gun sales down

GUN SALES DOWN

Smith and Wesson just saw a huge drop in its sales and some are forecasting this is the end of the panic buying.  Sure, it could be.  Every swinging cheese dingus out there who was saving his allowance magnanimously granted by their Barbie Princess wife finally years later was able to buy the overpriced semi-auto of his erotic wet dreams and the supply of those suckers has dried up.  I’m even seeing some private sale semi’s being offered whereas before there were none.  Not even record prices could get most folks to part with their prized poodle shooters.  Not that this makes a trend.  Hell, it could just be that S&W is an asswhore worthless company and their only uptick in sales was because folks were so desperate for firepower they went to them as a last resort after everyone else was sold out or offering waiting lists.  Or, it could be that sales are down and private sales are up because the economy has contracted that much and the proof is in the pudding that disposable income is shrinking.  The numbers might be so messaged that we never saw a huge drop in employable hours, or wages have really dropped below inflation.  Or any other number of things.  Since the media is getting better and better about this disinformation thing, even the most astute analytical researcher is going to be kept in the dark.  Like, how the petrodollar decline is picking up steam.

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The big Russian gas company just stopped accepting dollars as payment.  No big deal, those jingoistic “American Empire AND Frack Oil Forever And Ever To Infinity And Beyond” proponents reply.  Until the Saudi’s stop taking the greenbacks, our economy won’t take a big squishy dump.  No?  Are you betting your life on that?  Obviously you are.  Why is it that you believe the Saudi oil fields are off limits to attack?  The Iran fields weren’t.  Nor the Iraqi.  Not the Libyan.  Or Syrian.  If, say, Russia were to pay a proxy to damage Saudi production ( ISIS, anyone? ) who would benefit?  Russia perhaps?  Their Siberian fields are younger and less tapped out than Saudi Arabia’s.  If they are only taking Rubles and Yuan in payment, and suddenly they become the number one oil producer ( the US might be #3, but that helps not at all if we need three times as much for domestic use ), do you see ANY way we could either interest anyone in taking our dollars, or getting Russia to take them for oil for the US?  With control of the Ukraine ( they aren’t even really trying to control it.  Yet ) they won’t need our grain.  China might need our soy, even though they have been busy cultivating South America for that source, but they will just give us manufactured crap rather than currency.  The petro-dollar collapse could easily be overnight, and it will be as damaging as an EMP attack.

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beach cruiser diet 9

BEACH CRUISER DIET 9

ALL WEATHER RIDING

Another excuse folks are going to use to avoid riding a bike full time and giving up their car so they can tell Uncle Obammy to hump off ( combined taxes on gasoline exceed combined private sector profits from all parties-oil company, refiner, retailer ) is that ooh golly gosh the weather it is just so frightful.  Well no crap Sherlock.  If you wear T-shirts and tennis shoes and run screaming like a naked girl from an overheated house to an always running car ( seriously, people?  You need to leave the car idling as you go into the store shopping just so the thing is toasty warm when you get back?  Who hasn’t ever heard of a friggin sweater? ) and drive to a heated office, well then I guess any season NOT summer is just as miserable and unbearable as can be.  But here is a little secret.  Your body burns fat to keep itself warm.  If you don’t warm your body with a heater, whether that is central heat or a car heater, your body will burn fat to keep itself alive.  Fat bastards of the world!  Turn off your heaters! Guaranteed weight loss.  Okay, don’t be like that naked girl.  You can’t NOT cover yourself and dress properly.  You’re NOT exposing yourself in an unsafe manner, you are just asking your body to heat itself and then your layers of clothes will trap in that heat.

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Riding in the winter ain’t so bad.  Everyone is different, so experiment, but I dress in twos.  Two wool sweaters under a jacket ( just to keep the wind away, not too thick ), two pants-one wool, two socks-one wool, two beanies under a wool cap.  I love wool, and you can wear it OVER cotton if it makes you itch ( the only exception would be if you don’t have long sleeve shirts and a sweater touches your arms.  They have grades of wool that are soft and non-itchy.  They will boast about that in the advertisement ). With a ski mask, swamp boots ( rated minus 30 ) and artic mittens I can easily be out for my hour commute in fifteen below.  If I put on more, I’d sweat too much.  For snow tires, they now sell them for bikes.  I’ve heard of folks making their own by going from inside to out with screws ( U-Tube it, I’m sure there are plenty of ideas ).  And you could try just wrapping a thin metal wire around the tire and rim ( obviously, that wouldn’t work with brake pads ).  I don’t have that worry, nor experience, here in the dry desert.   If it rains, I have my two piece military surplus rain suit ( the Wal-Mart crap is thin crap which doesn’t last worth a crap.  Try Sportsman’s Guide.com for great surplus ).  Usually I just go with the pants and get a bit wet with my regular jacket and if in the thirties, a thin wool sweater under that.  Both pieces at the same time you are sweating because of the non-porous material.  Being out in the weather can suck.  So can making a car payment or being overweight.  Nothing is without cost or compromise.  As a bonus, having gear for winter biking, come the power outages you are all set whereas your snooty neighbors with their BMW will freeze to death after their gas tank runs out.

END

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petroleum population

PETROLEUM POPULATION

The Druid Dude is on fire these last few weeks ( he never writes poorly, but there are long stretches of time he writes on subjects of no interest to me ) with a new series on what physical changes are likely to happen in North America during the collapse as the Oil Age draws down.  Coastal areas will be further inland due to climate change, desertification will spread and intensify, large zones will be infertile due to industrial toxins and nuclear plant fallout, etc.  This week was a talk on depopulation and I was rather impressed with it.  Alas, I still strongly disagree with his “long, slow collapse” paradigm.  Yes, population took 150 years to decrease 95% in Rome and the Mayan empires ( as far as we know- very few written records were left after the European Dark Ages and none from Central America.  My guess is all the paper was used for wiping asses, but perhaps it was just the libraries burning down ).  And, yes, the Soviet Empire has had a drastic population decrease and failing life expectancy ( although nowhere near total ) so you might think that we would follow any of the three’s lead.  But yeast suckling at the vat of nutrients don’t work like that.  History should be heeded insofar as whether empires collapse, not as far as the timeline for doing so.  The global economy and infrastructure is just-in-time and overly complicated.  Grid down can lead to starvation if fuel doesn’t deliver groceries because there are no longer local farms ( to be clear, I’m not talking specific disasters other than Petroleum Dependence ).

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The Romans and the Mayans had the luxury of time to collapse because their disaster was overpopulation WITH local production.  Our coming collapse is due to overpopulation WITHOUT local food production.  They are not the same thing ( the Soviets had an economic collapse, NOT an ecological collapse- so it was far from as severe as past empires disappearing ).  Granted, Rome saw a lot of intra-empire trade in foodstuffs.  Not every single village was surrounded by fields.  But that was the norm, the exceptions proving the rule.  Luxuries were traded, not necessarily basics.  Today, basics are traded globally ( rather than grain reserves or land banks, we see overseas trade as our emergency back-ups ).  Even land close to production needs huge amounts of oil to get the food there, processed, refrigerated and dispersed to consumers.  Roman and Mayan suspended trade due to collapse effected some but not all areas.  Today, all the teeming urban masses are fed from many thousands of miles away.  Not only is nobody producing locally, nobody is trading in small distances.  The shrinking oil supply will see production falling, and less food getting to cities.  Globally.  It won’t take anywhere near 150 years to have a 95% die-off.  That’s actually better news for the hunkered down and prepared.  Bad news for the Organic Asparagus Survival Strategists. 

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beach cruiser 8

BEACH CRUISER DIET 8

BIKE SAFETY

Riding a bike every day to work and to shopping is not a return to your idyllic childhood carefree romp around a cul-d-sac in the suburbs where pedaling to school was an adventure.  Back in the day, there was a little bit of respect for pedestrians.  Some, anyway.  There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot anymore.  Far less than there used to be and that bar wasn’t set too high.  Now, I understand that societies in decline all through the ages lose civility as resources shrink and the fight intensifies for resources and so from that standpoint alone you will see a lot more drawing inward and a lot less civic virtue or even awareness.  It can’t be any other way.  As a species, we go to incredible lengths to justify to ourselves bad behavior towards others.  If you are fixing to steal or cheat from others, you convince yourself they are bad and give yourself an excuse to do so.  It is asinine to expect any other kind of results ( and no, you flaming moron schooled at the Rush/Beck Institute Of Delusional Thinking, better leadership will not change anything because you can’t tap your toes together three times and wish more goodies into existence ).  Sad but true, cars will not necessarily TRY to run you over on your bike, but their apathy, inattention and straight up hate towards any who do not share their insane vehicle payments and fear of filling up at the pump will be viewed as subhuman and will be shown zero respect or regard.

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You must always drive defensively and never assume good behavior from a car.  Do not assume they will obey any bike safety laws.  Always assume they will lose control in bad weather.  Always assume you will die a horrible and gruesome death, gasping painfully for an eternity as your life force is soaked up by the pavement, and hug your loved ones goodbye every time and enjoy every day on this earth you stay alive and are healthy ( also, hope your spouse will be as quick witted and fast acting as the Texas man who got away with killing the foul humper who killed his two sons while drunk driving.  Driving a car is just as dangerous as not, as is being a pedestrian.  When your dice roll happens… ).  As to gear, it is all cheap and affordable and anymore quite effective.  Gone are the days of yesteryear when all you had was a sad little pathetic generator grinding away at your tire to power a feeble bulb in a headlight.  Now we have flashing red LED’s, the new flashing LED’s that lay a strip of laser looking light down on both sides of the pavement, very bright white LED lamps, LED headlamps and very fluorescent yellow vests with reflector strips.  Get all of them,  and wear them every time.  Assume the worse, prepare for it, then relax already.

END

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home bias 4

HOME BIAS 4

There is no way to avoid the “rent housing to work” tax.  The best there is to be done is to minimize the cost.  Because you can no longer save money by owning a house, and because you can no longer save up for a house by renting an apartment ( the costs have soared to take advantage of the current market where banks refuse to get rid of homes at below inflated prices for their own reasons ), the best you can do is to seek unconventional housing arrangements.  Mobile homes, roommates, two-couple home sharing, etc.  I won’t even get into the whole off-grid thing here as I’m aware of the lack of employment that goes along with it.  And that is where the pre-collapse story ends, more or less.  At best, you realize the issue and have minimized the damage.  What you want to plan ahead for is the end of the shelter/job connect.  We are already well into that dynamic, but perhaps you are carrying on in one of the few select areas still not a desolate ghost town which has collapsed but doesn’t know it- a zombie economic zone.  Some areas, like the Appalachia’s, never really entered the modern economy and the only thing different now than fifty years ago is the increased welfare payments bringing spending cash ( along with meth ) in.  Some areas took a big squeeshy in the 70’s, dive bombed, were rescued by the housing boom, and are still denying they are back to 1979 again.

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Most of this country has seen its population move from agricultural viable areas to the industrial zones, then to the service zones and now to the government spending zones.  And none of those areas is a place you want to live in the future.  Certainly not during the collapse, although few of us have a choice but to be stuck there, but especially not after the collapse.  We need to get back to growing food ( a backyard garden is not growing food- it is growing the produce part of your diet ).  And so moving now back to the land is a great idea.  Unless you have stayed in an area just to keep your job.  Which means millions of other people are there, and they aren’t growing food.  Which makes your food a target ( if you are truly rural, but are in debt for the farm, you will land back in the city at a time when there are zero jobs after you have the bank repo the place.  The only exceptions are a sudden total collapse-Yellowstone, asteroid or solar flare.  Those are likely events, but as you can’t time them you can’t count on them to save you from your debt ).  The answer can’t be found with current prepper strategies because you can’t counteract the risks modern society has put us all in for the profit of the few.  More next time.

END

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hamburger storage

HAMBURGER STORAGE

Let’s take a short break from the daring adventures of post-apocalypse weapons technology devolution, the breathless exposure of one’s bias towards a Home Happy Place, the continuing sage of fat bitches losing weight with exercise, and talk about a happier subject near and dear to all our hearts.  Dead bovine storage food.  Canned meats fall into one or two categories, usually both simultaneously.  They are hideously expensive or taste like the flaked off flesh of a mummified leper.  The only cheap “meat” or meat-like product is Treet.  Not only is that NOT a Treat, it ain’t meat.  Okay, I will give the devil his due.  It tastes a heck of a lot better than the budget hot dogs ( one super nifty idea from “Prepping For Armageddon On A Budget, book 1” by Charlie Bennett, which is now featured above on the Amazon ad and hence a subtle friggin hint to buy the son of a bitch,  is to cut up hot dogs in chunks and put them in a big screened stock pot in the sun, stirring a few times a day, to get a dried meat product- some items like taters don’t dry by this method and need the oven but a lot of foods do dry this way and he stocks up his budget pantry all through the summer.  He dries in the oven all winter ) out there now for the not so budget price of $1.25.  I confess, in a moment of laziness, to trying hot dogs again-in beanie weenies- for the first time in years and I swear by all the Gods they are even worse than ever.

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I can’t make home-made corn beef hash anymore because a can of the meat is way north of four bucks.  Ouch!  To me, canned chicken has a very noticeable chemical aftertaste.  Most canned fish is palatable, barely, but I’ve never been a huge fan of fish in any form other than fried, it certainly ain’t as cheap as it used to be, and I’m sure that now the only non-depleted stock is right off the Fukishima disaster area so any can I buy will provide a faintly radioactive glow to read the label by.  Now, I’ll be the first to tell you that a new product is probably not the most economical method.  There are better solutions, like buying meat on sale, freezing it, cooking it up in a pressure cooker when desired, then slow drying it in the oven in the winter to heat the house for no extra cost.  But, as a simple solution, one that isn’t too costly, there is now plastic pouches of cooked hamburger meat at Wal-Mart for $2 for six ounces.  Yes, there is some water added to it ( just there is in in most raw meats now- or, in the case of raw hamburger, Pink Slime ).  But subtract an ounce for that and $6 a pound for cooked burger isn’t outrageous.  It is COOKED, yo.  And packed for storage.  I’ve tried it, and there is just enough meat to satisfy the protein craving of two adults when mixed with a starch or filler.  And it tastes normal.  I’m stocking the crap out of it, myself. 

END

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home bias 3

HOME BIAS 3

The wage slaves over pay to “own” ( you never own your home, you pay the bankers rent in the form of mortgage and then you pay the local government rent in the form of property tax ) their home which is not much more than a modern cardboard and tin shack and they over pay for the privilege of being as far away from the roving gangs the city charges them to NOT control as possible and to be as close to their jobs as possible to minimize the cost of getting there.  Does anyone remember the quaint notion of old time factories actually doing something about worker living quarters ( you subsidize that to pay them less which made you money )?  Our corporations are today so greedy and incompetent that transportation and housing have been totally outsourced to the workers.  You are, in effect, working a huge portion of your life as a hidden tax for the privilege of working.  And, like today’s college education, that is absolutely zero guarantee you can get or keep a job.  It is just the entry level price to start looking.  Nobody sees much wrong with the whole concept of interns, where the schmuck goes to work for free as an audition.  At least back in the day, apprentices got room and board and were taught a trade in exchange for labor.  Now, you go to school for several years at tens of thousands of dollars and then work for free to showcase the skill you already have, and only a few percent get a job that way.

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Houses are no longer an investment.  They never were except insofar as the difference between ownership and rent.  The dwelling itself was a money pit, a lifelong source of expense.  But if it was cheaper than rent, even with upkeep, you were “paid” the difference.  And yet most people were fixated on home ownership as if that in itself would shower them with joy and happiness and wealth and security.  Like it was a big teddy bear stuffed with treasure.  At most, it was a savings from rent- which itself was just a cost of finding a job ( no one would live in most places they do if it wasn’t for their job ).  Rent is a modern concept, a kickback to the corporate owners.  Your village was too far away from the factory, so part of your wages was the factory owned housing.  Okay, rent took the form far before that in urban areas, but life was predominantly rural and rent wasn’t the norm.  Living where you farmed, and living in a local material self-constructed dwelling was.  It was the Industrial Revolution that got folks off the farm into rental spaces.  Now, renting is the norm and having your own land to grow food is both discouraged and penalized.  And home ownership is also now being penalized.  The lords and masters are going broke and are desperate and are squeezing home owners for more and more “rent”.  There is no longer any reward in it, just penalties.  More next time.

END

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beach cruiser 7

BEACH CRUISER DIET 7

BIKE CARGO

I can already hear the excuses and shouting about how it is so vital that you keep your car because you must go buy groceries for Junior who is a Special Needs kid and how you can’t carry groceries on a bike and blah, blah, shut the hell up.  I live miles from town on a dirt road and I carry groceries, water and even tanks of propane on my bike with two baskets and a backpack ( for two people ).  If you live thirty miles from a Costco just rent a car once every other month and the rest of the time go shopping for perishables closer to home.  On your bike.  Go to Amazon, or your local bike shop if you haven’t a clue what you need ( expect to pay 50-100% more as they have to pay rent ) and purchase two bike racks.  One front and one back.  They sell specialty front racks that hold hundreds of pounds, but expect to pay accordingly.  Otherwise, buy ones that hold thirty to fifty pounds.  Those are more standard, mass produced items.  Do NOT, I repeat NOT, buy from a China-Mart as the quality sucks and you will waste your money.  Even if you spend $50 each, they pay for themselves.  As my former truck was about to give up the ghost, refusing to idle at stops or to go into gear, I made it to the bike shop on a wing and a prayer and installed racks.  The next day I started hauling everything by bike, retiring the truck and never looked back.  Just on insurance and AAA dues alone, not counting gasoline at five miles to the gallon for my 75 Chevy or mechanical bills, I could buy a new bike rack every month.

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And that is yet another reason to have a single speed coaster bike rather than a multiple speed mountain bike.  You can so much more easily  mount a front rack for double the cargo hauling, due to lack of all those damn wires for braking and shifting gears.  A bike carries most of your weight over the back wheel.  By placing half, or most, of your cargo weight up front, the load is much more balanced.  You place less wear and tear on the rear wheel, which takes the brunt anyway.  I used to haul all my groceries ( prior to the short interval I owned the truck- I’ve lived most of my life carless ) on a geared bike.  I tied all the plastic bags to the handlebars.  I got a weeks worth of groceries for two tied on that way.  I don’t recommend it-get the racks and the baskets.  I have one of those thin wire jobs up front.  I don’t really care for them as they seem to rust through after a few years and are overpriced.  The back is a milk crate zip-tied to the rack.  Again, do NOT buy zips at the China-Mart.  Go to a hardware or ranch store and buy extra thick ties that advertise their temperature ratings ( say, good to 30 below zero ).  These are more expensive but since they last ten times longer than cheap ones they cost less in the long run. 

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home bias 2

HOME BIAS 2

Controlling the population of a once free and unregulated Republic was a long drawn out process.  A lot of the “new” trends we bemoan such as one citizen “dropping a dime” on another harkens back to WWI.  Habeas Corpus was suspended in the War Of Yankee Imperialism.  As was jailing dissenters of the ruling regime.   Concentration camps are in the future, but were practiced in the past ( Japanese Americans in WWII ).  The difference is not political freedoms-those were dead 150 years ago.  The difference is in our economic bondage.  1913 was the year the Federal Reserve bank was born amid a miscarriage of justice spawning an un-Constitutional  afterbirth reeking of sulfur from the lower bowels of Hell.  We might have lost our Republic in 1865, but we lost our Freeman status 48 years later.  We became outright serfs when FDR took away our gold and gave us Greenbacks in exchange, at a 40% loss immediately and a 100%+ in succeeding years through inflation.  Today, we dance to the tune of our masters through their money and our substance, livelihood and existence is at their whim.  We cling to the only thing we think we have left to give us freedom, our homes, and that delusion pushes untold riches into the coffers of our owners and operators.

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It is incalculable how much profit is in each city or suburban lot with home.  The infrastructure was built either a hundred years ago with much cheaper material and labor, or put in new today at the cheapest possible way which can’t possibly last a hundred years ( when the city adds on $20k in fees and taxes to a newly built lot, EACH lot, they are barely putting a fraction of that into hooking up to their grid feeder junction- to that junction is the job of the contractor who will add THAT cost to the home additionally- but merely collecting a bribe to allow the very existence of the unit ).  At no cost to them- but rather a handsome profit to begin with- each government level then is handsomely rewarded for just being there.  They get a huge chunk of change from each home in property taxes.  Far more than an occasional police pass-by and once every ten year pothole patch justifies.  But for every cop or firefighter added to the payroll for each addition to the population, a pension fund windfall goes to the bankers ( who are already benefiting from loaning money out of thin air to the tune of a mortgage at least ten times what the home should cost ).  The city “invests” it to get enough return to pay far more money out than was ever collected ( another payoff of the Union “cost” to protect the means of production ).  A banker invents money to loan to the government which uses that to bribe potential saboteurs, paying interest on the loan, then the government recoups its cost through homeownership.  The home owner pays to bribe the potential mob, then pays the cops to keep them under control, then pays the bankers for the privilege of it all.  And it isn’t even about greedy bankers but about nesters insisting on a home that makes it all possible.  But anymore, owning a land and a home no longer even pays.  We can’t grow our own food.  Remaining in one place is no longer justified by survival, but is now more just the location of our cell we are allowed out of each morning to go to our slavery.  More next time.

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kindle unlimited

KINDLE UNLIMITED

Well now, isn’t this exciting?  Amazon has come out with “Kindle Unlimited” which is unlimited access to 600k titles for a flat fee of $10 a month.  I couldn’t get many details, like if the books disappear after a time ( only important if you are stockpiling for the apocalypse ), but I did notice quite a few post-apocalypse titles under that program.  Most of them are Pure D trash, with I’d guess perhaps one in ten being even readable- but even the free ones ( where one in thirty are worthy ) do barf forth a really great book once in awhile.  Take for instance “Crash Book One” by Michael Robertson.  There was a bit too much of the “The Road” touchy feely father and son interaction which got on my nerves, but overall the story is pretty kick ass.  It actually went where none dare- realism, non-happy endings and torture, starvation and cold rather than guns blazing semi-auto patriotic porn.  I never would have come across it if it hadn’t been free, although I had to wade through legions of unreadable zombie crap to get there. 

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Take another example.  “Prepping For Armageddon On A Budget Book 1” by Charlie Bennett.  I came across his book by a recommendation in a fiction book I’d never have bought.  It was free, so I read it, didn’t much care for it, came across the reference for Charlie’s book which pried a buck out of my wallet I normally wouldn’t have parted with, and I was very pleasantly surprised.  There are a few things I was suspicious of- he gives advice to kill water goobies using two or three different methods where one would work, but then declares the petroleum residue from shingles done away with even though it shouldn’t be.  However, overall, his is the first advice on surviving in place in the suburbs that I’ve found feasible and full of common sense.  His food storage advice was unique and full of inspiring ideas.  And he has a great sense of humor.  I’d heartily recommend his book.  Which, by the by, would be free with Kindle Unlimited.  My point is without wading through a lot of crap you can’t find the gems and if you can wade through all the rejects without fearing the loss of so much money then you find more gems.  I, fearless leader and all around swell guy, shall now endeavor to lead the pack of mangy flea bitten blog writers in subscribing to this service, force myself to read all manner of drivel, and will report to all and sundry free of charge any reported pearls I uncover in this pig sty ( I challenge you- if you don’t have a Kindle, get an app for your other computing device that reads the books, then go to Amazon and search under Kindle Books for “post-Apocalypse fiction”.  Download twenty of the free ones.  I guarantee you that you have NEVER in your life encountered so much crappy ungodly unprofessional sloppy drivel masquerading as fiction writing in your life ).  The sacrifices I make for my minions.

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.

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home bias

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note: Nightshift, your Spud donation mail arrived this weekend.  Thanks, and I'll cut a check today for tomorrow's mail
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HOME BIAS

All of us suffer from Home Bias.  We place WAY too much importance on our homes in our survivalist plans and preps.  Whether it is placing a small fortune into a suburban dwelling where we plan on sheltering in place, a retreat where we plan on ending up, a farm where we plan on feeding ourselves or a small patch of dirt where we can legally squat so as never to be homeless and at the mercy of others, we all equate one spot with security.  This isn’t abnormal.  This has been the practice of 99% of humanity for near eight thousand years.  Since food forms all other behavior, and food production is now stationary, placing almost divine worship on to a geographical location is not irrational.  It is indeed a survival trait.  Until it isn’t.  Homes Bias, unfortunately, is a behavior that is going to have to be unlearned in time for the social collapse and the die-off, then once again embraced on a much fiercer level than in the past.  What I would like to emphasize here is our unrecognized behavior, so that you can recognize the danger.  I’ve hinted about this before.  You can’t be wedded to one spot when trouble comes your way.  And just because a spot produces food doesn’t make it a talisman against other dangers such as invasion.  I’ve told you that food production will attract thieves ( usually of an organized and well armed  nature ), and others have added that farming now is just to practice and learn.  Here, we talk about becoming too attached to land prematurely.  And how to modify this ( you won’t unlearn this, per se, except under abnormal circumstances, as it is so well ingrained ).

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Those folks whose job it is to be parasites from others, the powers that be, are pretty good at what they do- they have to be to survive all those fights to the top and the infighting to stay there.  One great way to stay rich is to “give” away some of “their” money.  The welfare class was NOT put into place because our leaders gave two craps about the peasants starving in roadside ditches.  It was put into place merely to protect the means of production.  In an agrarian society, a peasant got uppity they were killed and another farmer stepped into their place.  Land was limited and people were unlimited.  At industrialization, jobs were limited and people were unlimited.  BUT!  The difference soon became apparent.  Machines could be sabotaged.  Workers rights were a bribe to forestall that.  Welfare states then followed that because the infrastructure that fed the means of production had to be protected against sabotage.  And as benefits flowed to more to bribe more the potential army grew and so benefits increased to pacify an ever growing, ever discontent mob ( Rush and other flaming idiots bemoaning every tax nickel the rich are forced to give the poor have no idea of history or any other nuance outside mercantilism ).  You don’t step off that fast moving train.  The other side of that coin was taking advantage of home bias to control the masses.  Continued next time.

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preppers: history and cultural phenomenon

PREPPERS: HISTORY & CULTURAL PHENOMENON

Yes, minions, yet another book review.  Stop your caterwauling- it only happens a few times a year as we are but a small forbidden hidden sub-genre and nobody visits or reviews or cares and it is only by the good graces of divine entities that a book is thrown my way at all.  This one is, like the last review, from Prepper Press, a company I highly recommend not because their crap is invaluable or affordable but because if a book they offer is of interest to you, you can bet your last dollar that it is going to be of high quality.  Every time I go to Wally and get violated in an Obammy manner, I beseech all that is good and holy that the list of things I can buy there that are of even a middlin quality decreases every time.  It is nice and refreshing to conduct business with an owner that actually cares if you come back and you get your monies worth.  Okay, this one is by Lynda King, and while I won’t stop every one on the street and force them to buy this book under threat that I won’t stop bothering them, I will highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the background of the prepper movement.  This isn’t really a history as such, for instance giving all the famous characters ( Kurt wasn’t even mentioned ), but more of a long chain of events that created a desire to become a prepper.

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In this, the author did a bang-up job.  She took all those irritating things we mumble about time to time and assembled them all.  This isn’t as boring as it sounds- I was impressed by the level of detail in each and every category of danger and possible threat.  And each one had items I’d never heard of or read up on, and I’ve been hitting the books pretty hard for thirty five years on all things survivalism.  She starts out with a few extreme weather events from the 1880’s and really hits her stride during the federal governments heavy handed un-Constitutional tyrannical actions in WWI and goes from there.  I will warn you that she pretty much embarrasses herself suckling at the rectum of FDR.  The whole book she does pretty well being evenly balanced and striving to take a neutral tone and avoiding paranoia- but it seems she went out of her way to make excuses for that crippled evil hump.  Not that anyone seems to care all that much, come to think of it so just you never mind.  The first quarter of the book was the times prior to the Seventies ( where most of us start our live experiences with the movement ) and the last quarter was the references and notes.  In between was the 70’s to today ( up to February 2014 ) and a section on the businesses that cater to preppers.  This is a detailed study, folks.  If you are in a hurry and just want the Readers Digest version, you are out of luck.  If you like your reference material heavy and long and satisfying like a several course varied heavy meal, as I do, this is a great book.  No, it isn’t a must-have.  It is background, filler information more suited to the genres nerds and geeks who demand Input!  More Input!  I’m not sure if newbies will necessarily be turned to the Dark Side by reading this- but then, I gave up trying to convert folks near ten years ago ( my writings are for the uneducated or unenlightened, but for the already converted- I larded up my first book with “the reasons to prep” but that was only because I needed filler and had no experience in that ) and just don’t much care any more if the whole kit and caboodle go up in greasy flames come the die-off, so you’ll need to make that call.

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beach cruiser diet 6

BEACH CRUISER DIET 6

WHICH BIKE

Over the years, the retail bike scene has come to resemble the personal sidearm market.  More, more, MORE.  Bigger and larger ammunition clips and more and more gears on a bike.  In the case of pistols, the extra ammunition is mainly just used as an excuse for suppressive fire ( you can use revolver rounds as suppressive fire, but it probably isn’t the smartest idea ) and in the case of bikes, the extra gears are mainly so the poor dears engaged in riding the thing don’t have to work any harder than necessary.  If you are poor, starving, and live amongst hills, I can understand wanting to save calories by riding a geared bike.  If you are using the bike to lose calories and stay toned and get all of the opposite sex salivating over you and throwing themselves at your feet begging to be allowed to have your offspring, a single gear bike that forces you to work a bit harder and increase muscle use-not to mention getting that lard laden heart working out ( it goes without saying that if you are a basket case health wise, consult a doctor before trying this diet program, sex, or tying your shoes by yourself )- is a good thing.  Right?  Plus, two very important considerations for owning a bike are hands free braking and ease of maintenance.

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When you start biking early mornings or other times all the monkey molesting asswhores of the world aren’t in the yard to keep their unleashed dog in check, you will be attacked by the vile bastards.  The dogs, not the owners- although I have a hard time distinguishing the two.  Man’s Best Friend?  The hell you say.  Dogs are overly needy, dumb as rocks, ass munching wastes of food.  If you are riding, and see a dog, just assume they will attack you.  You might be wrong 95% of the time, but that 5% will make you very happy you were vigilant, prepared and paranoid.  I’ve encountered enough of them over the years.  Six miles each way, twice a day, five times a week for six years.  Closing in on twenty thousand miles.  I’ve been seriously bitten six times.  Have as high of a thick leather boot as possible.  And carry a can of wasp spray.  “Raid” brand is much better than others.  I know, right?  I’m as surprised as you that a name brand exists that is still quality.  It costs two or three times as much, but the other ones lose spraying distance ( fans out rather than shoots a stream ) after the first shot.  The spray won’t “take down” a dog, but they stop attacking and in the future respect the sight of the can.  I carry mine on an attached water bottle holder.  The thing about not needing to stop with hand brakes is you can grab and use the spray.  Which is why I heartily endorse coaster brakes that single speeds have ( often referred to as ‘beach cruisers’ ).  And they are much easier to work on yourself.  More about that in its own section.

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.

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jim washer

JIM WASHER
The other day I ran across a prepper blog article on “five ways to wash your clothes without power”.  Tellingly, as in tellingly those sons a bitches still refuse to heed my wisdom even after years and years of casting my pearls before swine, the Jim Washer was NOT listed.  Instead, they had to gay it up with Too Complicated, Too Expensive and Too Much Work ( I tried leaving a comment but it wouldn’t go through- I think I’m flagged or something ).  I came up with the Jim Washer eons ago, and those silly enough to have been reading back then and still reading now can revel in my refresher course.  The complicated way that was presented was to hook the agitator up to a bicycle.  Yes, we’ve all seen the movie “Mosquito Coast” with Harrison Ford.  If not, I’d recommend it.  Or the book-the film is pretty faithful and the book was written in one of those styles that suggests the author is just this side of a snob so if you skip the written form you aren’t out a whole lot.  In fact, I’d say the book is the authors One Hit Wonder- never much cared for any of the others I tried.  Anyway, Mosquito Coast is an underrated prepper book, and one of the gadgets Engineer Dad comes up with is the ol’ washing machine from a bicycle.  For Gear Heads, this is just the thing to tinker with.  There was also a book not too long ago-if I’m not mistaken, recommended by Rawles- about all the cool stuff Third World folks run with bicycle power.  It would be fascinating to find out if those folks got the idea for the washer from the book, or visa versa.

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The Too Expensive Way was the original standby, the James Washer.  This has been around forever, a commercially manufactured unit where a thirty gallon steel barrel is cut in half and a flat top welded over the opening ( this is the basic design, not how they make the thing ) and the thing rests on legs at waist level with an attached arm sticking up.  You push the handle back and forth to agitate.  VERY pricey.  As in, our Union workers can only make one of these a day after breaks and mandatory OSHA meetings so we got to charge you $500 each kind of pricey.  It’s a friggin covered steel drum, for humps sake.  Then there are the three Too Much Work ways, all of which involve arm muscle.  The old wash board.  The toilet plunger through the five gallon bucket lid.  And one that escapes me at the moment.  Of COURSE washing was drudgery.  The gal of the house doesn’t have a huge upper body muscle mass to use and these things use way too much of that.  The Jim Washer uses leg muscle, and not much of it.  You put the laundry in a five gallon bucket and strap the bucket into the seat of a rocking chair.  You sit on the couch behind the chair and use your feet, resting atop the back of the rockers, to gently keep the chair rocking as you keep occupied otherwise such as reading.  Unlike those chauvinist pig capitalist humps out there trying to make the work of our neo-pioneer women more difficult, exploiting them and condemning them to a life of laundry hell, I have liberated them and made more leisure time they may enjoy!  Celebrate me, oh unworthies! All others trying to rip off my idea may burn in the lower bowels of Hell, amen.

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.

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