08:16 – It was 60.8F (6C) and partly cloudy when I took Colin out at 0645.
Barbara left about 1515 yesterday to head down to Winston. She had dinner with a friend yesterday evening, stayed with Frances and Al, and is running various errands today and Sunday morning before heading back. Colin and I are bereft. Barbara’s gone, and neither of us has been able to locate any wild women.
I see some religious nutcase says the world is ending, starting today. He formerly said it was ending today, period, but recently modified his prediction to say that today was the beginning of the end. Which is kind of like predicting that the sun will rise in the morning, but followers of idiots like this never seem to notice.
I remember the last time the world ended, back in 2011. We’d planned to have dinner with Paul and Mary at our house. We decided that it’d be safe for Mary, Barbara, and me to have dinner indoors, but we were going to make Paul eat out on the deck. All four of us are atheists, so we figured everything would be okay, but because Paul had been “saved” as a small child meant that he might be transported to heaven, we decided to take no chance of ending up with a hole in our roof
As I was packing up science kits last night and affixing postage labels, it occurred to me how strongly our customer base skews rural/small-town. Sure, we sell a lot of kits into the Clinton Archipelago, but a large percentage go to red states or red areas of blue states. Our customer base is much more likely than average to live in small towns in exurban/rural areas in all 50 states. Now, every time we get an order with a ship-to town I don’t recognize the name of, I look it up on Wikipedia. More often than not, it has a population of 1,237 or 4,158 or something like that, and is located in a rural/agricultural county with a population of 30,000 or fewer.
There’s been a lot of speculation by commenters here about what might happen if things really go to hell. The consensus seems to be that the progs from the blue areas would be in deep shit because (a) they can’t do anything important for themselves, (b) we Deplorables own most of the firearms, and (c) on average, we’re much, much better shots. And I think all of that is true. But it may not be the most important differentiator.
Home-schooled students are far, far ahead of public school students. On average, they’re probably two to three grade levels ahead. Even more important, they actually learn to think, which is a rarity among public-school students. Even disregarding demographic differences, which substantially favor the rural kids, those kids are smarter, better-educated, and harder working than urban kids in public schools. And the rural kids also tend to learn hands-on skills, much more than urban kids do.
So if push ever really comes to shove, the rural population has every advantage over the urban population. If the latter decides to come to take what we have, they’re going to run into a buzzsaw. Or perhaps more accurately, a meat grinder.
(d) They’re in the disaster zone and (most of) you guys aren’t. They need to get away from the disease/radiation/looting/whatever and to somewhere safe where they can beg/borrow/steal what they need for survival. Assuming they can get out of the hellhole in the first place they need to find someone outside the Archipelago who can and will help them. Not impossible but not easy.
So if push ever really comes to shove, the rural population has every advantage over the urban population. If the latter decides to come to take what we have, they’re going to run into a buzzsaw. Or perhaps more accurately, a meat grinder.
The Progs do have a point about a lot of rural, “red” areas being dependent on government money, either directly, through salaries and welfare checks, or indirectly through subsidies and, thanks to Obamacare, control of higher ed and the medical system. We’re probably at least one generation removed, possibly two, from rural areas being able to handle a SHTF situation without serious loss of life and societal breakdown.
“a lot of rural, “red” areas being dependent on government money, either directly, through salaries and welfare checks, or indirectly through subsidies”
drop in the bucket compared to the lib/prog run areas…
remember that progs see everyone else thru their lens, and almost everything they say bad about people different from themselves is projection…
n
Although I think the content at https://survivalblog.com/ has gotten a lot more hit or miss lately, there are several lessons to be learned from this first hand account:
https://survivalblog.com/recent-experience-bugging-disaster-part-1-j-w/
https://survivalblog.com/recent-experience-bugging-disaster-part-2-j-w/
FUEL!
n
FUEL!
He has a point about panic buying. I lived in Tampa before the nonsense “anti gouging” laws, and gasoline after a hurricane was generally not a problem because supply and demand would mean the incentive was there for the suppliers to roll trucks until the barges started moving across the Gulf again, usually a few days.
I’m willing to bet that the (under normal circumstances) much-hated stations near the Orlando airport with unwritten state waivers to sell gas for $5-6/gallon never ran out of supply … or customers … after Irma.
For Catholics this could be big.
Clergy and Lay Scholars Issue Filial Correction of Pope Francis: The initiative, the first time such a mechanism has been used since the Middle Ages, accuses the Pope of “propagating heresies” and respectfully asks that he teach the truth of the Catholic faith in its integrity. “The filial correction, the first to be made of a reigning Pontiff since Pope John XXII was admonished in 1333, is divided into three main parts.
I see they accused the Pope of heresy. That doesn’t sound good to me.
http://m.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/group-of-clergy-and-laity-issue-filial-correction-of-pope-francis#.WccKoTZOlpW
I read it, couldn’t see any detail about what the AC has actually said or done wrong. I wish people would come to the point.
Video of my train operation adventure can found at this link.
http://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/Running.MP4
Yes, I purchased the hat. If you are going to do it, go all the way (no jokes OFD).
Wow, that was wicked pissah, Mr. Ray! Excellent adventure!
I wanna learn how to fly a seaplane but it will take a lot longer and a lot more money.
WRT to the anti-pope, Bergoglio; documents like this have been sent to him all along, and this one was handed to him nearly two months ago. He just ignores them. Benedict is still the Pope, but both of them will be gone soon enough. We’ve had bad characters in that office before, including anti-popes. I’m hoping and praying for a conservative pope next time, probably from Africa, where Catholics are being persecuted and murdered pretty much like they were under Domitian and Diocletian and Nero.
Amazing video, Ray! Rock steady. How did you avoid blurring from camera vibration?
Dem calls for all NFL players to kneel during national anthem
Yeah, that will help stanch the NFL’s hemorrhaging viewership!
Morons, Mr. medium. Cretins. Or maybe that’s what they want. Who knows, nowadays? Hard to figure these bastards out anymore.
I’m watching the Pats play Houston tomorrow in Maffachufetts and we’ll see if there are any situations like that. I doubt we’ll EVER see a Patriot player do that.
How did you avoid blurring from camera vibration?
It a GoPro Hero 5 Camera. It was mounted to the back window of the engine cab with a suction cup mount. I then turned on image stabilization which did a really good job. The train was quite bumpy and my bouncing in the seat is not from excitement. It was simply the amount of bumpiness on the trip.
Thanks Ray. My wife wants a GoPro, I’ve been looking at models, and I’ll take that as a model recommendation…
I’ll take that as a model recommendation…
I was impressed with the model and how well it does video. Image stabilization was much better than I expected. From the bouncing in the train I expected significant vibration in the video from the camera being mounted in on the cab window.
Camera is also waterproof down to 30 feet, quite small for what it does, and the video quality is much better than what I would have expected.
Don’t try and shop for price. Apparently GoPro forces sellers to use the same price. I bought mine at Imotion in the Atlanta Aiport. Did so after seeing the camera and checking the prices online such as Amazon and Best Buy and finding out there was not much use in looking around.
Lot of mounting accessories so you should be able to find something that will fit your mounting requirements.
So yeh, I am pleased with the camera and would recommend the camera for recording activities.
Wouldn’t Medium Wave be Mr Wave?
Calling him Mr Medium sounds like he sees dead people. I’m sorta like that, except that I see stupid people. They’re everywhere. They walk around just like you and me, and they don’t even realize that they’re stupid.