09:00 – Barbara is having a lie-in this morning. Ordinarily, she’s up by 7:30 on weekends but this morning she’s sleeping in. She needs the rest.
I’m rethinking where we should relocate. The paper has been running a series on industrial chicken farming and the stench it creates. North Carolina is in the top three states in the US in chicken and turkey production, and much of that goes on in the areas we’d been considering. Surry County and Wilkes County, two areas we’d been considering, are very high on the list. The chicken factories in Wilkes County alone produce close to 100 million chickens a year. That’s not something we’d want to live close to.
More kit stuff today.
10:30 – Barbara just cut my hair. As usual after a haircut, I’m feeling very weak. I don’t think I’ll be going out and destroying any pagan temples today, or slaying anything with the jawbone of an ass.
A quick look just now again at the supposed best states for preppers to live in or move to has them all out West, mostly the northwest states and 300 miles from any cities. Great if you’re 30 years old and ready to haul some ass every day, seven days a week, doing ranch and farm labor to stay alive. Also great if you can dig the radical cultural shift from the east coast to out there.
NC is about halfway between Mordor and Atlanta, and bounded by mountain ranges to the west and north and the Atlantic to the south and east. And you wanna avoid the poultry industry; kinda narrows it down some.
I still favor the Montana/Alberta border area, but Barbara says that’s just too far.
I don’t think there’s a great deal of urgency. We may end up buying (or leasing-to-own) a place up in the mountains, or we may not.
“I don’t think there’s a great deal of urgency.”
Let us fervently hope that you’re right.
Another international border recon scheduled for me later this afternoon; gotta haul Princess back up to Montreal again. Usually a 3-4-hour gig. Won’t get back until 8 or 9 tonight. Anyway, previous recons haven’t shown me much law enforcement/security presence on said border; maybe a Border Patrol cruiser here, a state police vehicle on the interstate there, and the guys at the actual crossing, and that’s about it. They probably have sensors along the line, and I know they’re supposedly out there patrolling in the woods; not sure if there are operational drones above, though.
RBT, why not take a road trip or two, to check out potential sites within 300 miles of you, or however far. If I remember my Hunter S Thompson right, you, Barbara, and the dog can do a thousand-mile round trip on a few bottles of whiskey, plus a bag of potato chips for the dog.
Too bad. In the various capitals there are plenty of asses who love to jawbone and who are direly in need of smiting. And, hell, look at the public buildings, statues created with public dollars, and other public works. If those aren’t temples dedicated to the glory of politicians, I don’t know what is. And if they aren’t direly in need of being torn down, I don’t know what is.
We’ll probably take a few day trips just to check things out.
Recent photo shoot of a home schooled child that wanted senior pictures. Not affiliated with a school there is no organized program for senior pictures in the area. The only gown we have is purple so I changed the color in Photoshop.
http://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/Samantha
A lot of pictures (300+) and most of them are unedited. I created the link so the family can get a preview and pick the ones they want. I give the link here to relieve some of the boredom. Some are crappy in my opinion but sometimes people pick the crappy ones for reasons I don’t understand.
You can’t strike anyone with a jawbone of an ass, you don’t live close to any politicians.
I still have long hair down past my shoulders, middle of back, actually. So I retain my Samson-like and Herculean strength, of course.
Too bad I can barely make it up and down the stairs here (and without cracking my head on the Hobbit-designed ceiling on the way) and three armloads of firewood is about my limit before stopping to rest. Samson Agonistes at nearly 62:
“O’recome with importunity and tears.
O impotence of mind, in body strong!
But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensom,
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall
By weakest subtleties,…” etc., etc.
Old John Milton, dictating to his daughters this and “Paradise Lost”, blind himself. And an apologist for Cromwell’s Roundhead dictatorship.
Politics on the brain today, having just finished several articles on the American War of Independence from the Southern point of view and the goings-on in South Carolina.
And harking back to the Northern aggressor operations in North Carolina by General Stoneman at the behest of his boss, the war criminal William Tecumseh Sherman; here is the latter discussing his overall policy in the South then:
“We are now in the enemy’s country, and I act accordingly….The war will soon assume a turn to extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people.”
What a sweetheart! Yet he and Grant are still taught and revered as heroes here in the North.
To learn more about the dangers and hazards concerning the industrial poultry farms (factory farms), check out the video documentary on YouTube.com …
A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-WAGf-4gC8
Uploaded on Sep 30, 2010
A heart-stopping new documentary, A RIVER OF WASTE exposes a huge health and environmental scandal in our modern industrial system of meat and poultry production. Some scientists have gone so far as to call the condemned current factory farm practices as “mini Chernobyls.” In the U.S. and elsewhere, the meat and poultry industry is dominated by dangerous uses of arsenic, antibiotics, growth hormones and by the dumping of massive amounts of sewage in fragile waterways and environments. The film documents the vast catastrophic impact on the environment and public health as well as focuses on the individual lives damaged and destroyed.
Partner rating: PG-13
Release date: 2010
Running time: 1:31:51
Language: English
Category: Documentary
License: Standard YouTube License
Also, the first part of “Food, Inc” has video footage of chicken farms with commentary. Plus one of the bonus features is an interview with a retired woman who lives near a factory farm owned by her son, and the unbelievable stench coming from the farm.
Here’s the URL if you’d like to watch “Food, Inc.” — pardon the Spanish subtitles …
http://documentarylovers.com/film/food-inc/
No chance people making a film like that might be biased to choose the worst and exaggerate it. Nope. Kind of like the fracking film (it’s been going on here for decades. Makes my head hurt – both of them).
I like chicken.
Thanks “dkreck” !!
Now that you mention it, I’m sure RBT and others don’t want to retire and establish a “homestead” out in the country and have their drinking water contaminated with toxic run-off from a nearby beef or poultry or pig farm — and that goes double or triple for having their drinking water contaminated with toxic compounds from nearby fracking operations !!
So here’s the URL to watch “Gasland” on YouTube.com …
Gasland 2010
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mp4ELXKv-w
Eat mor chikin”
There is a brilliant presentation of Venus next to the moon tonight!
http://earthsky.org/tonight
“Tonight – March 22, 2015 – if your sky is clear, you should be able to see the young waxing crescent moon smiling at you in the western evening dusk. The blazing object right next to it is the planet Venus. The Northern Hemisphere is favored for this view. From the Southern Hemisphere, the moon is lower in the sky after sunset and sets sooner after the sun. Still, we’ll all be able to see the moon and Venus. And don’t forget, as you stand gazing the dazzling moon and Venus in the west, turn around to see the very bright planet Jupiter shining high in eastern half of the sky at dusk and early evening. Each evening after sunset, watch for the waxing moon climb upward from Venus and toward Jupiter, to pair up with this brilliant beauty of a planet for a few days, centered on March 29.”
The chicken factories in Wilkes County alone produce close to 100 million chickens a year. That’s not something we’d want to live close to.
I would think that living 20 miles away from the chicken factories would be advantageous though. If society fails, get thee over there and grab a few. My wife cousin raises guinea fowl out in west Texas for the eggs and the rattlesnake killing ability (they scream, she shoots).
Saw a FANCY chicken coop for sale last night at Sams Club. Not allowed here in the ‘burbs though.
http://www.samsclub.com/sams/chicken-chalet-coop/prod16950118.ip?navAction=
I love eating chicken. Especially in Indian Curry sauce.
“Especially in Indian Curry sauce.”
Just the smell of curry puts me off, enough to make me nauseous. As for poultry, beef, etc, we get ours from local free-range, organic farms that we can drive to and talk to the owners, sort of like at least one of those Portlandia episodes. But we only eat any meat at all about once a week, if that, now. And a week is about all we’d last if we had to go live in Portland if it’s anything like that series. I bet we eat more tuna and other fish than poultry or beef; and the only pork products I’ll eat are local bacon and ham.
“…you should be able to see the young waxing crescent moon smiling at you in the western evening dusk. The blazing object right next to it is the planet Venus.”
We could barely make out the crescent moon over Montreal earlier this evening and it was too hazy to see Venus, plus, of course, the light pollution from a metropole of 4 million peeps. Another 4.5-hour ordeal, thanks to being held up at a tanker train crossing for quite a while and then having to circumvent it by a very circuitous route north along the Richelieu River.
Decent conversation with Princess, however, all the way up. I’m beginning to think it’s when there’s the presence of the other fems that hassles arise. I seem to be able to deal with any one of them one-on-one.
Mrs. OFD made it safely to Harrisburg, PA and sadly, the Hershey Park and gardens are closed until April 2.
I’ll be doing the Monday dump run tomorrow and then resuming the online web dev and IT security courses. Plus try to put another dent this week in the 5-page household to-do list.
“…you should be able to see the young waxing crescent moon smiling at you in the western evening dusk. The blazing object right next to it is the planet Venus.”
Thanks for the reminder. Clear here in the desert, so I gandered out to see the show. Always beautiful. I usually anticipate the fresh moon, but somehow this month I forgot. Good to see our old friend back. The beauty of the moon is magical.
Our city center is about three miles to our north, a couple of hundred feet down in the valley. Although it has plenty of light for about 15k people, it is easy to avoid it, and the air is usually so clear that even fairly dim stars about 20 degrees above it are visible. There is a faint city glow from a town of about 2500, 20 miles to our East. If we really need darkness, going a few miles to our South does the trick.
I normally sit in a fairly dim room, and can go out and immediately see the Milky Way. The weather guessers typically report visibility in excess of 50 miles. In the daytime, I can usually see a mountain about 80 miles away. OK, enough bragging; what we don’t have is much rain. Oh well, we ARE a desert (<5" precip/yr.)
And a week is about all we’d last if we had to go live in Portland if it’s anything like that series.
There is some truth in Portlandia. Like a lot of satire, it is greatly exaggerated. Most of the things that are portrayed involve a small segment of the local weirdos. Overall, Portland is your typical liberal city, no worse than a lot of others. We’ll have legal pot in July, including grow your own.
I’ve lived here since 1971. I like it, even though I’m far from liberal.
Rick in Portland
We probably gon hab legal pot here, too. This one of all five New England states workin’ it. We so librul here it make U sick. We also got us weirdos galore, mostly in the capital city, Burlap and the other college towns. Coincidentally they all big on “gun control” but A-OK on pot, abortion, gay “rights,” “death wid dignity,” radical fem rubbish, etc.
If you pop out to the rural hinterlands, though, you’ll run into more right-wing and independent-minded working people, farmers, hunters, fishermen, etc. But if I hadda make a guess, I reckon I’m probably one of the most, if not THE most, genuine right-wingers in the state.
We don’t much care whether or not pot gets legalized; the State will find some way to screw regular folks with prices, production and taxes, guaranteed.
Mrs. OFD and I watched maybe three episodes of “Portlandia” and we could have reached into the tee-vee and throttled those peeps, we would have.
Thanks for the reminder. Clear here in the desert, so I gandered out to see the show. Always beautiful. I usually anticipate the fresh moon, but somehow this month I forgot. Good to see our old friend back. The beauty of the moon is magical.
I was really surprised how bright Venus was. And that it was so visible in early dusk whilst the wife and I were out walking our two miles.
BTW, we have gotten six inches of rain so far in the Land of Sugar in March. Everything is soggy.
Well in spite of being a desert, we’ve had rain just about every month of our current rainy season, which is just about ending. As a result, wild flowers are in abundance. We probably have more flowers right now than we’ve had in the last ten years. They’re just beautiful. Some hillsides are almost completely covered. Our yard and surrounding is full of grasses and green stuff, but that is beginning to turn brown and eventually will die off within a couple of weeks. Spring and allergies are here.
I have some nearly-played-out oil rights inherited from grandparents and great-grandparents (1/6 of this field, 1/10 of that one, really great). So even having handing in my passport, I still get to file a non-resident tax return. At least I know longer have to inform the US of all my finances in Switzerland, which makes life a lot easier.
What brings this up? Oil companies. They are so damned disorganized, they are utterly baffled when they find out I don’t live in the States, you get paperwork that looks like somebody typed it on an ancient Selectric using their toes. Today’s mail included a 1099 from an Exxon subsidiary. It was mailed on January 27th. They just, um, forgot to mail it to Switzerland: It has my street address, town and zip code. The amazing thing is that it arrived at all. Someone at the post office actually took the time and trouble (ok, it took them a few weeks) to figure out what country it ought to be sent to! Of course, too late to add to my tax return, which I sent in last week. I’m so far under the taxable limit that I hope that won’t be an issue…
hey just, um, forgot to mail it to Switzerland
My organization sends mail internationally. It has always been a problem although over the years I have made a lot changes in the code to accommodate foreign addresses. Canada and Australia we have covered quite well even formatting the addresses in the slightly different format where the zip code comes before the country and properly enforced zip code formats. Mexico, Germany and Great Britain are OK with most of those address issues resolved.
Addresses in other countries are a mess, especially the Asian countries. Addresses such as “3rd Past Ling Po” on the first line, “2nd block on right” for the second line for a street address and other such odd combinations. It is a wonder they get any mail from the US correctly delivered.
We send domestic bulk mailings (donation solicitations and magazine) through a mail house that does mailings for a business model. They do a fairly good job. Foreign bulk mailings are sent through another company that does foreign mailings as a business model. We separate out the individual fields and let the mailing company format for each countries requirements.
Surprisingly (well maybe not so) is the USPS is the most difficult to work with. They demand our addresses be in a certain standard for abbreviations for street, road, etc. We try and conform.
But here is the kicker. We get address changes electronically from the USPS, pay dearly for the service. Even the USPS uses incorrect abbreviations, improper capitalization, address elements in the wrong address line. I have code that runs when getting these supposedly “correct” addresses from the USPS that will try and repair most of the errors from the USPS.
Another problem we have with the USPS is that we will get a returned item and get charged a $1.00 (because we have return service) as the item cannot be delivered as addressed. That same address has been used for 20 years with no problem. We ignore many of these and on the next mailing these same addresses are delivered just fine. I think the item gets left in the bottom of a mail tub and when the delivery person gets back to their local office the people in the office find the item they just assume it could not be delivered.
Sounds familiar. We used to do a lot more international mailings, and we created a couple of database tables containing standard information you can get off of the internet – for example, whether a particular country expects the zip code to be on the left or on the right. But still, it’s a pain. In continental Europe, for example, you have two choices: town and post-code on one line, country on the next – or else append a country abbreviation to the post-code. Lots of address databases that I’ve seen are a horrible mix of the one, the other, and both together.
I have a variation of the addressing problems mentioned. My address is XXXX S XYZ ST. If a First Class piece of mail is sent to me omitting the S, it is returned as “No Such Address.” The North addresses end below 1000, so one would think any addresses greater than 1000 would automatically indicate South. No!
It gets better: this only happens to pieces mailed locally. items arriving from out of town get right through. How do I know? I know practically everyone who still sends me First Class smail mail.
Pleas to the local PO (small town, nice people) result in reminders about the Official Postal Format. I’m not buyin’ it.
you get paperwork that looks like somebody typed it on an ancient Selectric using their toes.
Probably printed on an ancient Univac 1108.
I have some nearly-played-out oil rights inherited from grandparents and great-grandparents (1/6 of this field, 1/10 of that one, really great).
Some of the current wildcatters are fracking old, supposedly played out wells and making very good money, even at $40/bbl. Hopefully your stuff will come back.
“Some of the current wildcatters are fracking old, supposedly played out wells and making very good money, even at $40/bbl. Hopefully your stuff will come back.”
Sure would be nice. Back in the 30’s it was apparently good money. It’s just such a pain with the weirdly divided interests. It goes down as far as 1/96 share on certain properties – crazy. I wish one of my rich attorney cousins would just set up a trust, take over everybody’s shares, and manage it for everyone.
We escaped the Portland Metro last Summer after four years of misery. Never again.
Rural areas of WA and OR are tolerable living for non-liberals, but the population centers of Seattle and Portland hold the political power. With vote by mail, increasing urban migration, and legalized weed in both states, bad state law is coming soon to both sides of the river IMHO.
Again, it’s the cities and lawyers that are the problem; I thought it was kinda funny but possibly a fairly accurate observation by a fictional outlaw biker/dope dealer character I heard in some thriller action flick many years ago; he said: “This was a great country, until the cities and lawyers.”
Same deal here in Vermont: the buttinsky libtard types congregate in the urban areas, or what passes for them here, and the college towns. Then they energetically set about making up rules and telling the rest of us out here in the sticks how to live our lives.
I saw the same thing in Thailand during my time there over four decades ago; Bangkok got all the resources and attention and development while they let the people out in the northeast provinces (where the Murkan air bases were) rot in feudal poverty. Perfect spawning ground for the Thai Cong, and just over the borders from their little buddies, the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge.
Mordor-on-the-Potomac is the ne-plus-ultra example of this in the U.S.; Ottawa for our Canadian friends. So for us here it’s Mordor via Montpeculiar and they have the power and the money to make things stick that folks out here loathe and despise. Sooner or later they’ll bite off more than they can chew, and if a few other events occur, they’ll be looking at the oft-threatened mobs armed with pitchforks and torches. Except the 21st-Century version will have AR’s and Lord only knows what else.