10:35 – Since Barbara was taking Colin to the vet for his damaged claw anyway, she decided to have them do his annual checkup, which was due next month. They did the checkup, gave him boosters of his vaccines, and otherwise did everything that needed to be done. The total bill? $28. At our vet in Winston, it would probably have cost five times that.
Email from Jen. Her husband had lunch with one of the other vets in his practice. She mentioned her concern about the state of the world and the country, and the conversation shifted toward being prepared for emergencies. Jen’s husband was noncommittal, but did say that he and Jen were also very concerned about the state of things. The other vet and her husband are early 30’s and have two young children. They’re also Mormons. She said that her primary worry right now is that they live in-town in a condo, and don’t have space for the supplies they’d like to store.
Jen and her husband have of course socialized with this young family, and they all like each other. Last night, Jen and her husband talked about letting the other vet know that they are serious preppers, and inviting the other family to store supplies at their place, with the idea that if things do get really bad the young family could relocate to their place for the duration. Jen says they see a lot of upsides to such an arrangement, not least that it would add another medically-skilled person and boost their adult count to at least eight people and potentially more with the other family that Jen already has made arrangements with. So they’re going to talk it over with the other family about inviting the young vet’s family to join their group.
“President Obama blasts Ted Cruz’s call for police patrols of ‘Muslim neighborhoods'”
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/election/article/Obama-blasts-Cruz-s-call-for-police-patrols-of-6982406.php
Go Ted!
Jen and her husband have of course socialized with this young family, and they all like each other. Last night, Jen and her husband talked about letting the other vet know that they are serious preppers, and inviting the other family to store supplies at their place, with the idea that if things do get really bad the young family could relocate to their place for the duration. Jen says they see a lot of upsides to such an arrangement, not least that it would add another medically-skilled person and boost their adult count to at least eight people and potentially more with the other family that Jen already has made arrangements with. So they’re going to talk it over with the other family about inviting the young vet’s family to join their group.
So, is the future USA going to become a large number of gated communities with savages roaming around outside? And are we importing those savages right now, at a very high expense?
What dost thou mean by “gated communities,” hermano? Like rich banana republic derps have now in various countries? Sure. Or maybe just the entrance/exit roads and bridges controlled by the local security teams for a town or city?
And the answer to your second question is a qualified “yes,” as we have long since had plenty of savages living right here already. Now we’re gonna bring in zillions more.
Flip to that same page in the SteveF Playbook about what the rulers intend and how they’d go about it differently.
Yes, we have our own savages, mostly created by the horrible schooling system in the inner cities. But, we are bringing in more savages. Many, many more savages.
I really do not understand what the long game is on bringing in more savages. Unless, the ruling class (Bush and Clinton wannabees), wants to have a permanent vote of savages which outvotes the rest of us. But the savages will vote for the person who promises them the most free stuff so it is a tread wheel for the ruling class(es).
BTW, gated communities start with gates on the roads entering certain areas. Then they add tall fences surrounding those areas. Then they convert those fences to concrete walls. Then they add spikes to the top of the walls. Then they add motion tv cameras to the walls. Then …
Well, if we hit a SHTF scenario of sufficient danger, this will become a gated community starting out with checkpoint blocks on the three roads leading in here, one of them a bridge over semi-troubled wotta (seasonal algae bloom). And rather than solid fences and walls, it will probably be roving patrols and snipers. Maybe trip flares and mines along wire fences, anyway. I’ll be advising but doing very little digging and just enough patrolling to take my turn and make it equitable. It would be cool if somebody put together some surveillance drones, too, with a radio network of some kind. I’d work on that.
Some enclaves down in Burlap might do the walls and gates and cameras approach, though. Good luck to them.
“I really do not understand what the long game is on bringing in more savages. Unless, the ruling class (Bush and Clinton wannabees), wants to have a permanent vote of savages which outvotes the rest of us.”
One step at a time; the vote at first, so they and their minions can get in power and stay there. After that, incitement and aggravation of existing racial, ethnic, religious and class strife and violence. Then police and mil-spec repression, followed by more mass unrest and violence, followed by more violent repression, rinse and repeat. While the zeks out here are at each others’ throats, they remain serene and comfy in their gated compounds, secured six ways from Sunday. Or they simply sky up for some foreign paradise spot. Mass die-off will be amusing spectator sport for them. But the crunch comes when they can’t or won’t pay their cops and soldiers anymore. Who will then roll with the highest bidders.
It would be cool if somebody put together some surveillance drones, too
Somebody say “drones”? 🙂
Yo, Colonel Atoz; put together a Kindle book on how to config surveillance drones for us. Make big bucks on Amazon. We’ll do properly adulatory reviews, of course.
BTW, here is a better (for me) explanation of that SCOTUS decision about stun guns, “Supreme Court weighing whether 2nd Amendment covers stun guns”:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/supreme-court-weighing-whether-2nd-amendment-covers-stun-guns/
I am still wondering if that poor lady has been in jail or had her kids grabbed? And, how much money has she spent on defending herself?
And I really like what Alito and Thomas wrote: “The reasoning of the Massachusetts court poses a grave threat to the fundamental right of self-defense. The Supreme Judicial Court suggested that Caetano could have simply gotten a firearm to defend herself. 470 Mass., at 783, 26 N. E. 3d, at 695. But the right to bear other weapons is “no answer” to a ban on the possession of protected arms. Heller, 554 U. S., at 629. Moreover, a weapon is an effective means of self-defense only if one is prepared to use it, and it is presumptuous to tell Caetano she should have been ready to shoot the father of her two young children if she wanted to protect herself. Courts should not be in the business of demanding that citizens use more force for self-defense than they are comfortable wielding.”
I would have no problem with her stunning her ex until he was gibbering fool laying on the ground. Or shooting him.
“I would have no problem with her stunning her ex until he was gibbering fool laying on the ground. Or shooting him.”
Weird stuff happens. The Burlap PD just shot a 76-year-old guy to death (with multiple rounds, natch) in his apartment. They’d tried “pepper balls” and the taser to zero effect on this dude. He was first holding a knife and wouldn’t drop it, and then retreated to the shower stall in his bathroom, then holding two knives and wouldn’t drop them. He started moving toward the multiple officers and one of them riddled him like a Swiss cheese.
As I mentioned to the wife here; back in the day I might well have had that call by my lonesome and quite likely could have de-escalated the event and disarmed the man without killing him, as I’d had the training and experience to do. Gee, why not talk to him, even if it takes all night? Get a family member there, maybe; what’s wrong with jaw-jaw instead of war-war? And if comes to it, can’t half a dozen burly officers with heavy padding, both biological and synthetic, find a way to take him down anymore? I coulda got him with my PR-24 Monadnock baton, with which I’d trained for three full days at an Army base down in Reading, MA (and went home each night black and blue). But the training nowadays sucks rocks; lethal or potentially lethal force is the default setting ’cause “we all gotta get home safe and sound at the end of our shift” takes absolute precedence over anything else.
I understood it to be a dangerous job (although there are at least a dozen others fah more dangerous) and took steps accordingly for myself and my partners.
Domestics are always a horror show, though. It figures that libturd/commie Taxachusetts would go after the victim instead of the perp. That state is a friggin’ mess and has been for many decades now. I’m embarrassed to have to admit that I was born and raised there.
@nick:
In re your comment of yesterday, I mentioned your requirements to a friend of mine, and he suggested that the MQTT protocol might be the sort of thing you’re looking for. Here’s a link to something called MQTT Objective-C client for iOS.
HTH.
He started moving toward the multiple officers and one of them riddled him like a Swiss cheese.
“Nuke it from orbit, just to be sure” seems to be the standard cop response these days. If it was an ethnic female, she would have borrowed some mags from the guys and emptied them into the geezer, also.
Maybe cities should charge cops $5 a round if fired. That would cut down on the killings. Probably get rid of some of the dead weight, too.
Just saw an update of the event; allegedly the cops spent five hours trying to reason with him but knew full well he was a paranoid/schizophrenic and probably off his meds, with a history of previous violent behavior and threats. OK, fine. I still coulda taken him down EVEN NOW if the jaw-jaw wasn’t gonna work. And I’m 62! The guy had fourteen years on ME!. So a team of half a dozen to a dozen or more cops couldn’t handle it without blowing his ass away, I guess. SOP nowadays. “Oh I felt threatened; he had TWO KNIVES and was coming toward me!” If it was somebody my size all boozed up and doped up, with two huge Arkansas toothpicks, hell, yeah, you should probably light him up. Some old mentally ill guy? C’mon.
One swipe with a PR24 and the knives woulda gone flying, first of all. Then, easy enough to overpower him and get the cuffs on. Although he might have fractured arms anyway. You can make those things go like helicopter blades and if you smack somebody in the head with one, it may as well be a ripe tomato. I’ve seen them BOUNCE at an angle off pavement and crack a guy’s femur. I dunno what happened to mine; maybe I’ll get another one.
It’s just way too easy to flip the safety off a semi-auto pistol and empty a mag into somebody. And EVEN THEN, some perps have kept coming ANYWAY! And before someone jumps in with the .45ACP stopping power, yeah, guys have kept coming after being hit with those, too. OTOH, sometimes a .22LR will kill ya.
@medium wave,
Thanks for the link, that is WAY more work than I could do for this project. What Mote used to be was 1-10 buttons on a page, with user definable strings sent to a user definable destination. It was dead simple. Someone got all ‘object-y’ and now you define a device, put it in a device group, define controllers, put them in groups, define buttons-assign controllers and devices, and what command to send, and you end up with a one button remote control that sends an ascii string to an ip address using TCP.
The app hides all the tricky bits, but it’s still over complicated.
On the android side, S Remote Control does pretty much exactly what I needed, but it didn’t work. As the personal project of one guy, who (c) it in 2012, it’s neither well documented nor supported. If it doesn’t work, there is no indication of what’s failing, or how, or any details about the hidden stuff.
There’s a reason programmers for control systems like crestron or amx get paid good money. It’s not just GUI design, and programming, it actually has to control devices in the real world. Some need init strings, ascii, hex, a mix of them, some use weird syntax, some need RS232 straight cables, some crossover, some need 488.
I’m only trying to cobble this solution together because I built my project and pitch around controlling this gate, and the cheap chinese import I spec’d to do it didn’t work. I can’t afford the real gear, and so I’m trying to make good on my promises by myself.
Sometimes it sucks to be me.
nick
(on the other hand, I’m learning new stuff, which is cool, but frustrating.)
(on the other hand, I’m learning new stuff, which is cool, but frustrating.)
Which is very enjoyable and fulfilling and all that, UNLESS you’re doing it under any sort of a deadline! (Brings back many memories, most of them unpleasant …)
I was to guess, I’d guess you’re making that suggestion because you’re neither a coward nor a bully nor a wimp. I wouldn’t go so far as to say all cops are one or more of the above (though note that cowardice often goes with bullying) but an awful lot are. This is not only from my personal observation, but evident in the official statements of an awful lot of cops who killed “civilians”.
“Automatic Emergency Brake Technology to Be Standard by 2022”
http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2016/03/automatic-emergency-brake-technology-to-be-standard-by-2022.html
This should be good. Oh wait, your new car or truck will be permanently connected to the intertubes by then. And then someone ransomwares your new truck and starts randomly applying your brakes until you cough up some bitcoin …
Oh my.
“… I’d guess you’re making that suggestion because you’re neither a coward nor a bully nor a wimp.”
But I’d be accused of that by the guys who ARE actually limp-dick pussies who’d wet their diapers and squeeze that trigger MULTIPLE times at some old mentally ill codger. It’s projection, pure and simple, usually a common characteristic of the Left types. And also the one-size-fits-all training they get and attitude they develop: another homo sapiens sapiens has a knife and won’t put it down, ergo, they could hurt or kill you and mess up your shift. Therefore, blow them away. So anybody from a little kid with a toy plastic knife to a giant with a meat cleaver and everything in between gets the same treatment. Then there’s the slew of adrenaline-junkie vets coming back and going into cop work, just like me over forty years ago; everyone ELSE out there is the ENEMY; fucking KILL them. What a mess it’s all become.
“And then someone ransomwares your new truck and starts randomly applying your brakes until you cough up some bitcoin …”
O ye of little faith…be comforted by the professionalism and dedication and integrity of the manufacturers and the government agencies who inspect the products…..oh wait….
Voting in America These Days Department:
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message3126238/pg1?disclaimer=1#pq=LvayZ7
No comment.
Turkey’s long gone, but who lost Belgium?
http://observer.com/2016/03/europe-is-again-at-war/
Europe is not looking real good about now; it is like unto living in a house and the landlord has left all the doors and windows open for a while to deliberately let in piles of rattlesnakes and vampire bats and if you bitch about it he/she reprimands you but he/she isn’t actually living there with you. In fact, he/she doesn’t really see any problem. You are getting very nervous and annoyed and angry, however, and thinking about doing something on your own.
Good thing none of this can ever happen over here.
Glad I didn’t make it a career. Short-timer.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.de/2016/03/the-wrong-kind-of-victory.html
Meh, that doesn’t convince me of anything. Sure, the US military budget has a lot of fraud and waste. Find me a military budget that doesn’t. I suppose the rare exception might be found when the society was under existential threat, but even there I suspect you’d find people taking care of themselves first.
And then someone ransomwares your new truck and starts randomly applying your brakes until you cough up some bitcoin
That would be the NSA, FBI, and CIA.
Sure, the US military budget has a lot of fraud and waste
When I was a young fudpucker for uncle Sam stationed in Hawaii working on the cargo and passenger manifesting systems we had a substantial budget for our office due to we had the computers. At the end of the budget year we would have money left over. Problem was if we did not spend that money we would lose it and our budget reduced accordingly.
So to make certain we did not lose our budget funds we went shopping at the base supply depot. We would come back with a couple truck loads of crap we did not need. I think we had about 50 battery powered fluorescent lanterns (there was 20 of us in the office), a couple hundred staplers, dozens of hole punches, hundreds of batteries, all kinds of storage stuff such as filing cabinets, 30 or so office chairs gathering dust in the storage warehouse. Basically anything we could buy that we could lift we would get until our money ran out. Each budget year end it ran over $20K in stuff we would never use.
We were never rewarded for being under budget, just penalized. Rather than let us carry the funds forward, or keep the same budget, we would be reduced if we did not spend the money (funny money as it just moved from one bucket to another). There were a couple of years we did use up our budget (and then some, had to borrow from the next year) on equipment we really needed and thus needed the amount that was budgeted.
There was no incentive to save money. If you had it, you spent it.
Sure. I saw the same thing, both in the military and in non-military government ops. And in business, for that matter. Point is, so far as I can tell, all militaries are like that. All governments are like that. Claiming that the US military is not as tough as the budget makes it seem on account of the waste ignores the fact that every other national military is similarly “overvalued”.
It makes me think of all the TRILLIONS just simply WASTED over the last half-century. Wasted. Gone. To no real purpose. Our tax money. And now we’re $200 trillion in debt, for all practical purposes, forever, and they intend to bleed us even more in the coming years.
No truer words ever spoken than the late Murray Rothbard’s: “The State is a band of thieves writ large.”
well it DID provide well paid jobs for defense contractors, who then bought stuff from everyone else….
.gov buying stuff is a classic way to stimulate the economy.
n
“I suppose the rare exception might be found when the society was under existential threat, but even there I suspect you’d find people taking care of themselves first.”
Textbook example was South Vietnam. The ruling clique were so corupt that no amount of extra US moolah could have saved them.
It’s a little more complicated than that; JFK and the CIA had the Diem brothers murdered and our mitts were very deep in South Vietnamese affairs for a long time. We should talk, amirite? about our own extremely corrupt ruling clique here. Where no amount of stolen money will be able to save them, either.
I agree with the bullet points in the article. We don’t need bases/troops all over the world. My SIL works sooper secret stuff on the F35 at Nellis AFB. He’s a GS, but started out as a contractor for years on it. Billions down the toilet. But, as pointed out by Mr. Nick, keeps many peeps employed.
My own experience was with the much vaunted DIVAD (Division Air Defense Artillery) Gun. It was supposed to shoot down any aircraft using “intelligent” projectiles. It never worked and was heading to a billion in development before it was cashiered. I came into the military as an AD guy on the Hawk missile system. The DIVAD Gun was the way to go if you wanted a battalion command, so I was interested and followed it. What a waste of MY money.
Since I served 20, I got a good look at bureaucratic bloat. Going from a combat unit to the Pentagon was like going running on pavement and then entering a mud bog. My own job in OR at the Pin-Head-a-Gon was a total waste. Anybody with a calculator and could handle percentages (lol, amazing how many can’t) could do it. But, the Army HQ demanded a degreed ORSA puke. At least it got me a MS in maths for free.
Now I’m on the pension gravy train until all is taken away.
Yes, corruption is all over the place. The point is that the Prez wanted money to prop up the South Vietnamese, and Congreee wouldn’t hand it over. I’m talking 1974/5, not 10 years earlier, when Thieu and co were shipping their goods and gold to Taiwan. The US left a lot of first rate gear, and gold, for the North.
Speaking of which, apparently our Dear Leaders, mil-spec-wise, are planning to stage MORE of our DOD equipment/gear in Vietnam and other places around the world, and I thought to myself, didn’t we leave a bunch of stuff anyway back there in SEA? As you say here. And I also remember our big naval base at Camh Ran Bay going over to the Soviets after we left.
Oh yeah, the Paris Peace Agreement was hashed out in 1973 so the war was over by 1974/75, lol, hahahahaha….so everyone seems to think. OFD was deployed twice in 1972 at the tail end of the First Indochina War and then again twice more in, as luck would have it, 1974-75, at the big-ass U.S. air bases in northeast Thailand on the Cambodian and Laotian borders by the Mekong. Coulda fooled us the war was over. Thai Cong, Pathet Lao, Khmer Rouge, and bandits and smugglers. Sapper attacks on the bases. Sniper attacks, bombings. Regular AF runs over the Ho Chi Minh trail and across the Mekong. JUSMAGTHAI special ops runs to recover human remains, classified gear, etc., all over SEA. And being in the 56th Special Operations Wing, the alleged military air arm of the CIA in SEA. (as a lowly drone gunner, of course)
Not long after that, the “killing fields” of Kampuchea. Where now cooking show celebs like Anthony Bourdain go to sample the exotic cuisine under the baleful stares of twelve-year-olds slinging AK’s.
didn’t we leave a bunch of stuff anyway back there in SEA?
My older brother was in the army and was sent to Vietnam. He was in some sort of construction unit, heavy equipment. Anyway he told me they had a D9 dozer that needed a new hydraulic pump. They were having trouble getting the pump and had waited several weeks. Finally they just dug a big hole, drove the dozer in, and buried the machine (alive according to my brother). They then reported the dozer as stolen and had a replacement within a week. He said such situations happened more than once, where it was quicker to destroy the machine and get a new machine as opposed to getting parts and repairing the machine.