09:55 – Barbara and I made our final working trip to Winston yesterday. We did stuff like mopping floors, reinstalling receptacle cover plates, and installing four foo-foo generators. This was the first trip that we didn’t haul back a Trooper load of stuff, because the house is empty and everything is already up here or gone to the dump.
This is the first time in more than a year that the whole house hunting/packing up/moving/unpacking thing hasn’t occupied much of our available time. We’re moved, and that’s the last time we’ll ever have to go through this. Now we can devote our time to making and shipping science kits, and I’ll finally have some uninterrupted time to work on the prepping book.
and your number one prep, getting the F out of dodge, is complete.
Now to build a true retreat and strong point….
nick
Foo-foo generator HA!
These are better…
http://www.amazon.com/Krispy-Original-Glazed-Scented-Candle/dp/B017SBHAV0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1461938333&sr=8-2&keywords=krispy+kreme+candles
My daughter gave me one as a joke but turns out they are great. (of course not to be used unattended)
I like this one,
http://www.amazon.com/Renuzit-Killer-Freshener-Adjustable-Unscented/dp/B0040ZNWAG
It has a very low key, very clean smell, lasts a fairly long time when you just crack it open. I have one in each closet, since they don’t get a lot of air circulation.
I use Damp Rid
http://www.amazon.com/DampRid-FG60-Refillable-Moisture-Absorber/dp/B002MPPYU2/ref=pd_sim_201_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=51G%2BXuEiMQL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=0WF6B7KS8J4HPSRB4NV4
in areas that might get moist, like a basement, or rarely opened room. I also use the hanging version in my pickup truck. It prevents the ‘mildew-y’ smell that all vehicles here in the swamp tend to get after a couple of years. The scented versions are pretty strong.
nick
Yeah, we needed something to plug in and leave running in the vacant house. We opted for the “Clean Linen” scent after testing it up here. It’s a pleasant but unobtrusive odor that should keep the Winston house from smelling stale.
From the Grid Down Department:
https://brushbeater.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/oil-lamps/#comments
I know we’ve got a few kicking around here somewhere and I need to locate them and distribute accordingly and get it all organized with wicks and oil storage. And get a few more.
Left mss. on Princess phone yesterday as to what time does she want me to come get her today in Moh-ree-all and no reply; and her mom told me not to worry about it. Thus mote it be.
Interview being scheduled for a gig where I go in for three to six months and run the city power company’s Windows and RHEL servers down in Burlap. We’ll see; could be interesting or just another fool’s errand.
Re: retreat/stronghold
I’m really not expecting hordes of MZB’s to arrive up here. If TSHTF, unprepared people are likely to stick close to major population centers, which is where government food distribution centers and so on will be located. If that breaks down, it’ll be too late for more than a tiny percentage of them to migrate to rural areas, and I suspect the Good Olde Boys up in this neck of the woods will take a dim view of gangbangers or FEMA scroungers invading us. Not that many of them could make it up the hill on foot, given that it’s 4.5 miles of curving two-lane with an 8% grade that’d be easy enough to block by dropping trees and entire hillsides. And 18 coming in from the east or 221 coming in from the west is just about as bad.
Which reminds me of a sign we saw on the drive back up yesterday, “Property for Sale”. It was on the face of a hill with an 80 degree slope. I guess the best those property owners can hope for is a family of mountain goats looking for a new home.
A realtor once told me that the smell of chocolate cookies can help to sway a buyer. So it seems to me that Glade should make that flavor.
Congratulations on a move well done, but I bet there was a little tear in both of your eyes as you looked upon that empty house. Then high-fives and much dancing and jubilation as you and Barbara drove into the sunrise of your new life.
Actually, neither one of us got attached to that house. We lived there only 28 years.
Which reminds me of a TV interview back in the 60’s with a guy who’d just finished his tour in Nam. The interviewer asked him how it felt, and he replied, “I leave Viet Nam with mixed emotions. Joy and happiness.”
Somehow I overlooked getting this on my calendar:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3564829/World-s-largest-post-apocalyptic-festival-sees-thousands-Mad-Max-fans-gather-Californian-desert.html
“Somehow I overlooked getting this on my calendar”
Great comments, as usual for these things, after the main story and pics. Good solid Murkan derps, having a bit o’ fun, laughing, singing and dancing, while the greater society/nay-shun spirals down the toilet. He who laughs last….
Just another example of why Trump is going to win:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-gays-for-trump-crowd-gathers-at-costa-mesa-rally-20160428-story.html
It is time for the silent majority to stop being silent.
BTW, Obuttwad could stop this with one statement: “Stop it you fools”. However Obuttwad is one of the fools. Obuttwad is not a leader and not deserving of any respect. He is a disgrace to his office, his race, and mankind.
“It is time for the silent majority to stop being silent.”
We will see. Esp. if the Repub nabobs and potentates find a way to screw him out of the nomination. Which will mean that Cankles wins in a landslide against any of the other clowns they put up instead. Which is what they want instead of Trump, of course. Then we’ll see again once Cankles is in office.
There is pushback coming and it won’t be pretty. Regular Murkans are getting fed up, angry and hostile with each passing day in this country. Of course the real and important issues are happening behind all the distractions like fat old guys washing their hairy ballz in womyns’ bathrooms, Bruce Jenner invading bathrooms in TX, Calgary Teddy picking Carly for VP, and the various Drudge/tabloid chit that clogs up bandwidth and the air waves. The rulers are preparing to work up to Default and also to ratchet down the police state and they’re not above lying, theft, and murder to do it.
“Obuttwad is not a leader and not deserving of any respect. He is a disgrace to his office, his race, and mankind.”
True. As is also true for G.H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush, Larry Klinton, Field Marshal Rodham, “Denny” Hastert, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and a host of other Congress creeps. Is he somehow much worse than all those others? Maybe; we don’t know yet the full extent of his depredations and chicanery. We are ruled by a psychotic junta of thieves, liars, perverts and war criminals.
Question: What about using the rectangular, industrial style, one gallon milk jugs, you get at CostCo for dry goods storage? These have a very large mouth and might make very good containers for rice or flour. Your thoughts please.
We just became CostCo members and have begun buying our milk in these jugs.
Milk jugs have rough surfaces that are hard to clean. I wouldn’t use them for storage. Plus, they have a crappy seal.
Yes.
It’s almost impossible to clean a container that has contained anything with milk fat in it. Also, they’re usually PE, which is a crappy plastic for LTS. Thickness for thickness, it’s literally 10 or more times as permeable to oxygen and water vapor as PET.
From the Avoid Cities Department:
http://takimag.com/article/the_city_of_homeless_love_gavin_mcinnes/print#axzz47FBKcnTE
I visited Philadelphia with the first wife around thirty years ago and downtown wasn’t too bad and the museums were interesting. Last July I drove through the outskirts and it was bumper-to-bumper (mostly) slag heap industrial wasteland, with various underclass elements bebopping all over the streets or driving the wrong way down one-way avenues or just sitting parked in the middle of the friggin’ street.
Of course driving around greater Burlap up here squicks me out these days, which I do weekly for the vet group meetings, and this coming Monday I got another probable waste-of-time interview for a temp IT drone gig. Whatever.
Could you calculate the permeability of the milk jug’s HDPE by using surface area and average thickness and determine how much oxygen will make it’s way in over a 10 year time period and then calculate how many oxygen absorber packets would be needed to compensate? Gallon milk jugs are as common as 2-liter soda bottles and so it might be worthwhile to determine how to make them work for long-term storage.
Also, with regards to PET/PETE isn’t there a concern with toxins like phthalates and antimony leaching into whatever is stored in them long-term?
Besides the problem cleaning them, they degrade quickly, esp in sunlight, becoming brittle. I think this is by design.
I reuse the 1 gallon juice bottles. They’re very sturdy. The mouth is about the same size as the milk jug.
The container I use the most is the square big mouth jar that nuts and some candy comes in. I use them for rice, noodles, sugar, nuts and bolts, screws, all kinds of stuff.
I’ve posted before about using the cardboard”trays” too organize my can goods. And I stack the big card board “bin” type boxes, tape them together, and have a nice organizer.
Lots of good stuff at Costco.
Nick
Maybe so, but do they have gender-mingled bathrooms? You gotta keep your eye on what’s important.
>em>Maybe so, but do they have gender-mingled bathrooms?
That’s right. If *Cait* can take a dump in the ladies room at the Trump Tower, he/she/it should be able to take a dump in the ladies room at Costco.
Bill Nye the Brainwash Guy doesn’t want you to watch an “AGW Skeptic” film. If he were a science guy he’d encourage people to view all the evidence and competing interpretations. But he’s not. He’s all about the brainwashing, and contrary views are very much contra-indicated.
I don’t encourage people to read/watch creation “science” crap.
“You gotta keep your eye on what’s important.”
And not only your eye…
“….should be able to take a dump in the ladies room at Costco.”
I keep meaning to ask: does this schtick work in reverse? Ya know, like hot chicks start bebopping on into our menz rooms???
“He’s all about the brainwashing, and contrary views are very much contra-indicated.”
J’ever notice dat about da Left in general? They simply cannot STAND any opposing or dissenting views expressed against their boilerplate agitprop. And will use any trick in the book to silence them.
Like the links put up yesterday, by Mr. medium wave, I think, for the Tube vids of Christian Sommers and Co. on stage and trying to discuss things reasonably, while brownshirt commies in the audience screamed and yelled and tried to shut it down. That’s how it is on the college campuses now; if they had their way, they’d put Sommers and Coulter in dunce caps and march them around just like Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” in Red China back in the day.
Near as I can determine this progression of ideologies works from the Calvinist/Puritan ethos through the German nationalist/socialists and on up through the Soviet and Chicom viruses of the 20th-C. They’re totalitarians at heart, and would joyfully welcome their hadji executioners, who’d make sure they were the first to feel the bite of the scimitars. (or more likely, dull rusty kitchen knives).
“Searching for a nanotech self-organizing principle”
http://www.cringely.com/2016/04/29/15259/
“One of the frustrations of nanotechnology is that we generally can’t make nano materials in large quantities or at low cost, much less both. For the last five years a friend of mine has been telling me this story, explaining that there’s a secret manufacturing method and that he’s seen it. I’m beginning to think the guy is right. We may finally be on the threshold of the real nanotech revolution.”
“Say you want to build a space elevator, which is probably the easiest way to hoist payloads into orbit. Easy yet also impossible, because no material can be manufactured that is strong enough to make an elevator cable to space. The weight of the cable alone would cause too much tensile stress: it couldn’t carry itself, much less a commercially-viable payload, too. Some exotic new material is required, one with a strength-to-weight ratio beyond any present material, even spider silk. So we talk about space elevators, we have conferences about space elevators, we draw picture after picture of space elevators, yet we can’t make one. Or couldn’t… until now.”
…
““It can be done,” claimed the Engineer back in 2011. “If you understand the self-organizing principle. We can make these materials quickly and cheaply. the basic building block is carbon and that can be taken directly from the air, possibly saving us from global warning.””
Nanotechnology is almost here to save the day. Or eat us (nano gobblers), take your pick as Ben Bova, Sean Williams, and John Varley ??? have written stories on these.
RBT, were you saying Climate Hustle is creation science? I didn’t pick up on that when I glanced over announcements, then following your comment I looked into CFACT and David Rothbard a bit. They don’t seem to be religiously oriented.
Conspiracy oriented, it looks like, but that’s a different matter.
I keep meaning to ask: does this schtick work in reverse? Ya know, like hot chicks start bebopping on into our menz rooms???
Well I’ve seen it. Large concert at LA Coliseum standing at the large round circular stainless steel urinal and suddenly this chick is sitting backwards on the edge between the guys. Maybe should have drank less beer in the parking lot.
“….should be able to take a dump in the ladies room at Costco.”
I keep meaning to ask: does this schtick work in reverse? Ya know, like hot chicks start bebopping on into our menz rooms???
I was at a Houston Texans football game about 6 or 7 years ago with 70,000 of my closest friends. I went to the men’s room at halftime and waited five minutes in line to get in. The ladies line was about fifteen minutes even though they have twice as many places to go supposedly.
Anyhow, I’m standing at the urinal making water and these two half drunk ladies come in. Not hot but cute. They wait until a stall comes open (giggling madly) and both go into the stall. All 50+ guys in the men’s room pointedly ignore them. Lots of giggling coming from that stall when I left.
No, I was saying that true scientists do in fact give short shrift to discredited ideas. At first, I listened to what the AGW crowd claimed, but they presented no evidence. Models do not equal data, particularly if those models are not predictive when run against historical data.
“… possibly saving us from global warning.””
Global warning, huh? Dat’s a new one on me. Ima just gon go way out on a limb here and DENY it. Make of it what you will.
“…the large round circular stainless steel urinal…”
I’m trying to picture this urinal; it’s what, a big circle where a bunch of guys all pee into the middle of it at the same time? Seems kinda weird, and the chick there woulda been the least of it. And no doubt they were all drinking the usual shitty Murkan lager, not much more flavuh than wotta.
Gotcha, RBT. My phrasing about examining all interpretations of the evidence was sloppy. I should have restricted it to scientific interpretations, which would have excluded creation science, which isn’t science no matter what they call it.
Large concert at LA Coliseum standing at the large round circular stainless steel urinal and suddenly this chick is sitting backwards on the edge between the guys.
Back in the 70s I worked in a warehouse that had wash basins like these in the men’s washroom.
Something similar was installed in the Super Dome; the public had to be instructed that they were not urinals.
Things may be different in Los Angeles! 🙂
We had the at the papermill I worked at.
Looked at Cringely’s column on nanotech and the links he had.
The Engineer’s reference to self-organization and a Russian scientist, EM fields, and quantum effects has a strong whiff of ….. crackpot ideas. There is a long history of Russians with grand mathematical and scientific theories that have little to no relevance to the real world, that are just plain crackpot ideas, or occasionally have something real in them. Math and theory was big in the USSR since they were way, way behind on computers, especially for experimental work.*
Now, I know some of the staff at the Rice nanotech institute that one of the links led to. One is a physical chemist and he said that the biggest obstacle to progress in nanotech was the lack of a theoretical foundation based in observations. He said that a lot of basic research would be needed to understand what was possible, 10-20 years. Note that high temperature superconductors were observed in 1986, but are only commercialized at high cost for scientific and medical instruments to produce strong magnetic fields. The “killer app” for them would be in power lines to eliminate transmission loss. Still not available, 30 years later.
*A friend worked with some Russians that were visiting scholars at U of Houston in the early 80s. The DEC data acquisition computers in the UofH MechE lab were more powerful than the mainframes the Russians had access to at a major Russian science institute.
“We don’t need a white man telling us that he’s gonna build a wall in our land…we want him out!”
https://twitter.com/ThisIsFusion/status/726141966841315329
Watch the video if you dare.
Wow.
Per our sometimes discussion of EMP and it’s effects on stuff:
http://www.futurescience.com/emp/vehicles.html
Note that I haven’t read it yet but it looks like someone did do some testing.
n
Watch the video if you dare.
Molon labe, chica.
“Molon labe, chica.”
I sorta feel the same way. However, so much land has changed hands throughout history all over the world; it’s like, whoever’s on it now that’s got the firepower to keep it. And then half a century or several centuries later, some other group is on it. The Magyars weren’t always on the Hungarian central plain and the Cherokees weren’t always in Oklahoma. My Puritan ancestors be-bopped into Maffachufetts and the place was swarming with Algonqian bands; half a century later they’d been decimated and were mostly gone from there.
Also, the chica may not have the firepower, but plenty of narcotrafficante bands DO, and they’ve had the advanced infantry and spec ops training and got hold of weapons at least as good as our guys have. Demographics will end up with a huge chunk of the Murkan Southwest becoming Nuevo Aztlan.
At The April 28 Trump Rally: Mexico Attacks
Excerpt: “Ah, the lefties. They can’t stand freedom of expression or assembly. Wonder who the great genius is who decided that the best way to undermine Trump’s message on illegal aliens is to get a bunch of guys waving Mexican flags, threatening and punching people, trashing cars, and attacking cops. All that, of course, makes one feel all warm and fuzzy about letting in more illegal aliens . . . “
Attack on 1st amendment
“Mom convicted for Facebook post about school shooting threat overheard by her son”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3566312/Eighth-graders-planning-shootout-s-die-Mom-convicted-Facebook-post-school-shooting-threat-overheard-son.html
“A criminal complaint filed by police said Alvarez posted January 29 on her Facebook page that her son told her that several eighth-graders were planning to take guns to school and have a shootout.
The complaint also said Alvarez told investigators that her post was intended to gather information but that there were 160 student absences the next school day, most resulting from her post, in addition to at least 100 phone calls to the school about the post.”
She hit them in the pocketbook, and inconvenienced the bureaucrats and now she must pay.
” post was an alarming and inappropriate online comment” … “contact school officials rather than posting something online.”
Granted that the fine was minimal in this case. She didn’t do anything wrong.
Apparently now in New Mexico, you can be arrested, charged, and found guilty of something that isn’t a crime, if you piss off the school officials and cost them money….and there’s at least one judge who has never read the Constitution, or any other laws.
nick
I wonder if her son did, in fact, say there was to be a gunfight at school. If so, was he making it up or did he really hear this. If so, why didn’t the bimbo call the school or the cops rather than try to “gather information” by posting this crap on Facebook?
I think the bimbo got off lightly.
OFD wrote:
“I keep meaning to ask: does this schtick work in reverse? Ya know, like hot chicks start bebopping on into our menz rooms???”
Yeah, it does.
A number of times I’ve been at well attended events where the Powder Room was crowded, so young women just went to the Gents and took over some cubicles. I found it a bit weird to hear feminine giggling in *our* “bathroom”.
I’d get 20 years in the slammer if I went into the Powder Room.
OFD wrote:
“Near as I can determine this progression of ideologies works from the Calvinist/Puritan ethos…”
Dave, WTF are you snorting there?
I’m sure you remember enough of the history you learned before you went over to the idolaters, about how the Catholics burned people at the stake for “crimes” such as being baptised as an adult, and not following the everchanging dictates of the supposed Bishop of Rome and his accomplices.
RBT wrote:
“Actually, neither one of us got attached to that house. We lived there only 28 years.”
I feel the same way about houses. When I bought my place in Canberra in 1985 my solicitor asked “Are you excited?” Nope, not even slightly. When I sold it a couple of years back after 28 years I walked out the door and just about forgot it. It’s just a house. People are more important.
Bah. People suck. Kittens are more important … like the cute little guy currently attacking my fingers as I type, purring the whole while. (We didn’t get a cat, we’re just taking care of a kitten while one of my wife’s friends has a vacation.)
” was he making it up or did he really hear this.”
Nothing in the article suggested that the stated facts were in dispute. She was charged because she posted – spoke freely. As her lawyer said, she has no obligation to call the school, and in fact the school seems to be quite good at monitoring FB.
What’s next? Arrested for posting about the school board? The Mayor?
This stinks like rotten eggs.
nick
Nick, does my right to free speech extend to crying “FIRE!” in a crowded auditorium with limited exits?
Oh dear! I wonder who is hacking Hindus, Christians, atheists and so forth to death in Bangladesh. A group of renegade Catholic nuns? Hindu schoolgirls? Surely it couldn’t be adherents of the religion of peace.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-30/hindu-tailor-hacked-to-death-in-bangladesh/7373414
“Nick, does my right to free speech extend to crying “FIRE!” in a crowded auditorium with limited exits?”
Yes, it does. If history has shown us anything, it’s that making any exceptions whatsoever to Constitutional rights puts us on a slippery slope to losing those rights. Free speech must be absolute, as must the right to keep and bear arms of any sort.
Keeping arms, sure, up to a point. But I don’t think individuals should be allowed to own nukes. If you or I can buy them, so can friendly, peace loving moslems.
Yes, I include nukes. If you give government an inch, they’ll take it all.
I also support the right of the people to keep and bear arms, no matter who the people are. So, yes, even convicted felons and moslems have the right to keep and bear arms. I hate having to say that, but it’s better than giving the government an inch.
I’m trained in the care, handling, and use of nuclear weapons (thank you U.S. Navy) as well as their production (thank you Hanford).
So I should be able to have a few around just for occasional use on the not-so-peace-loving moooslems (e=evil).
Add Trump Haters to the list.
I approve Mr. DadCooks’s message.
Damned few Americans have any strong attachment to their rights. Virtually no one outside of the US has any comprehension of individual rights.
I’m trained in the care, handling, and use of nuclear weapons
If you would create a small thermonuclear pile that could power my house for, say about 50 years, without refilling or maintenance I would be very much in your debt. I would find that much more useful than a small bomb to get rid of my neighbors.
@miles, straw man much? (and I KNEW as I commented that the ‘fire in a theatre’ argument was next. I’m not really trying to be personally insulting, but you are following in a well worn track.)
Nukes aren’t exactly laying around, waiting to be bought by private citizens and terrorists– except in those places where they are and there is little rule of law. If you want one, and have the money, and the right ideology, you can certainly buy one NOW. So the “nukes” argument is really weak. Like any gun control “law” it only works on the law abiding. Besides which maintaining and using a nuke is a non-trivial exercise.
Beyond that, US citizens have privately owned warships the rival of any in the world at the time. So, yeah the idea that citizens can be trusted with real weapons is a vital part of our history and political philosophy.
The ‘fire in a theatre’ argument doesn’t apply here. No one was constrained in any way. Parents could judge the value of her post on its own merit and had a day to make a decision about what to do or not do. Based solely on the article, NOTHING she did was illegal. Leave aside the 1A issue, and it still wasn’t illegal.
What she did do was upset some people, and cost the school attendance money, and so she must be punished.
nick
And IIRC correctly, the yelling fire and causing panic was the direct result of some horrible theatre fires, notably one in Chicago. The panic and deaths were the result of not enough doors, or aisles, or fire control equipment, all of which have been subsequently addressed in the building code.
In any modern theatre, someone yelling fire shouldn’t cause a panic, because people can get out, and yes, I know it’s now an analogy, but not a good one. (acknowledged that people are stupid, and might panic anyway.)
Any restriction put in place contrary to our foundational documents is wrong and should be challenged.
If the founders wanted restrictions, they listed them:
3A–“without the consent of the Owner” “in a manner to be prescribed by law.”
4A–“but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
5A–“except in cases arising…” “without due process of law…without just compensation”
7A–“than according to the rules of the common law”
So they were perfectly capable of letting us know when they were ok with restrictions.
and the Amendments not listed don’t have them.
nick
@steve
“Damned few Americans have any strong attachment to their rights.”
but they are the first to shriek about them when they thinkthey have ‘rights.’
And even fewer acknowledge the responsibilities that accompany those rights.
nick
“If you would create a small thermonuclear pile that could power my house for, say about 50 years, without refilling or maintenance…”
These have existed for over 40-years and units for powering space probes virtually forever have been around since the beginning days of NASA.
The eco-weenies and anti-nuke lobby have prevented the real economical use of nuclear power at any level, let alone home, neighborhood, or city level.
IF regulations were realistic a new home could be built with a 55-gallon drum size power unit (total sealed) that would safely power a home for about 50-years before being swapped out for a new unit.
Why is this not done? First big problem is that it requires highly enriched uranium, which we have tonnes of, but the gooberment signed away our rights to produce it for anything other than nuclear powered ships. Another dirty little secret is we cannot even enrich for keeping our nuclear stockpile up to date.
I sense a big rant coming on, so I’ll spare you folks with these parting words, we have enough spent fuel sitting around that we are not allowed to process into usable fuel that could meet all of our electrical needs for generations. We also have the technology and ability to build large nuclear reactors that are safer, way cheaper, better, 100-times more efficient, and smaller than anything the public is aware of today. Just to give you an idea, the “lifetime” reactors in today’s nuclear submarines produce enough power that one can power a city the size of Seattle (also gives you an idea of the power it takes to run a nuclear sub).
Odd, isn’t it, how many of their “rights” imposes a duty or a cost on someone else? Free healthcare, education, housing, food, and entertainment. Freedom from being offended or questioned. Ad infinitum ad nauseum.
“Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” is more a warning than anything else.
Once again I approve the message from Mr. DadCooks; it is a blatant outrage that we do not have the nuclear power he describes, for utterly stupid reasons. And no one with the moral and political courage to set it right.
“And even fewer acknowledge the responsibilities that accompany those rights.”
Quite frankly, I seriously doubt that the Founders had any idea that their rights and liberties as they understood them would eventually be in the hands of a vast empire composed of ignorant, ahistorical orcs and derps, rather akin to putting AK47s in the hands of chimpanzees. Every once in a while some enterprising young media comic/hustler gets out with a camera and asks peeps on the street basic questions about the Declaration and Constitution and Bill of Rights and sure, it’s very comical to see the answers given, but it’s also very tragic and sad.
The Founders’ idea of a basically agrarian federal republic clearly do not work for a vast empire of 330 million orcs and rustics. And as we have seen throughout history, vast empires come and go, and ours is kinda wobbly about now. Our little federal experiment was nice while it lasted and shows what could be done for a much smaller political entity.
So what you’re saying is, we should kill off 90% of the American population, working up from the stupid end of the spectrum?
I approve this message!
DadCooks said
(stuff about nuclear power)
1. Is nuclear power economic? I’m all in favour if it is, but whenever I see it talked about, even by proponents, they want big government subsidies or taxes on alternative power sources to make it feasable. Whatever happened to the meterless power of the Fifties?
2. Doesn’t the US have a shitload of HER and weapons grade plutonium from de-commisioned weapons to fabricate power reactors without having to produce more fissile material?
“…kill off 90% of the American population, working up from the stupid end of the spectrum?”
Unfortunately, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are no respecters of divvying up the pop via intellect, usefulness, or moral superiority. So if the SHTF scenario ever hits us in a yuuuuuuuuuge way, we’ll still end up with 90% cretins, morons, orcs, rustics, and derps.
“the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”…
I don’t plan to be around then. YMMV.
@Miles_Teg
“1. Is nuclear power economic?…”
Not in today’s regulatory environment and neither is coal or hydro. The ONLY reason that there is wind and solar are the tremendous gooberment subsidies.
“Whatever happened to the meterless power of the Fifties?”
Regulated out of existence before it even got started. I got my introduction to nuclear power in the early 60s with the Dresden Generating Station in Grundy County Illinois and Argonne National Labs. This is where the too cheap to meter talk got started.
“2. Doesn’t the US have a shitload of HER and weapons grade plutonium from de-commisioned weapons to fabricate power reactors without having to produce more fissile material?’
Yes, but the gooberment negotiated away any ability for us to reprocess any nuclear material. We have sent most of it to Russia.
If the public really understood the facts of nuclear power and how we have given away ALL of our technology the firing squads would be busy for years executing the traitors that have destroyed the only good thing WWII produced (I’m not talking about the bomb, that was just a byproduct of the power production technology).
“…the firing squads would be busy for years…”
You say that as though it was a bad thing. Hey, good jobs for Murkans for years! Cleaning out the rubbish.
You’re old enough to remember: that book back in the Glorious Sixties, “None Dare Call It Treason.” The title of which the authors ripped from this guy:
Sir John Harrington:
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
Indeed.
http://www.constitutionparty.com/none-dare-call-it-treason-50-years-later-the-vision-of-john-a-stormer/
“You say that as though it was a bad thing. Hey, good jobs for Murkans for years! Cleaning out the rubbish. “
Absolutely not a bad thing and more fun than paper targets.
Think of the JOBS! Everything associated with firearms manufacturing and maintenance, including three shifts working mandatory OT for ammo! Everything associated with making the raw materials for all that stuff! Bulldozer operators for the mass graves! Or just crematory operators. Mordor-on-the-Potomac ALONE will keep peeps working for YEARS! Ditto the Bos-Wash Corridor! Remember that? The “Bos-Wash Corridor?” National Geographic had a map of it, stretching from Boston to D.C, and now it runs from Portland, Maine to Miami. A Category 7 hurricane would be ideal. I wanna see the lake wotta down the street here come up over that road and stay there, making it permanently impassable except for boats.
Graves? Crematoria? What are you talking about? The purged should be fed into the biodiesel vats. Still alive, by choice — make sure that with all that shooting, they’re just wounded.
We could even print up some paper targets for practice. Full-body silhouettes, as can be bought now, but instead of the heart area being 5 points, the extremities are worth the most and the head is 0.
Fun fact: I got bitched at by one company commander for getting a so-so score on the .45 shooting range. Every shot was in the head of the silhouette, grouped surprisingly tightly considering the poor condition of the pistols we were shooting with. The problem was that the head was only 4 points, whereas center torso was 5 points. I clearly could have gotten 100 instead of 80 points, which apparently made the captain look bad.
Fuck that captain; a double-tap to the head in combat works pretty nearly all the time with the right ammo, of course; can’t say the same about the center torso. I got jammed up the same way by putting all my rounds into a one-inch group in the throat of the silhouette. Doubt I could do that now, but maybe with more practice; and that was using a .41 Mag revolver. The sergeant thought I did great but the chief got all bothered.
Just to give you an idea, the “lifetime” reactors in today’s nuclear submarines produce enough power that one can power a city the size of Seattle
Seattle uses just over 1 GW on average and a nuclear sub reactor output is about 165 MWe, both from Wikipedia.
In any case, the reactors used in subs and in most commercial plants are suboptimal from a safety and reliability point of view. Molten salt reactors, pebble beds, and other are failsafe in design, are simpler to operate, and may have lower lifecycle costs. They also have waste products that are not suitable for weapons use. We went down the path of PWR systems because that’s what the Navy needed – small, high power reactors that can be run for years without overhaul, so that’s what Westinghouse, et.al. knew how to build. But they are awful from a safety design point of view.
All of the objections to nuclear are political at this time. Some R&D money dropped into some of the more advanced design concepts would allow them to be deployed fairly quickly and allow us to phase out coal and other dirty power generation systems.
That would require the death of a lot of Sierra Club members, Concerned Mothers for Our Children’s Future, and corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.
… And I see nothing wrong with any of that. Proceed.
I remember teaching a girlfriend to shoot a revolver. I loaded my Ruger .357 with six rounds of .38 +P and told Debbie to cock, aim, and fire all six rounds slow fire. She cocked and fired the first round and then continued double-action rapid-fire at a standard FBI KD target 20 feet out. She shot about a 2″ group clustered on the target’s crotch.
“… And I see nothing wrong with any of that. Proceed.”
I’m OFD and I approve of this message.
“She shot about a 2″ group clustered on the target’s crotch.”
How long was she your gf after that?
Not long. She married my best friend. Alas, she died young from cancer. I still mourn her.
She was the smartest woman I’ve ever known, daughter of two professors at Princeton’s IAS. She was two or thee years older than me, and among her earliest memories were her dad taking her to work where Einstein used to bounce her on his knee.
My primary threat model requiring me to shoot is the police, or other government forces. Torso armor must be assumed, so head shots are preferred unless they’re wearing face shields, in which case I’ll go for groin or thigh shots. Yes, I’ve practiced that.
Better, get amongst them with knives. A crowd of rifle-wielding men is dead meat against a pair of bowie knives. Yes, I’ve practiced that, too.
I’ve mentioned that I practice combative martial arts with like-minded instructors and classes, and realistic and challenging scenarios. I got a few askance looks when I set up the knives against a crowd of cops scenario, because several in the class were cops or security guards of some sort, but it was a good exercise. I also must admit that I was killed in that scenario… but I killed about six of the (pretend) body-armored, rifle-wielding (paintball gun, actually) cops with backup outside the door, and some of them shot each other, too. Good times…
Aside from all that, aiming at the face has salutory effects. Staring down the barrel of a .357 or a 12 ga. makes most men calm right the hell down and let you take them into custody or read them the riot act about threatening their ex-girlfriends.
There I was, waxing pedantic about double-tap shots…
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/spiritual-advice/#respond
“…in which case I’ll go for groin or thigh shots.”
Also aim for the weapons they’re holding, esp. if rifles, bullets and shrapnel ripping into hands and arms will be extremely painful and render them pretty much null and void about shooting anything.
“…get amongst them with knives.”
Indeed. And tacticool shooters need to remember that a guy with a knife in the same room space can get to your ass faster than you can draw and fire your weapon. You is gonna git cut or punctured. I had a punk-ass mofo reaching down to yank his boot knife out one time and he thought twice about it as the muzzle of my revolver was in his throat; I even thumbed the hammer back so he’d get it for certain. Ol’ OFD useta be able to move pretty fast, too. Now I’d just shoot the fucker.
“…aiming at the face has salutory effects.”
Absolutely. Done that a few times, too. One guy immediately dropped his sawed-off shotgun out the car window. Another dropped the pistol he’d been grabbing from under his car seat. Very close both times, though, a nanosecond and either or both of them woulda been goners.
Good times, indeed.
But not as much fun as swinging the PR-24 Monadnock Prosecutor baton into a crowd of brawling bikers (or worse, the hockey team) and their girlfriends. Like a helicopter blade, bodies flying all over the place.
@ech – believe Wiki-whatever if you want. The true output of nuclear submarines is classified and all I can say is that what you read is not even in the ballpark, as are published speeds of 20 knots and depths of less than 1,000 feet. A fast attack submarine has to not just keep up with an aircraft carrier at a flank bell but it has to be able to catch up to one.
In any case the power density of Naval Nuclear Reactors is far greater than anything in the civilian world and the core life is now measured in decades instead of years.
Heh, yah, the publicly known declassified information is usually way the hell off. I don’t know bupkis about Navy stuff, but I (used to) know all sorts of cool things about surveillance satellites and aircraft and USSR equipment and what-not, and had to bite my tongue when someone was waxing wise about “the real stuff that us in the know know”.
Short version: The US had some really damned good engineers, back when.
Hey, I only know what I know if ya know what I mean…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33zJvKNYv2c
….just thought I’d inflict this insipid Edie Brickell tune on youse all, late on a Saturday night…
OFD didn’t know diddly about any classified techie stuff, but I did guard nuclear warheads with an M16 in that friggin’ frigid central Maine winter snowscape for a few months, on the night shifts….permanent frostbite in all ten fingers, all ten toes and the tops of my ears, despite being dressed like Admiral Peary or them sherpas on Everest. I woulda felt damn sorry for any commie assholes fanatic enough to belly-crawl through the ice and snow of the surrounding deep forest, cut through or scale a massive chain-line fence topped by razor wire, and then have to dig or chop through more ice, snow, and concrete to get at the buried bunker munitions, all on alarms and guarded by a bunch of panicky young troops with de facto machine guns.
@OFD, you do know that Edie Brickell’s husband probably looks like a hobbit standing next to you? He is one fine song writer / player though.
@ech – I have to correct myself, my numbers did get a bit scrambled when talking about the electrical generation capability of Navy Nuclear Submarine Reactors. Nuclear Aircraft Carriers have multiple reactors and it is the Nuclear Aircraft Carrier that has the potential to power a city the size of Seattle. A submarine’s reactor has the potential to produce a bit more than 1/4 the power of the Nuclear Aircraft Carrier’s reactors combined.
Note the word “potential”. A nuclear powered vessel cannot just pull up to a city and plug in to provide all that power. The secondary steam system would have to be different as well as the generators.
So yes, I was being over exuberant and adding a bit of “sea story” to my assertions. The bottom line is that Naval Nuclear Reactors are very compact high power generation capability power systems. But again we run into the situation our gooberment has negotiated away, that is the ability for us to use anything deemed a “military weapon” to be used for “good”, no bombs into plowshares.
Each year we essentially throw away enough “spent” nuclear material that if reprocessed, enriched (today we can only enrich for military purposes), and put in efficient reactors we would never have an electrical power problem.
The bottom line is that Naval Nuclear Reactors are very compact high power generation capability power systems. But again we run into the situation our gooberment has negotiated away, that is the ability for us to use anything deemed a “military weapon” to be used for “good”, no bombs into plowshares.
The commercial reactors in use in the US are all derived from Navy designs – same design teams. They are not as compact because they don’t have to be, they don’t have the same power density because they are designed for easy refueling – to refuel a sub requires cutting a hole in the hull, on of my bosses had a piece of the hull of the USS Lapon on his desk from when he was crew during a refueling stay in drydock. The problem is that we stopped R&D on advanced reactors under Carter, and only restarted it in a halfassed way a few years ago. The ChiComs are pushing strong for pebble bed reactors right now.
Jimmy Carter, the gift that keeps on giving.
Yeah, Carter sucks, but so have all the rest of them, going back a very long way. And now it doesn’t matter who’s in the WH anyway.
The last of the Los Angeles class, all follow on classes (Ohio, Seawolf, Virginia), and all future classes are designed to never have to be refueled. Time will tell if this is a wise decision.
I have been through the whole life cycle of submarines; concept, design, new construction, operation, overhaul, refueling and overhaul, and decommissioning.
While, for the most part, the reactor design teams for naval and commercial nuclear reactors are most of the same folks there is really a lot of difference in the design of the reactors, the physics follow the same basic principles but how they are designed and constructed is vastly different, not just that commercial reactors can be easily and frequently refueled. U.S.Naval Reactors use highly enriched Uranium, at least 93% (the Russians use 21%-45%), and U.S. commercial nuclear plants use 5% enrichment (one of the reasons for more frequent refueling cycles). That low enrichment requires a far different core and control rod. configuration.
While Carter was certainly no friend of nuclear power, Reagan did inject some hope for awhile with his support for the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). Clinton killed everything though and now we have a multi-billion-dollar rock of sodium and specialized metals sitting out here in the Hanford desert (some of the sodium was drained, but Bechtel cut corners in the original design and construction so it is impossible to fully drain the loops). I was an Operator at the FFTF during its final year of construction, initial startup, and its short operational life. Then I went from the newest to the last Plutonium production reactor, the Hanford N-Reactor (the only reactor that produced nuclear materials for the government AND electrical power for the civilian power grid).
And yes, China has all our best and brightest Nuclear Engineers working for them now, plus all the R&D paid for by us few tax paying U.S. Citizens.
Can we be assured that Homer Simpson portrays the nuke operator’s job accurately or not?
I’m so glad my tax dollars have been going for Chicom engineer training plus all the endless wars that get us nothing but more wars.
Hae, at least BJ Klinton jump started one nuke program. For the NORKS!
None dare call it treason.
Can we be assured that Homer Simpson portrays the nuke operator’s job accurately or not?
Well, lots of them are former Navy nuke operators. My wife has a nephew that was an operator on Enterprise and finished his career of about 22-24 years as a senior master chief. Spent time on the ship and as a nuke operator instructor onshore. He now works for a power company as an operator in eastern IL.
So I guess not. Probably not as careless or funny as poor ol’ Homer.
Only nukes I saw during my AF time were warheads. But my late dad was a power plant insurance inspector for years and I remember he did a couple of those gigs at Plymouth Yankee and Seabrook in NH back in the day.
Ex Navy Nukes are an in demand commodity, even though there are no new nuclear plants (bright side, one is under construction and there are some going through the regulatory approval hoops http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/new-reactor-map.html).
When I got out of the Navy there was a head-hunting company that helped Navy Nukes find the best jobs, you got top dollar and had choices of locations.
The AF used to have a nuke program, but the SL-1 incident put an end to that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
This pdf report is the unclassified version of a classified report that was required reading in Nuke Power School:
http://www.id.doe.gov/foia/PDF/IDO-19302.pdf
At Navy Nuke Power School (classroom portion) this incident was used as a lesson on what not to do.
WRT Homer Simpson, the Control Rooms Operators and Primary Plant Operators are the definition of qualified professional. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the Secondary Plant Operators. If you had access to the full reports on the accidents in the U.S. Commercial Nuclear Power Industry you would find that in most cases it was errors in the secondary plant that led to problems in the primary, Three Mile Island is a case in point.
D’oh!!!
dkreck wrote:
“Well I’ve seen it. Large concert at LA Coliseum standing at the large round circular stainless steel urinal and suddenly this chick is sitting backwards on the edge between the guys. Maybe should have drank less beer in the parking lot.”
Some male family members went to a demolition derby or something. When they were having a slash at the urinal in walks a tough looking bird who approaches the urinal, drops her jeans, turns around, bends over and lets go.
I would have paid good money to see that… 🙂