nuke bread 3.0

NUKE BREAD 3.0

Yes, yes, I know you all think my microwave bread is horrid swill, and I’m not arguing with you.  After eating it lo these many years, I’m immune to the boiled cardboard taste.  So I understand why few of you think of this as a viable cooking strategy for wheat.  I do keep trying to modify it so that the taste improves.  Hence this version three.  The first version, a happy accident, was my hunger after heavy manual labor meeting a craving for a healthy alternative than what was offered.  I just eyeballed measurements of whole wheat flour and water, mixed it up in a disposable cup to waffle consistency, slathered it on a disposable plate and nuked it both sides for three minutes each.

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This is the very easy but worst tasting variety.  The cost of propane to cook my breakfast and lunch, plus the time it would have taken to do so the night before ( after being at work for ten hours with an hour and a half commute ), all made the taste bearable.  Barely.  Since I was going into work early for the Internet, I just made two nuke breads while at work.  They paid little enough, twelve minutes of microwave use and some water were the least they could do.  I ate that slop for seven years each workday, breakfast and lunch.  Once the work load increased unreasonably I had to start eating out of the donations ( pizza, deli sandwiches ) in addition to the bread, but the bread was my foundation layer.

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Prior to the Food Bank, I had eaten regular flat bread for three years at the last high labor job.  A waffle for breakfast and a huge stack of flatbread ( all whole wheat, obviously ) for lunch.  It took at least an hour or two every weekend to make them up but they were so tasty.  The microwave version is sooo bad compared to the traditional flatbread taste.  But for a time there, living like a bare assed savage going all out prepping ( at least I made my time freezing off grid worth while ), every penny saved was worth the sacrifice.  For that time, taste was for Yuppie Scum.

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Version 2.0 of nuke bread was much tastier and what I’ve been eating for about the last two or three years.  I’ve come a long ways learning my way around the kitchen.  It isn’t too different but the taste is much improved.  Of course, that improvement is all relative.  If you have a three hundred pound girlfriend ( hey, no judgment.  If you like to get your fat freak on, who am I to say anything? ), and you have a near death experience with a fold of her flab one day and so decide that the new rule is a two hundred pound maximum, relatively speaking the improved version looks a lot better.  She still be one fat bitch, though.

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With version 2, you measure the water to flour 1 to 2, then fork the much stiffer batter over you plate, nuke one minute on one side then one and a half on the other, then let cool down on a rack.  Eat once firmed up.  The dishes are more of a choir on this one, and you need to use a spatula to pry the bread up and over on the plate, but the taste is improved.  But, here I was, being a prince amongst men, and I decided that I was going to try to improve even on that.  Hey, every bread product you know and love today was because someone was bored with the taste of an old concoction and experimented.

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Here is version three.  Make as with v2.  Exactly one half water to flour.  One quarter cup water to a half cup flour.  Mix.  Take out of the bowl and place on the counter.  Now add one more flour, at the same measurement as the water.  In this case, another quarter cup of flour.  Now kneed the extra flour into the dough.  It won’t all go in, just a slight amount will remain on the counter and you use those few specks to use so the dough doesn’t stick to the counter or the rolling pin.

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Whole wheat flour isn’t as sticky as white.  You won’t have such a glue like residue sticking to everything.  And of course, since the flour is ground with the Corona mill, it doesn’t get to the consistency of talcum powder anyway.  Keep flipping over and rolling out until very thin.  All the excess flour should now be in the dough.  Nuke on each side one minute.  There is so little water in the bread, as compared to the other versions of Nuke Bread, that it tastes just like a hard dried tortilla.  I could have tried to cook it at only thirty seconds each to try to retain a bit of softness, but I never made a second batch.

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Why?  Because I didn’t like the bread.  It wasn’t enough like the nuke bread I’ve been eating for nearly twenty years.  Which is why I think most of you WILL like the taste ( from the reactions of those who‘ve tried the nuke bread, I expect complete opposite reactions from my own ).  Much more like regular tortilla bread and far less like the fabled boiled cardboard taste.  With almost no glue sticking, the cleanup is quick and easy.  A quick wipe of the counter, and a quick rub of the pin under water.  Of course, if you use store bought whole wheat rather than home milled I can’t guarantee to that. 

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We are still pretty spoiled when it comes to cooking.  Energy is still relatively cheap ( of course, when it isn’t, just use a rocket stove and a stainless steel cookie sheet or a large flat cast iron piece ) and we get spoiled.  We use huge amounts of energy just to improve taste or to be lazy, such as a bread machine or an air fryer.  When energy becomes far more dear, you are going to want to have the option of quick low energy cooking.  The microwave bread will fit this bill ( until you build a solar cooker ).  It isn’t meant to be tasty, it is meant to minimize the energy needed to cook wheat.  I’m just trying to get it as tasty as is possible.

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( addendum: I made a second batch, after this had been written and posted.  Rather than try to cook less, instead I skipped the rolling pin part.  I just flattened by hand so it was much thicker getting cooked.  Try it this way-it really, honest Injun comes very close to the taste of flatbread.  Also, I failed to mention that the 3/4 cup flour batch is cooked as two different pieces, not one large piece.  By cooking this much dryer, it tastes better and is the same size/time spent chewing as the v.2, but with 50% more calories.  Flour is 100 calories per quarter cup-and as not all calories are created equal-these 300 calories go a long way.  Add just a smidge of butter and it goes double.  Even a nickel size piece of butter will coat the whole piece and deliver much more energy.  Use ghee rather than butter if you have even minor lactose issues.  Which you can make in the microwave also.  I add salt and pepper to the bread and never tire of eating )
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look sharp

LOOK SHARP

I need to update my last article on sharpening knives.  Sorry, yes, yet another tool you’ll probably end up needing.  The bad news is that they are disposable.  The good news is that they are only eighty cents each.  Okay, to begin at the beginning, this article assumes you just don’t have the skill to sharpen a knife on a stone.  If you do, good on you.  Your life is much easier and you need spend less money.  I’m tight enough with every dollar that I would prefer to learn how to sharpen with a stone.  Alas, I just can’t get the hang of it.  All those doo-dad knife sharpeners are NOT because I’m lazy or because I have more dollars than cents ( you know, a play on “sense” ).  I just really suck at working with a stone.

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And this isn’t because thirty years ago I screwed up a knife trying and refuse to try again.  I have tried to pick up this skill time and again, and you would think it would finally stick as I gain more patience and have access to less money.  But still no dice.  Just as I know better than to try long distance shooting, or too complicated of mechanics, I know when a skill will elude me regardless of dedication or practice.  At most, I only marginally improve.  No matter how many times I tackle math or science, for instance, I just don’t “grok” it.  So, case closed, some of us need help.

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I had settled on a Lansky sharpener to get a new angle on a knife, and the Rada sharpener for a fine edge.  I do loves me my Rada.  Never in my life have I used such sharp edges in preparing food in the kitchen.  The Rada is so good, it makes stainless steel a viable option again.  I no longer fear the stainless, and no longer am trying to replace all those with carbon steel.  So, probably, I still am ahead financially even with all sharpeners I must experiment with-just from that one benefit.

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The Lansky sharpener, however, proved to be less of a cure-all than I had hoped.  Not only did I buy the system, I then upgraded the course stone with a diamond tip.  That alone costs as much as the whole kit.  So I was about $35 into the Lansky ( that doesn’t count the second kit and second diamond hone ).  I had experimented on it and the diamond add on, and then had written my original article.  It had indeed gotten my dull as dishwater bayonet paper cutting sharp, even if it was at an inflated price.  I spent more on the Lansky than I had on the one bayonet, and I had spent as much on all my bayonets as half my arsenal.  Crap just ain’t affordable anymore, and that is AFTER prices have tumbled on declining sales everywhere with everyone.

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But then I pulled out my second bayonet for sharpening, and that is where the Lansky laid a big turd.  All my bayonets ( these are the no.9’s, the knife bayonets-much more scarce than the standard issue tent stake bayonet which is optimistically named a pike bayonet but which performed more closely to a

prison shiv ) have one standard feature, and that is they fit on to a Lee-Enfield no.4.  And that is all they have in common besides fitting in a common scabbard.  All the lengths and widths and edges are different, almost as if anyone with a grinder in their garage were sent blanks and got paid to half ass produce the units.  Almost like the Bren gun was cottage industry produced as the British factories were mostly shuddered at that point.

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The Lansky refused to sharpen it.  The thing never had an edge put on it, and a diamond hone would have been perfect, but the thing was shaped just right that the hone wasn’t making contact with the blade, from the correct angle guide.  I got so desperate I pulled out the sharpening stone-again!-but of course that had no effect.  My only surviving option was to pull out the old school cheater stone.  These were those stone wheel kitchen knife sharpeners I had stockpiled ten years ago from the Mom& Pop dollar store here in town, prior to their closing ( where I got those twenty or thirty pairs of wool friggin socks-proving as if needed yet once again that Baby Jesus loves me above all others, even minions ).

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It was hard to find these again.  I don’t know if Dollar Tree carries them or not.  But online, I couldn’t find them because of their weird name.  You want to look for:

Kitchen Abrader Two Grinding Wheels Tool Stone Knife Sharpener.

( https://www.ebay.com/itm/263056836275 )

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Say that three times fast.  All they are is a small round sharpening stone set between two plastic wheels.  That keeps the knife at the correct angle.  Of course, they are cheaply made, which is why I caution you that they are disposable.  I ground half of one away trying ( and finally succeeding ) to get that darn bayonet sharp.  And it wasn’t just the whole stone.  It was half of the wheel that was ground down ( an effect of a larger stone than they sell now, plus a short knife-to use, you place the knife in and push and pull the sharpener on the ground.  A short knife only abrades a small section of the sharpener ). 

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Today, you have to worry about less quality items being sold to you for as much as possible.  For the most part, knives once came from the factory with the correct angle on them.  You just needed to keep them sharp.  Now, not so much.  This is bad, in that you are getting ripped off and need to buy supplemental tools.  It is good in that today and probably in the future, you can trash pick a lot of knives that were abandoned by owners who share my problem of being unable to hand sharpen on a traditional stone having bought a crap knife. 

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I would still recommend a Lansky if you can afford it, with the diamond hone.  This will give you longevity for sharpening as many knives as possible for as long as possible.  If you cannot afford it, just buy the kitchen wheel stones, in bulk.  I would recommend E-Bay over Amazon.  Amazon at its cheapest was $5.  E-Bay was 80 cents after tax with free shipping, order as few or as many as desired.  Yes, they will in fact take a month to get to you.  It is, literally, the slow mail boat from China.  Plan ahead, right?

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If you do have the Lansky, I would still recommend the wheel stones, just in case you get a knife Lansky doesn’t care for ( as was my case ).  Here is my guess.  After the collapse, cheap or abandoned guns will abound due to lack of ammo.  At the same token, knives will go back to being taken to an expensive tradesman for sharpening.  The fact that folks could make a living sharpening knives, back in the old timey days,  tells you that NOT having the skill to sharpen was not rare.  Perhaps not a skill you pay for dearly, relatively speaking, but if you are really friggin poor you need as few expenses as possible.  And when knives go from cheap as dirt to hugely expensive once the energy for mining and smelting becomes dear, you cannot afford to screw up your knife so you get a professional to sharpen it.

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We’ve gotten too used to disposable and cheap items.  Knives and clothes and shoes and such used to be a major investment.  And remember, the Lansky and wheel stones are for putting a new angle on dull knives.  The Rada is for taking a knife that just lost its fine edge and replacing it.  It is a finishing sharpen only.  But don’t skimp on it because it is a damn skippy good tool for what it does.

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*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***my Bonus Material blog*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

wrong group

WRONG GROUP

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note: for all my professional reloaders.  If I wanted to, would it be an issue to take the components of a 7.62x39 and use them in a Lee-Enfield?  I know the bullets are the same diameter.  And using the same amount of powder for the carbine bullet, I should avoid high velocity shots in the Enfield damaging the barrel, right?  I'm effectively turning the Enfield into a carbine.  Not trying to use a 303 bullet or powder charge, but just bypassing the chamber insert and firing a low powered 303 round.  Does this avoid the issues of a low powered pistol round sticking in the barrel, no chamber inserts available for the 7.62x39, using the wrong bullet weight in a full powered round, or other considerations?  It would be nice to have the option of using an intermediate round in a heavy rifle to dampen recoil, buy the rounds at twenty cents each ( cheaper than buying bullets and powder separately ), or using found/bartered rounds post-apoc.  Anyone?  Appreciate the help.
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note: I'm taking a break on the book until I figure out what I'm doing, so there is no long posts on the other blog for now.  But I'll still post interesting links, so watch for those if interested.  I just posted another free for today book.
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After quite some time I finally finished watching the first season of “Survivors ( 1975-77 )”.  I’ve been treating myself to each episode rather than binge watching.  Despite a low budget, the stories were told well and they have been a pleasure to view.  I read that seasons two and three were independent of the shows creator Terry Nation, as there was a parting over creative differences ( the novel you might have read was written the same year as the first season-it has little resemblance to the complete show.  I read it some years ago but if I recall correctly it is more the mothers search for her missing son, and encounters with undesirables ). 

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Green Mountain Dude has mentioned that the show gets better after the beginning.  I have no idea, yet, but I did find that the first show of season two actually found me taking notes for an article idea.  After the main male character’s band mostly perishes, he must travel to a nearby settlement and trade labor for food and lodging.  He speaks to the groups leader that they will be moving on in spring.  Each is the independent type and wants to be in charge, not the one dictated to.  Which got me thinking that you should always have your eye on the long term, if you find yourself thinking about joining a group.

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No matter how good the situation looks right now, you need to beware changing group dynamics.  When you refuse to sign up as one of the help, you are refusing to surrender independence.  Not to say being the leader is a good idea.  You are the target in war or revolution.  But if you are not the leader, you are the follower.  Which could be just fine, or it could blow rabid monkey chunks.  You could very well end up killed if you are a danger to the leader, even a perceived threat.  You could become cannon fodder if the leader changes tactics.  You could become a serf.  If independence from these threats is at all possible, who wouldn’t choose that?

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Again, this falls under the category “why tribes suck”.  We spend years focusing on their good qualities, so now we beat the dead horse of their dangers.  No matter how hunky dorey a group sounds right now, a band of brothers and everyone equal, things usually don’t work out they way in the end.  Because human nature being what it is, greed and laziness show back up.  Favoritism and forced sacrifice, Realpolitics and backstabbers.  Let’s take the instance of the TV show.  The visiting man is an engineer.   Since this is the 70’s, one assumes he is competent and doesn’t design pedestrian bridges without math. 

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The village leader has been trying to recruit the guy for some time, just for his skills.  So far, it is all goodwill and cooperation.  But what happens when that turns into more of a degree of force.  Say, the guy wants to leave but his wife is on limited medication.  Leave, and we won’t allow your wife to return and be treated by our herbalist ( or something similar-not an overt threat, but an understood one, no matter how friendly ).  I’m not assuming a coveted tradesman is cast in chains, merely that people being people, someone will find a way to screw you if it is in their power.

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Don’t believe me?  Do you need to be threatened by your boss or wife to get you to act against your own best interests?  Of course not.  There is an implied ( and implicit ) threat.  All human dynamics are dictated by force.  Why do you think so much of our programming is devoted to perceiving and dealing with threats from each other?  Being your own boss has its own set of problems, but at least you can be the screw-er rather than the screw-ee.  Remember, when you are getting screwed, it hurts, and there is no guarantee that you’ll get a bonus Reach-Around.

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One of the reasons I’m enjoying the “Survivors” show is because despite any imperfections, it did showcase common sense and its implications if absent ( it also allowed you to root for the demise of simply irritating and stupid people rather than the anti-White Male racist/sexist bench markers we are supposed to use today ).  There was no need for the main character to over analyze the situation.  He just knew that throwing in with another lot and giving up independence was a bad idea.  What do you hear today?  All about how good tribe is and how they will act morally because you all believe in the same deity.

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So, what?  All those religious wars throughout history were because why?  Why didn’t those on the same side of not worshiping a false idol stop fighting one another?  Right. You get to define the faith however it benefits you.  Tribe is a two edge sword, not the solution to all your ills.  And don’t think it is only about picking the right group.  Perhaps with any group you will be giving up more than you gain.  I mean, sure, nobody wants to go join Jim Jones in the jungles of South America, but even the benign PTA is full of politics and danger.

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Once you introduce famine and combat casualties, crap just got more real, yo!  You can expect a fairly regular amount of benevolence from a father leading his family, but once you have a non-biological relation in a position of power over you, there is no way you can guarantee your best interests will be represented.  No matter how well you get along, eventually their attitude will change to reflect changing circumstances.  For instance, right now the Cat Ladies, and the Blacks and the Muzzies all pretend there are in it together against us Honkies.  How much would you care to wager that one of those groups is used by another for their own selfish ends?

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If Blacks end up getting too much pushback from their violent behavior, you can bet they would stage a false flag attack using the Muzzies as the patsy.  Take the heat off themselves, and wear down their enemy at the hands of another.  Now, why can’t that kind of selfishness and greed and lack of loyalty be seen on a smaller scale, such as a village of former strangers?  I am NOT claiming there is any substitute for tribe, in the long run.  You put up with asswhores to protect yourself from much bigger and more dangerous ones.  But while you have the choice…

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

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*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***my Bonus Material blog*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

gun fads 2 of 2

GUN FADS 2

Ah, gun fads.  The needs of the manufacture and the banker placed before your need for a life saving tool.  The needs of your social group, your peers, based on the gun fads of the groups they take their cue from, before that of a life saving tool.  Yesterday I told you a large part of the pimping of AR’s has to do with how cheap they are-relatively speaking-to produce.  And with all that competition, they become cheap to the consumer which reinforced the fad itself.  Fads in the gun business can be fueled by consumer cheapness as well as the frugalness of the manufacture.  Did plastic furniture become popular because it was superior, or because it was cheaper?

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Go back to the 70’s and 80’s.  Remember the gun fads then?  The Cocaine Wars had a lot to do with that.  Remember the Ingram’s?  The Uzi’s?  The shotgun became even cooler.  It was all about high volume short range weapons, and wood furniture for the first time was becoming less de regueur.  The FBI and local LEO’s were getting in on the fad.  They might have thought they were “fighting fire with fire”, but I would say that there was very little tactical consideration and more jumping on the cool boy toy bandwagon. 

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And then there was the backlash to all that, and the HK91 became the de facto survivalist rifle.  Screw those puny AR’s and Mac-10’s, we want a manly rugged full size rifle!  Thirty Cal, baby!  Of course, that was older guys with older views on what constituted a combat weapon, as they upgraded from the old M1 Garands and M14’s and went ultra modern ( with plenty sticking with the old guns, just because ).  They knew a limp wrist pussy gun when they saw it, the 9mm and the M16 for the new feminized military. 

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But what was the Garand, if not a fad in tactics?  Spray and pray is ONE tactic, but it isn’t the BEST one.  The Germans did just fine with turn bolts, because infantry are just support personnel for artillery.  Too many survivalists didn’t get that memo.  They think tactics are more important than logistics, and they seem to confuse which weapons dominate the battlefield in which eras.  Did it ever occur to them that the reason the Garand was used was not because it was a superior weapon or tactical tool, but simply that is utilized mass consumption?  We fought WWII with ONE consideration.  Mass industrialization feeding the maw of cannon fodder. 

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Throw enough men into battle or into aircraft training, and human wave tactics overwhelm any superior training eventually.  Not only were human wave attacks the most effective way for green troops to predominate, the whole point of THAT was to get our economy back on mass production.  The Great Depression was caused ( besides the issues with our central bank ) by overproduction without customers.  War created demand, and we fought the war by overproduction.  From covering the oceans in ships, the air with planes and the immediate space above the battlefield with a wall of lead. 

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But the fad of semi’s lasted long after we were capable of mass production, didn’t it?  Now you have preppers thinking that ONLY semi’s can win their war.  Screw logistics or resources or energy availability.  Changing focus, look at the fad caused by the Clinton gun ban.  Suddenly, the SKS was the newest gun fad.  It was affordable, ammo was a nickel a round, and the poor peasants could still fight with that all important semi-automatic.  Any gun relying on imported ammo is problematic, but that didn’t matter as China-Marts across the land opened for business.  Why, if disposable guns and disposable ammo doesn’t go with disposable everything from big box stores, I don’t know what does.

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It seemed that once the SKS was in, the AK was the next fad following on its heels.  Here is the problem with the AK47.  It is an assault carbine.  Which is nothing more than a submachinegun with a better cartridge.  It eats a LOT of ammunition, being much more resource hungry than its smaller pistol ammunition forebear.  Survivalists usually don’t have those resources.  And if they do, they will burn through them too quickly.  But the bigger problem with the AK was that of its limited supply and its inability to be produced outside of a large industrial concern. 

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Most AK’s came from the deep arsenal stockpiles of the Soviet Union.  They flooded the market, cheap as talk.  Then when every African guerrilla and every Eastern European fighter, every middle eastern new state army and every survivalist was armed, that supply dried up.  Well, as far as affordable ones.  Now they aren’t near as cheap anymore, and that fad has indeed passed.  Why would you pay the same amount for sheet metal receiver assault carbine when you could almost get a battle rifle for the same price?  The fad came without any tactical or logistical consideration, then lost its momentum on financial grounds.

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Another Russian gun fad was the Mosin-Nagant.  I have no problem with the concept of equipping a squad for super cheap.  If the apocalypse or the civil war breaks out tomorrow, it was nice knowing your band could have a rifle and a Spam can of ammo apiece, all for $200 each.  If nothing else the gun could be a “butter knife special”, a crappy weapon designed to liberate a much better one from the enemy.  But the gun had zero appeal as a weapon and only as a financial deal was it enticing. 

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Granted, it is a niche market, but what about the fifty ( and comparable ) caliber sniper rifle?  Total fad.  How many real snipers are out there compared to posers with Gear In The Rear?  I don’t imagine the company survives on military sales alone.  Fat and lonely middle age men flock to the gun store to partake in the fad of patriot sniper, a fantasy burned into everyone’s brain most likely by the book Unintended Consequences.  How many hunting rifles are sold on the fantasy as Manly Mighty Studly Hunter?  How many purchases are fueled by the fad of Big Game Hunter, far too much power for the average ability?

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If you think about it, most survival gun advice out there is fueled by fads rather than sound thinking.  Many fads are founded on a demand, such as frugality, but don’t let that cloud logic of overall and comparable feasability. 

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*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  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.***my Bonus Material blog*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

gun fads 1 of 2

GUN FADS

It shouldn’t need to be repeated, but I think we all lose sight of the fact that for the most part most of our arsenal choices are nothing but fads.  I’m just as guilty, if not more so, as anyone else.  We seem to think that those in the business of selling firearms place as much importance as we do in a tool that should be able to save our lives, but I would submit to you that this is certainly not the case.  Let us take a related subject.  Survivalist or prepper literature.  The Internet is chockablock full of scumbags offering sadly deficient advice, all to make money off of you and your very real concerns of safety.

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Now, how much money is involved in being an author?  Up until about or around the turn of the century, computers were still expensive and a major investment.  Now they are half the price of a refrigerator, rather than ten or twenty times their cost.  It used to be I always lost money writing, if for no other reason than the computer never got paid off.  Now, one good month of income buys a new computer.  Even a Windows computer WITH the updated deluxe word processor ( not that I care for MS or Word, but they make my job way easier ).

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You didn’t run across too much ultra-crappy survivalist advice back when computers were pricey.  Now, between Kindle and $120 barely used computers, there is almost nothing BUT crappy survivalist advice.  Blogs certainly didn’t help, but cheaper computers caused it all ( cheaper computers led to cheaper servers, etc ).  My point is that with lower barriers of entry into publishing, purveyors of product had no problem selling you live threatening advice.  Guns, however, do not show the exact same business model.  They are worse.

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Getting into the gun manufacturing business is NOT cheap, outside the AR clones ( since you don’t actually need to manufacture anything.  For the same reason everyone went towards Windows OS ( much lower cost of entry because of standardization ), now everyone is pimping AR’s.  Not because they are better but because they are cheaper.  So, yes, the AR business is exactly like Kindle book publishing or blogs, but all the rest of the gun manufacturing business is pretty much a proprietary equipment investment heavy endeavor.  Just as with a Hollywood movie, there is a lot of investment to pay back.

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Does Hollywood care that you just dropped $12 on a total crapfest of a movie?  With terrible tasting popcorn because tasty fat costs a few cents more, grievously digging into the profit margin of a $6 tub of popcorn, added to a nasty tasting soda because the chain went with Pepsi rather than Coke to save another 1% in costs.  I want to go to the theatre and watch the new Die Hard 9 ( sorry, I mean the remake of Death Wish ), but I would then be supporting a deservedly dying industry.  I’ll wait for Redbox, since the idiots can’t wait more than six months to get my several cents worth of entertainment dollar. 

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Go to Death Wish, you all chorus, if we pay for good stories, we’ll get more of them.  Ah, no.  The industry is indeed dying.  As long as there is profit in screwing the US customers to appease the foreign ones, our vote doesn’t matter.  If the Star Wars movies take a turn to non-PC story telling, a highly doubtful prospect, it will because no one in China wanted to watch the turd, not because the US consumer opted out.  When the entire US corporate paradigm is “quarterly profit uber alles”, screwing over your customers is all we will see.  And, I shudder to think you don’t get this, that includes American gun manufactures.

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In fact, American gun manufacturers have been screwing us over nigh thirty years.  Fifty years, with Colt ( hump you Colt, you mighty hunk of fresh beaver crap ).  The last ten years of declining quality after the Greatest And Lastest Depression is just the next phase in screwing their customers.  Gun manufacturers are manufacturing a profit.  Which is only nominally tied in with saving your life.  Is it any surprise that customer fads are as rife in this industry as in the automotive one?  Both sell on artificial demand, since each is really only a one a lifetime product.

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If you lived your life like you didn’t need or want a car, just buying a single one would last you your whole life.  And as long as you don’t try to burn out the barrels of your semi-auto, buying one gun per application would mean you are only a one time buyer.  Those making guns need you to buy far more than one gun.  So gimmicks and artificial demand ( as well as planned obsolescence, such as in the case of cheaper barrels on semi’s or plastics in rimfire ) are given extra consideration.  Not that there is a huge amount of problems with this.  Yes, it is nice to have more options.

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The problem comes about when the customers both ignore the industries greed and immortality, and when they themselves don’t see the difference between want and need.  This is a modest issue when it comes to sporting guns, but I’ll contend that when the guns are for the apocalypse, we gain to lose far more than just a little money.  We are gambling with our lives.  And not because Manufacture X installed a front site with cheaper glue.  Because like a car, we confuse social approval and herd mentality for actual usefulness.

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Even folks who ignore trends and fads and insist that the old stuff is just fine thank you very much, even they can be blinded by fads.  A case in point there is the 1911A1 .45 auto.  Nothing wrong with them per se.  They are dependable and solid, good for reliability and beating in close quarter combat or trench warfare skulls.  But they were THE fad at one time, supposedly better than revolvers.  I would argue that at the close ranges the average factory 45 could hit something, it didn’t matter how quick you reloaded since they were too close to begin with, but I’m sure I’d be shouted down by Semi Simians.  I’m going to continue tomorrow.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2GRqZJn )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

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but, venezuela! 2 of 2

BUT, VENEZUELA! 2

Collapse is baked into the cake.  Population will not decline as fast as oil supplies.  Population will fall WITH oil supplies, and that is called a collapse.  We cannot change anything, because ruling elites do not give up their riches and power, and the thing that gave them that is what is in decline.  So, politics and economics is a waste of time and energy to discuss.  We only do so to exercise our long neglected brain, logic and reason sacrificed on the alter of dogma.  I despise writers who are lazy pukes and charge you extra for the tripe “we must all get along and change before it is too late”.  Slimy cheating whores. 

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So, we are NOT undertaking this discussion with any undo expectation, other than self improvement.  So let’s further explore how worshiping Mammon is self defeating.  The free market argument has been used for decades to enrich the elite.  Just privatization itself is scary enough, but worse is de-funding everything in the publics interest.  Rather than offering retirement as part of the pay package, companies offloaded that onto the taxpayers.  Rather than giving workers any kind of pay through Unions, all jobs were exported to China.  Who pays?  The taxpayer, through unemployment, rising crime and etc.

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But when it comes time for the taxpayer to  subsidize anything in the national interest, the hue and cry for free market is toted out.  What?  National healthcare?  Communism!  Equal pay?  Communism ( sorry, pay equality is in the communities interest, as social stability is achieved ).  Healthy food?  That would cut into profits!  Already, all this impacting the national interest is obvious.  Potential soldiers are too sick and weak.  We already went through all this.  You know where free school lunches came from?  The Great Depression malnourishment as the norm severely cut into the health of draftees ( remember, we had the draft a year and a half prior to Pearl Harbor.  But, you know, FDR is a god and not evil and he never planned the war, and stuff ).

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The argument for compulsory school?  Elevating the knowledge of the populace actually is strategically sound ( ask the Nazi‘s who had the knowledge infrastructure already in place to help the war effort ).  The propaganda aspects were secondary, a bonus.  Today, the schools are ALL propaganda and ZERO knowledge.  Why do we need brains when we can import them on work visas?  Maybe because that is a strategic consideration?  Just like a manufacturing industry is.  If you import all your critical military equipment, like microchips, you can be cut off too easily.

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We can’t even impose an tariffs without the free market advocates crying out in anguish that all is now lost.  But what does a tariff do?  It protects a domestic industry.  Which, you know, might actually be of strategic importance.  Just like imposing immigration restrictions is.  But that might rise wages, right?  We can’t have THAT.  That is certainly no Free Market move!  Best to starve the peons instead of sharing in the profits.  Sharing is communism.  Welfare is socialism ( unless it is in the form of Social Security, obviously! ).  War is peace, bitches!

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Does anyone ever care?  Or are they all comfortable in their dogmatic assumptions?  I mean, sorry, but it really pisses me off that I’ve been played for a chump.  That I lived half my life living by all the lies I was fed.  I find absolutely no shame in having believed it.  I would feel more if I didn’t try to reject faulty programming.  What about you?  The best form of propaganda is when you keep lying to yourself.  Hell, that saves THEM money, doesn’t it?

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If you think about it, what are solutions to a lot of our problems?  How about, everything they define as evil, right?  Any form of socialism, from National Socialism to Communism is by definition really evil and bad and to be avoided as if it were the Devil himself.  How would we increase employment?  Outlaw the export of profits.  Strengthen our military?  Lower private company profits and socialize a lot of programs that had strategic value.  Achieve “energy independence”?  Public transportation while taxing the crap out of gasoline and auto sales, taxpayer paid bike paths and etc.  Make ourselves secure in food?  Take away private control, shift the incentives from corporates to families, slap heavy tariffs on imported food.

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None of this is even wanted by the majority of voters, because they have been conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs to salivate when “free market” is mentioned, and to cramp up as with constipation at the mention of “socialism”.  And who does this benefit?  Those that rule us and control us.  Again, to be clear because whenever a reader has his basic assumptions questioned he tends to immediately forget everything he just read, I’ll remind you that I’m not favoring either system.  Both government control AND private control can be either good OR bad, depending. 

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My only issue with either socialism or the free market is when it is used to my detriment.  And when your tribe is your nation state ( for better or worse, that is our only option ), you need to accept ONLY what strengthens your tribe against all others.  And in this case, both Liberals AND Libertarians are weakening our tribe.  The Liberals through multiculturalism and the Libertarians through unfettered free markets ( as defined by the corporations, not by the definition of the Libertarians ).  Both parties allow the further erosion of the tribe.  The Liberals expect the government to ignore all cultural aspects that benefit the tribe and the Libertarians expect the government to ignore all economic benefits.  It must be nice to be an elite right now.  Everyone pretends to hate you but works lockstep to help you help yourself.

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I trust I’ve pissed off just about everyone today?  If not, aren’t you just the smart cookie?  If so, please question your own anger.  Are you sure it’s just me?  I’m contrary for a reason, folks.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2FXuPPP )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  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.***my Bonus Material blog*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there