualified on.
As to Ebola, it’s considered to be a BSL-4 pathogen. Not only are these facilities not BSL-4, many don’t even qualify for BSL-2. The idea of handling materials infected with Ebola virus in even a BSL-3 facility scares me. Handling them in general hospitals with untrained staff and inadequate equipment and procedures scares me to death.
Net down here since last Friday. Thanks to blown modem & Fairpoint; in midst of upgrade to biz package. When it rains it pours. Back on when I can. Cheers!
Have you noticed how much Hilary looks like Eva Peron (old) nowadays?
Sir Paul McCartney was freaking awesome as me and my 20,000 new friends can attest to. 39 songs in three hours of playing, excellent for a 72 year gent and his unnamed band.
http://www.dfw.com/2014/10/14/935152/review-paul-mccartney-at-american.html
The Second Ebola case traveled by air from Dallas to Cleveland and back within the last few days…
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/15/texas-health-care-worker-ebola-second-case/17290575/
The authorities’ handling of the Ebola situation has been, to put it as gently as possible, stupifyingly incompetent. Enough so that I begin to wonder if Napoleon’s Maxim, so often quoted by Jerry Pournelle, even applies here.
Medical waste disposal goes to the lowest bidder. They will probably say it was incinerated, but it was just taken to the nearest dump and buried. In Lousiana I hear.
After some disasters in the past, medical waste disposal is pretty heavily regulated. The firm involved was going to incinerate it, then bury the ash in LA. Not a real risk.
As posted here many times, I use Calibre for library management and run all my Kindle purchases through it to remove DRM. Great piece of software for multiple platforms.
Calibre will fix DRM infested files. I do not trust Amazon not to have some secret gotchas in the hardware itself.
Rick in Portland
A second nurse here in Dallas has just tested positive for Ebola …
Please correct me if I am wrong because I am not well-versed on the topic…
That said. Isn’t there a fundamental flaw with biosafetly level ratings? When a patient comes in “not feeling well” they don’t know if it is any one of a thousand different diagnoses. Once they do determine it is, for example, Ebola that person (and their bodily fluids) have come in contact with all sorts of people and things at that facility. Now, at that point they can scream BSL-4 all they want, but the horse is already out of the barn at that point. So, either EVERY medical clinic in the US needs run at BSL-4 levels at ALL times and treats every ill person as if they have a BSL-4 level illness (I cannot even begin to fathom the costs in dollars and manpower), or we have to accept the fact that undiagnosed people with BSL-4 contagions are wandering around BSL-1, BSL-2, and BSL-3 facilities. I’m not sure how you even begin to combat that problem.
Can we start panicking now?
Obama Postpones Campaign Trip to Hold Ebola Cabinet Meeting
(Link goes to WSJ; Google the article title if you hit the paywall.)
Yes, of course. No procedure is perfect, and there’s no practical way to make them so. However, the real point is that you can’t change the past but you can control what steps you take once a hazard is known to exist. And with something as dangerous as Ebola, you need to treat patient care as secondary to preventing the infection from spreading to uninfected people or those merely suspected of being potentially infected. How would you like to go to a hospital with a slight fever and be put in a large ward full of people, some of whom were already known to be infected. That’s why individual isolation is important. Move symptomatic people to a common area, yes, but put them in tents and supply filtered air to the individual tents to isolate them from the others in the ward. When it’s certain that someone is infected, move them to the Ebola ward, incinerate everything they’ve come into contact with, and wash down the surrounding area with bleach.
Can we start panicking now?
You can, I will not. Obama is an idiot and is just doing this to show that he thinks he is on top of things when really he is not.
What we should have done is blocked ALL people from one of the infested countries from entering the US. Do that based on passport. Does not matter if they are citizens or not. For non US people they are turned away. US citizens are quarantined for a minimum of 21 days at their expense. They choose to go to one of those countries, they pay the price.
Any healthcare worker in the US that has had contact with any Ebola patient in the US is restricted from all forms of public transportation and they are quarantined for 21 days at their hospital’s expense as it is job related. Family members are monitored at hospital or CDC expense.
I see where the infected nurse traveled on Frontier airlines 1173 from Cleveland to Dallas. I bet all 132 people on the plane are really pleased with that little incident from that trollop of a nurse. She knew she had possible exposure and flew anyway exposing others. When she recovers they should shoot her. If she does not recover then she got what she deserves for being an idiot.
@Ray Thompson: Egad, man! Obama canceled a CAMPAIGN TRIP!!! This Ebola thing must be, like, y’know, really really SERIOUS!
Obola is probably just worried that golf courses might close if the disease goes epidemic.
Last we heard from OFD, he was about to unformat a hard drive. I’d just kinda figured it had gone wrong. Very wrong.
The latest Ebola patient apparently contacted the CDC to tell them she had a low-grade fever, and they cleared her to fly…
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/10/15/ebola-patient-traveled-day-before-diagnosis/
Yep. And she’s more “progressed” than the first nurse.
And the Dallas mayor says he wouldn’t be surprised to learn there’s another infected person, which the cynical side of me interprets as meaning he already knows of one. Or more than one.
But it’s OK. Hospitals can’t afford to follow proper precautions anyway.
MrAtoz:
In a nice coincidence, I got a pamphlet from BC/BS of Florida in today’s mail. It seems that my premium for 2015 will go up to $387.92 . š
My first reaction is skepticism, but they say it has been a Skunk Works project. If that means what it used to mean…
Lockheed Martin Pursuing Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Concept
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/press-releases/2014/october/141015ae_lockheed-martin-pursuing-compact-nuclear-fusion.html
Hospitals canāt afford to follow proper precautions anyway.
That’s OK. Hospitals will just bill the rest of us at least triple the normal rate. The incompetence of the CDC and the Obola administration will just pass the costs on to the rest of the population. Those that leach on society need not be concerned as everything is “on the house”.
MrAtoz:
In a nice coincidence, I got a pamphlet from BC/BS of Florida in todayās mail. It seems that my premium for 2015 will go up to $387.92 . š
Thanks for posting. My own Tricare Military Retired went from $465 to $495 per year. Early projections were they would increase Tricare based on rank. Mine would go to over $2,000 a year for a family. That hasn’t happened.
My first reaction is skepticism, but they say it has been a Skunk Works project. If that means what it used to meanā¦
I remember we discussed this some time back when Lockheed first mentioned this. I remember they were using focused radio waves or something.
I hope it works. I could live with a fusion reactor in my garage.
Still alive here; drive issue ok/pending resolved net status. Fairpoint opened a ticket & dispatching a “technician” etc. This sucks. Good thing I have books & radio & vids on the pooter.
Sent from my wunnerful iPhone 4.
We aren’t preppers in any sense of the word, although we do have quite a lot of food in the house. However, with the Ebola situation, I have convinced my wife that we ought to have some basic stocks, in case things really go pear shaped. She looked at me pretty incredulously when I suggested it, but after an hour or so she came back and was talking about the lists that used to be recommended for bomb shelters (wasn’t too long ago, all houses here were built with their own bomb shelter).
We won’t do as much as some of y’all, but a few weeks worth of staples, some canned vegetables. I’ll see if I can find one of those bomb shelter lists…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-16/experienced-gunman-who-shot-intruder-gets-8-years-in-jail/5818210
Would this happen in the US? A guy was breaking in with intent to steal, and was shot dead. The shooter didn’t know he had a live round in the gun (so why did he aim and fire?) I’d be comatose after 42 stubbies, let alone the bongs – although I’m sure OFD would be just warming up.
From the article:
In sentencing Justice Lex Lasry told D’Angelo it was a tragedy he had not reached for his phone instead of a loaded gun.
“The fact that his death was so avoidable in so many ways makes it all the more tragic,” said Justice Lasry.
“No reasonable person should ever point a gun at another person and pull the trigger.”
The court heard D’Angelo had consumed up to 42 stubbies of beer and as many as 35 bongs of marijuana in the hours leading up to the shooting.
D’Angelo earlier told the court he did not realise his gun had a live round in the chamber when he lined up Mr Vandenberg’s head and shot him.
I hope it works. I could live with a fusion reactor in my garage.
I want one in my Delorean. Now I just have to find a working flux capacitor.
That is a weird story – the weed and alcohol seems fairly irrelevant, and the idea that you would point a gun and pull the trigger thinking there isn’t a round in the chamber is bizarre.
That said, my position would be: Intruders breaking in while you are there? You have to assume they have a plan to deal with you, and it isn’t likely to be good for your health. In the USA, this would be self-defense, plain and simple (but the weed/alcohol muddy the picture unnecessarily).
Would it have helped in AU if he had played up the self-defense angle? Or is self-defense not allowed?
In this particular case, it was a business outside of normal hours. The intruders may really have thought the place was empty. In which case, a critical question would be: did he show himself and give them fair warning to GTFO? Even if not, sorry, I do not see a crime. Being smashed is not a crime. Defending your turf should not be a crime.
“We arenāt preppers in any sense of the word”
You are now. I declare you an official prepper.
May I quote your message in the book?
Of course you can, no problem.
Thanks.
I’ve looked at a couple of lists, just to get an idea. Something I find really odd is that the lists include prepared foods. Spaghetti sauce? Why not canned tomatoes and spices. If you can boil pasta, you can make a basic pasta sauce. Pudding mix? You already have all the ingredients needed to make desserts, any anyway, dessert is surly a luxury item. Pasta I do understand – it’s a pain to make in large quantities, and it keeps forever.
It seems to me that storing the basic ingredients is more flexible and more efficient. What am I missing?
Popcorn?
I know the calorie game comes into play in a survival situation. If you burn 2,000 calories a day scrounging up 1,500 calories worth of food, then you are going to slowly starve to death.
So, it becomes a game of how do you get the most bang for your buck from a calorie and nutrition perspective?
If you’re looking at old fallout shelter lists, they typically contain lots of prepared foods because cooking in a shelter often isn’t desirable or even possible. As a basic premise, keep in mind that things you take for granted now, such as turning a knob on the stove and cooking something, may not be nearly as easy in an emergency.
The judge ruled: āNo reasonable person should ever point a gun at another person and pull the trigger.ā
So cops aren’t reasonable? I always thought so! I can think of many reasons I would both point a gun and pull the trigger. I suspect if D’Angelo had reached for the phone, he might be the one dead. As Bob often quotes “When seconds counts, the police are only minutes away”.
It helps to wear the appropriate jewelry to court:
http://www.south-life.com/sl/lizzy-j-s/necklaces-and-other.html
Many years ago I saw a television report of a guy who shot someone entering his home via a window. He was hit in the guts and took so much damage to his intestines that he needed to have a colostomy. The home owner said that the invader rushed him when he told him to freeze, forcing him to pull the trigger. The invader denied this. I don’t remember how it turned out but I have no sympathy for the guy who was doing the break in. If he hadn’t been acting illegally he wouldn’t have been shot.
I’m in favor of stand-your-ground laws and the Castle Doctrine, but I really think it needs to go further. Your home should be a freehold, in which you are sovereign and not subject to any laws of any jurisdiction other than your own. In other words, for actions taken within your home or on your property, you are not subject to local, state, federal, or international law.
In this particular case, it was a business outside of normal hours. The intruders may really have thought the place was empty. In which case, a critical question would be: did he show himself and give them fair warning to GTFO? Even if not, sorry, I do not see a crime. Being smashed is not a crime. Defending your turf should not be a crime.
Do not fire a warning shot! If you point a gun at someone then shoot them.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/how-florida-works-kill-a-man-go-free-fire-a-warning-shot-and-injure-no-one-20-years/
Even if someone blows up their house and most of the subdivision killing two neighbors trying to get money from their homeowners insurance company?
It helps to wear the appropriate jewelry to court:
Or while traveling by plane. š
“…wasnāt too long ago, all houses here were built with their own bomb shelter…”
Just curious, Brad, where is that? I have never seen a house with a bomb shelter that wasn’t built by the owner.
Jim, I’m in Switzerland. Up until the 80s or so, all new construction here had to include a bomb shelter. Not sure of the exact date the requirement was dropped. Our current house is actually too old – this started after WWII
“In other words, for actions taken within your home or on your property, you are not subject to local, state, federal, or international law.”
Cool. This is now a freehold. I can do anything I want. I make the laws here at Chez OFD. I will begin by setting up a torture chamber for people I kidnap and bring here, mainly politicians, lawyers and financial speculators. Their screaming will be heard for quite a distance and will last for weeks.
When I get too old and sick to function well anymore, I intend to take a page from the Dave B. playbook and blow the place to Kingdom Come while making it look like an accident, so family can pull down the insurance proceeds. Some of the neighbors and the town hall and gas station will probably go up in flames, too.
No problemo, senor; it’s a freehold.
financial speculators
How about land speculators?
Sure, send them on up; the more the merrier! Ima gon make ’em squeal like piggies!