10:08 – When Lori picked up our mail this morning, I mentioned to her that USPS had basically destroyed the usefulness of Click-N-Ship by eliminating support for regional rate boxes and eliminating the Commercial Base Pricing discount. I told her not to expect to see many Click-N-Ship labels from now on, because USPS actions had made it useless for probably 95+% of the customers who had been using it. She couldn’t believe they’d done that.
I told her that I’d still be shipping via USPS, but using stamps.com, which still provides the CBP discount and support for Regional Rate. But if USPS can make such a huge arbitrary change, who’s to say they won’t do something equally obnoxious in the future, like eliminate Regional Rate boxes entirely? So I just added a priority item to my to-do list: checking into using FedEx or UPS instead of USPS, should that become necessary.
As I’ve said repeatedly, I’m not really expecting a catastrophic long-term emergency, but my attitude has always been to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. The worst would be a long-term grid-down emergency, as Ted Koppel wrote about in his recent book. That is a very real possibility, either from a solar CME or an EMP attack, and the results would be catastrophic: many millions dead within the first weeks and more to follow as our production and distribution systems collapsed. A deadly virus pandemic would be about as bad. Those are the two possibilities that keep emergency management planners awake at night, and the probability that one or both will occur in the near future is probably on the close order of 0.1 per year. So I do my best to plan for either. By definition, being prepared for the worst also means you’re prepared for less catastrophic long-term emergencies like widespread civil unrest.
The LDS Church provides an excellent prototype for organizing preparations for disasters. They’ve been at it for more than a hundred years, and their focus is on community organization. And, although the LDS church takes no official position on members defending themselves in an emergency, most individual Mormons I’ve known have made self-defense a priority. If things ever get really bad, it will be up to individuals to defend themselves, within the context of their larger communities. In our case, that means Sparta and its environs. I read an interesting article the other day that lays out the framework for a community defense: Defending Our Homeland: How Neighbors Can Protect Their Community. It hits the high points. David Crawford’s Lights Out is an excellent fictional treatment of the same issue. If you haven’t read it, you should.
Over the coming months, I intend to get involved with the local folks who are involved in emergency prep, including the local and county government EM group and the local LDS church. Whatever your local environment–urban, suburban, rural, whatever–you should do the same.
@RBT,
I don’t ship anywhere near the volume you do, and most of mine are different from shipment to shipment.
That said, until the most recent price increase by USPS (jeez, small flat rate is $1 more) the breakeven vs UPS was 4-5 pounds. Under that, USPS, and not necessarily flat rate. Over that, UPS with commercial discounts wins.
Small high density items that benefit from flat rate were still often cheaper with UPS.
Some third party will have software that shows you all the relevant rates once you’ve put in the addy and dims. Since I’m selling on ebay, I can see the comparison of services with just a couple of clicks using their shipping tool.
In general though, the 4-5 pound split holds true enough that I rarely take the time to compare.
This is NOT true for international. For international, USPS is the cheapest in almost every case.
nick
You might want to check on that. Priority Mail International costs have increased significantly, and rather than being just weight-based as formerly are now based on both the origin zipcode and the destination postal code.
Two notes.
first, for shipping price comparisons, try https://shipgooder.com/. I’ve used it occasionally and find it helpful but I don’t know how well it works for your volume of shipments.
second, wrt emergency prep: if there’s a local or county ARES group, join it if at all possible. It’s helpful for the broader community but it also gets you known, in a positive way, by local law enforcement and emergency ops folks. Having an ARES ID badge can be invaluable in getting through cordons, into hospitals, and otherwise into places that might be hard to enter during an emergency.
No matter what the USPS international rate was, the big 3 were MUCH higher.
I use ebay’s global shipping option whenever possible, so it’s less of an issue for me (they aggregate international shipments, it’s much cheaper than shipping it myself.)
It’s always worth looking, especially when they are changing things around.
One of the reasons businesses avoid change is just that. If you have to make a change, you might change away from them.
nick
Darn it. Now I’m going to have to watch the Oscars just to spite Al Sharpton:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/20/oscars-boycott-al-sharpton-all-white-nominations
I think that RBT’s probability estimate is too high. I’m assuming the last major pandemic was the Spanish Flu, which was 98 years ago. So I’m going to guess that the probability of a pandemic in a given year is about 0.01. I’m going to guess that the probability of another Carrington event is also about 0.01. So I’m guessing that the probability of a major grid down event or pandemic is closer to 0.02 or 0.03 in a given year. What concerns me is that I am concluding the probability of a pandemic or major grid down event will be more likely in the future. I think that the push for wind and solar power generation is going to make the grid more vulnerable over time. Also, I think that we have an increasing probability in the future of something which has been unthinkable in my lifetime. I think it’s a very real possibility that the increasing bacterial resistance to antibiotics is going to make a bacterial pandemic a real concern once again.
@Paul – ARES did not register with me so I had to use the Google to refresh my mind. For others who many not remember what the acronym stand for here is the ARRL link:
http://www.arrl.org/ares
BTW, Ares is the Greek God of War (that is what had come to my mind first). Rather apropos for the Amateur Radio Emergency Service, if I do say so myself.
My prediction on the DOW getting to 15000, or below, may be arriving sooner rather than later. What did you expect with the fact that the Fed pumped more than $4–trillion of nonexistent money into the markets last year.
@Chad – I’m not going to “watch” the Oscars but will record it on my TiVo and give it 3–thumbs–up. Big Brother TiVo keeps statistics on what you watch and the TiVo thumbs–up thumbs–down function gives an even more accurate opinion.
I tend to agree with Mr. Dave on the possibilities/probabilities and would fear some kind of biological pandemic, maybe instigated by bad non-state actors. Other than that, we’re prepping as best we can for a typical northern New England winter and having the Grid down for six months or longer. That’s the goal, anyway, and I think we’ve got two months taken care of now. I’m also big on security and trying to impress that on Mrs. OFD, which runs hot and cold depending on the local crime nooz each week. So my concern there is our local criminal riff-raff scumbags, primarily, and later, possibly, more of them sliding up or down into our AO via the highways. There have been increasing incidents of assholes from NYC and other points south showing up in Burlap and being involved in dope deals, gang activity and recently, two fatal shootings. More heroin out in the sticks. And some d-bag was just caught pulling a sled loaded with pills (Xanax) from Quebec across the border on a defunct rail trail when he tripped a Border Patrol sensor, up by North Troy.
So again, our door and window security is a major concern for me, esp. the front of the house. Still working on the wife in regard to this and getting some traction lately.
We have sunlight again here, with temps in the low teens, not much wind, and another snow flurry left a bit more of the white stuff. Megalopolis is apparently expecting a blizzard, allegedly of record proportions, while wife has to drive down on Sunday for her week’s gig in lovely Stoneham and Woburn, Maffachufetts. I was gonna go down with her, but we got the animals here and I have vet-related stuff to do next week in Burlap and in town.
She’s off now to the horse barn and later I’m driving her down to Great-Grandma’s so she can drive her to the airport tomorrow; GG is headed for Floriduh again, at 86. Then she’ll drive GG’s car back up here so I ‘ll have that plus the Princess car while she has my RAV4 in MA, assuming she can make it down Sunday.
lol Four more documents for the VA loan. Up to 110 separate documents submitted. Plus a call this morning from a credit agency “cause we need to confirm you made your December house payment”. It’s on auto-debit, but we had to stay on the line while they called and we gave our info and the mortgage people confirmed it was made. Geez. How does a Vet, say an E-5, who’s retired for medical get through this? It’s impossible. Our daughter works for MrsAtoz’s company and has the same first name. They wanted a copy of her driver’s license to prove MrsAtoz and her aren’t the same person. WTF? If you refuse anything request you get “well, your loan probably won’t be approved.”
Don’t forget, fuck the Vet!
Trump 2016!
The Big Picture, maybe:
“And so perhaps that is what we should expect. Financial collapse is already baked in, and it’s only a matter of time before it happens, and precipitates commercial collapse when global supply chains stop functioning. Political collapse will be resisted, and the way it will be resisted is by starting as many wars as possible, to produce a vast backdrop of failure to serve as a rationale for all sorts of “emergency measures,” all of which will have just one aim: to suppress rebellion and to keep the oligarchy in power. Outside the US, it will look like Americans blowing things up: countries, things, innocent bystanders, even themselves (because, you know, apparently that works too). From the outside looking into America’s hall of one-way mirrors, it will look like a country gone mad; but then it already looks that way. And inside the hall of one-way mirrors it will look like valiant defenders of liberty battling implacable foes around the world. Most people will remain docile and just wave their little flags.”
http://cluborlov.blogspot.mx/2016/01/financial-collapse-leads-to-war.html
Pardon me for asking, but have you considered telling the VA to go become intimately acquainted with themselves and going out and getting a commercial mortgage?
“How does a Vet, say an E-5, who’s retired for medical get through this? It’s impossible.”
Exactly. You and I have struggled with this paperwork nightmare and we’re both fairly literate and tech-knowledgeable; what about some of the guys I sit in group meetings with up here? In our age group or older, with little to zero experience with computers and filing online documents and email and all that stuff, and/or have only dial-up or zero net access anyway, ’cause they live out in the sticks, for some odd reason. The only way some of them would be able to get through this kinda mess would be if I or somebody else walked them through it, daily, for the months and months it takes. So far as I know, this is not a service offered by the vet posts or the state vet services offices; wife and I fought our way through it on our own.
Tomorrow I’ll post a note down there offering my help to anyone who’s trying to do this gig.
“…have you considered telling the VA to go become intimately acquainted with themselves and going out and getting a commercial mortgage?”
It usually is a commercial mortgage; but it’s VA-guaranteed. One of our nifty veteran bennies, requiring little to no down payment.
It usually is a commercial mortgage; but it’s VA-guaranteed. One of our nifty veteran bennies, requiring little to no down payment.
This. Comply with everything we want or YOU get fucked for your service.
Don’t forget, fuck the Vet!
You would think with a DD214 showing an Honorable Discharge after 20 years would get you some respect with the VA. No, more hassle, more paperwork just to get the benefits you were promised 20 years ago. I’ve posted before, I can’t get health care at the VA (why would I want to after the “wait list” scandal). You have to have a pre-existing condition from the service or be a pauper for me to walk into the VA clinic less than 5 minutes from my house. I make too much, so go fuck yerself. It shouldn’t matter how much I make. All Vets should get the same benefits regardless.
I’ve already heard of Vets getting hassled when they apply for Social Security. There are a few (Guard and Reserve) who were under a program that waived SS payments. They are a different case. I’m talking about the smartass, ignorant pricks, at the SS office that try to apply this to all Vets. I paid all SS during my 20 years. When I apply for SS, I may take a concealed “justice distributor” with me. “What’s that you said, I don’t qualify for SS? I guess your kids will now be eligible.”
I’m sure we’re going to get the condo. My CPA has already begun setting it up under MrsAtoz’s corporation. My lawyer friend in San Antonio also says yeah that’s no problemo. Even though the VA says “it has to be your primary residence dumb fucking Vet.”
Don’t forget, fuck the Vet!
Trump/Palin 2016! “Ill be VP this time! (Ill let you figure out who lol)”
Having an ARES ID badge can be invaluable in getting through cordons, into hospitals, and otherwise into places that might be hard to enter during an emergency.
I would advise staying out of hospitals and shelters during civil emergencies. It gets too real in places like that.
Trump/Palin 2016!
I doubt that Palin will be on the ticket. She would have to take too much of a pay cut off the speaking circuit. That said, I am fairly sure that Trump will only be in for one term as he is 69 already. That means that his VP will have a cushy election unless things are going horribly bad.
“I think that RBT’s probability estimate is too high. I’m assuming the last major pandemic was the Spanish Flu, which was 98 years ago. So I’m going to guess that the probability of a pandemic in a given year is about 0.01. I’m going to guess that the probability of another Carrington event is also about 0.01. So I’m guessing that the probability of a major grid down event or pandemic is closer to 0.02 or 0.03 in a given year.”
The last catastrophic pandemic was the 1918 flu, when there were no airliners crossing oceans constantly. If the 1918 flu struck today, the death toll would be much higher. But I don’t disagree with P=0.01 per year for a pandemic. As to a CME, the best estimates call P=0.012, which takes us to P=0.022.
So where does the rest of my P=0.1 estimate come from? An EMP attack on our grid might be P=0.01 to P=0.10 per year or even higher, depending on who’s making the estimate. And that ignores Koppel’s focus of a catastrophic cyber attack, which most people think is much more probable per year than either a CME or an EMP. Hell, cyberattacks are already happening, and they’re only going to get worse and more frequent. A lot of people hate us, not even counting our own politicians.
So, I’ll stick with my P=0.1 per year, which I think is, if anything, optimistic.
“You would think with a DD214 showing an Honorable Discharge after 20 years would get you some respect with the VA. No, more hassle, more paperwork just to get the benefits you were promised 20 years ago.”
Thanks, man! I needed a good laff 2day!
If the 1918 flu struck today, the death toll would be much higher.
The death rate from the Spanish Flu was 4%. Why do you think a new flu death rate would be higher? I do agree that a new flu would traverse the country and world much faster due to airliners and interstates.
I was fascinated by Konkoly’s book, “The Jakarta Pandemic”, in which he thinks that an infection rate of 15% in the USA would fill the hospitals to overflowing and totally stop all commerce. And then an infection rate of 50% would cause the flu death rate to rise significantly due to lack of caregivers.
http://www.amazon.com/Jakarta-Pandemic-Steven-Konkoly/dp/1495907376/
37-years ago when we bought our house (got 9.6% interest, shortly thereafter they went above 20%) my DD-214 and 1 form was all I needed to get my VA Loan.
When interest rates started to really go down I and a Mortgage Company watched the rates to do a refi. I should have been able to reuse my VA benefits on the refi, but when the Mortgage Officer started the paperwork, and then more paperwork, and then more paperwork. She said this is nuts, it seems that the VA didn’t want Vets to get out of their high interest loans. So we went conventional, got a 1.8% 15-year loan which we paid off early.
So fuck the Vet is not new, just getting worse. But we should be used to it, remember how we routinely had to bend over and grab our ankles and BOHICA.
My former USMC son did not buy his house seven years ago with a VA mortgage because of the the associated costs and the VA mortgage fee. He bought a new home here in Houston, a 1,700 ft2 one story for $123K from Gateway Homes, and had his deployment pay saved up to make his 20% down payment. He got a 15 year conventional mortgage at 5% and the home builder paid all the closing expenses.
My father-in-law has a 3% VA mortgage on his town home in Dallas because as a 90% disabled vet with a medical discharge from the Army, the VA paid all of the closing costs and no VA fee. He now lives in a nursing home that he pays for since the VA apparently won’t help with unless he moves into a “approved” nursing home. He still owns his town home because he plans to move back into it some day when he gets better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic
“The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus.[1] It infected 500 million people across the world,[2] including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million (three to five percent of the world’s population[3]), making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.”
“The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but an estimated 10% to 20% of those who were infected died. With about a third of the world population infected, this case-fatality ratio means 3% to 6% of the entire global population died.[2] Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million people in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people,[4] while current estimates say 50-100 million people worldwide were killed.[32]”
“This pandemic has been described as “the greatest medical holocaust in history” and may have killed more people than the Black Death.[33] It is said that this flu killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century.[7]”
Oh crap, I did not realize that the 1918 flu killed 3% to 6% of the world’s population! I thought it was 4% of the infected.
This might be a good story to follow about Mooslim work ethic. Screw the company that “employs” them. That doesn’t matter. Only Mooslim prayers matter. I hope they are all cashiered.
The businessman who refuses to allow his Muslim workers special prayer breaks claims he was forced to act in order to prevent a $1 million loss for the company each year.
Fifty three Muslim employees have walked off the job because they say their boss changed work practices on them which insulted their devout faith.
But Dan Ariens, chairman and CEO of Ariens, a company which makes lawn mowers and snow blowers, tells Daily Mail Online in an exclusive interview that he will refuse to allow the disgruntled employees back to work unless they accept his decision to ban extra prayer breaks.
Ariens, whose family set up the business more than 80 years ago, denies he was being insensitive to their religious needs and warns they may lose their jobs if they do not accept his terms.
He reveals ‘other non Muslim workers’ complained to him privately about the exceptional time given to the 53 Islamic staff to be able to meet their religious obligations during shifts.
My lawyer friend from SA is a reserve O6 in the Navy. He’s in Singapore for a war game. He said when they enter the compound, a young Singaporean is there with a machine gun “with his finger on the trigger.” They apparently aren’t messing around.
“I hope they are all cashiered.”
Hater.
And using big words, too. Instead of “fired,” “dumped,” “downsized,” “shit-canned…”
“They apparently aren’t messing around.”
Poor firearms discipline.
Over the coming months, I intend to get involved with the local folks who are involved in emergency prep, including the local and county government EM group and the local LDS church. – One good way to do this is to work with the local Boy Scout troop. You have a wide variety of skills they can use in merit badge work. The Scouting organization is usually involved with police, EMT, Fire departments and other first responders. Scouts are always looking for experts to volunteer.
When my company was being destroyed by incompetent and/or malicious bureaucrats, I gave serious thought to distributing some justice at the Dept of Labor. The main reason I didn’t was that I couldn’t be sure the justice would be distributed justly — all of the papers were unsigned and simply stamped with the commissioner’s name, people on the telephone went by “Mr K”, and such. It’s tempting to declare that anyone in a government office was a part of the problem and deserved to die in a fire, but it wouldn’t be just.
Some of the real cost of illegal immigration.
“Madam, 71, behind Texas’ biggest ever sex-trafficking ring is sentenced to life for 10-year operation that charged ‘johns’ $500-an-hour for sex with underage girls
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3409487/Madam-71-Texas-biggest-sex-trafficking-ring-sentenced-life-10-year-operation-charged-johns-500-hour-sex-underage-girls.htm”
But they’re just ‘doing the jobs Americans don’t want to do… like slaver, pimp, rapist.
Look at the pix of the locations. Think white guys were wandering into those bars? Or maybe it was some of the 30 million illegals comprised of young and middle age men from a culture that doesn’t have a problem having sex with children.
nick
“SECOND Ebola case confirmed in Sierra Leone days after WHO declared an end to the epidemic
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3409816/WHO-confirms-second-new-Ebola-case-Sierra-Leone.html”
several under quarantine…
nick
“Priority Mail International costs have increased significantly”
In total, I’ll bet USPS is still cheaper. UPS, Fedex and DHL all have a lovely habit of adding substantial customs clearance fees for the recipient to pay. The postal service does not.
It’s annoying as hell to owe $10 in customs, and another $50 on top for the privilege of paying the $10 – especially when the shipper has already been paid by the sender. It’s like having to clear customs comes as an extra surprise or something…
@Lynn, you’re right to an extent, but I’d say it depends on the emergency. In a pandemic, no, I probably wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time at the local hospital, but on the other hand, hospitals tend to be secure, defensible, and equipped with emergency comms and power– not bad places to be under many circumstances.
@Paul
I think now is the time to rack up as many certifications and ‘merit badges’ as possible, especially if they come with access or special privileges.
Some that might be useful- in order of increasing effort and involvement
CERT- now I’m a recognized first responder with an official county id. We’ve practiced handing out vaccine, and that might be something you want to be at the head of the line for….
ham- gives you a reason for all the radios in your vehicle, and in many states exempts you from laws banning scanners in vehicles. Also opens up more merit badges- ARES, SATERN, MARS, RACES with whatever access and privileges those might have.
CHL- in TX bypasses the background check and waiting periods for weapons purchases
FFL- has some onerous requirements but opens up many opportunities
Locksmith- many of the tools one might want to carry, esp. on a bug out, are regulated in some states (IL for example)
Red Cross – an id might get you thru something… the training is sure to help.
Any civilian ‘friend-o-the-cops’ thing your local PD might sponsor, like Citizens On Patrol, Positive Interaction Program, etc esp. if it comes with ID or a shirt.
If you’re really motivated–gunsmith, protective officer, security officer, reserve police, NRA range master/instructor, private investigator.
Local politics involvement might be a good idea too. Not necessarily an elected office, but assistant to councilwoman, or school board. Any number of citizen advisory boards for police, schools, and business districts will give you access to local leaders, inside information, and put you in contact with the movers and shakers in your AO.
It may sound kind of cynical, but as some other folks are saying, ‘tribe matters’. It’s gonna be who you know and who knows you when things get really sporty. ‘Course it doesn’t help if they all know you as the scary crazy prepper guy…
nick
@Lynn, you’re right to an extent, but I’d say it depends on the emergency. In a pandemic, no, I probably wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time at the local hospital, but on the other hand, hospitals tend to be secure, defensible, and equipped with emergency comms and power– not bad places to be under many circumstances.
Go watch the first season of “The Walking Dead” with the National Guardsmen sweeping the floors of the hospital in teams. They shoot anyone who looks infected at all. I would like to say that things will never get that bad but, who knows?
@nick, very good suggestions and as inclusive as I can remember at the moment. The clearer thinking folks here may have some good add-ons.
@OFD, my Sangean SG 622 arrived this morning. That little radio has got some heft to it. Jusr sitting here at the table checking it out and there is good reception even at this time of day. The antenna is not as directional as one might think. To say that the tuning scale only gets you in the ballpark is not an exaggeration. Now I’ll have to check with my old local ARRL contacts and find when and where to find them.
@Mr. DadCooks; yeah, it’s a nifty little bugger and the sound here has been excellent. I’ve only just begun to play with it on the SW bands; wife has absconded with it before out to her studio and promptly lost the battery space cover; then she took my TecSun and lost that battery cover, too. I dread having her doing the CCW thing.
@Mr. nick; all good suggestions for meatspace relationship building; got my Red Cross first responder/CPR cert; working on the ham certs; also working on NRA classes for pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructor stuff plus range safety officer. Got the locksmith materials and lock picking gear but haven’t got around to that yet; also looking at electronics tech classes. And working on outta-state CC licenses, the FFL (just need fingerprint cards done for all those), and going to town committee meetings, gun club/range meets, and more involvement with the Latin mass parish down in Burlap, some of whose members there travel from up here, like me.
And I just got back from an alumni meeting for the community policing class I took last semester. “You guys have a back door to the police now, we want you to use it.” They are looking for continued relationship with the class alumni. I’m willing, I miss the class and the discussion.
Spent some time talking about TX new ‘open carry’ and their department’s policies and procedures. So far no real problems. As he pointed out, about 40 states have open carry, and about 30 of them have ZERO requirements to do so. And the streets haven’t run with blood. So he encouraged the dept to take a chill pill and has distributed flyers to citizens that they should do the same, unless there is other bad behaviour too. A surprisingly ‘common sense’ approach.
nick
Outstanding! But as usual, common sense from the rank-and-file, I assume? Does the brass support that?
Here in VT we can do OC or CC with zero license reqs; common sense dictates we don’t go swaggering through a church, daycare facility or the courthouse doing OC. Haven’t heard of anyone doing stupid chit like that so fah. LOTS of peeps clearly doing CC, though. Excellent! Devil take the imbeciles who try to swarm this state when SHTF.