bloggers behaving badly

BLOGGERS BEHAVING BADLY

August 15^th, the Doomstead Dinner had an article by its owner ( rare treats, those non-guest articles not in video form ) covering the disgraceful practices of most doomer blogs.  He is far more qualified to comment on this than I am, as he wades through a heck of a lot more electric crap than I ever will.  I have reduced my “favorites” down to less than a dozen semi-daily blogs and only venture out if I see an article recommended/linked at one of those sites.  I have far less patience than he has in the buffoonery of blogs.  His basic complaint that was that the blogs either crushed dissent by outright censorship or the readership chased away the “non-approved commenters” themselves.  Each one was fossilized in their own paradigm.  Now, I understand this complaint.  You carefully read an article, then point out mistakes or add invaluable information, spending quite the amount of time and effort on it, and then the asswhore won’t publish it.  More than likely they were one of those guys that put great effort into trying to pound round pegs into square holes in order to get accepted as an officer in the military.

*

I rarely comment myself on other blogs.  Not because I value my time too highly ( look at what I’m doing here, calling it a hobby when anyone in their right mind would call it a compulsive disorder ) but because since I’ve come to the conclusion we are ALL set in our ways ( only the pessimists by nature see true terror ahead, and only born optimists see a way to survive, and the twain shall never meet and full speed ahead and damn the facts! ) I don’t see much point in doing anything other than preaching to my own choir and hope I’m doing some good in pointing out the devil in the details.  But I can see how others would try to “help” others anyway.  Being genial by nature, that is just how some folks role.  But it is a thankless task.  Try to get out of the habit.  Now, as far as folks driving away any dissenting voices, that is just natural.  Nothing unique in that on doomer blogs.  Most of us tend to stay in our comfortable bubble.  I try to edge out occasionally but that is all I can force myself to do.  I like the leftist New York Times Book Review, and I don’t mind being exposed to some of their drivel ( after all, the Right is full of as many flaming dingus holes as the Left but that tends to be paved over with unicorn glitter if all you do is listen to Beck or Rush ) but some things are such illogical, PC tripe I have to skip it.  I refuse to watch Brokeback Mountain.  I only do baby steps, but even then I’m not seriously challenging my basic beliefs, I’m merely gathering extra ammunition to reinforce what I already like to believe in.  Plus, there is the whole Belonging To A Tribe thing.

*

And, I hate to bust anyone’s bubble, but WAYYY before blogs the whole survivalist movement has been acting very poorly, for at least forty-five plus years.  You do remember the ‘70’s, don’t you?  When for the first time in many generations ( since Sinclair wrote about the Chicago meat packing industry ) quality went to absolute crap.  When I was still in High School in the VERY early ‘80’s, I remember distinctly the small towns one book store selling used volumes at decent prices ( I could still search through trash and recover RC Cola-the only brand still doing it-bottles for returns and get some used books.  I tried odd jobs but between living in the boonies and having to bike and already having a long chore list on our country acreage,  I put very little effort into earning spending money.  A habit that has pretty much followed me throughout life.  Hard work is fine, just not hard work to benefit other people like the taxman ) and already the books from the ‘70’s were yellowing and falling apart.  Granted, those were science fiction pulp ( like the Gor series.  Titillating as a horny teenager, embarrassing otherwise ). 

*

The Seventies were no better to survivalists than they were to book collectors.  The Rawles marketing phenomenon?  A rehash of Ruff and Pournelle and others.  It was all flash and little substance ( at times, although a lot of good stuff could be gleaned ).  And then it got WORSE in the ‘80’s as the Yuppie Scum were let loose upon the planet, all Feminine style over substance as the consumer economy flashed brighter than a thousand suns.  How are blogs any different?  All pretty glittery colors and flashing banners and usually very little in substance except superficial twaddle.  Not that I am painting with a completely broad brush.  There are plenty of good ones out there, usually the quality of the writing being in direct correlation to a lesser focus on profits.  The ’zines of the ’90’s didn’t die completely.  The true believers still blog.  They are just hidden in an avalanche of commercialized drivel.  My point is merely that blogs behaving badly is a culmination, not a new phenomenon.   

*

How many blogs are nothing more than other peoples writing?  How many are nothing more than filler in between ads?  How many have nothing original?  How many are by authors coasting along on past achievements?  And yet, given all that, how many are STILL better than the mainstream publications?  Nearly all except the pure click bait sites ( most blog writers at least have a true faith in them on their subject matter, no matter how pitted and damaged by greed and laziness ).  As sad and pathetic as blogs are, and they can be no less as the barrier to entry is zero, they still profit by outshining the pathetic competition.  And they too shall pass as our infrastructure picks up speed in its collapse. 

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.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for 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
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

EROI economy 2 of 2

EROI ECONOMY 2

*
note: if you have KU, try "Dustfall" by Thorn & James.  I normally hate Centuries After The Fall fiction but this one was very well done.  Also, if you have Netflix, they have "Deliverance"  I always thought of it as a Semi-Survival Lite movie.  Most of us love to quote the dueling banjos scene and the "you've got a mighty purty mouth, boy", but I also always enjoyed the Burt's character talking about civilization ending.  WARNING!!!!! Beware, no semi-automatics are in the movie!!!!  I'm not sure how anyone ever ending up getting shot without them.
*

The Roman Empire grew from a Podunk city by means of military conquest and had both slavery and new farmland as its base for energy growth ( it also had other unique advantages such as already formed concrete-just add water-from its volcanic activity nearby ).  The end of the expansion of that energy and then its contraction economically and militarily was directly tied to its energy supply.  But here is the thing.  It grew slowly and then contracted slowly because that is what its energy did.  There is no rule that says an empire must last 200 to 500 years.  The only rule is that it must follow its energy path.  The US grew into an empire in about thirty or forty years.  You can claim it started at the War Between The States and lasted until Vietnam, roughly a hundred years, but I’d take exception to that definition.  Sure, we had coal just like Britain, but we didn’t build an empire with it. 

*

If coal had been the apex of energy supplies, we most likely would have followed in the British Empires shoes, taking centuries and many wars to gain supremacy through superior energy surplus.  Hell, France started building an empire just off of a food surplus.  We could have done that.  But really all we did with our coal was to overthrow the independent States in a coup by the Yankee Blue Bloods, then conquer a mostly empty desert ( it took awhile because the American business model of capitalism has always been to get the government to spend most of the money.  When corporations are that tight fisted, these things take time ) and then steal all the colonies Spain had seized after she was so weak we got them almost for free.  Then the elites preceded to keep getting rich and losing it in financial bubbles, once again ignoring the need to keep investing in empire ( it truly is amazing how cheap our Elite is.  Most likely the reason for the rumors they are all Jews ).

*

It was only with oil that we could spare a surplus to keep a proper empire expanding.  And I’m serious here, and it is an important point.  Our elite HATE spending any profits.  Period.  It is pathological.  From butchering conscripts on the battlefields with Britain to acquire western lands for a few pennies an acre, to killing off half the slaves on a ship because it cost money to care for them, to strip mining the soil in our then farm belt to get the maximum tobacco profits, to giving tens of thousands of soldiers cancer to gain an extra percentage of profit off of government sales ( as well as outright killing them on the battlefield for a profit-HELLO! I‘m talking to you, you vicious twats at Colt ), to ruining a hundred year old companies reputation for a one time quarterly profit, American companies are psychopathic scumbags, one and all ( Wal-Mart didn’t invent the practices ).

*

So whenever you think of ANYTHING the Elites could do to save us or cushion our collapse or postpone the end, ask yourself if it is going to cost any money.  If it is, it will not happen.  And one thing they certainly have not done is to transition to less energy usage.  They are still using the infrastructure from a hundred years ago.  The stuff built by the government and turned over to corporations to profit off of ( just because there is a low cost to the consumer doesn’t mean anything-after all, they get the inputs for free.  The city of Las Vegas and the Hoover dam.  The aircraft companies building war planes with aluminum smelted by power from the northwest dams.  The businesses in L.A. that wouldn’t have customers without public water works.  Everyone profiting off of selling land next to the Interstate, or doing business there.  Internet companies standing on the shoulders of Cold War government grants.  I could go on for pages ).  Corporations and businesses are all about using free crap ( much more so than ghetto or trailer park dwellers ) for profit. 

*

Of course, all of that is just details.  The far more important consideration is that it ISN’T about money.  It is about resources.  If it was just about money the government would spend whatever it took to rebuild our entire infrastructure, from city sewers to bridges to power grids.  Then give it all away again.  All those studies claiming a complete upgrade nationally “only” costing ten trillion?  The globes central banks got double that from us in 2008.  So we could easily fix all that if we wanted to.  But there isn’t enough steel or copper or concrete or energy in the world to do so ( China used recycled material and then really build crap NOT to last quality to surmount this issue ).  Which is exactly the same reason WWII can never be fought again.  Before, we had the oil and the ore to build THOUSANDS of ships.  Today, we barely hang on to a smidge over two hundred.  It takes resources, and money is just surplus energy.  If you don’t have either, you don’t have public work projects.

*

100 to 1 EROI allowed us to build FROM SCRATCH, an entire contenant full of a Industrial Economy.  It allowed us to build thousands of ships and tens of thousands of planes, all on our own oil supply.  At 30 to 1, it all started to fall apart.  That was barely enough to keep our infrastructure from imploding.  Today we aren’t even seeing 20 to 1, and that is including all the overseas oil we import-more than half our daily use.  When that half was Saudi sweet crude, we held on to our EROI.  When Canada’s tar sands replaced the Saudi oil ( it is no longer in our price range as off shore drilling has been replacing inland production ), our EROI took a big hit.  Every time some bright bulb declares energy independence from low EROI energy, he neglects to mention that the more Fake Oil you add to the total, the less Kilocalories you are delivering for use.  Just as it takes twice the low energy content coal to replace the better, more expensive, rarer high grade, so too does it take far more oil of low energy yield ( which happens when it takes more energy to extract, process and ship that energy source, not to mention the BTU’s it delivers ) being burned to replace the old better grade fuel.  We were running a manufacturing economy on 10 million barrels of oil a day, and now we can’t keep our infrastructure from falling apart on twice that.  It is because we are getting, net, far less energy now than we were.  All that fracking oil that delivers 5 to 1 EROI is diluting the 20 to 1 conventional oil and delivering AT MOST three quarters of the net energy we had fifty years ago.  With far less population.

*

Just running out of oil isn’t the boogyman we feared.  Now we are NOT running out of oil but running out of BTU’s ( until the economy collapses more causing more drillers and other oil companies to bankrupt and THEN we will run out of oil-still in the ground but uneconomical to extract-AND out of BTU’s ).  So even with all the oil we are consuming, everything is failing anyway.  And it has all failed-everything from medical care to government to schooling to job creation-ultimately all from a lack of energy.  Which is why it will continue to fail, and do so even more spectacularly.  See how easy this forecasting stuff is?

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.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for 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
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

EROI economy 1 of 2

EROI ECONOMY

Net energy, or Energy Returned On Investment ( EROI ), has not been a secret to those studying Peak Oil for the last roughly fifteen years.  When the Texas gushers were being exploited almost a century ago, it took an incredible one barrel of oil to obtain one HUNDRED out of the ground.  This oil was already under extreme pressure and it was light sweet crude, meaning it was very easy to refine into useable product.  This is the oil ( along with the Oklahoma and Louisiana and California stuff ) that built our industrial economy.  Granted, water power and coal got us started along that path, and without that we wouldn’t have been in a position to exploit that oil ( others would have done it for us ).  As much as I despise the monkey molester Lincoln for the evil hump he was, as well as the East Coast Blue Blood pukes that put him in power and instructed him to colonize the South as well as the West, you have to admit if you think about it for more than five seconds that without Indian and Confederate blood on your hands, you never would have been allowed to enjoy such luxuries as SUV’s, air conditioners, microwave dinners or plastic carbine semi-auto’s. 

*

That pissed off redneck racing around with a rebel flag on his pick-up truck and that sanctimonious liberal college professor driving her Toyota Prius about have that in common.  The blood of innocents allowed them their oil consumption.  They are just as guilty as Blood Diamond buyers.  Do you think they stop to give a crap, or are they as a fish in water totally oblivious to their surroundings?  Do you think maybe that has something to do with why no one wants to admit the end is nigh?  For to be clear about our energy future you must know its past.  One imagines few are prepared to travel that uncomfortable road.  Our central bank was necessary to allow empire to grow.  Empire was needed to protect and exploit our energy supply.  Our energy supply was necessary to fund both a central bank and empire.  Indeed a tangled web.  The boom economically in the 1920’s did have its roots in the growth of the farm economy that was there to feed Europe as it went about in a frenzy trying to kill each other and had little ability to grow much of anything.  One dynasty after another had run up against colonial expansion limits and was also jockeying for position to control enough of the petroleum energy.  When US farm product demand crashed after the cessation of hostilities, the central bank did goose the economy to prevent an economic crash.  They just goosed it too much.  That is the accepted narrative.

*

And all true as far as it goes.  But another larger factor was the flood of nearly free to capture petroleum.  That helped manufacturing, it helped the huge surge in infrastructure replacement and it helped mechanize farming.  In the short term the damage was in unprecedented supply gluts in everything with insane overcapacity.  Only throwing that vast surplus into the ocean depths and turning it into a LOT of explosions finally made enough of a dent in the supply to get it into equation with demand again and start another economic doom.  In the longer term, we were left with a huge country stocked with nothing but energy guzzling everything.  From the cloths we put on in the morning in our mobile home quality stick built houses requiring constant heating and cooling to be habitable, to the energy suckling personal auto’s driven huge distances to work at a job which required consuming energy to the very food we consumed, two thousand miles from farm to store and grown with and trucked with copious amounts of petroleum, every single moment of our existence-all 320 million plus of us-is nothing more than petroleum consumption.

*

When there were less than half of us living in the same area, and we were enjoying that 99 barrel surplus, everything was just peaches and cream and glittery unicorn farts.  But that couldn’t last forever, now could it?  Nothing that good lasts forever.  The best looking woman in the world gets old and wrinkly and you wouldn’t want to stick Obammy’s junk in it after awhile.  The nicest home around eventually starts falling apart from lack of maintenance.  The richest family eventually loses all its wealth.  But Americans are STILL to this day spoon fed the magic of 90 year old 1 to 100 EROI.  It didn’t take all that long to fall to 50 to 1, then 30 to 1.  Why do you think we have been in trouble economically since the 1970’s?  Because the oil companies are greedy?  Newsflash, douche, the government gets more in taxes out of a gallon of gas than the oil company sees in profit.  Some of that goes to keep your SUV driving along paved roads but a lot of that is just parasitical greed, incompetence and laziness.  Is it because we have too many socialist politicians?  Hello!?!? 

*

Anyone in there, McFly?  Redistributing wealth by force sees the vast majority of that go to the rich, not, as blathered by idiots such as Beck and Limbaugh, to the poor ( I am by no means a lefty.  I‘m a Libertarian at worst.  Just follow the money after the message ).  They get only a trifle.  Do you think our economy is in trouble because of ANY social/class agenda issue?  Those are all symptoms rather than causes.  Our ENTIRE economy from the politicians to the bankers to your employer to you, ALL are running off the code AND machinery programmed and built a century ago when oil was close enough to free and close enough to So Abundant As To Last Forever.  All the problems you are seeing is a result of that computer getting less voltage/amperage or watts as required.  It is as simple as that.  For instance, women’ s lib.  And all the cans of worms that opened from latchkey kids to a feminized ineffective military.  Net energy was dropping and to restore profit to a faltering economy, the labor force was diluted to drop wages considerably.  Do you honest Injun think ANY politician or CEO gave two craps about women being free or equal?  Hell to the friggin no, yo!  They needed profits that was no longer generated by as much surplus energy.  ALL wealth is surplus energy.  Dropping net energy, dropping wealth.  Now multiple that example by all the other stop gap, desperation fueled idiocy that has our empire in a fetid swamp of five decades of unintended consequences born of incompetence to observe the basic laws of physics. 

More 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.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for 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
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

recipes for disaster

RECIPES FOR DISASTER

*
note: an alternate to ghee, canned butter, but the grid is probably needed so just a pre-collapse recipe:
end times report canning butter
*
From the early nineties until 2002, I was as poor as poor could be.  The then wife essentially had my entire paycheck prior to divorce, then afterwards kept half the gross amount.  After the new century I moved from the South to Nevada and my income rose nicely.  Since I had previously learned how to live cheaper I was able to finally start investing my monetary surplus into financial and calamity preps.  Once that casino job became problematic I went back down to minimum wage, but as I had started writing I had that supplemental income.  Once I moved from Carson City, paying insane Yuppie level rents even for a travel trailer space, here to Elko the substitution of $400 rent for a $125 land payment furthered my “income”.  And in 2012, twenty years later, my child support was done, my land was paid off and I had nothing in the way of bills other than food, propane and bicycle parts ( with the occasional garment and footwear needs ).  When I went part time in 2014, I barely noticed the income dip.  When I moved back into town last year, paying rent to live with the New Old Lady, things started getting tight ( at the same time I was sending money to help my daughter in college and sending care packages to my son in Iraq ).

*

Now that I took an additional 20% hours cut, my days of investing and carefree prep spending have come to an end.  Now, I’ve never really cared too much about money.  I have enough to live on comfortably, and my attitude has always been “someday our money driven economy will end, so why get attached to the stuff or stress about making more”.  I feel that way more than ever, especially since it looks like the whole economic house of cards will fall over any day now.  But I have found myself reverting back to my old penny pinching ways.  I no longer spend to get rid of the soon to be worthless money.  In fact, I’m even wondering if my long held contempt towards “deflationists” is even correct anymore.  Both to prepare for more hourly cuts or unemployment, and to account for the increasing likelihood of deflation, I’m stuffing the mattress now instead of investing in the Alpha Strategy ( for you prepper newbies, the practice of buying consumer items now to beat inflation later ).  And to do that, no expense is too small to cut.  Laundry soap at $2 is now a luxury when I can make it for fifty cents a gallon.  Homemade “Shout” laundry pre-treatment is too much at a buck a spray bottle and I’m looking to cut that price in half.  I’m eating more rice now, and can because homemade sweet and sour sauce is 25 cents a bottle rather than $3 at the store.  And I’ve given up my $3 toothpaste for one a third the price.  I’ll also be going back to cheaper deodorant.  Look after those pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves ( of course, watch the big ticket items.  I finally got rid of that damn cell phone at $7 a month.  Yes, to me that is a big ticket item.  Of course, I still give St. Jude Children’s Hospital their $10 a month.  Sometimes penny pinching is just wrong ).

*

As we’ve talked about before, homemade laundry soap isn’t so important that it is cheap but because it is really compact to store in dry form.  One box of Borax is $4 at Wally and makes eight buckets of soap.  Another box of Arm & Hammer WASHING ( NOT baking ) Soda is an additional $4.  Eight bars of Zote is $8.  For $18 or so ( the A&H only gives you seven cups rather than 8 so you’ll need to buy a little extra ) you can make 40 gallons of laundry ( and Hand and Dish and Body ) soap.  You must buy the supplies at Wal-Mart however, as elsewhere is up to twice the cost.  You take four cups of water to a boil and add the shredded bar of Zote to it and simmer for about ten minutes until dissolved.  Dump that in a five gallon bucket, then one cup of Borax and one of A&H.  Fill the rest with as hot of water as you can ( such as from the shower faucet ), stir, cover and let sit over night.  Boom, done.  Since soap is very important for after the Apocalypse-you need to be surgeon operating room careful to clean wounds and at other crucial times, you can’t have enough of these supplies.  And in the meantime you can save a butt ton on money by using it now also ( don’t let yourself dip into your Stockpile stash for everyday use ).

*

“Shout” is a pre-cleaner for your laundry.  Spray on stains prior to the wash load.  I think it saves me money because I don’t do a separate white load.  I spend a nickel or a dime on spraying all stains there ( yes, you drip after urination in old age, no matter how many times you shake ) and I save a $2 laundry load ( plus soap cost ).  To make your own:

2/3 cup liquid dish soap

2/3 cup ammonia

6 tablespoons of baking soda

2 cups of warm water

Mix and put in a spray bottle.

Boom, done.

*

I used to hate rice.  No matter what I put on it, it still tasted like crap.  Except sweet and sour sauce.  But that liquid gold is insanely expensive.  Like $3 for a very small bottle.  Well, here is a recipe that doesn’t require pineapple sauce.  Which means it is cheaper and all the ingredients can be stockpiled if you plan on eating a lot of rice after the collapse.  Everyone that has tried it swears it is better than store-bought ( of course, that could be because it is sweeter rather than sour ).  I love it and have tripled/quadrupled my rice consumption.

3/4 cup white sugar

1/3 cup white vinegar

2/3 cup water

1 /4 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon ketchup

2 tablespoon cornstarch

Add together, bring to boil, simmer and stir until thickened

*

Expensive toothpaste is important to me.  Not just because I can’t afford a dentist, but because I had wicked gingivitis and only Crest Pro-Health worked so much better than other pastes.  But it is $3.50 a tube, $3 each if you bought a two-pack.  Ouch!  I don’t waste toothpaste, and that still adds up quick.  But I learned a cheap solution.  Aim toothpaste is 85 cents for 6 ounces.  Every other brand is near $2 and up for the same amount.  Use Aim.  Take your toothbrush, wet it, dip it in a covered jar of baking soda to get a good glob, then add your little dab of Aim.  Brush.  It tastes like crap, but not as bad as straight baking soda, and it works just as good as Pro-Health at less than a third the cost.  Much cheaper to stockpile and no sacrificing performance.

*

You can still get deodorant for a buck a bar.  I refuse to use antiperspirant as I believe to messes up your skin.  Some folks claim even the plain deodorant isn’t great for it, but I’ve never researched that.  But, not being a savage, I feel deodorant is necessary for interacting socially.  First, like getting rid of your gingivitis, you don’t want to offend others, and secondly you never know who the next Old Lady might be.  First and last impressions, yes?  But why spend big bucks?  As I’ve shared before, one to two sprays of perfume ( well, the male equivalent whatever you want to call it ) in each armpit keeps your body odor in check all day, even through heavy labor in the heat of Florida.  Much cheaper than deodorant.  Dollar stores still carry enough of a selection you can take your pick.  Smell nice.  Except on patrol.

*

Pinching pennies is so rewarding you will find yourself motivated to find other tricks.  Enjoy.

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.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for 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
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

ghee whiz

GHEE WHIZ

Ghee is an Indian ( dot, not feather ) food where butter is clarified and turned into a room temperature oil.  Besides the sexual positions manual and some wicked cool world destroyer gods, about the best thing their civilization ever offered the world was Ghee.  Is it as good as butter?  Perhaps if you live in the jungle and your village alternates between being underwater and not seeing rain for half a year, yes.  If you are a descendent of northern cultures, perhaps not so much.  But for an age in which there is no refrigeration-you know, the one coming up real soon-it is an alternative to regular butter you should consider.  If you don’t yet have a regular source of milk and hence butter, such as the time spent in a hidey hole waiting for the die-off to complete, ghee will give you a relatively cheap relatively complete protein source.  As we talked about yesterday, storage protein is expensive no matter how you do it.  Butter is a great alternative.

*

But, is ghee butter or is it an oil?  Is it a complete protein like other animal foods?  Unfortunately, I’m not sure.  I spent an hour Google’ing on Ghee and it was a very frustrating experience with few complete answers other than how to make and preserve it.  Back thirty years ago I was really into alternate medicines and diets.  I read a lot on the subject.  One thing that became clear early on, even to my unschooled ignorant nineteen year old brain, was that most of the authors were friggin loony toons bat crap crazy.  Like Wiccan practitioners putting back dried dragon scales for their spells.  Every food they deem worthy is treated and preached as the elixir guaranteed to grant eternal life.  It is aggravating as hell.  You can’t get impartial or even scientifically researched information.  And that is what the ghee information was.  I couldn’t find out if it stored for only three months or as long as freeze dried foods if stored in the dark.  I couldn’t find out if it was a complete protein with all the essential amino acids.

*

So, while I’ve done my best to present a balanced article, just keep in mind I’m going more on common sense than factual information.  The only information I have is incomplete and heresy.  To make ghee, start with unsalted butter ( some claim salted can be made to work but given the choice just go salt-less ).  Start at medium heat to melt your butter.  Start at a pound during your learning process.  You can increase the amount as long as your pan is big enough later on.  Once melted it will begin to bubble.  Turn it down enough to keep the butter from burning but high enough to keep bubbling.  Foam will rise to the top but you don’t need to skim it.  Just stir occasionally to help prevent burning.  A white substance will form on the bottom.  When you can see all the way to the bottom, and the white substance turns brown, it is done.  Let it cool down before pouring through cheesecloth in a wire mesh bowl.  Pour the clear liquid into jars and seal.  It is probably best to NOT refrigerate as you MUST avoid introducing water into your ghee ( possible condensation ).  It is like with mayonnaise.  Avoid ALL contamination to keep it from prematurely spoiling.  In the case of ghee this means all water as well.  NO water on your spoon getting it out to use.

*

Now, you can hot water bath these cans of ghee for long life.  Two inches of water over the lids and on for ten minutes.  The author of that stressed the need to keep water out of the cans.  He used a hair drier to completely dry the lids and jars.  You can, in theory, also store long term without canning.  If ALL the water was removed in cooking and you store the oil completely in the dark ( not even artificial light ) it is claimed to last a very long time.  In my opinion, you can probably say it has a three month life if left on the counter in a lit kitchen after being cooked by an amateur.  If cooked properly and stored carefully, I would count on a few years as a reasonable time to store the ghee.

*

 As far as the complete protein issue, while it would have been nice to know I can’t claim it is that much of a concern.  While eating with a grain, you should get a complete protein.  Kind of like eating rice with beans.  The combined ingredients equal an animal protein.  Of course, I stress the word SHOULD.  I’m not making a claim I’d put money on.  I just look at it like you are much closer to a better diet with ghee than with wheat only.  You’ll probably still need to stock lots of shortening.  Ghee is no where as cheap and you need a long term source of fat.  Look at ghee as your replacement of butter protein for long term food storage, not as a fat source alone.  Once those jars of ghee run out you’ll still need your fat. 

*

I would still stockpile that butter in your freezer.  First off, you can get it on sale at Kroger on a semi-regular basis for $2.50.  Stock that freezer full just for daily eating.  Then, when the collapse comes you can turn what you have to into ghee to save it.  Of course, yes, you are canning ghee just for storage now, also.  You do need the practice.  So, when the power goes out for good all that meat gets canned and cooked and dried and all the butter gets cooked into ghee.  No waste, all bought on sale ( you could also be canning meat on a regular basis with no extra cost besides lids and propane-a negligible cost considering you bought the meat on sale ).  Doesn’t all that sound cheaper and tastier than freeze dried meat at $200 a case?  Yes, the freeze dried still wins in longevity and if nothing happens for thirty years you’ll have spent the same on butter with replacements as shelf life expires ( even though you can consume it so it really isn’t a waste of money ).  But I don’t think you’ll have the luxury of three decades and in the meantime you’ll have multitudes of calories for the same cost.  Go ghee rather than freeze dried.

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.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for 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
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

freeze dried testicles

FREEZE DRIED TESTICLES

You all know how I feel about freeze dried food.  Luxury Yuppie Scum fodder, whereas said brain dead zombies mindlessly chew their cud after the Apocalypse proclaiming awe at their intelligence as they made lots of money after screwing over some schmuck ( anymore, almost all sums above serf wages are from someone being defrauded on some level-a zero sum game ) so as to continue their Oil Age Middle Class lifestyle as long after the collapse as possible ( with their timing for that elusive recover strangely coinciding with the amount of supplies that they have.  Nothing can deviate from that plan, as they are so smart they’ve got it all figured out.  The unwashed uneducated masses can die horrible deaths from lack of semi-automatics and peasant foods in the form of grains ). 

*

But nothing I discuss or advocate is black and white.  There are plenty of grey areas.  I despise with a purple passion usually reserved for Hitlary the M-16 assault carbines.  Their design is atrocious.  From their very introduction when Colt was using shoddy materials to churn out more weapons, causing rust in the jungles of Vietnam, to present when, after saving weight by using a souped up rimfire rather than a thirty caliber bottle rifle round, then redesigning everything until now you need three hits to take down a starving Somalian ( hence negating the advantage in weight reduction in the ammo load ), nothing good has ever come out of that weapon as an assault rifle.  I say, stop blaming the troopers for a jammed weapon when the thing was designed improperly.  HOWEVER!  Having said all that, I’ll also say that the M-16 is an amazingly accurate rifle ( the extra bolt lugs, for one thing ).  It has zero recoil, or near enough that little girls can customize the furniture pink and be proficient in a firearm.  Being so accurate, it makes a wonderful mid range sniper rifle.  As long as you don’t Spray And Pray, and use it as a marksmen rather than a berserking Viking, which mostly negates the fouling issue, it is a fine and affordable platform.

*

So too with freeze dried foods.  While doing everything in my power to keep you from buying any, as they are pure luxury and decadence rather than basic calories to stay alive, I also admit to some utility.  Wheat first, as calories trump nutrition in the long term stockpile game ( I shan’t cover this again, go back a few weeks if you must re-read that reminder ).  Then more wheat.  Vitamin pills and generic Crisco ( enough multi-vitamins for a year and enough separate Vitamin C pills for the same, $25.  At Kroger, a plastic tub of fake lard is just under $3.  Eight containers should last you a year easy, with more in the winter and less in the summer.  After stocking in a non-temperature controlled environment for five years I still didn’t see any spoilage in my stash-the regular lard was going bad, and its replacements were twice the price as shortening.  Both are hydrogenated oils and so rather unhealthy.  But no fat is even worse for you ) only add $50 a year and are exponentially better than wheat only. 

*

Only then after you have years of wheat and the supplements should you stock up on animal protein.  My reasoning is the same as always.  You cannot time the collapse and if you claim you can you are a moron.  I can’t make it any simpler that that.  You must act like tomorrow is the Game Over moment.  So you prepare like crazy yesterday and assume it all ends tomorrow.  Calories first.  So, having gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about a recent sale a Yuppie Scum Survivalist site had from one of their advertisers.  A case of freeze dried beef was $200.  Evidently this was considered a bargain.  155 calories per dollar.  Canned meat in the store is at least 400 calories per dollar.  Canning chicken on sale, call it 500 calories per dollar. 

*

Of course, before you crap a kitten, the freeze dried meat doesn’t need to be replaced for thirty years.  Home canned meat is good for just a few years.  And I’ve kept metal cans of meat up to a decade but they were starting to rust and those were cans from prior to the industry wide redesign towards lower quality materials.  So, yes, freeze dried meat is actually no more expensive than any other preservation system since it lasts so much longer and doesn’t require replacing as often.  Even going with shortening and fat free dried milk is going to equal the cost of freeze dried with its regular replacement requirement ( just because my shortening still seemed okay after five years doesn’t mean I want to keep it much longer than that ).  One way around this would be to have glass jar cans of meat you rotate for your regular meals.  You get to buy when on sale, wait to can in the winter, and for much less expensive than freeze dried ( $800 verses $1600 for a year ). 

*

Also, ask yourself why you are buying freeze dried meat.  If it is for immediate consumption after the collapse, I might suggest a much cheaper alternative.  If your climate isn’t too tropical, if you can root-cellar, how about butter?  The same amount of calories in the freeze dried beef, 31 thousand, that cost $200 will cost just $30 in butter ( at $3 a pound ).  I’ve had butter underground in the non-summer months for weeks without spoilage.  Will it last a month?  I can’t guarantee that.  But if you kept those ten pounds of butter in the freezer and then transferred them underground in pest proof containers after the freezers failed ( as in became room temperature, which would take awhile anyway ) you should get close to that.  Butter is over three thousand calories a pound.  I’d seriously consider that milk goat if possible.  You can live a lacto-vegetarian diet cheaply and easily with the right climate.  Butter and cheese are wonderful long term meat substitutes.

Even if the Po’ Boy Survival Stockpile Plan is mostly pure vegetarian, you can introduce a bit of animal protein at least ( I‘ll cover Ghee-clarified room temperature butter-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.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for 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
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there