07:54 – It’s Barbara’s next to last day of working for someone other than ourselves.
I’m seriously thinking about blowing away the Amazon-hacked OS on my Fire HD7 and replacing it with vanilla Android. I’m getting tired of the crashes and forced reboots with Fire OS, and the other night for the first time the splash ad screen was a video with loud audio. That’s simply obnoxious. I’m not sure how to go about installing Android, but I’m sure there are instructions all over the Internet. If I brick it, I brick it. No great loss at this point.
I’ve harshly criticized those ridiculous X-person/Y-year emergency food kits in the book, but yesterday I followed a link to the most ridiculous one yet: the Augason Farms Mega 40-Person 1-Year Food Storage Set for only $29,999.09. Wow, enough food to feed 40 people for one year, at “only” $750 per person-year. The catch is that this kit provides only “Approximately 1,297 calories/day/person”, which is roughly what the Nazis fed inmates in their concentration camps. So this kit is fine, if you want your 40 people at the end of one year to look like those stick figures in the newsreels shot when the Allies liberated the concentration camps at the end of WWII. Jesus wept.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Augason Farms products, and recommend them. We have a bunch of AF #10 cans in our long-term storage, but only stuff like powdered eggs, butter, and cheese, TVP in beef and chicken, and similar supplemental items to give some flavor to the bulk rice, flour, pasta, and similar items we keep in quantity. But their so-called 40-person/1-year kit is actually more like a 20-person/1-year kit or even a 15-person/1-year kit. Calling it good for 40 people is simply a lie.
Which got me thinking that I really needed to add a section to the book about Basal Metabolic Rate. I just used the Mifflin St Jeor equation to calculate my own BMR, which is 1,750 calories/day. Understand that BMR is the amount of energy required just for autonomic functions like respiration, circulating blood, digesting food, making new cells, and so on. It assumes you’re lying flat on your back and engaging in zero physical activity. BMR typically accounts for 60% to 75% of total energy needs, assuming only very light physical activity. For my 1,750 cal/day BMR, that means I actually need 2,333 cal/day to 2,917 cal/day. If I’m engaging in heavier physical activity, I’ll need more, perhaps 3,500 cal/day or more.
I need 5,000 calories per day. Period.
In other sad and enraging nooz:
“The revelation that our generals expect Americans solders to allow screaming young boys to be sodomized and not stop it is simply the latest manifestation of the utter moral bankruptcy infecting the senior ranks of the U.S. military.”
http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/28/why-our-commanders-look-the-other-way-during-child-rape/
I understand supporting differences in behavior in our ‘allies’ but this is disgusting. There is no way we should ask our soldiers NOT to act when they see that.
Yeah, it’s their ‘culture.’
Not what sort of behavior I think of as ‘cultured’. More like ‘tribal strongman’ which fits much better.
nick
As the article points, out and this is true to a large extent in LE organizations as well, the brass get to where they are via political maneuvering more than merit. Sure, you can have the CIB and Silver Stars galore, but to make full bird or for a brigadier to go beyond that (we have WAY too many generals and admirals, by the way), they have to kiss ass, lie, and blow stuff off.
So again, as the article shows, it falls on line officers and NCOs and individual troops to make the right call, just as with the nightmare at Abu Ghraib. The generals always skate.
If I was over there right now and saw this shit going on, why, yes I would put two warning shots in the Afghan scumbag pervert’s sternum. And I’d probably be court-martialed and tossed in the stockade. But I’d be right, wouldn’t I?
I seem to recall something about ‘lying down with swine’….
nick
You’re writing a novel, so I feel obligated to speak up. You really should avoid redundancies, let alone double-redundancies like that one.
So were the guys who pissed on the muslim corpses, and look what happened to them.
If I was over there right now and saw this shit going on, why, yes I would put two warning shots in the Afghan scumbag pervert’s sternum.
At first glance, I read “scrotum” instead of “sternum”. That might be a more fitting punishment.
Even the liberal New York Times has highlighted this. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html
Under the Nuremberg precedents, should some of our military “leaders” be tried for war crimes?
Rick in Portland
“You really should avoid redundancies, let alone double-redundancies like that one.”
My bad. Noted.
Under the Nuremberg precedents, should some of our military “leaders” be tried for war crimes?
Probably not, they aren’t under orders to enforce laws or decency. They aren’t taking any action to help or protect them. Just not manning up and protecting children.
Isn’t that what society is supposed be for? The Birkenhead Drill. Women and Children first.
War crimes indeed. Unlawful orders are unlawful, and it is a soldier’s obligation to disobey an unlawful order.
Sucks for the soldier, though.
Anybody who gave an unlawful order should be punished. Any soldier who disobeyed unlawful orders should be protected and lauded. It takes a lot of courage to disobey an unlawful order, especially where the military has a history of punishing those who do.
Were these muslim women and children, or decent women and children?
This is an M7, a big one in normal terms, but relative to a Carrington-class event (like the one that almost hit us in 2012) it’s a actually a little-bitty solar flare.
http://www.space.com/30677-strong-solar-flare-triggers-brief-radio-blackout-video.html
What orders are we talking about here? The situation over there, as the article points out, is that there ARE no orders. Troops are told somehow at the line level to disregard the children being sodomized, many of them chained to beds, evidently, so it’s an ongoing gang-rape. If those are orders, are they witnessed? Documented? In printed form somewhere? Do captains and majors simply come up with this on their own or are there orders coming down from generals, and by extension, the JCOS and Secretaries of the armed forces and the CINC??? I wouldn’t put it past the latter but are ALL the flag officers craven yellow bastards who only care for their careers and pensions?
As far as I’m concerned, both Generals Petraeus and McCaffrey were railroaded and sandbagged, precisely because they were competent and mostly did the right thing or tried to.
Situation:
Sgt. OFD hears kids screaming in some shit-hole building in his squad’s AO one afternoon. He investigates with his guys and finds his Afghan allied troops sodomizing young boys chained to beds. He calls this in to the LT and it goes to the CPT and battalion. They tell him to buzz off. He and his troops are dismayed and angered but feel they have no choice and leave.
A week later they come across it again at another site. This time they don’t call it in and they blow away the Afghans involved and get the kids out of there. With luck, nothing else happens. But very possibly word does get back to Higher Ranks and Sgt. OFD gets sandbagged and reduced in rank and put on permanent shit details. As an Object Lesson, of course.
Full disclosure: the real Sgt. OFD got an Article 15 for assaulting a senior NCO who threw his night watch box lunch at him and landed it in the mud. They wanted to bust me down, fine me, and restrict me to their chickenshit base for a few months. I had several officers and other NCOs as character witnesses and only got all that stuff suspended, and no fine or restrictions.
Considering my state of mind at the time (stressed, pissed, second-tour PTSD in full swing, hungover, etc.) the NCO that got assaulted got off easy; it would have been faster and simpler to frag his ass, but there would have been witnesses then. In fact, I never saw him again, and suspect he got transferred outta there. In any case, they soon took me off air base defense and security alert teams and put me in a spec ops wing as enlisted aircrew/gunner. Where the other NCOs all outranked me considerably, some of them Good War vets. Life expectancy sucked. But here I am!
Again, were the boys muslim? If not, I agree: shoot the Afghan bastards and get the kids out of there. If the boys were muslim, well, you know what muslim boys turn into. In that case, I think a more appropriate response instead of shooting would be to toss a few frag grenades in or call in an airstrike or artillery and get all of them at the same time.
Incidentally, ISTR that the “women and children first” rule was modified long ago. It’s now “young families first”.
Young kids can be saved and weaned out of cults and abuse situations.
But of course we shouldn’t be over there anyway, or anywhere else in the Sandbox region, period.
I dunno. Hasn’t it been a long-standing maxim of the RCC that giving them a kid until it’s six years old makes a Catholic for life?
Anyway, I’m sure not going to mourn a dead muslim, or a billion dead muslims come to that. Someone who has given up islam, yes, but not someone who still espouses it.
“Hasn’t it been a long-standing maxim of the RCC…”
Variously attributed to some Jesuit somewhere centuries ago and Aristotle himself. It is certainly not in any way Church doctrine, dogma or theology.
Kids can be got to before it’s too late. But like I say, why are we over there?
Agreed, but then I think we had no business getting involved in either world war, Korea, Viet Nam, or any of the other wars and actions we’ve wasted blood and money on. If someone invades us, I’d be the first in line to shoot at them, even at my age, but unless we’re invaded we don’t have any business maintaining a military at all. Having a military just tempts the politicians to use it.
WRT your almond comment earlier.
I just looked at my receipts and the costco smoked almonds that I really like went from $15 in May to $19 last time I was there.
I did stock up earlier in the year on the drought news, but I REALLY like these almonds. I don’t see the cost coming back down soon either. As the trees are destroyed, there will be a gap before renewed production comes on line. I expect I’ll be ‘dollar cost averaging’ and buying as little as possible.
Eggs have doubled since the beginning of the year (varies daily) due to the bird sickness. We eat a lot of eggs so this did have budget impact. One of my normal medium term storage eggs (frozen liquid) hasn’t been available since the shortage started.
Last year pork increased 10-20% or more depending on cut. I mostly rode thru that on storage, and costs have returned to normal for a year ago.
Paying attention to world events that will impact pricing, and having the wherewithal to stock up can save significant amounts of money, and guarantee access to normal food throughout a crisis.
File as one more benefit of prepping.
nick
“…I think we had no business getting involved in either world war, Korea, Viet Nam, or any of the other wars and actions we’ve wasted blood and money on. If someone invades us, I’d be the first in line to shoot at them…”
Agreed likewise.
Rather than a standing military, regional militias with regular training ONLY if they are desired by a majority in the face of persistent internal or external threats, for example, on our southern border. And ONLY if they have regular training and the costs of that and equipment and deployment are agreed to by the aforementioned majority of legal citizens. Politicians as they exist now would be extinct; we’d have consensus town meetings throughout a region and subsequent discussion and voting accordingly. I’m not a total anarchist yet. Plus, we have existing government apparatus that employs people in critical infrastructure positions; we wouldn’t want to hang them just yet and we’re a long way off from ever, IF ever, living in a state of anarcho-capitalism.
@RBT, one practical benefit of having the army and force projection is the ability to fight in THEIR backyard, and not our own. That is a REALLY good thing.
I agree that having it means the pols will USE it, but letting them attack volunteers ‘over there’ is alot better than having them attack the Mall of America.
Just think of how many violent young men are being culled. 30k? 40K? And even the ones that don’t darwin out, will become older and wiser, as we see some begin to renounce the fighting and return home.
And from a practical standpoint, if we need to get there with the firstust, and mostust, then we need the overseas bases.
nick
You don’t seriously believe that anyone could invade the US other than Mexico, do you? And the only reason the Mexicans have succeeded at invading us is that we let them. What other enemies do we have that present a credible threat? China? They’d be sending divisions into a meat-grinder, as would anyone else, including Mexico if we get pissed enough.
Again, be very, very careful about pissing off Anglo-Saxons.
Should we wait to fight ISIS until they start invading us? By which time they would already have conquered Europe and most of the rest of the world.
Rather than a standing military, regional militias with regular training ONLY if they are desired by a majority in the face of persistent internal or external threats, for example, on our southern border. And ONLY if they have regular training and the costs of that and equipment and deployment are agreed to by the aforementioned majority of legal citizens.
The Texas Department of Public Safety is having daily running gun battles with Cartel soldiers and Mexican Army soldiers. Up to 20 miles inside the Texas border. Texas spent almost a billion dollars on this last year. Nobody wants to talk about it but the .50 cal bullets are flying. TX DPS is using armored vehicles and armored boats to interdict drug runners who are being escorted by Mexican army soldiers with light weapons. National Guard troops are being used as spotters and are unarmed due to The Posse Comitatus Act.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/07/04/have-you-seen-the-bulletproof-texas-gunboats-equipped-with-automatic-machine-guns-that-will-battle-drug-cartels-on-the-water/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEKwij0W9QE
http://www.texastribune.org/2013/07/12/dps-fires-rounds-launches-tear-gas-across-border/
We are at war with Mexico and no one is talking about it.
What other enemies do we have that present a credible threat? China? They’d be sending divisions into a meat-grinder, as would anyone else, including Mexico if we get pissed enough.
The invader would soften us up with several EMP hits first. I think that most military equipment would survive.
“We are at war with Mexico and no one is talking about it.”
No one is talking in the MSM, either, about the autodefensas, ordinary citizens caught between the Mexican State, such as it is, and the narcotrafficantes. They’re being squeezed out of existence and their leaders imprisoned or murdered.
“Should we wait to fight ISIS until they start invading us? By which time they would already have conquered Europe and most of the rest of the world.”
That’s pretty much the argument used by some parties when we were exhorted to fight in Vietnam. The “Domino Effect,” where if we don’t stop them in the Central Highlands, they’ll be in Hawaii next and then California. In any case I bet some of their sleeper cells have long since crossed our joke of a southern border and are biding their time here even now. Europe is lost already, by the way, simple demographics, ditto Israel. We simply need to close our borders and secure our coasts and air space and if need be, blow them away anytime they get too close.
In any case, why physically invade us?
“Nuclear annihilation across the globe.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/28/l-todd-wood-isis-planning-nuclear-tsunami/
If that happens, all our prepper stuff is for naught. We’ll be eating grass while waiting to die from radiation poisoning if not killed outright.
Or maybe they’ll just hit a few cities, which are going under anyway…
They can plan all they want. It’s hard, and they are basically from a stone age culture.
Can they do damage? Yes. Will we do MORE to ourselves in the aftermath, history says yes. Can this group of jumped up goat herds destroy the planet, no f’ing way. Even US vs USSR had survivable scenarios.
nick
Yes, that’s exactly what we should do. The rest of the world is not our problem. We don’t need them.
Yes, that’s exactly what we should do. The rest of the world is not our problem. We don’t need them.
Didn’t we say that back between WW I and WW II? And subsequently got dragged into WW II? Doesn’t history repeat itself, constantly?
Should we wait to fight ISIS until they start invading us? By which time they would already have conquered Europe and most of the rest of the world.
You can read “Caliphate” by Tom Kratman at:
http://www.baenebooks.com/10.1125/Baen/1416555455/1416555455.htm
“Caliphate” takes an educated look at the world in 2103 where Europe has been converted to Islam, except for heavily armed Switzerland. Armies of conscripted young men called Janissaries are used to sweep regions that have not been converted yet. The USA is a fortified stronghold fighting the muslims on many fronts.
“And subsequently got dragged into WW II?”
And shouldn’t have been. Either world war, in fact.
“The USA is a fortified stronghold fighting the muslims on many fronts.”
Not in its current configuration; our lords temporal, including military commanders, have evidently surrendered. Or at least those who count have; others have manifestly not given up yet. But the overall trend seems to be to gratefully and fearfully accept our coming dhimmi-hood.
I just went over to buy Caliphate on Amazon, and it was free.
His State of Disobedience is a realistic look at Texas seceding from the Union.
First seize the mint…..
nick
“First seize the mint…..”
Absolutely. Followed in order by the armories and the radio stations.
Next up: liquor stores!
“BOSTON – National Democrats have been vocal lately about their desire to resettle hundreds of thousands more “Syrian refugees” in the United States. Yet not one of these ostentatiously compassionate statesmen has offered any of the huddled masses yearning to breath free refuge on their own fabulously posh estates.”
OFD hates and loathes these fuckers more than he does the hadji invaders.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/28/kerry-hillary-kennedys-offer-sanctuary-refugees-not/
Next up: liquor stores!
And strip clubs!
“The USA is a fortified stronghold fighting the muslims on many fronts.”
Not in its current configuration; our lords temporal, including military commanders, have evidently surrendered. Or at least those who count have; others have manifestly not given up yet. But the overall trend seems to be to gratefully and fearfully accept our coming dhimmi-hood.
In the book “Caliphate”, in the year 2103, the USA is a military dictatorship. Canada is Muslim and so is Mexico, if I remember correctly.
O Kanada will never go muslim; that would mean the end of hockey and Celine Dion. Mexico might, if the caliphate can eradicate a few tens of millions of Roman Catholics, probably using los narcotrafficantes and the existing troop/cop organizations before purging them, too.
But the U.S. could mos def become a mil-spec dictatorship, esp. if the brass decides that Bolshevism has gone far enough and is threatening not only national security but also their precious careers. And if SHTF bad enough here, peeps will BEG on their knees for the generals to restore law and order.
Canada and Mexico could go Muslim with repeated attacks of Janissaries supplementing the current Muslim populations over the next 100 years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissaries
The Muslims are playing the long game. Our outlook is “what’s for dinner?”.
“The Muslims are playing the long game. Our outlook is “what’s for dinner?””
There it is, dead on target. The Chicoms play the long game, too. Besides “what’s for dinner?” we also are very busy on our smartypants phones, tablets, and other gizmos and gimcracks, and watching chit-loads of tee-vee and innernet streaming. Mention paying attention to things that matter, which is mostly unpleasant nooz, to be honest, and you get blown off or a blank stare or at most, a specious and juvenile argument.
THESE are the “good old days.”
Canada is ALREADY going muzzie.
They wrapped up a terror training camp outside of Toronto a few years ago, they have honor killings, they prosecute thought crime for anti-muzzie speaking.
They are so proud of how tolerant they are, they make the American left look like slackers.
nick
I’m still hoping that the western provinces up there are not going along with every bit of bullshit that emanates from Ottawa. Perhaps our Canadian correspondents can brief us on this?
Sounds like they’re actually INtolerant, rather than tolerant, like most of the Left has been since its beginnings long ago. I note, as I did with Mrs. OFD earlier today, that most of the Left’s crap seems to be taking place in the cities, and I was referring to anti-firearms nonsense in places like Minnesota, NY, Washington, Oregon, etc. It oozes out of St. Paul/Minneapolis, NYC/Albany, Seattle and Portland. Peeps out in the sticks don’t buy it and won’t go along with it.
Derps in other parts of the country see “Vermont” on the nooz and think: “Oh yeah, gay marriages, Bernie Sanders, pot and hippies.” Yeah, that’s right: in the capital, Montpeculiar, the big city of Burlington (pop. 50k), and the college towns. Outside of those areas it’s a whole different ball game, believe me.
So there’s room for hope and change, lol.
So … hurricane on the way to the east coast. Who’s ready?
Do you need to buy more FLASHLIGHTS ?? (or batteries, or ??)
Batteries, in our case; I think we have enough FLASHLIGHTS for now. Thanks to highly complex and arcane terminology and procedures explained by our resident gurus on this board. And I just re-found a battery charger I’d gotten a while back; I should test it out, see how it goes. I know if I run into any issues or problems just where to turn…
…The hurricane looks like it’s on track to hit Mordor on Monday afternoon; here’s hoping it floods totally and the whole place sinks and becomes a stinking fetid swampland again….
I’ve been doing some thinking about prepping, and have concluded it’s mostly a waste of effort and money. Instead of trusting to your mountains of supplies to see you through, you should trust in yourselves and your abilities. Of course, this would be better if you had more abilities. More powers. Superpowers.
I suggest that instead of laying in batteries (cells, rather) and generators, you should develop lightning power and charge up your stuff by zapping it as needed. Instead of worrying about flashlights and other light sources, be able to make your hand shine brightly. No need to acquire guns and bullets and spend endless time practicing when you can destroy your enemies with psychic blasts.
I’m going to get some old medical and scientific equipment, the kind that puts out lots of excess radiation, as well as old lab animals. I figure that some combination of X-rays, gamma rays, and artificially mutated animal saliva or venom will let me develop superpowers in no time. Any of you are welcome to use my stuff after I’ve developed my powers.
Hmmmm….I think ol’ Mr. SteveF has been nipping into the hallucinogens again…better send a gendarme around to inspect the premises….oh wait…the last few constables disappeared….
Mrs. OFD and I share a minor superpower; we can often come to the same thought about something simultaneously….I bet no other married couples have this power…and I used to be able to tell when the phone was gonna ring, several seconds before it did…now gone….
Other than, I’m useless.