08:24 – We’re seeing the first signs of spring around here. Colin and I spotted a robin yesterday. He stalked and tried to pounce it. Our highs over the coming few days are to be in the middle 50’s to low 60’s (~ 13C to 17C), with lows well above freezing.
I burned Mutant World to disc yesterday, but I’m not sure I’ll watch it. I jumped to the very end of the video, which had a bunch of the humans standing around, but Amber Marshall wasn’t among them. I’m afraid that means she got eaten, and I really don’t want to watch her be killed and eaten. Or eaten and killed.
I’m still working on the prepping book. Right now, I’m jumping around the chapters on security and defense, EMP, and nuclear emergencies, adding material here and there.
I’ll be out for a short while doing some errands and will look around here for any possible signs of spring but I’m not too optimistic.
I would imagine there are different levels of nuke emergencies; historical examples being Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and for local Japanese residents, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oh, and that other one in Japan recently.
Now we have the additional possible threat of, oh, I dunno, say, a hadji sleeper cell that got across, gee, I dunno, maybe the Mexican border? And is now assembling from parts, one of the little darlings maybe having some relevant education and training paid for by a rich daddy, a dirty nuke device or two or three, for detonations in major North Murkan cities. The standard probable targets being NYC and DC.
Those would certainly be bona-fide nuclear emergencies. And would most likely guarantee a total martial law lockdown nationwide and retaliation somewhere, probably the wrong target, of course.
Signs of Spring – looks like we’re finally there, after a very wet last six months or so. A solid week of sunshine supposed to be coming up, so it’s about time to hit the garden.
Sleeper cells and big bombs? Not impossible – not really even all that unlikely. And you’re right: the really big tragedy would be the imposition of martial law, under some euphemism or other.
Knocking down two buildings and killing 3000 people caused the Patriot Act, created Homeland Security, and directly let the USA to attack three Middle-Eastern countries (or maybe four, if you count deliberately destabilizing Syria).
All of which has ended so wonderfully that I shudder to think what insanity a larger attack would cause.
A larger attack would generate events on a truly historical scale and we’d be treading on relatively new historical ground as well, uncharted. This is the third-largest country in the world and the most well-armed in human history.
I ain’t seen no dam signs of spring around here yet, after a leisurely ten-mile circuit of the “city” and town.
The actual radiation threat would be very localized in any likely scenario. That’s up to and including the worst (short of full-out nuclear war), such as was portrayed in the TV series Jericho. A couple dozen fission bombs being set off in cities around the US is not likely, but certainly possible. In that event, the cities themselves would suffer badly, but the radiation effects would be very limited. Setting off a 10 KT fission bomb at ground level in a typical city center would result in an area of total destruction with a radius of perhaps a few hundred yards. Local fallout would be heavy, but depending on winds acutely dangerous delayed radiation levels would be mostly restricted to an area of perhaps a few miles’ radius on windless days to a plume extending some miles downwind. As with any fallout, radiation levels quickly decline. The major threats would be what panicked people would do, not just in the affected cities, but in every city and town in the country, and what the government would do. We’d quickly become a police state under martial law. Those of us who are prepared would find the government confiscating our supplies. People the government deemed “hoarders” would likely be shot out of hand. Which is why I and many others are prepared to shoot back.
Example of how I know I need to take a break from writing:
CD V-715/717/720 survey meter
In the 50’s and 60’s, the federal government purchased more than 500,000 CD V-7xx series survey meters, nearly all of which were sold as surplus in the 70’s and 80’s. These are high-rate meters, covering 0.1 R/h to 500 R/h. The CD V-715 was made in by far the largest numbers. The CD V-717 is simply a 715 with detachable ionization chamber and connecting cable, which allows the sensor to be placed outside a shelter with the meter remaining inside. Both of these meters detect only gamma radiation. The CD V-720 is a modified 715 with a window into the ionization chamber that may be uncovered to allow the unit to detect high-level beta radiation as well as gamma.
The 0.1 R/h threshold sensitivity of these meters makes them useless for the common tasks that keep the CD V-700 so popular. (Even at 0.1 R/h, you should venture outside shelter only for the most urgent of tasks.) This limited utility means there’s not much ongoing demand for them, so prices are low. As of early 2015, you can still find units in their original boxes on eBay for as little as $20 or $30. At that price, we wouldn’t be without one because these units do have practical applications in the types of nuclear radiation emergencies we’re discussing in this chapter.
Remember that what is unacceptable in normal times—such as being exposed to 0.1 R/h—might well be a non-issue in a real shitpot motherfucker of an emergency…
“People the government deemed “hoarders” would likely be shot out of hand. Which is why I and many others are prepared to shoot back.”
There it is.
Under that scenario, I can see raging pitched battles at various locations around the country, and it would take months or years to sort out, with some regions under de facto State control via martial law, and other areas in some stage of anarchy and outlawry.
I can also see the government shooting “hoarders” out of hand and confiscating their supplies while being extremely niggardly about releasing their own supplies, and that only after their own minions and stooges are taken care of. With bounties on supply caches discovered and the “hoarders” apprehended. Folks caught with various firearms and/or ammo also shot out of hand. And those folks and their kin would likely take the opportunity to reduce the numbers of bureaucrats, lawyers, and financial speculators, plus anyone they think might be of the One Percent. It would be a real circus for a long time.
Or, we could just blithely sail along and not worry about it, as there is little we can do about it, short of preparing ourselves and protecting our families and property insofar as we are able. With any luck at all, maybe we’ll just meander and muddle into a very slow and relatively painless dystopian slide.
I suspect, however, that this regime in its current incarnation, is itself preparing for some kind of major situation this year, not sure what it is yet, but it’s gonna be a doozy. Possibly economic/financial? They keep trying the anti-gun stuff but they get bit back hard all over, so I dunno if that’s it. Overseas wars? Another 20 million illegal immigrats/Dem voters? We shall see.
“…might well be a non-issue…”
Indeed. A lot things would fall by the wayside immediately, including the very thin veneer of “civilization” and an orderly civil society. In some areas, Mr. Hobbes’s ‘state of nature,’ where the hand of every man is raised against every other man. His solution, of course, was a rigid monarchical police state, and this is is no surprise, as he was a survivor of, and exile from, the very nasty English Civil War. He was also a tutor for the future King Charles II. Unknown to most Murkan derps, our Founding Daddies found more interesting stuff in Hobbes than they ever did in Mr. Locke.
Plenty of signs of spring in Southeastern Washington State: the squirrels are busy making new squirrels, the daffodils are out, the fruit trees are budding (the farmers are using heaters and wind turbines at night due to freezing temperatures), and my damned neighbor is mowing his lawn 😡 .
People the government deemed “hoarders” would likely be shot out of hand. Which is why I and many others are prepared to shoot back.
The first food collection vehicle would be a city pickup and two cops. When that fails, they will move to an APC and a squad of troops. That 25 mm on an APC is freaking amazing on it’s penetration power. My son was amazed at how far a 50 cal round from the M2 on a Humvee would go through an mud brick house with nine inch walls in Iraq. And an engine block (complete penetration and exploded into passenger compartment killing driver).
The best thing to do if you are a hoarder, excuse me, a prepper, is hide your food. Not gonna be easy.
I liked the way that the author handled food in the “One Second Later” book. People with known stashes of food were expected to exist using their stash. The city stash of food from 18 wheelers and rail cars was handed out on a piece basis using a token system. But nobodies food was seized.
Yeah, good luck with that. The first thing that’ll happen is the authorities confiscating food stocks and distributing them to themselves and their families and friends.
Gee whiz, that’s very cynical, Dr. Bob.
I worry about you sometimes.
You’re getting as bad as that OFD fella up there in the dam woods.
In the words of a very wise man*, “cynicism” is just another word for “experience”.
* That would be I. Feel free to bask in my glory. It’s OK, I have no false modesty.
“Six examples of federal government overreach as we move toward a total takeover of individual and states rights”
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/six-examples-of-federal-government-overreach-as-we-move-toward-a-total-take-over-of-individual-and-states-rights/
“We won that battle because we got organized and stood up – but we have not won the war, the war against the power grab is never over, because they will always keep coming back with a different event or angle to push their agenda. It’s the fight that never ends.”
I like this comment: “You must search for the video of Rand Paul quizzing a lady about her having the right to choose(abortion), but he can’t choose his type of toilet!!
PRICELESS!!”
Back in the Neolithic when I was still walking those mean city streets on the graveyard shift, I used to make sarcastic and cynical statements in my nightly reports and also cynical comments to the brass. This did not endear me to them very much. And they accused me of being…..cynical. Can you imagine?
So I used to sing that ditty that was popularized by Olivia Newton-John back then, substituting the word “cynical” for “physical.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWz9VN40nCA
This also did not endear me to them.
Mr. OFD, spring-loaded to the cynical position. 🙂 I like.
I thank Uncle, mainly, for making me a cynic. Thanks, Uncle!
Working my way through the first volume of the Bracken trilogy; pretty interesting, and like Dr. Bob sez, fairly well-written, with a need for a bit of editing, though. A good fictional intro for folks not really conversant with weapons and covert tactics in the day and age of about ten years ago.
I hate spring forward! Fall back too!
How can we Spring forward if it’s still Winter?