indispensable 3

INDISPENSABLE 3

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note: want free e-books?  www.freebooksy.com .  Also, if you go to Amazon and look at post-apocalypse you can sort by series.  Most of which have the first book free.
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Antibiotics and plastics are the last two Irreplaceables we’ll cover.  The only plastic I’ve heard of that is low tech is the acid in milk type, to get an inferior but perhaps needed plastic ( and then you‘ll have the Calorie Sacrifice issue.  Truthfully, I can‘t imagine many of you have much of an idea how scarce food could be prior to the Haber-Bosch artificial fertilizer process.  Not to mention, wouldn’t milk plastic be a draw for rodents to eat themselves? ).  Some things just don’t work as well as plastic in some applications, so even weak plastic should be somewhat useable.  You can melt down scrap plastic but I can’t imagine the primitive methods will product much of use, although given Necessity being the mother of Invention, perhaps I’m far too cynical.  Be that as it may, it is hard to beat plastic sheeting for waterproofing.  And while $60 per roll seems a bit excessive ( get the heaviest thickest, highest “mil” rating in the painters section ), it can make sheltering a lot less primitive, uncomfortable or even dangerous.

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Do you really want to live in a damp moldy dugout?  You think there won’t be enough health issues as it is without sucking in mold spores?  Get the damn plastic.  Even if you live in a rock lined wall house triple insulated with a lifetime metal roof, a roll of plastic will be worth far more than one carton of cigarettes or four bottles of whiskey ( if you believe in survival barter-I’m not sure that I do, in the conventional sense as far as inter-group trade.  If anything, it will go to a gift economy within a tribe.  Of course, the old ways might persist long enough you’ll profit off of barter items for awhile.  Hard to quantify ).  Like a box full of batteries, a roll of plastic is both a serious investment but also a great place to park your wealth ( as in wheat, also )-it is buying Oil Age items in bulk while relatively cheap so as to profit off their looming disappearance forever.  You think $300 for one months health insurance is actually a great investment?  You buy substandard care, or more likely you are merely placed on a waiting list to get substandard care, and then roll the dice on whether you’ll be killed from that “care”. 

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Far better to invest in Indispensable and Irreplaceable items.  Like the aforementioned medical insurance, you might never use them.  But they are great insurance ( the stockpiled items, not the medical insurance ).  Next up, everybody’s favorite, antibiotics.  Nothing else has done so much into reliving people of taking any responsibility than antibiotics.  Want to stick your junk in some nasty street gals pie?  Don’t worry, there’s a shot for that.  Want to eat like a fat sow your whole life, then go in for invasive surgery to get a stomach staple, then pick up a Super Germ in the hospital?  Never fear, antibiotics? ( the question mark denotes its recent ineffectiveness )  Want to breed with a obviously unfit spouse, just because kids look good on your bucket list, then produce ugly wheezing sickly children?  No worries, there’s antibiotics.  Need to rush infected troops back into battle to save on training costs for replacements?  Antibiotics, yo!  Of course, they do come in handy for bad things that happen to good people, so you do want to have them handy.

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Fish antibiotics are the Go To source for folks not wanting to die too quickly, but because of their expiration dates they are likely to be an annual expense.  I don’t incur that cost myself, but I am more of the Darwin Survival school of thought, believing that one does ones best to stay in good health and then allows natural selection to cull the species to greater perfection.  That doesn’t mean that I discount a medicine that saves my life, but merely that prolonging the culling process by a year or three isn’t going to do anyone any favors, myself included.  I either have a strong enough immune system, or Bad Luck kills me anyway.  I’m a bigger fan of Vitamin C than antibiotics, and yes, I do understand its limitations.  I also understand the limitations of antibiotics.  I wouldn’t in good conscience recommend my course to most other people.  But in my defense, I’d say look at the Spanish conquest of all South and some of North America ( actually, the spread into North America did start with the Spanish, so the British settlers can thank them ) by disease.  They were NATURALLY immune.  They didn’t kill all those millions by military technology, as superior as that was ( the Nazi made superior tactics, as well as strategies even though they were knocking up against immoveable forces, as well as technology SHOULD have triumphed.  But as always, other factors screw up the perfect plans ).  From a macro standpoint, antibiotics are inferior to the deadly Darwinist pressures nature imposes.

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Vitamins are another item easily duplicated naturally but handy in both quality and quantity when manufactured.  They help in maintaining your health so as to already be healthier when antibiotics become needed, if even available.  They certainly have problems, such as digestibility/retention and even effectiveness ( the Vitamin C claims/hype were largely the result of one scientists campaigning, although looking at his other groundbreaking work it seems he has a very high probability of being correct ).  Naturally occurring vitamins through food are preferable, but today’s denuded soil and artificial fertilizers preclude that option, not to mention that climate plays a significant role in dictating your diets limitations.  It won’t take all that many years to build back up soil using permaculture, organics and French Intensive methods, but in the meantime a stockpile of vitamins are very handy and not expensive at all.  Megadose prior to the collapse to build up your immunity, and always have five years of a minimum supply for afterwards.

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Vitamins usually can last two to three years after the expiration date unopened and an additional one or two after opening, kept cool and unexposed to sunlight.  If your rotated vitamin supply is a year or two from expiration date you should be able to get five years use out of it if things fall apart tomorrow.  Have two thousand pills each of vitamin C and a multivitamin as your stockpile amount ( that is about $50 for the C and $60 for the multi, a cheap five year insurance policy-I’d at least double the C, personally, but that is a good minimum ).

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). 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. ***

I love you all, as few minions as there are you do very well in supporting me buying through Amazon.  But plenty of you don't give ANY  support to your favorite author.  And that's me, and that's wrong.  Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here for a book.  I only get 35 cents so nobody is going to send me up to Idaho to live on their purchase.  If you don't do Amazon, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you.  Or, send an extra buck and I'll send you a CD ( the file is in PDF.  I’ll waive this fee if you order three or more books at one time ).  My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  that is three ZERO three, not three oh three. My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***

 *Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com  *wal-mart wheat*Link To All My Published Books   * www.paypal.me/jimd303 to donate to PayPal
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

indispensable 2

INDISPENSABLE 2

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note: please respond to this poll in today's comment section.  If you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, which of my books would you like to see available for a free download?  The Frugal Survivalist, or BBB no. 1-10?
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On that “indispensable/irreplaceable” list, you have some things that are replaceable in part by lower tech.  Synthetic rubber, artificial fertilizer, smelting and one kind of plastic is lower tech capable.  Light bulbs, guns and ammo, antibiotics and all other kinds of plastics are only stockable or substituted.  You can substitute a light bulb with a candle ( I call veggie oil lamps problematic due to calorie shortages ) but it doesn’t come close to the same thing.  And even some of the Replaceable items aren’t practically replaceable.  If Florida isn’t under water, would rubber trees even grow there?  If so, how would you go about getting plantings from the original plants down in the tropics?  Regular natural fertilizer is actually superior to the synthetic type, but there is the issue of quality over quantity.  And smelting is going to be brutal on your tree supply unless you have some coal near the surface nearby.  And STILL there is the quantity issue there.

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Your “Forever Gun” ( don’t have the book yet?  What is wrong with you?  I don’t even care for firearms all that much as a survival topic and those make for some of my best books ) goes a long way towards solving the gunpowder issue, if you can conserve the ammo in your semi-auto carbine.  Nine mil’s suck giant donkey dingus compared to just about every firearm out there except rimfire and any caliber from a boot gun a pimp might carry, but against crossbows and swords, spears or anything else not chemically powered, they will do very well indeed.  So let’s go on from that subject.  Light bulbs are a lot easier than they used to be to stockpile, and even if you can’t match the quantity of ammunition, with one to five dollar LED flashlights all over the place you won’t spend the equivalent amount of money either  ( “flashlights” to include the garden solar lights that are pretty cool as they include the solar panel, the rechargeable battery and bulb all for the same price as a regular empty flashlight.  Of course, you know the quality must suffer a bit but I’ve usually had all of mine last several years which is about right for the claimed “one thousand charges” for those batt types, even if the later charges produce less light output ).

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I would include batteries in the category of light bulbs as one is worthless without the other.  And while it is certainly possible to salvage nickel and copper and Mason jars to create wet batteries of a primitive type, I would think that those materials would be far more valuable used in other ways, and  you would need a lot of them to duplicate the performance of even a single AA battery.  The technique is certainly something to keep in mind but it is far better to stockpile the current tech types of batteries.  They are inexpensive, not much more than disposable batteries ( disposables are a quarter each bought in bulk at Amazon, rechargeable ones with great reviews are sixty five cents each.  The only reason I even consider buying disposables anymore is because I’m a dumbass.  I just tell myself since every device I have that uses a battery can go about a year before it needs new ones that the discharge rate on the unused rechargeable would necessitate two or three extra changes.  It still makes no sense economically.  Over ten years one AA disposable costs $2.25 in replacements.  The rechargeable will last another 200 years at three recharges a year, so the cost over ten years is what?  Three cents? Over two centuries, what is the cost of a $20 solar charger?  Add a cent a year ), so you really have absolutely no reason for not stockpiling a lot. 

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I certainly would NOT rely on 12v batteries.  They are Trash Tech, cheaply manufactured to perform minimally rather than optimally.  They are disposable, really, despite that hefty core charge you pay on one to presumably recycle it.  I would sooner take a battery and use it for the lead inside for reloading than rely on them for electrical storage.  The crappy ones are $100 and the ones lasting ten to thirty years rather than 3 to 5 are insanely prices, like $1500 for a low amp unit.  They are for luxury electrical use, modern living, NOT collapse living.  The only thing that electricity is really truly good for in a resource poor environment is illumination.  And you can get that with AA batteries.  Granted, the higher the lumens ( if a lamp/light doesn’t advertise the lumens-the intensity of the light, the brightness-I wouldn’t buy it as it probably is last decades LED tech.  LED’s increase in brightness while using less power as their chips improve just like a computers back in the day ) the quicker the draw down and you could get as low as only a week before you needed to recharge ( AA’s are much quicker to charge on a solar unit, cost less and are more universal than D’s or C’s or even 3a’s-stick with them ), so in that case you only have a decade of use out of the battery.  And that is a “problem”, why?

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A crappy dim flashlight will, kept out of the elements and not beaten like a redheaded stepchild, die from parts failure from moisture long before your batteries are no longer rechargeable.  Now do you understand why $50, buying a solar recharger ( I don’t know if an inverter and large solar panel to recharge a 110 charger is better longevity wise than a small book size 12v solar battery charger, so either do some research or get several small chargers in case of failure ) and thirty AA batteries is much better than buying an Edison 12v battery for $1,050?  Twelve volts batteries are not needed unless you actually think your middle class lifestyle has a snowballs chance in Hell of surviving long past the initial die-off.  And if you erroneously believe that, a grand for a battery is just the start of your investment.  Start saving up for buried gasoline tanks, industrial size propane tanks, another TWENTY Edison batteries, tens of thousands of dollars in freeze dried foods, a greenhouse that costs more than a small house, etc.  Either pinch your pennies or go “in for a penny, in for a pound”.  Continued tomorrow.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). 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. ***

I love you all, as few minions as there are you do very well in supporting me buying through Amazon.  But plenty of you don't give ANY  support to your favorite author.  And that's me, and that's wrong.  Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here for a book.  I only get 35 cents so nobody is going to send me up to Idaho to live on their purchase.  If you don't do Amazon, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you.  Or, send an extra buck and I'll send you a CD ( the file is in PDF.  I’ll waive this fee if you order three or more books at one time ).  My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  that is three ZERO three, not three oh three. My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***

 *Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com  *wal-mart wheat*Link To All My Published Books   * www.paypal.me/jimd303 to donate to PayPal
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

indispensable

INDISPENSABLE

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note: Damn, Homey got paid this week!  J.W in KY and J.S. in ID, many thanks for the generous donations.  J.F. in GA, your CD is in the mail today, thanks for the order and the extra donation.
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Indispensable items are things that you shan’t be able to duplicate once the collapse occurs.  Ever.  Never, ever, never.  The Oil Age was a One Off event and since the economic component of that beneficial energy dump has already started to falter due to the lack of required growth, you can bet your last rimfire shell that once that underpinning shears off the last of the fracking oil, tar sands and deep water oil will be left underground for the rest of mankind’s existence.  Just because you have the knowledge doesn’t mean you have the resources to apply the knowledge, a sad fact few wish to acknowledge, thank you very much stupid science fiction story ( sci-fi was itself a product of the Oil Age, and the early masters had the vision to see what an exponential increase in energy could lead to.  I mean, voyaging to the bottom of the sea wasn’t a huge leap of imagination.  The Revolutionary War had a tiny pedal powered submarine.  The genius lay in imagining how large the ships could grow to and what they were capable of doing.  At the time, few had the vision of how unlimited energy would work, just as now how few can grasp how less energy could possibly be.  That sci-fi story on the priesthood that uncovers old tech and eventually duplicates it completely missed the need for another unlimited energy age being impossible ).

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Indispensable items are things such as plastic, antibiotics, precision firearms and non-corrosive ammunition, light bulbs, artificial fertilizer, synthetic rubber, carbon fuel ore smelters and advanced chemistry.  None of those was possible prior to oil and natural gas because they are not cottage industry capable.  Even if cotton nitrate smokeless powder can be duplicated, there isn’t enough natural fertilizer available to produce it.  Nor can primers be made unless one has access to the surface ore to produce mercury.  Nor can brass be produced after the surface copper is gone ( underground mining is of course still feasible but most man and draft animal powered mining spots are already played out globally ), and not only that you don’t have a tool and die industry, nor the machinery to produce cases.  And that is trying to duplicate 125 year old technology. 

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Artificial fertilizer is really nothing more than natural gas feeding the billions, but it requires more than just the gas supply that is dwindling ( Lancaster Ohio became the glassware capital of the world because it was located atop a huge reservoir of gas which was a nearly free municipal provided energy source.  That lasted less than a century.  Gas is no more infinite than any other supply ).  The catalyst for the gas alone used in the transformation is high tech and the industrial machinery depending on cheap steel and coal fired electricity is immense.  Tolerances are exact and the pressure containing equipment needed utilizes exotic metals and techniques.  Like everything we depend on today, the infrastructure and energy behind that is beyond duplication.  To think that you can, using dams and mules, windmills and muscles, is idiocy.  All the primitive ancestors of today’s indispensable items are so inferior as to be nearly worthless.  The idea of them needed liberal applications of carbon fuels to gain widespread use and utility.

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The 1990’s prosperity wasn’t just from Siberian oil and the last of the easy oil from Saudi Arabia, it was also from applying that one last energy cornucopia to extracting heretofore unreachable ores.   We had already by that point long ago striped the surface ores and only by applying huge energy inputs could we extract deep or diffuse ores to continue to sell disposable items ( as Kuntsler has pointed out, we are mining tar sands using giant trucks to haul earth only marginally containing any fuel.  Those trucks can change tires five times a year and each giant tire is $40k each.  Then heat the earth with lots of natural gas.  That is our imported Canadian oil.  Gold and silver and copper extraction is similarly energy intensive).  That is our remaining ore and the extraction process cannot be duplicated on a lower technological scale.  You can approximate the process but never duplicate, and you must duplicate it to once again have the global process that makes it all possible. 

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So once done is done, there are no do-overs.  We’ve talked extensively about ammunition and its inability to be replicated.  Once the reloads have gone you must devolve technologically.  The BEST you can do is flintlock black powder, with breech loading being as high tech as it gets.  And that goal is problematic not only from the surplus nitrates point but the ability to fabricate the arms.  Not just ore and energy wise but manufacturing ( the Firefox manual on building your own musket presupposed available finished barrels ).  Will there be suitable metal-or smelting fuel for recycling-not to mention the knowledge which is quite difficult even if THAT is the easiest resource to acquire in this scenario?  One should have serious doubts if one isn’t merely daydreaming but seriously planning.  One has to wonder how long, if long at all,  crossbows completely replace gunpowder weapons.  Indispensable but also irreplaceable.  Glass is easy enough to fabricate, but not only do you need the raw material but the energy also.  Raw material was a serious roadblock for five hundred years after Rome fell as trade was almost non existent as there was no agricultural surplus from the denuded colonial fields. 

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Knowledge is certainly NOT power without the infrastructure to implement its realization.  A great many things you can only resign yourself to its rapid demise and impossible return.  Continued tomorrow.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). 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. ***

I love you all, as few minions as there are you do very well in supporting me buying through Amazon.  But plenty of you don't give ANY  support to your favorite author.  And that's me, and that's wrong.  Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here for a book.  I only get 35 cents so nobody is going to send me up to Idaho to live on their purchase.  If you don't do Amazon, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you.  Or, send an extra buck and I'll send you a CD ( the file is in PDF.  I’ll waive this fee if you order three or more books at one time ).  My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  that is three ZERO three, not three oh three. My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***

 *Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com  *wal-mart wheat*Link To All My Published Books   * www.paypal.me/jimd303 to donate to PayPal
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

don't pay bitches

DON’T PAY BITCHES

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note: thank you Survival Acres, for the link to a new and exciting doomer dude:
https://darkgreenmountainsurvivalresearchcentre.wordpress.com/
Let's hope he keeps posting, as he is a cynical pessimistic paranoid funny mother humper.
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The reason I’m writing this today is to help promote our Kunuck friends writing efforts.  He’s come out with a new book ( just as good as the others in the series, if you enjoyed the first two ) and to promote it is giving away his others free today. 

“Living Amongst The Dead” free Apr 27 ( here )

“When Her No Means Yes” free Apr 27, 28 ( here )

“Firearm Valhalla” free Apr 27 ( here )

“Living Amongst The Dead: Dark Days” Apr 27 .99cents, Apr 28 $1.99, and Apr 29 $2.99 (  here )

The newest just released:

“Living Amongst The Dead: On The Road Again” $2.99 ( here )

The author is J.N. Morgan.  Get all your free and cheap goodies now.  I understand every author doesn’t appeal to every reader, but to my mind he is a darn good wordsmith.  Now, the reason for this article, other than Helping A Brother Out, and Supporting A Worthy Author, is this book:

“Another One Please, To Dull The Pain” which is free Apr 27. ( here )

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Now, remember, as a courtesy, if you read and enjoy a free book, you really are obligated to then buy one to support the author.  I got his one free book after searching Amazon for books on the Lee-Enfield no.4 rifle and his zombie book popped up ( I had Kindle Unlimited at the time.  Still worth the money but it isn’t in my budget ).  Since then I’ve bought all his books, both because I love his writing and because I have a good chunk of credit left at Amazon from previous commission payments and so it doesn’t come out of my budget.  Anyway, back to “Another One Please”.  This was a book by a young gentleman that never went through a legal seperation, yet was able to capture the mental issues and perspectives of a man going through a nasty divorce ( not all divorces are the same, obviously.  Some bitches you just want to get rid of, others such as with supposed “soul mates” or the mother of your child can be quite traumatic ) so well that it actually took me back to that magical time.  Now that, my fine feathered minions, is writing talent. 

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The book wasn’t just about wallowing in pity and pain, although that is covered well ( but not too long, unlike the sex scenes in his first zombie book.  Just kidding, dude.  I had to throw that dig in  ), but about the mans community of support which helps him, mostly, escape the financial rape that usually accompanies divorce.  I won’t spoil it and tell you-read the book.  It isn’t a foolproof path to leveling the playing field with females.  Nothing is, especially once there are children involved.  There is zero justice, and it is 99% gender discrimination ( the 1% is the few cases where the bitch is so obviously strung out on drugs the father gets custody ).  So while ingenious, I don’t know if the course of action in this story is able to be duplicated.  But it should give you food for thought in your own coming divorce.  Don’t believe me one is coming?  Dude, you might be a perfect gentleman and the worlds perfect lover, the worlds best dad.  And that don’t mean diddly crap all when it comes to Bitches Getten Paid.  Divorce is the perfect job for gals.

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Older gals, the kids left the nest?  You are safe.  Young gals, they get knocked up by you, married or not it doesn’t usually matter, they can stay with you and work a dead end job and you never go anywhere financially, OR, her other choice is to leave you and move in with another guy.  The baby daddy then gets to pay her and she doesn’t have to work ( even if she does decide to work, with that child support check coming in she gets paid double.  And don’t throw that crap at me about Child Support actually helping out the kids.  Food Stamps does more for them than your check does.  Usually that majority just goes to Fun Money, with a much smaller portion to the kids.  My child support went to a Ford Mustang payment, which wasn’t just about needed transportation as other more dependable cars were half the price.  Then, years after the kids left the nest, I was still paying and it was 100% all ex-wife tax ).  Two things you MUST do.  I don’t care how much you THINK she loves you.  Get a cash stash and don’t own any assets.

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Do you own a house, along with the bank?  No you don’t.  Your wife owns the house, and you owe the bank for it ( the “wife“ can be a shack-up, common law, girlfriend.  If you have kids they are all considered “wife“.  Not being married only works if there are no kids and she works  ).  You need to try to get rid of the house before she divorces you.  Seriously.  Rent.  If you think you’ll be together forever, you STILL get rid of the house.  It isn’t an asset, it is a consumable.  A piece of paid off junk land, with a cash on the barrelhead self built house, THAT is an asset ( and if she gets that in a divorce, at least there is no payment and you start over again getting your own ).  Anything you are in debt for, don’t worry as much about that.  It looks like a divorce is on hand, dump the car and return the furniture, etc.  Better than that, while still together, get rid of all debts, under the cover of improving your cash flow/budget.  She wants to keep the car, it is hers and you can show it to the judge, as well as proving you’ve been biking it.  Again, no guarantee, you can only stack the deck more in your favor.

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Minimize or eliminate all debt, as you will be the one assuming it in a divorce.  Own no assets in your name, and don’t use those assets if she can prove it ( put the junk land in your dads name, but don’t do that with the car you park at your house and drive to work ).  And have a stash of cash outside her knowledge or control.  If you guys stay together, great, I’m sure she has a lovely rack.  You’ve only improved your finances by all of the above actions.  Debt free, no mortgage, cash savings.  But if she suddenly turns on you like a rabid dog, you are insured.
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( note from J.N.:
For anyone who checks my books out, I hope you like 'em! By all means, get all 4, it's absolutely free! Especially if you happen to be in India or Mexico; I haven't had a free download from there yet, though people have downloaded my books in US, UK, Canada, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, Japan, and Australia! Paid-for eBook sales in US, UK, Canada, and Australia! So that's pretty damn awesome! Anyways, cheers, thought I'd spare you guys another one of my torturous Guest Articles lol Again, I hope you guys like the books! I'd love some feedback too, you can contact me at jnmorgan7@hotmail.com. Thanks for all the support guys, and doubly thanks to Jim, the first fellow to buy my 6th book ;) )
*

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). 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. ***

I love you all, as few minions as there are you do very well in supporting me buying through Amazon.  But plenty of you don't give ANY  support to your favorite author.  And that's me, and that's wrong.  Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here for a book.  I only get 35 cents so nobody is going to send me up to Idaho to live on their purchase.  If you don't do Amazon, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you.  Or, send an extra buck and I'll send you a CD ( the file is in PDF.  I’ll waive this fee if you order three or more books at one time ).  My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  that is three ZERO three, not three oh three. My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***

 *Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com  *wal-mart wheat*Link To All My Published Books   * www.paypal.me/jimd303 to donate to PayPal
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

medical serf

MEDICAL SERF

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note: my latest book BBB no.10 is out.  "Frugal Stocked Retreat" and "Survival Fitness".  I think I kind of half assed the Retreat book.  Too much of a repeat, although there is some new info.  I'm quite pleased with Fitness.  You know you want it.  Buy here:
click here
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You have a problem.  You drank the Kool-Aid.  You believed the lie, lived the propaganda and made plans based on the bullspit.  You thought a high tech nirvana would protect you from being stupid.  You believed you could drink and smoke and eat nutritionless food and the wonderful world of modern medicine would patch you up enough to get you through a decade or two on Social Security playing golf, your mummified body of zero worth to society continuing to extract resources.  You thought you could pick an unfit breeder and that your children’s pathetic genes would be reworked by science to protect them from your lack of judgment.  You make me sick!  Well, guess what?  Now you are wearing the serf chains you embraced.  You thought medicine would shield you and so you happily joined the world of The Insured.  You wore it as a proud mantle and didn’t think it had a downside.  How can technology have negative consequences?  Inconceivable!

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Being Insured was you joining the middle class.  Oh look at me, I shall live as an Immortal!  Call Ann Rice up and order me her next blockbuster, I‘m living large bitches!  People have insanely unwarranted expectations from the medical industry.  Let me explain slowly.  Modern medicine does two very wonderful things, and that is ALL that it does.  They can vastly increase your odds of surviving an immediate life threatening accident ( thanks to the millions of drafted peasants being practiced on in the battlefields of imperial conquest ).  And they can drown your body in antibiotics to SLIGHTLY increase your odds of surviving internal infection ( after you spent the last twenty years eating antibiotics in all your meat and dairy, plus letting common colds, sniffles and trifles be treated with antibiotics, most bugs have mutated to survive antibiotics.  Once a wonder drug, now a last ditch hope in futility ).

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The rates of illness from untreated water have declined by improved infrastructure, not modern medicine.  In fact, modern medicine spends 99% of its energy and resources presenting a self serving propaganda about how wonderful they are, and 1% trying to do everything else except the two items they are really there for.  Trauma surgery and antibiotics.  All those pills you get prescribed?  They do almost nothing but mask symptoms, and doctors can’t even do THAT right, constantly tinkering with doses and brands hoping the side effects are minimized, like a mechanic on crack randomly yanking parts and replacing them until the auto runs half assed.  Modern medicine is part of the problem, completely ignoring prevention ( the last time I was in a hospital the cafeteria had the food pyramid with corn in the vegetable group, a clear indicator the profession as a whole understands nutrition as well as they do demon exorcisms ).

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But You BELIEVE!!! You live your life as if medical insurance is all that keeps you from keeling over as soon as you swing your feet out of bed.  You’ll do anything to keep your medical, including staying in a crime infested city soon to be a radioactive crater for the job that provides medical insurance.  You’ll risk timing the collapse because you believe that the medical industry is your salvation.  You wouldn’t dream of saving yourself through preventive measures or self medicating on alternate medicines, so convinced that the industry will keep you alive for that all important retirement.  You’ll make yourself work a crappy job for decades, just to see that retirement check.  Never you mind living each day like it is your last and you should do what you love.  NO!! Just live for money, that always works out so well for everyone ( and don’t look at me like I’m a lucky bastard being able to write.  That is one of my few skills and it limits me, it doesn’t liberate me.  I’d wager most of my readers are far more skilled in other areas and have options if they so desire in self-employment ). 

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So the elite now own your soul.  They lied to you about the efficiency of the medical profession, you bought into the lie and so you live to stay insured.  Insurance should keep you alive, it sure by gum ain’t no scam, so sir-ee Wally!  Let me share a little secret with you.  Your corpse is, literally, money to other people.  Your family WANTS you to die if you have any.  The doctors will reanimate your corpse long enough to drain your bank account.  Your spouse will put you in life threatening situations to get more money ( it is one thing to die to protect your family, quite another to die for their enrichment ).  You mean NOTHING to other people.  The medical insurance industry is NOT there to keep you alive.  It is there to make a profit.  If you must die to ensure that profit, so long Charlie!  If you believe otherwise you are a naïve fool.  The golden handcuffs you voluntarily place on yourself, throwing away the key, used to be a nice paycheck.  But that was too expensive for our robber baron employers.  Now you only get insurance.

*

Medical insurance USED to be an adequate substitute for more pay.  It really only was a way to medicate you into more years of being able to work for less, but having drank the Kool-Aid you thought it was a swell deal.  Well, now medical insurance cost as much as your car payment, if not your mortgage payment.  You can’t afford it.  And even if you somehow can, the deductible all by itself, never mind the co-pay, will bankrupt you.  They won’t even help medicate you to work longer anymore!  They forced everyone to get their insurance, then made it unaffordable to everyone, and make no pretense of giving you ANY medical care!  Why are you still living this lie?  Be your own doctor.  It is safer and much cheaper ( if you are genetically predisposed towards death due to your parents ill advised breeder selection, you are screwed anyway, insurance or not.  If your diet is killing you, you can control that without insurance ).  Unshackle yourself from your bonds.  It is only as hard as instruction and discipline.  Well, that and stopping the drinking, already.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). 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. ***

I love you all, as few minions as there are you do very well in supporting me buying through Amazon.  But plenty of you don't give ANY  support to your favorite author.  And that's me, and that's wrong.  Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here for a book.  I only get 35 cents so nobody is going to send me up to Idaho to live on their purchase.  If you don't do Amazon, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you.  Or, send an extra buck and I'll send you a CD ( the file is in PDF.  I’ll waive this fee if you order three or more books at one time ).  My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  that is three ZERO three, not three oh three. My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***

 *Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com  *wal-mart wheat*Link To All My Published Books   * www.paypal.me/jimd303 to donate to PayPal
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

playing with your food

PLAYING WITH YOUR FOOD

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note: G in MT, got your snail mail donation yesterday.  Many thanks!  Everyone who has generously donated this last month has made the transition to no paychecks rather easy for me and I love you all!
*

Yep, some days are just pure D crap when it comes to quality subjects to chew on here at your mostest favoritist survival blog ( get it?  Chew on.  A food article?  Never mind ).  Those days I pull out a note that should have just been a three sentence preface to an article, a note in length only, not an article.  But some days I can’t concern myself with stooping so low that I use topical newspaper headlines as doomer porn, so I just amuse myself practicing taking a small idea and seeing if I can get a thousand words out of it.  They usually start with a preamble similar to this, attempting to divert your attention away from my foibles by over explaining.  Then I launch into a word wasting summation of the background information.  Here goes.  I think I’ve printing all there is to say about canning butter.  It might be considered a protein, if your ancestors were able to utilize dairy as a meat replacement, but be VERY careful about how you do so.  Dry canning, which I covered, should probably not be attempted.  As Idaho Homesteader pointed out, a treatable reaction to tainted canned items today could turn into a life threatening issue tomorrow when there are no doctors.

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So after pondering this for a time, I decided to stop canning my butter just to be on the safe side ( I have a pressure cooker which I’ve used and wouldn‘t be adverse to a pressure canner, which works on the same principle and I’m close to trained on that now anyway,  but before I quite my day job to write full time I had to decide that prepping purchases were now finalized, nary a stray thought of “well, I‘ll just buy this ONE more thing“ allowed.  Dry canning was free, pressure canning is not ).  And I began consuming the small amount I had canned.  I didn’t feel like it was poisonous at this point, for it was still within the period where un-canned butter still stayed good.  Just to be sure I boiled the butter again.  I took my pint jar of butter, placed it in the microwave for a minute to liquefy it, then placed half in another empty jar to keep the splatter down.  I then nuked each jar for another minute.  By that time it was boiling merrily.  While not foolproof, I felt a boiling oil should kill pretty much close to everything.

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Then I poured it into a ceramic bowl.  I prefer ceramic even if it does tend to eagerly embrace entropy with a bit too much enthusiasm.  I know plastic would tend to last close to forever, but the crap feels slimy when washing and probably leeches poison into food.  Plastic is great for Tupperware because you can’t rely on Zip-Lock bags for after the collapse, but I’d rather not use it for cooking or eating now if possible.  Don’t put the bowl in the fridge.  If you do, it separates with the white curd stuff at the bottom, and that seems to separate moisture.  Not great for butter on the counter, having water underneath.  If you let it solidify at room temperature it usually doesn’t separate.  In a few hours it solidifies again.  THEN I put one bowl in the fridge and the other on the counter.  Now, obviously, you are not going to be taking butter out of a canning jar, because you probably agreed that it wasn’t a great idea in the first place ( it might be a feasible idea, but probably not GREAT ).  But you might like melting your sticks of butter all the same.

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As you might remember from previous musings, I feel about butter about the same way I do compulsory coffee consumption.  It is, like a chosen few other foods, a gift from the Gods.  Margarine is but a mere steamy pile of Lucifer’s feces the day after too much Mexican food with shots of laxative,  compared to butter.  And butter should be used for all things to replace cooking oil ( except perhaps olive oil, one of the few things that were meant to actually produce oil.  Just because DuPont can extract oil from cotton or whatever doesn’t mean it is fit to eat ) as well as being used to supplement whole wheat for a nearly complete meal.  But of course butter is not cheap, nor should it be consumed other than in moderation ( as in ALL things ).  By melting your butter into a bowl, you can more easily control your portions.

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Butter, once melted and re-solidified, for some reason stays softer at a cooler temperature.  Those of you with large families in a hot clime need not worry about this, but up here in the high desert, America’s Mongolia, it is warm about two months of the year.  The rest of the time in a reasonably warmed house ( read, not Geriatric Warm which to younguns is insufferably hot but to old humpers still seems too cold ), butter doesn’t like to stay soft.  The stick butter, which we freeze, then keep in the fridge prior to putting on the counter.  But the bowl butter stays a bit softer.  Not a whole lot, but enough to make a difference.  So you don’t chisel away at it but skim off exactly what you need.  Both myself and the NOL feel we are getting exactly what we need to use, with no surplus, and the butter lasts longer than normal this way.  And it melts quicker on toast, in a clear spread, rather than a blob of white that needs to be stubbornly smeared to the corners.  Yes, it tastes slightly different, but not in a bad way.

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You don’t need to boil the butter as I did, if you are just taking the butter from the fridge to the bowl.  Rather than boil it I let the stick almost completely melt, take it out and keep stirring the remaining stick into the hot liquid until all melted.  That way you get the soft yellow paste right away rather than the clear bright yellow liquid, and it solidifies a lot quicker.  Why does all this matter?  It really doesn’t, other than a neat little trick to stretch out expensive supplies.  Which, just like substituting LED’s for florescent, doesn’t save spit right now but in the future can make a huge difference. 

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). 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. ***

I love you all, as few minions as there are you do very well in supporting me buying through Amazon.  But plenty of you don't give ANY  support to your favorite author.  And that's me, and that's wrong.  Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here for a book.  I only get 35 cents so nobody is going to send me up to Idaho to live on their purchase.  If you don't do Amazon, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you.  Or, send an extra buck and I'll send you a CD ( the file is in PDF.  I’ll waive this fee if you order three or more books at one time ).  My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  that is three ZERO three, not three oh three. My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***

 *Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com  *wal-mart wheat*Link To All My Published Books   * www.paypal.me/jimd303 to donate to PayPal
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

screw home despot

SCREW HOME DESPOT

All big box stores pretty much blow chunks anymore, and anymore they are some of the few retail establishments left.  Well, there are some Mom& Pop’s but if you thought Big Box prices are bad, wait until you see the smaller outlets.   Online is the only place to get items affordably, and that only goes so far.  Nobody is going to sell generic laundry soap or plywood online at reasonable prices ( you might be able to get $6 Tide at Amazon with free shipping, and it might beat the $8 price at Wally, but I’ll stick with $2 generic soap at the Family Dollar store, thank you.  Not that Family is all that cheap.  It is the Big Box of discount and their prices are usually NOT reasonable for 90% of what is in stock ).  So for anything you can’t get online you are forced to buy Big Box regardless of price.  So, we complain about Wal-Mart but are still forced to go there for certain items, even though they went from Adequate Items Low Price Leader to Abysmal Quality At Higher Prices Leader.  And I’m not talking about buying False Economics items, either, but just basic stuff you can’t find otherwise ( it is cheaper to pay $65 online for a pair jeans that last ten years than to buy a $16 pair at Wally that last six months.  That is avoiding false economics.  But what about something like a rope or a trash can?  Few options to pursue quality there ).

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The issue has become, I believe, the universal business practices that work as a monopoly but are perfect-even without the ever present FedGov collusion that passes for oversight these days-because they are standards rather than practices.  No one will ever see rival CEO’s gathered in a smoke filled room agreeing on prices or lowering quality, that is no longer necessary.  It is all legal and aboveboard.  Everyone buys the same crap from China and has the same costs and the same percent mark-up and the same costs retail within set parameters.  You have a Lowe’s and a Home Depot in the same town, the only difference is that of location and stocking different items, not quality or price.  Home Despot says, oh, you have six foot florescent fixtures at Lowes?  No need for us to stock that, because unmoved inventory is a waste of money, we’ll just carry three footers only.  Perhaps their idea of competition is to buy an extra boatload of one item the other guy has, sell it at cost but never order it again, and hope to poach some customers.  But they were already customers to some extent because of the specialization ( the successful ones stay alive this way.  “Me-Too selling” leads to eventually bankruptcy, like Radio Shack trying to be a cell phone seller ).  The one off sale was just adding a bit more chum to the fishing ground, someone keeping their job by actually doing it once in awhile.

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And those one of a kind items only they carry?  They can lower the quality.  I complained about Home Despot screws before, when I tried to build a two by four bookshelf.  The heads striped out, even after I drilled a guide hole.  I returned them for nails, because all of the screws are the same type.  How do they expect to have any repeat sales?  I knew their nails were not the best, but at least MOST of the box works.  If I didn’t know better I’d swear the manufacture has 20% of the batch made with cheaper metal to save on the cost to the Big Box.  Anyway, this last weekends project-the rain/snow finally stopping at least for a time-was to install stair handrails.  NOL rents two thirds of the house out as apartments and the insurance guy wanted those put in even though the steps are only a few high ( the house on a hill so the front is level but the back elevated ).  We went to Home Despot and got metal plates that mount to a wall and you screw in an iron pipe to it.  We got those big screws that have a hex head so I could install with a wrench ( hence avoiding the screw problem of soft heads-or so I thought! ). 

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I swear the threads were not at the correct angle.  They wouldn’t bite into the wood.  Then, after trying to push/turn, some broke.  These are big ass screws.  And, again, pre-drilled didn’t even work.  So we went back and got the thickest nails they had and just nailed the damn things to the wall.  Of course, the nails were crap also.  It was a bit more than a 20% failure rate.  Those that didn’t come out of the box already bent were that way soon enough.  We went through over half the box to get sixteen nails rigid enough to complete the job ( I know it sounds like the railings were Jerry Rigged, but the walls are old, really thick boards and stacked two deep.  The nails have a lot of wood to bite into.  Not by any means perfect or preferred, but they should be adequate ).  The nails were much more expensive but a far worse quality from my B-POD project five years ago.  Aside from greed and incompetence, I would submit to you that this is yet another indicator that our Industrial Age is on its very last gasps of breath.  Industrial Age products were NEVER about craftsman quality but about good enough quality at a drastically reduced price.  And it has ALWAYS been about volume selling.

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Now, the volume has declined enough to force vast economic disruptions, which is not so bad if this was cyclical.  But it ain’t.  2008 was it.  This is the end, my friend.  There is no more recoveries, just varying degrees of success in kicking the can down the road just a bit longer.  The oil net energy is too low for a conventional recovery ( EVERY previous recovery was predicated on increased energy supplies ).  Financially or materially.  The quality is to a point where that is now too impacting the volume.  You still go out and buy fasteners, obviously, but you fasten less if possible due to the quality issues.  Even if sales are barely impacted, you know the rot extends to every other product in various ways, and if the customer knows he is getting crap, he’ll be just a little enough reluctant to buy a higher end item that sales on the better products will decrease ( aside from the less disposable income issue ).  Profits are so bad, Home Despot must screw everyone on the quality of screws.  Not only are they so desperate that they can’t care about repeat sales on the same item, they don’t care they are cannibalizing their more profitable sales.  What else could be such a perfect indicator?  The Industrial Age ship has hit the iceberg of Peak Oil and is going down, the last of the metal ore in the form of recycled junked cars shipped across the Pacific to produce unusable fasteners that are hoped to be used keeping crap quality McMansions from falling apart.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). 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. ***

I love you all, as few minions as there are you do very well in supporting me buying through Amazon.  But plenty of you don't give ANY  support to your favorite author.  And that's me, and that's wrong.  Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here for a book.  I only get 35 cents so nobody is going to send me up to Idaho to live on their purchase.  If you don't do Amazon, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you.  Or, send an extra buck and I'll send you a CD ( the file is in PDF.  I’ll waive this fee if you order three or more books at one time ).  My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  that is three ZERO three, not three oh three. My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***

 *Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com  *wal-mart wheat*Link To All My Published Books   * www.paypal.me/jimd303 to donate to PayPal
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there