GUEST ARTICLE
Confused More Than Usual
I would like to thing that I haven't spent 60 years on this earth without growing a little bit.I have lived long enough to realize that despite all the good intentions in the world my parents didn't know everything and quite often were full of shit. Being old doesn't necessarily make you smart. I personally know quite a few old people who haven't learned anything new since 1955. So you really can't blame young people for being so damn delusional.
Now before I get 30 comments insulting me in new and clever ways let me just say this- I Don't
Care! I made a comment that I would sneak up on you from behind and take your stuff. Holy Self Righteousness Batman! "You are a sick and evil person!" " We will form a group. and deal with you". STUPID,STUPID,STUPID. You need to take this stuff seriously. This is not a video game.
I like to eat. Not having food in the future concerns the hell out of me. Being old and crippled and being surrounded by self-centered,mean-spirited little savages deserves some serious thought. People get tired of hearing this and I get tired of saying it. You are not Rambo and you are not going to defeat an army of blood thirsty savages with a big knife! By the way, Rambo has no problem with sneaking up on you from behind. Duh!
Even though General George S Patton thought fixed positions were stupid and I had the nerve to agree with him I still had people want to argue about how wonderful it is to live like a prairie dog.Try boxing a opponent without sidestepping or circling and see how long you last. You have to move about in order to stand a chance.Hunters roam and farmers stay at home, nothing wrong with either choice. I just prefer being mobile.
Just once try and focus and pay attention to what is going on around you for more than 15 seconds.Examine everything you believe about teotwawki. Remember your views will reflect what you do in the theatre of reality. There will be no "Play Again" Button when it is time to do what needs to be done and no time for rethinking your moral position. Most of my posts have been about Proper mind set,overconfidence,attitude. Mental Preparedness. Awareness.
Somebody once said that the greatest martial art is cross country running. I agree. Hiding has it's place and so does running away. I don't care if you have food stored for 10 years and enough ammo to actually take on an army,without a realistic mindset and realistic views ,you are doomed.Put down the book,turn off the laptop and THINK FOR YOURSELF . I know the first few times will hurt. After all you are using a muscle you may have never used. Sorry I didn't include any porn. Here,"she dropped to her knees and slurped his erect member with eager anticipation"
The Mohave Rat
You go, boy! I loved this- reminded me of my own minion mishaps. And I love the hate!-Jim
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
guest article
GUEST ARTICLE
Poor Man's Survival Communications
by Ticom (Tom)
http://ticomsurvivalblog.blogspot.com/
You hear about how you need good communications (commo) on all the survival sites. They talk about "ham radio" and all sorts of other stuff and you get totally confused. You might also visit a couple ham radio dealer sites and suffer some serious sticker shock when you see how much a ham rig goes for. So what do you do? Well, in the best Bison tradition you get what you can and otherwise PISS ON IT!
So what do you need commo for? You might need it to talk to your friends, if you have any and they're out of yelling distance. If you're an anti-social loner or living so far out in the sticks that the only way you can talk to your friends is via a telephone or one of those $700+ ham rigs then I guess you can skip this for now. If your friends are local and in the same crappy financial situation you're in, then you go to Wal-Mart and Radio Shack. You have two choices. The first are those little hand-held 22 channel radios that cost anywhere from $20-$40 or more for a pair. By the way, these are known as FRS/GMRS radios, but since you're not a commo geek you probably could care less what they're called. They have a range of a couple of miles and usually work on AA batteries that you can charge up with one of those mail-order solar chargers. So, for twenty bucks you and a buddy can talk to one another.
Want a little more range? Then I guess it's “breaker, breaker wally-gator” time. For around a hundred bucks or so, the price of your Mosin-Nagant or your Enfield if you bought it when Lord Bison first imparted his wisdom upon you, you can put together a decent CB system that runs on 12 volts and will work anywhere from about 5 miles to 20 or more depending on terrain and atmospheric conditions. Chances are your buddies and neighbors have already have a CB in their pick-up truck or their AMC Gremlin so you'll be able to talk to them. Even after peak-oil when they're running their old clunkers on biodiesel and ethanol. Many “experts” like to talk trash about CB, but it works as long as you get a decent antenna and have the local CB nut tune it up for you properly. Just look for the guy who looks like Woody Allen and will probably own your town after TSHTF because he can McGuyver everything and fix up some really scary recipes to keep the zombies in check. (IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you stay on friendly terms with the town geeks.) None of these radios are going to have any encryption so you'll just have to make up some nice innocent-sounding verbal codes with your buddies to confuse anyone who might be listening to you.
Those are really the two choices you have for radio commo if you are dirt poor or otherwise don't want to do the ham radio thing. I've been a ham operator for twenty-seven years and always recommend that survivalists get at least an entry-level ham license, but the reality is that many of you couldn't be bothered because the tech stuff isn't as sexy as the guns and the stockpiled supplies, and you really want that Amazon bride (you met at the local Wal-Mart) with big-uns so you can help repopulate the world after the giant plague that turns half the population into zombies and puts most of the rest into the stewpot. Seriously though, ham operators are a specialized technical minority. If you got a tech geek among your buddies, even if he or she is dirt poor they'll scrounge up parts and put together one of those high-tech worldwide-talking shortwave rigs. So, if you want to make sure Aunt Mildred in Florida survived the apocalypse and didn't wind up as Soylent Green, your tech geek will be able to get a message through for you. However, a properly tuned and set-up CB system will often surprise you with how far it reaches.
The other thing you need commo gear for is listening in to see if there are any possible hostiles out there. Like you, most wandering zombies will probably be using common off-the-shelf equipment. That means those handheld FRS/GMRS radio or CB rigs. You could listen in with your CB or FRS/GMRS radio, but there is the issue of what channel they use, and tying up the radio you might need to call your buddies for help. (Assuming they don't have the radio turned-off while they're busy with their Amazon bride with big-uns repopulating the earth.) So you get one of those radio scanners. They have a couple hundred or more channels. You can plug in the local police, fire, ambulance, CB, ham, and FRS frequencies and have it go through all of them in a few seconds time looking for activity. You can even set some up to listen for nearby radio traffic regardless of the frequency. This is handy when you want to know if someone is operating in the immediate area. They call that a “Signal Stalker” and you can get it as a $100 special from radio shack.
Now much like ham radios, scanner experts say that you need the latest digital-trunktracking P25 hooptie scanner, and you blanch when you see the price tag. PISS ON IT! You can buy an adequate scanner from Radio Shack for about a hundred bucks, and probably find one for even less at a flea market or tag sale that will work just fine. The last one I bought was a nice Bearcat tabletop unit that covers the whole spectrum of frequencies, has 500 channels, and cost me all of $75. It actually was a super hooptie unit a few years ago, but the scanner dweeb who sold it had just blew his money on the latest thing, thought it was now useless, and I didn't disabuse him of the notion. Works perfectly and I can hear the cops and ambulance squad when they have to go down to local redneck bar to break up a knife fight. The scanner I got before that was given to me by a friend who rescued it from the curb on trash day. It worked just fine.
If you live in a big city you might have to deal with a sophisticated radio system that you need one of the newer scanners to monitor, but then it might also be encrypted so the scanner will be useless for monitoring it anyway. If you live in the sticks, then you're probably going to be dealing with older and less sophisticated radio systems that your scanner will be able to hear fine. Those sophisticated radio systems also require a lot of infrastructure. After the apocalypse, they'll run OK on generators for about a week, and then the lack of fuel resupply will make them go dark. Or the phone lines that link everything together will go down when the phone company loses power. The town will then dig out the old radios they put in mothballs or take them back from the local public works department who almost always gets the old cast-offs from the other agencies. Or they might borrow CBs from the stockroom of the local truckstop or the local taxi service's radios. Whatever they do, your cheap scanner will probably be able to listen to them.
Poor Man's Survival Communications
by Ticom (Tom)
http://ticomsurvivalblog.blogspot.com/
You hear about how you need good communications (commo) on all the survival sites. They talk about "ham radio" and all sorts of other stuff and you get totally confused. You might also visit a couple ham radio dealer sites and suffer some serious sticker shock when you see how much a ham rig goes for. So what do you do? Well, in the best Bison tradition you get what you can and otherwise PISS ON IT!
So what do you need commo for? You might need it to talk to your friends, if you have any and they're out of yelling distance. If you're an anti-social loner or living so far out in the sticks that the only way you can talk to your friends is via a telephone or one of those $700+ ham rigs then I guess you can skip this for now. If your friends are local and in the same crappy financial situation you're in, then you go to Wal-Mart and Radio Shack. You have two choices. The first are those little hand-held 22 channel radios that cost anywhere from $20-$40 or more for a pair. By the way, these are known as FRS/GMRS radios, but since you're not a commo geek you probably could care less what they're called. They have a range of a couple of miles and usually work on AA batteries that you can charge up with one of those mail-order solar chargers. So, for twenty bucks you and a buddy can talk to one another.
Want a little more range? Then I guess it's “breaker, breaker wally-gator” time. For around a hundred bucks or so, the price of your Mosin-Nagant or your Enfield if you bought it when Lord Bison first imparted his wisdom upon you, you can put together a decent CB system that runs on 12 volts and will work anywhere from about 5 miles to 20 or more depending on terrain and atmospheric conditions. Chances are your buddies and neighbors have already have a CB in their pick-up truck or their AMC Gremlin so you'll be able to talk to them. Even after peak-oil when they're running their old clunkers on biodiesel and ethanol. Many “experts” like to talk trash about CB, but it works as long as you get a decent antenna and have the local CB nut tune it up for you properly. Just look for the guy who looks like Woody Allen and will probably own your town after TSHTF because he can McGuyver everything and fix up some really scary recipes to keep the zombies in check. (IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you stay on friendly terms with the town geeks.) None of these radios are going to have any encryption so you'll just have to make up some nice innocent-sounding verbal codes with your buddies to confuse anyone who might be listening to you.
Those are really the two choices you have for radio commo if you are dirt poor or otherwise don't want to do the ham radio thing. I've been a ham operator for twenty-seven years and always recommend that survivalists get at least an entry-level ham license, but the reality is that many of you couldn't be bothered because the tech stuff isn't as sexy as the guns and the stockpiled supplies, and you really want that Amazon bride (you met at the local Wal-Mart) with big-uns so you can help repopulate the world after the giant plague that turns half the population into zombies and puts most of the rest into the stewpot. Seriously though, ham operators are a specialized technical minority. If you got a tech geek among your buddies, even if he or she is dirt poor they'll scrounge up parts and put together one of those high-tech worldwide-talking shortwave rigs. So, if you want to make sure Aunt Mildred in Florida survived the apocalypse and didn't wind up as Soylent Green, your tech geek will be able to get a message through for you. However, a properly tuned and set-up CB system will often surprise you with how far it reaches.
The other thing you need commo gear for is listening in to see if there are any possible hostiles out there. Like you, most wandering zombies will probably be using common off-the-shelf equipment. That means those handheld FRS/GMRS radio or CB rigs. You could listen in with your CB or FRS/GMRS radio, but there is the issue of what channel they use, and tying up the radio you might need to call your buddies for help. (Assuming they don't have the radio turned-off while they're busy with their Amazon bride with big-uns repopulating the earth.) So you get one of those radio scanners. They have a couple hundred or more channels. You can plug in the local police, fire, ambulance, CB, ham, and FRS frequencies and have it go through all of them in a few seconds time looking for activity. You can even set some up to listen for nearby radio traffic regardless of the frequency. This is handy when you want to know if someone is operating in the immediate area. They call that a “Signal Stalker” and you can get it as a $100 special from radio shack.
Now much like ham radios, scanner experts say that you need the latest digital-trunktracking P25 hooptie scanner, and you blanch when you see the price tag. PISS ON IT! You can buy an adequate scanner from Radio Shack for about a hundred bucks, and probably find one for even less at a flea market or tag sale that will work just fine. The last one I bought was a nice Bearcat tabletop unit that covers the whole spectrum of frequencies, has 500 channels, and cost me all of $75. It actually was a super hooptie unit a few years ago, but the scanner dweeb who sold it had just blew his money on the latest thing, thought it was now useless, and I didn't disabuse him of the notion. Works perfectly and I can hear the cops and ambulance squad when they have to go down to local redneck bar to break up a knife fight. The scanner I got before that was given to me by a friend who rescued it from the curb on trash day. It worked just fine.
If you live in a big city you might have to deal with a sophisticated radio system that you need one of the newer scanners to monitor, but then it might also be encrypted so the scanner will be useless for monitoring it anyway. If you live in the sticks, then you're probably going to be dealing with older and less sophisticated radio systems that your scanner will be able to hear fine. Those sophisticated radio systems also require a lot of infrastructure. After the apocalypse, they'll run OK on generators for about a week, and then the lack of fuel resupply will make them go dark. Or the phone lines that link everything together will go down when the phone company loses power. The town will then dig out the old radios they put in mothballs or take them back from the local public works department who almost always gets the old cast-offs from the other agencies. Or they might borrow CBs from the stockroom of the local truckstop or the local taxi service's radios. Whatever they do, your cheap scanner will probably be able to listen to them.
Friday, October 29, 2010
fundamentals-bayonets
FUNDAMENTALS FRIDAYS-BAYONETS
The following is a reprint from my days of sending out a weekly e-mail newsletter, pre-blog. They have been helpfully packaged in an e-book http://bisonpress.com/bisonnewsletter.html
It took awhile to clean it up after I cut and pasted from the book so I don't have time to lard it with Amazon links. Here are today's Amazon links -Rawles ( How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times ). Bayonet
( M-16 Bayonet Knife ). 
Wool socks ( 3 - Prs. Merino Wool Blend Socks ).
*
SURVIVAL BAYONETS
copyrighted 2005
The Germans name nasty lunch meat after their city of origin. The French were a bit
cooler and got a rifle mounted knife named after one of theirs. Of course, that was awhile
ago and it seems the poor bastards just can't get anything else right for the last two
centuries or so. I suppose after almost taking over Europe anything else just pales in
comparison. You have to love them, what with the French Foreign Legion, their selling us lots of land cheap, and just the contrary nature of the culture. They thumb their noses at us and everyone else. France doesn't hate America, they hate everyone. Perhaps they
even may serve as a lesson to us. You can almost be the worlds superpower, then do
everything wrong in politics and economics but yet still hang in there and somehow keep
the whole country going despite setbacks. We should be so lucky in the future.
*
Okay, we go back to yesteryear when the armies of the day decided that the best way to
settle their differences was to line up facing each other and shoot at each other on
command until the whole area was obscured in gunpowder smoke and then you couldn't
see who was about to kill you. And some guy in France says, "Hey, lets fire a couple of
times and then run at the other guys with sharp objects and they will crap themselves and
run and we shall be victorious and go to our campfires and eat whatever it is we
Frenchmen eat besides snails and cheese sauces to celebrate being such superior dandied
guys that wear powdered wigs and get to keep mistresses which our wives approve of
since they are busy admiring that stocky peasant from the countryside who is delivering
whatever it is that French countryside dudes bring into the city since at least he is not a
dandy that listens to ballet or opera or some such but rather swills cheap wine and leers at
all passing females and will mount them like a farm animal given half the change, even
though everyone knows the only reason the wife even got huffy in the first place was
because the guys hair looked nicer than hers, but whatever, since the best part was they
got to keep mistresses so in your face German guys with that broomstick up your butt
acting like you are sooo superior." And thus was born the bayonet. The charcoal burners
of the day were slow to reload, and thus another weapon mounted on that now empty
weapon made sense.
*
What would have made more sense was to issue everyone at least two or three pistols and
a short sword if they really wanted some serious mayhem going on close quarters, but
since life was cheap and manufactured items were dear, the infantryman was lucky he even got the bayonet. I'm sure there was a bunch of bankers and politicians sitting around and bitching about giving the poor bastards adequate tools to get the job done. Why, I have no idea. The printing press came along at the same time and the greedy SOBs were
already turning out worthless money. Hell, that's how we are paying for our MidEast
conquest, just turn on the presses and make all that we need. Who cares if the poor get
poorer as their money buys less and less? We have a globe to dominate, piss on the poor what have they done for us lately? They only pay taxes and fight in the wars.
*
To be effective with the smooth bores of the day, infantry had to stay in ranks and volley
fire. The ranks had to stay in formation or they were worthless as a fighting unit, and thus
the all-important training of marching and maneuvering in step with everyone else. That
was pretty much all they were taught other than reloading by the numbers to ensure
everyone was ready to fire again at the same time ( and of course military customs to
brainwash you into actually wanting to stay and fight when you knew you would most
likely die ). Thus it followed that bayonet fighting must be in formation and by the
numbers. The wall of advancing steel was effective. You knew there was a good chance
a small lead ball would miss you, but you were pretty sure that the guy with the bayonet
was going to stab you but good.
*
And then came along the Industrial Revolution and the bayonet was suddenly staked up
against a heck of a lot more rifles and they were real rifles with rifled barrels and not
muskets with smooth bores and they used percussion caps rather than flintlocks and even
worse the artillery got more effective and there was a lot more of that, too. Even if the
armies of the day still used slow muzzleloaders and blackpowder the bayonet charge was
made obsolete by the increased artillery and the ability to field a much larger force. And
fifty years later the military had still fail to realize this. And even worse than still relying
on bayonets as a psychological weapon was using them against machineguns and repeating rifles. And then after a war taking a knife to a gunfight while bankrupting several colonial powers of the day and literally slaughtering an entire generation, the bayonet was still retained which might have some marginal purpose but even that was ruined by still teaching bayonet fighting as if the troops were in a mass formation two hundred years ago fighting with muzzleloaders. Parry, thrust. Like the other guy was going to stand still and fight you in a duel with mounted bayonets instead of pulling out his pistol he got from his own officer he had fragged and shooting your sorry butt.
*
Even today when perhaps a bayonet would be a useful tool since the standard teaching
doctrine of warfare is to pray and spray and in remote locations you can run out of ammo
quick, the fact that you only have a useless Mattel Toy to mount the bayonet on makes the whole exercise pointless. In the military, the bayonet is useless. But, come the
apocalypse, now we have an entirely different story. Now the bayonet becomes a
welcome tool of warfare. Or, I should say, survival. Just as a survival rifle is different
than a military one, the roles of a bayonet are different in the military and to a survivalist.
In the military you run out of ammo and if you are stupid and don't run than at least you
can fight with a bayonet ( assuming the other guy also ran out of ammo and was stupid
enough to also wish to fight the same way, unless all he had was a knife and then at least
you had some reach ). But 99% of the time it would probably be smarter to just issue the
troops a good knife. There are plenty of chores around camp to use them on and in a
worse case scenario they always have a weapon to defend themselves with. But with
today’s short carbine like assault rifles that are definitely not designed with bayonet
fighting in mind it is best to forget military bayonets.
*
All survivalists that have a suitable rifle should own one or more bayonets. Any social
breakdown, post-apocalypse, industrial disruption scenario will bode well for bayonet
usage. You are faced with a real possibility of ammo shortages, and the bayonet will see
you home so you can reload those carefully salvaged brass cases. There most likely will
be a lot of dog packs turned feral as well as wolves migrating down from the wilderness in the winter to find a meal. Any future riot control will be much more effective using deadly force. If your boss should turn dictator you might be intimidating the populace with shiny cold steel ( cheaper than bullets ). As a determent to violence since a show of force might resolve the situation. And finally, as a silent weapon. Lets briefly review these.
*
Ammunition shortages are a primary concern to your survivalist. Whether from future
political controls such as increased taxes or outright bans, or simply that doomsday occurs before you know it, the fear is that you may end up without enough ammo. And so we endlessly stockpile ammunition. Surplus ammo to practice with, ball ammo to save
money, reloading components, there is never enough. The recommendation has usually
been 1000 rounds for bolt actions and 10k for semi-autos but even that modest amount
could be out of reach for a lot of us. The old ball and chain, the other half, the spouse,
they wish to see you die in a cloud of fallout, choking and sputtering, your last pitiful
glance towards them imploring with your eyes, why, oh why have you forsaken us with
your insistence on those worthless unnecessary trinkets such as cars and houses and
college educations you had me buy with my ever shrinking supply of inflation shrunken
paper dollars? Do they wish to see you die as a last "In your face" "I get the last word"?
Do they hate you so much? Did they find out about the fling with your co-worker? That
can be the only explanation as to why you were denied all your survivalist preparation
toys. Well, you do the best you can. If you really have a hard time getting survival money
budgeted, better get a bayonet sooner rather than later. You might run out of ammo real
fast. Just save the last round for the spouse, s/he will make for good eating and then it is
you who shall have the last laugh.
*
Wolves were quit feared by countryside peasants long ago. Here you go, out to chop
some wood to heat your gruel with and a damn pack of wolves runs out of the woods and
kills you in a gruesome manner. About the only thing you have to fight with is a stick of
wood since the ruling king of the day decided him staying in power was much more
important than mere poor people being able to defend themselves against predators ( such
as himself for instance ) and thus you went unarmed. Well, ok, you had the ax. But a
bow or crossbow would have been much more effective or even a spear. But instead you
waited until Igor the neighbor was eaten by wolves and then begged the local chief to do
something and maybe they went hunting wolves which was fun for them, not like work at
all, and a season or three later the wolves came back and started eating villagers again
since they still weren't armed with more than sticks. Kind of like the Federal government
that won't allow US citizens to arm themselves on an airplane. A raghead hijacks the thing for the price of the ticket and a few 59 cent box cutters and then afterwards we invade the country that trained them, spend tens of billions of dollars and kill hundreds of soldiers to extract revenge when all along if you allowed each passenger to carry a $3-500 pistol they paid for themselves and shoot a 20 cent round into a hijacker the problem would have been solved ( but that's not the way to keep the military/industrial complex in business, now is it ). So wolves are going to be a problem, as are the less talented but still lethal feral dog population. They get hungry and you might become food. This is were semiautos will come in real handy, and spray and pray is hard to miss at close ranges.
*
However, if semi-auto is not in your budget it might be a good idea to have a bolt action
that is capable of mounting a bayonet. Those bastards get too close and you might want
to attach your bayonet in case one of them get through between reloading. A gentle
reminder of steel sliding into the animals side might convince the critter to back off. But
your bigger problem will probably be feral dogs instead of wolves. There will be more of
them and they are a lot more stupid and might be prone to attack whereas a wolf might
know enough to stay away. Remember, even with semi-auto you can run out of ammo or
get a jam. The bayonet is far from ideal for fighting natural predators but better than butt
stroking them with an empty light weight assault rifle.
*
In an apocalyptic future you may be part of the ruling class ( or work for one ) and the
best thing for riot control will be cold steel. In today’s politically correct environment
rioters are lovingly dissuaded from their erroneous beliefs with tender applications of
mace, high pressure water streams or wooden batons. With television cameras rolling
nearby it just won't do to rip into the crowd with a squad automatic weapon, blood
spraying, internal organs leaking, bowls voiding and other assorted yukkie stuff. It is bad
for public image and tends to leave a foul taste in the mouth of a loan officer from the
World Bank. Likewise, repeatedly plunging a bayonet into the abdomen of a screaming
tree-hugging, socialist, yoga practicing, tofu eating, Greenpeace donating protestor is bad
for business, however satisfying an image it may be. But in the future, there will be no
such constraints. Forget that pussy riot control gear of today and inspire some real fear in
the populace. You want to peaceably assemble and protest just because you're hungry and
tired of taxes? Bayonet practicing time. It saves on ammo, and after you get cut you'll
think twice before protesting again.
*
On a related note, bayonets are perfect for keeping the population in line even if no riots
should form. During Japans occupation of the Pacific islands and most of ( at least coastal
) Asia before and at the start of WWII, they used very few soldiers to keep indigenous
populations in line. A single soldier was tasked with patrolling a certain area, and any
trouble was dealt with by a bayonet. How long was it before the population learned not to
step out of line? PDQ. The Japs had a very small industrial base compared with most
others, and while it worked miracles, supplies were always dear. Terror backed by steel
was the best way to keep order. The Americans would have bombarded a village from the
air, sent in several companies to mop up, set up an aid station for the people to treat the
wounds they themselves caused, flown in a few cargo planes full of food the local
wouldn't even feed their livestock, taught a few troopers the local language in Monterey,
flown them out, tried to reason with the locals that Uncle Sam loved them, rigged the
local election to get a mayor in power they liked, seen another insurrection occur and
finally give up and went home. Cost- tens of millions of dollars. Cost to the Japanese,
several days worth of rice to feed the soldier and about $3 to manufacture the bayonet.
And don't forget POW's. Nothing better at keeping them in line than a bayonet, other than
a shotgun full of birdshot. It won't kill you but it sure will hurt getting all the shot out ( if
the infection doesn't kill you first ). However, you don't issue the regular troops shotguns,
so give them a bayonet to attach to their regular rifle. Any grunt is now a guard in a POW
facility.
*
A bayonet is also great as a show of force. Lets say a hurricane just wiped out the old
neighborhood. You could set up a lawn chair and wait for looters with your Mattel Toy
AR-15, or you could get out the old Lee-Enfield No.1 with mounted bayonet that is about
a foot long and look at the shocked expressions on passerby's faces as they see that
whopper of a pig-sticker. How many are going to come back and try to loot your house?
Nary a one, I would wager. Or, post-apocalypse, you are the proprietor of Billy Bobs
Trading Post Bar Brothel Mercenary Recruitment Center Opium Den & Used Computers
Bought And Sold. As a rule your customers are going to be an unruly bunch. You
guessed it, bayonet time. And if you had a side agreement with Joe Bobs Butcher Shop
And Taxidermy down the street you could sell the stiffening cooling corpse for a little
pocket money rather than waste anything. No more future unruly customers.
*
And as a silent weapon. Now, most other weapons are preferred for silent wet work. A
garrote, crossbow, dagger, whatever. However, if you already have a bayonet for other
uses, it follows that you at least have the ability to take out a sentry if need be. How many
of us carry around a garrote? I usually accidentally leave mine at home. What do you tell
a cop? "Why, yes, officer, I am a piano tuner". It's like fighting with the bayonet after all
your ammo is gone. It is unwise, but if you have to at least you can. The pig sticker is an
all around versatile weapon of terror.
*
Now, what kind of bayonet should you carry? There are two basic types, the pike and the knife. The pike looks like a tent stake, and knife like, well, a knife. The knife type was the most common with turn of the century military bolt action rifles. The Mauser, Enfield, etc. What later showed up as a problem was that a long flat knife would easily snap off when you struck an enemy and then continued to swing the rifle to the side. Or, the blade was so long the enemies flesh acted as a suction and it was hard to extract the blade. As a solution it was proposed pike types be used once again. Most shortened the blade, some went exclusively to pike. It is my opinion that the pike is better if you are in the military and your only action is ramming the bayonet into the enemy, using your momentum and the rifles weight to stab and ram the steel into flesh. That is the militaries one pony show with the bayonet. But as a survival weapon, the knife bayonet is much better if you plan on using the rifle/bayonet as more than just an expensive spear. With a bayonet being used at times as a determent you don't always need to kill someone. If you also use the bayonet to swipe and cut ( like a longer reaching sword ) rather than just sticking the damn thing into whatever target presents itself, you expand your options. If you practice a bit you could get real good. A POW is acting up, swish, there goes an ear. A slave gives you lip, swish, cut an artery and laugh like crazy as everyone goes running around trying to stem the gusher. Instead of killing a valuable worker, you just re-establish dominance. Or, psych them out. Go running towards one screaming like mad acting like you are going to stick the bayonet in his stomach, but then suddenly stop, pivot, and hit one of the bystanders with a good swipe across the chest. He didn't see that one coming! Just use your imagination.
*
Any military rifle is going to be set up for a bayonet unless you bought a recent semi-auto
ban rifle that did away with the attachment to be legal. A few only have one type of
bayonet, such as Chinese made SKS's with built in pike. Or the Eastern European SKS
that has a built in knife bayonet. The WWII Lee-Enfield used the pike type, but if you
search around you can find the alternate knife style. The ideal would be a full size round
battle rifle ( Garand, FN-FAL, HK91, etc ) with bayonet. That way you have a sniper
rifle, a semi-auto for rapid fire in emergencies, and a sturdy long rifle to mount a bayonet
on. The perfect weapons package, if you can afford the $500 and up price tag ( not
including mags and extra ammo ). That is why I stick with the military bolt actions. No
magazines, less ammo used, less parts to break. But a compromise. One day I might wish
I had more than ten rounds in the mag and they self loaded. But, hey, that's why I have a
bayonet.
*
Beware the one problem of the rifle/bayonet system- the point were the two meet. You usually will have a spring and latch system to lock the bayonet in place. Get a replacement spring. If you have to duct tape the damn thing together you are going to loose the flexibility of two separate weapons systems. And not to mention loosing your credibility. You'll be a laughing stock instead of a menace. Also, be sure to have a scabbard and a way to carry that scabbard. You usually have a "frog" that is attached to a utility belt and the scabbard rests in that. It is better to have the bayonet handy on your belt than left in your pack back at camp.
END
The Official Bison Web Site www.bisonpress.com
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
*
Look for guest articles this weekend.
The following is a reprint from my days of sending out a weekly e-mail newsletter, pre-blog. They have been helpfully packaged in an e-book http://bisonpress.com/bisonnewsletter.html
It took awhile to clean it up after I cut and pasted from the book so I don't have time to lard it with Amazon links. Here are today's Amazon links -Rawles ( How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times ). Bayonet
( M-16 Bayonet Knife ). Wool socks ( 3 - Prs. Merino Wool Blend Socks ).*
SURVIVAL BAYONETS
copyrighted 2005
The Germans name nasty lunch meat after their city of origin. The French were a bit
cooler and got a rifle mounted knife named after one of theirs. Of course, that was awhile
ago and it seems the poor bastards just can't get anything else right for the last two
centuries or so. I suppose after almost taking over Europe anything else just pales in
comparison. You have to love them, what with the French Foreign Legion, their selling us lots of land cheap, and just the contrary nature of the culture. They thumb their noses at us and everyone else. France doesn't hate America, they hate everyone. Perhaps they
even may serve as a lesson to us. You can almost be the worlds superpower, then do
everything wrong in politics and economics but yet still hang in there and somehow keep
the whole country going despite setbacks. We should be so lucky in the future.
*
Okay, we go back to yesteryear when the armies of the day decided that the best way to
settle their differences was to line up facing each other and shoot at each other on
command until the whole area was obscured in gunpowder smoke and then you couldn't
see who was about to kill you. And some guy in France says, "Hey, lets fire a couple of
times and then run at the other guys with sharp objects and they will crap themselves and
run and we shall be victorious and go to our campfires and eat whatever it is we
Frenchmen eat besides snails and cheese sauces to celebrate being such superior dandied
guys that wear powdered wigs and get to keep mistresses which our wives approve of
since they are busy admiring that stocky peasant from the countryside who is delivering
whatever it is that French countryside dudes bring into the city since at least he is not a
dandy that listens to ballet or opera or some such but rather swills cheap wine and leers at
all passing females and will mount them like a farm animal given half the change, even
though everyone knows the only reason the wife even got huffy in the first place was
because the guys hair looked nicer than hers, but whatever, since the best part was they
got to keep mistresses so in your face German guys with that broomstick up your butt
acting like you are sooo superior." And thus was born the bayonet. The charcoal burners
of the day were slow to reload, and thus another weapon mounted on that now empty
weapon made sense.
*
What would have made more sense was to issue everyone at least two or three pistols and
a short sword if they really wanted some serious mayhem going on close quarters, but
since life was cheap and manufactured items were dear, the infantryman was lucky he even got the bayonet. I'm sure there was a bunch of bankers and politicians sitting around and bitching about giving the poor bastards adequate tools to get the job done. Why, I have no idea. The printing press came along at the same time and the greedy SOBs were
already turning out worthless money. Hell, that's how we are paying for our MidEast
conquest, just turn on the presses and make all that we need. Who cares if the poor get
poorer as their money buys less and less? We have a globe to dominate, piss on the poor what have they done for us lately? They only pay taxes and fight in the wars.
*
To be effective with the smooth bores of the day, infantry had to stay in ranks and volley
fire. The ranks had to stay in formation or they were worthless as a fighting unit, and thus
the all-important training of marching and maneuvering in step with everyone else. That
was pretty much all they were taught other than reloading by the numbers to ensure
everyone was ready to fire again at the same time ( and of course military customs to
brainwash you into actually wanting to stay and fight when you knew you would most
likely die ). Thus it followed that bayonet fighting must be in formation and by the
numbers. The wall of advancing steel was effective. You knew there was a good chance
a small lead ball would miss you, but you were pretty sure that the guy with the bayonet
was going to stab you but good.
*
And then came along the Industrial Revolution and the bayonet was suddenly staked up
against a heck of a lot more rifles and they were real rifles with rifled barrels and not
muskets with smooth bores and they used percussion caps rather than flintlocks and even
worse the artillery got more effective and there was a lot more of that, too. Even if the
armies of the day still used slow muzzleloaders and blackpowder the bayonet charge was
made obsolete by the increased artillery and the ability to field a much larger force. And
fifty years later the military had still fail to realize this. And even worse than still relying
on bayonets as a psychological weapon was using them against machineguns and repeating rifles. And then after a war taking a knife to a gunfight while bankrupting several colonial powers of the day and literally slaughtering an entire generation, the bayonet was still retained which might have some marginal purpose but even that was ruined by still teaching bayonet fighting as if the troops were in a mass formation two hundred years ago fighting with muzzleloaders. Parry, thrust. Like the other guy was going to stand still and fight you in a duel with mounted bayonets instead of pulling out his pistol he got from his own officer he had fragged and shooting your sorry butt.
*
Even today when perhaps a bayonet would be a useful tool since the standard teaching
doctrine of warfare is to pray and spray and in remote locations you can run out of ammo
quick, the fact that you only have a useless Mattel Toy to mount the bayonet on makes the whole exercise pointless. In the military, the bayonet is useless. But, come the
apocalypse, now we have an entirely different story. Now the bayonet becomes a
welcome tool of warfare. Or, I should say, survival. Just as a survival rifle is different
than a military one, the roles of a bayonet are different in the military and to a survivalist.
In the military you run out of ammo and if you are stupid and don't run than at least you
can fight with a bayonet ( assuming the other guy also ran out of ammo and was stupid
enough to also wish to fight the same way, unless all he had was a knife and then at least
you had some reach ). But 99% of the time it would probably be smarter to just issue the
troops a good knife. There are plenty of chores around camp to use them on and in a
worse case scenario they always have a weapon to defend themselves with. But with
today’s short carbine like assault rifles that are definitely not designed with bayonet
fighting in mind it is best to forget military bayonets.
*
All survivalists that have a suitable rifle should own one or more bayonets. Any social
breakdown, post-apocalypse, industrial disruption scenario will bode well for bayonet
usage. You are faced with a real possibility of ammo shortages, and the bayonet will see
you home so you can reload those carefully salvaged brass cases. There most likely will
be a lot of dog packs turned feral as well as wolves migrating down from the wilderness in the winter to find a meal. Any future riot control will be much more effective using deadly force. If your boss should turn dictator you might be intimidating the populace with shiny cold steel ( cheaper than bullets ). As a determent to violence since a show of force might resolve the situation. And finally, as a silent weapon. Lets briefly review these.
*
Ammunition shortages are a primary concern to your survivalist. Whether from future
political controls such as increased taxes or outright bans, or simply that doomsday occurs before you know it, the fear is that you may end up without enough ammo. And so we endlessly stockpile ammunition. Surplus ammo to practice with, ball ammo to save
money, reloading components, there is never enough. The recommendation has usually
been 1000 rounds for bolt actions and 10k for semi-autos but even that modest amount
could be out of reach for a lot of us. The old ball and chain, the other half, the spouse,
they wish to see you die in a cloud of fallout, choking and sputtering, your last pitiful
glance towards them imploring with your eyes, why, oh why have you forsaken us with
your insistence on those worthless unnecessary trinkets such as cars and houses and
college educations you had me buy with my ever shrinking supply of inflation shrunken
paper dollars? Do they wish to see you die as a last "In your face" "I get the last word"?
Do they hate you so much? Did they find out about the fling with your co-worker? That
can be the only explanation as to why you were denied all your survivalist preparation
toys. Well, you do the best you can. If you really have a hard time getting survival money
budgeted, better get a bayonet sooner rather than later. You might run out of ammo real
fast. Just save the last round for the spouse, s/he will make for good eating and then it is
you who shall have the last laugh.
*
Wolves were quit feared by countryside peasants long ago. Here you go, out to chop
some wood to heat your gruel with and a damn pack of wolves runs out of the woods and
kills you in a gruesome manner. About the only thing you have to fight with is a stick of
wood since the ruling king of the day decided him staying in power was much more
important than mere poor people being able to defend themselves against predators ( such
as himself for instance ) and thus you went unarmed. Well, ok, you had the ax. But a
bow or crossbow would have been much more effective or even a spear. But instead you
waited until Igor the neighbor was eaten by wolves and then begged the local chief to do
something and maybe they went hunting wolves which was fun for them, not like work at
all, and a season or three later the wolves came back and started eating villagers again
since they still weren't armed with more than sticks. Kind of like the Federal government
that won't allow US citizens to arm themselves on an airplane. A raghead hijacks the thing for the price of the ticket and a few 59 cent box cutters and then afterwards we invade the country that trained them, spend tens of billions of dollars and kill hundreds of soldiers to extract revenge when all along if you allowed each passenger to carry a $3-500 pistol they paid for themselves and shoot a 20 cent round into a hijacker the problem would have been solved ( but that's not the way to keep the military/industrial complex in business, now is it ). So wolves are going to be a problem, as are the less talented but still lethal feral dog population. They get hungry and you might become food. This is were semiautos will come in real handy, and spray and pray is hard to miss at close ranges.
*
However, if semi-auto is not in your budget it might be a good idea to have a bolt action
that is capable of mounting a bayonet. Those bastards get too close and you might want
to attach your bayonet in case one of them get through between reloading. A gentle
reminder of steel sliding into the animals side might convince the critter to back off. But
your bigger problem will probably be feral dogs instead of wolves. There will be more of
them and they are a lot more stupid and might be prone to attack whereas a wolf might
know enough to stay away. Remember, even with semi-auto you can run out of ammo or
get a jam. The bayonet is far from ideal for fighting natural predators but better than butt
stroking them with an empty light weight assault rifle.
*
In an apocalyptic future you may be part of the ruling class ( or work for one ) and the
best thing for riot control will be cold steel. In today’s politically correct environment
rioters are lovingly dissuaded from their erroneous beliefs with tender applications of
mace, high pressure water streams or wooden batons. With television cameras rolling
nearby it just won't do to rip into the crowd with a squad automatic weapon, blood
spraying, internal organs leaking, bowls voiding and other assorted yukkie stuff. It is bad
for public image and tends to leave a foul taste in the mouth of a loan officer from the
World Bank. Likewise, repeatedly plunging a bayonet into the abdomen of a screaming
tree-hugging, socialist, yoga practicing, tofu eating, Greenpeace donating protestor is bad
for business, however satisfying an image it may be. But in the future, there will be no
such constraints. Forget that pussy riot control gear of today and inspire some real fear in
the populace. You want to peaceably assemble and protest just because you're hungry and
tired of taxes? Bayonet practicing time. It saves on ammo, and after you get cut you'll
think twice before protesting again.
*
On a related note, bayonets are perfect for keeping the population in line even if no riots
should form. During Japans occupation of the Pacific islands and most of ( at least coastal
) Asia before and at the start of WWII, they used very few soldiers to keep indigenous
populations in line. A single soldier was tasked with patrolling a certain area, and any
trouble was dealt with by a bayonet. How long was it before the population learned not to
step out of line? PDQ. The Japs had a very small industrial base compared with most
others, and while it worked miracles, supplies were always dear. Terror backed by steel
was the best way to keep order. The Americans would have bombarded a village from the
air, sent in several companies to mop up, set up an aid station for the people to treat the
wounds they themselves caused, flown in a few cargo planes full of food the local
wouldn't even feed their livestock, taught a few troopers the local language in Monterey,
flown them out, tried to reason with the locals that Uncle Sam loved them, rigged the
local election to get a mayor in power they liked, seen another insurrection occur and
finally give up and went home. Cost- tens of millions of dollars. Cost to the Japanese,
several days worth of rice to feed the soldier and about $3 to manufacture the bayonet.
And don't forget POW's. Nothing better at keeping them in line than a bayonet, other than
a shotgun full of birdshot. It won't kill you but it sure will hurt getting all the shot out ( if
the infection doesn't kill you first ). However, you don't issue the regular troops shotguns,
so give them a bayonet to attach to their regular rifle. Any grunt is now a guard in a POW
facility.
*
A bayonet is also great as a show of force. Lets say a hurricane just wiped out the old
neighborhood. You could set up a lawn chair and wait for looters with your Mattel Toy
AR-15, or you could get out the old Lee-Enfield No.1 with mounted bayonet that is about
a foot long and look at the shocked expressions on passerby's faces as they see that
whopper of a pig-sticker. How many are going to come back and try to loot your house?
Nary a one, I would wager. Or, post-apocalypse, you are the proprietor of Billy Bobs
Trading Post Bar Brothel Mercenary Recruitment Center Opium Den & Used Computers
Bought And Sold. As a rule your customers are going to be an unruly bunch. You
guessed it, bayonet time. And if you had a side agreement with Joe Bobs Butcher Shop
And Taxidermy down the street you could sell the stiffening cooling corpse for a little
pocket money rather than waste anything. No more future unruly customers.
*
And as a silent weapon. Now, most other weapons are preferred for silent wet work. A
garrote, crossbow, dagger, whatever. However, if you already have a bayonet for other
uses, it follows that you at least have the ability to take out a sentry if need be. How many
of us carry around a garrote? I usually accidentally leave mine at home. What do you tell
a cop? "Why, yes, officer, I am a piano tuner". It's like fighting with the bayonet after all
your ammo is gone. It is unwise, but if you have to at least you can. The pig sticker is an
all around versatile weapon of terror.
*
Now, what kind of bayonet should you carry? There are two basic types, the pike and the knife. The pike looks like a tent stake, and knife like, well, a knife. The knife type was the most common with turn of the century military bolt action rifles. The Mauser, Enfield, etc. What later showed up as a problem was that a long flat knife would easily snap off when you struck an enemy and then continued to swing the rifle to the side. Or, the blade was so long the enemies flesh acted as a suction and it was hard to extract the blade. As a solution it was proposed pike types be used once again. Most shortened the blade, some went exclusively to pike. It is my opinion that the pike is better if you are in the military and your only action is ramming the bayonet into the enemy, using your momentum and the rifles weight to stab and ram the steel into flesh. That is the militaries one pony show with the bayonet. But as a survival weapon, the knife bayonet is much better if you plan on using the rifle/bayonet as more than just an expensive spear. With a bayonet being used at times as a determent you don't always need to kill someone. If you also use the bayonet to swipe and cut ( like a longer reaching sword ) rather than just sticking the damn thing into whatever target presents itself, you expand your options. If you practice a bit you could get real good. A POW is acting up, swish, there goes an ear. A slave gives you lip, swish, cut an artery and laugh like crazy as everyone goes running around trying to stem the gusher. Instead of killing a valuable worker, you just re-establish dominance. Or, psych them out. Go running towards one screaming like mad acting like you are going to stick the bayonet in his stomach, but then suddenly stop, pivot, and hit one of the bystanders with a good swipe across the chest. He didn't see that one coming! Just use your imagination.
*
Any military rifle is going to be set up for a bayonet unless you bought a recent semi-auto
ban rifle that did away with the attachment to be legal. A few only have one type of
bayonet, such as Chinese made SKS's with built in pike. Or the Eastern European SKS
that has a built in knife bayonet. The WWII Lee-Enfield used the pike type, but if you
search around you can find the alternate knife style. The ideal would be a full size round
battle rifle ( Garand, FN-FAL, HK91, etc ) with bayonet. That way you have a sniper
rifle, a semi-auto for rapid fire in emergencies, and a sturdy long rifle to mount a bayonet
on. The perfect weapons package, if you can afford the $500 and up price tag ( not
including mags and extra ammo ). That is why I stick with the military bolt actions. No
magazines, less ammo used, less parts to break. But a compromise. One day I might wish
I had more than ten rounds in the mag and they self loaded. But, hey, that's why I have a
bayonet.
*
Beware the one problem of the rifle/bayonet system- the point were the two meet. You usually will have a spring and latch system to lock the bayonet in place. Get a replacement spring. If you have to duct tape the damn thing together you are going to loose the flexibility of two separate weapons systems. And not to mention loosing your credibility. You'll be a laughing stock instead of a menace. Also, be sure to have a scabbard and a way to carry that scabbard. You usually have a "frog" that is attached to a utility belt and the scabbard rests in that. It is better to have the bayonet handy on your belt than left in your pack back at camp.
END
The Official Bison Web Site www.bisonpress.com
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
*
Look for guest articles this weekend.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
brutal and short
BRUTAL AND SHORT
I know that the vast majority of my minions slipped into their cubicles this morning and fired up the Internet and the first thing they ran across was the story ( I thank the minions who pointed it out to me- I wouldn’t have seen it otherwise ) on how the Alaskan estimated oil reserves are being downgraded 90%. I can almost see the comical expression on your face as you got the look of someone in the elevator who suddenly soiled themselves and as the stench billowed out their pant leg along with the liquid they realized they had another thirty stories to go accompanied by their girlfriend, boss, director of human resources and the competition for the next promotion. Holy Mother Of God, you scream in fright. That guldurn Dakin ( Dakin Snuggle Safari Security Blankets - 4 Pack
) is going to whip the crap out of this dead horse and I’ll have to read through all that nonsense before he says something interesting. Correct you are, Sherlock ( The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
). Amazing how insightful you are after observing my behavior for a short time, yet how willing you are to snort up the intoxicating opiate of optimism to avoid reality. I’ve said it all along- be very afraid. Paranoia ( Understanding Paranoia: A Guide for Professionals, Families, and Sufferers
) is your friend. Don’t believe a damn thing they say. Estimated oil reserves are just like your own estimation of your power over women ( for guys ) or the estimation of your ass size ( for ladies ). You think you are a ladies man or have a petite rear but in reality you are a repulsive jerk or have a butt the size of Cleveland. Or, as I said a few weeks ago- when I eat a burrito I can guess the ESTIMATED gas reserves in my intestines, but until I fart I don’t know the ACTUAL reserves.
*
Whenever a minion wishes to discredit any doom and gloom ( Doom and Gloom
) on my part they point out that my Hobbesian ( Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes
) viewpoint of life being brutal and short is too simplistic. I suppose they class that statement together with any Malthusian ( The Malthusian Catastrophe
) thoughts, as they skip amongst the daffodils in a spring meadow with rainbows and pixie dust and unicorns. We are the world…Ooops, sorry. I was in the moment. I mean, seriously people. Have you never been screwed over by your neighbors? An ex never took you to the cleaners? Never been pulled over and given a very expensive revenue enhancement ticket? It isn’t rocket science. When people need each other they get along and when survival is at stake they screw each other and half the people will screw you just out of greed instead of need. The timeline is as follows. The collapse comes and people will do very nasty things to each other. Once order is restored people will go back to playing nice with one another. I’m not saying that we will see and either/or future. It won’t be a contest between Mad Max ( Mad Max (Special Edition)
) for all eternity or an idyllic organic farm future. It will be the one, then the other. Simple as pie.
*
Unfortunately for our own ideal of our morality and intelligence, we are programmed to act selfishly. If it avoids getting us in trouble we get along with other people. If no one is around to police our behavior and our survival is at stake, we will take what we need from others. Then of course there is the greed wildcard which is always a factor. But in essence, we will do what is best for us and what we are told. The rich are able to peacefully reside next to a ghetto just a few miles down the road. They usually don’t have armed guards ( they don’t have that much wealth- unlike Toni “say hello to my little friend” Montana [ Scarface
] who had automatic fire and grenades to dissuade the competition against invasion ). They do have the general publics appreciation of the consequences of breaking the law. Have a few ounces of weed on you? Go you prison, get sodomized, die of AIDS. The death sentence for selling weed, just like in Thailand. The difference is that over there they spend fifteen cents on a bullet. Over here we spend a few hundred thousand to enrich the lawyers and then let you die by proxy years down the road. As insane as our punishment system is, it does serve the purpose of using ever increasing amounts of fear to keep the violence under some kind of control. At least up until now. Most folks live in relative peace because the scumbags are worried about getting caught ( all this is generalities- I know the low percentages of crimes solved and the rates of recidivism and the history of Victorian England’s failed policies of even harsher penalties ). Not because they care about their fellow man.
*
The other side of the fear coin is the benefits of cooperation ( The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition
). You help out folks and they give back. Look, I know you’ll throw an example my way of good church folk always helping out a neighbor, etc. I understand they “do what is right” and don’t treat it as a cost/benefits analysis. But that underlines my point. Cultural training is the means this is accomplished. And come the crisis most folks will operate under this cultural training and end up in the stewpot. You must recognize when the old social contract has been forcefully severed and go into full savage mode. You must also recognize when the “new sheriff comes into town” and start acting law abiding. After the bloodshed, after order is restored, then the “love thy neighbor” laws come back into effect. The future isn’t brutal OR cooperative, they are both one after another. If you fail to acknowledge the new rules you will lose. Penalty-death.
END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
I know that the vast majority of my minions slipped into their cubicles this morning and fired up the Internet and the first thing they ran across was the story ( I thank the minions who pointed it out to me- I wouldn’t have seen it otherwise ) on how the Alaskan estimated oil reserves are being downgraded 90%. I can almost see the comical expression on your face as you got the look of someone in the elevator who suddenly soiled themselves and as the stench billowed out their pant leg along with the liquid they realized they had another thirty stories to go accompanied by their girlfriend, boss, director of human resources and the competition for the next promotion. Holy Mother Of God, you scream in fright. That guldurn Dakin ( Dakin Snuggle Safari Security Blankets - 4 Pack
) is going to whip the crap out of this dead horse and I’ll have to read through all that nonsense before he says something interesting. Correct you are, Sherlock ( The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ). Amazing how insightful you are after observing my behavior for a short time, yet how willing you are to snort up the intoxicating opiate of optimism to avoid reality. I’ve said it all along- be very afraid. Paranoia ( Understanding Paranoia: A Guide for Professionals, Families, and Sufferers ) is your friend. Don’t believe a damn thing they say. Estimated oil reserves are just like your own estimation of your power over women ( for guys ) or the estimation of your ass size ( for ladies ). You think you are a ladies man or have a petite rear but in reality you are a repulsive jerk or have a butt the size of Cleveland. Or, as I said a few weeks ago- when I eat a burrito I can guess the ESTIMATED gas reserves in my intestines, but until I fart I don’t know the ACTUAL reserves. *
Whenever a minion wishes to discredit any doom and gloom ( Doom and Gloom
) on my part they point out that my Hobbesian ( Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes ) viewpoint of life being brutal and short is too simplistic. I suppose they class that statement together with any Malthusian ( The Malthusian Catastrophe ) thoughts, as they skip amongst the daffodils in a spring meadow with rainbows and pixie dust and unicorns. We are the world…Ooops, sorry. I was in the moment. I mean, seriously people. Have you never been screwed over by your neighbors? An ex never took you to the cleaners? Never been pulled over and given a very expensive revenue enhancement ticket? It isn’t rocket science. When people need each other they get along and when survival is at stake they screw each other and half the people will screw you just out of greed instead of need. The timeline is as follows. The collapse comes and people will do very nasty things to each other. Once order is restored people will go back to playing nice with one another. I’m not saying that we will see and either/or future. It won’t be a contest between Mad Max ( Mad Max (Special Edition) ) for all eternity or an idyllic organic farm future. It will be the one, then the other. Simple as pie.*
Unfortunately for our own ideal of our morality and intelligence, we are programmed to act selfishly. If it avoids getting us in trouble we get along with other people. If no one is around to police our behavior and our survival is at stake, we will take what we need from others. Then of course there is the greed wildcard which is always a factor. But in essence, we will do what is best for us and what we are told. The rich are able to peacefully reside next to a ghetto just a few miles down the road. They usually don’t have armed guards ( they don’t have that much wealth- unlike Toni “say hello to my little friend” Montana [ Scarface
] who had automatic fire and grenades to dissuade the competition against invasion ). They do have the general publics appreciation of the consequences of breaking the law. Have a few ounces of weed on you? Go you prison, get sodomized, die of AIDS. The death sentence for selling weed, just like in Thailand. The difference is that over there they spend fifteen cents on a bullet. Over here we spend a few hundred thousand to enrich the lawyers and then let you die by proxy years down the road. As insane as our punishment system is, it does serve the purpose of using ever increasing amounts of fear to keep the violence under some kind of control. At least up until now. Most folks live in relative peace because the scumbags are worried about getting caught ( all this is generalities- I know the low percentages of crimes solved and the rates of recidivism and the history of Victorian England’s failed policies of even harsher penalties ). Not because they care about their fellow man. *
The other side of the fear coin is the benefits of cooperation ( The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition
). You help out folks and they give back. Look, I know you’ll throw an example my way of good church folk always helping out a neighbor, etc. I understand they “do what is right” and don’t treat it as a cost/benefits analysis. But that underlines my point. Cultural training is the means this is accomplished. And come the crisis most folks will operate under this cultural training and end up in the stewpot. You must recognize when the old social contract has been forcefully severed and go into full savage mode. You must also recognize when the “new sheriff comes into town” and start acting law abiding. After the bloodshed, after order is restored, then the “love thy neighbor” laws come back into effect. The future isn’t brutal OR cooperative, they are both one after another. If you fail to acknowledge the new rules you will lose. Penalty-death. END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
apples and oranges and corn
APPLES AND ORANGES AND CORN
Before we get to today’s pearls of wisdom inexpertly disguised as the inane rantings of a mere mortal, two items of business. First, I wish to fall to my knees in ecstatic joy and thank the not one but two separate worthy minions that sent me cash money. Jack, you can bet I’ll use the proceeds on more hair supplies. And Charles, you can bet I’ll declare your donation as income so the Handmaiden Of Lucifer gets more money. Bitch be getting another five grand as it is but I wouldn’t want the forces of evil to align against me any more than usual. Which brings me up to an observation I had earlier today. Normally the months of November and December are balls to the wall ( Balls to the Walls
) here, what with massive legions of Yuppie Scum trying to appease their guilt over unearned wealth ( I know I’m an ass but I can’t help but think of the mine labor as Union-like extortionists. Not to say I’m not grateful for the extra graft that circulates in town ) by donating food to the Food Bank. I’m not trying to appear that I don’t appreciate it, just being cynical. But, as nothing is free in life, it is a lot of work trying to stay on top of the extra donations. But this year, almost as if they smell looming disaster in the wind, the legions have stepped up their campaign a month early. I’m running around like crazy trying to figure out how I’ll keep my sanity for the extra time. My observation is: they be agin me. Everyone is agin me. They ain’t afor me, their agin me. These donations definitely came in the knick of time as they will sooth my insanity. Generosity disguised as a means of eliminating me. I’m on to everyone.
*
My second order of business is an observation. I’m not saying for sure my conclusion is correct, it’s just something I bring up for you to think about. Notice how gold ( Rich Dad's Advisors: Guide to Investing In Gold and Silver: Protect Your Financial Future
) has followed a pattern recently? It shoots up drastically and then eases on down slowly. It bottoms out at the previous high level and then eases on up to the last high. It waits there, then repeats the process all over again. If I didn’t know better I would say this is a way of fooling people. Everyone either panics or soils themselves in glee ( such as the gold bugs [ The Gold-Bug and Other Tales (Dover Thrift Editions)
] forecasting five grand gold ). Then it eases down and everyone relaxes. This way, it isn’t a steady advance. Plenty of idiots can conclude things are getting better. Now, I’m not saying that high wizards of the bankers are sitting behind a curtain pulling strings, but there has to be some kind of manipulation with either/or the Plunge Protection Team and the holders of e-commodities ( those using derivatives to “hold” far more bullion than they physically process- far more than is in existence if you believe the hype ). Who might be one and the same. Again, I’m only spitballing here. But the pattern is curious.
*
Today’s article was inspired by my reading this weekend. I was bored or done with my library books and so I just started flipping through Greer’s decline book ( The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age
). I’ve already read it two or three times so I just reread a few chapters. I like Greer ( The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak World
). He seems a very smart fellow. And I’m eternally in his debt for pointing out his bible ( and now mine ) “Overshoot”( Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change
). We draw drastically different conclusions from the book however. He sees a nice slow centuries long decline, peaceful transition interrupted by spats of violence. A stairway decline. I see a slow long decline measured in years followed by a sudden collapse. As I’ve said before, the universal lack of records following every collapse suggests to me that society was totally destroyed. But that is of course a rather flippant answer to the age old question, slow or sudden collapse. So let’s explore a bit more on the “slow” side.
*
Slow collapse is premised on the historical record. From the Romans to the Mayans ( A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya
) to the Anazasi and more, the average decline lasted centuries. From the height of empire to the emergence of a few scattered villagers scratching in the dirt a few hundred years passed. Now, one could argue with that interpretation. After all, a consensus doesn’t mean the truth has been discovered ( contemporary example is when finally after decades of ridicule by his fellows the guy that proposed continental drift was vindicated. Near future example might be looking back from an Ice Age and wondering what the heck Gore thought he was talking about [ why anyone believed Al “I invented the Internet” Gore in the first place is unbelievable ] ). But let’s not quibble about that and assume most agricultural societies in the past did collapse slowly. The question then becomes why we are comparing apples to oranges ( and to corn in the case of the Mayans )? Why are we comparing the Oil Age ( The Age of Oil: The Mythology, History, and Future of the World's Most Controversial Resource
) to the Agricultural Age? For ten thousand years man lived on the soil. For the last two hundred years ( and that is pushing it to include a lot of coal use ) man has lived off of oil. The soil uses the energy it just received from the sun ( and also last years if you include fallow fields and green manure and compost ). That is a very diffuse form of energy. The oil we use is a highly concentrated form of millions of years of the earth forming hydrocarbons. You obviously can’t overpopulate with the surplus of solar to anywhere near the extent that you can with the surplus of oil. If you deplete the soil trying to feed extra people you run into a famine very quickly and with fewer surplus people.
*
Feeding people with oil lasts a few years. And you allow quite a few generations to breed like rats. Let’s assume people are smarter than rats and can figure out a few ways to slow the die-off. In an agriculture economy this can go on for some time. You can plow forests, steal the neighbors land, centralize irrigation. Because you have a small surplus these steps giving small increases all work. For a time. But when you have multiple generations breeding off the surplus of oil in the end there is such a huge increase of people that once the oil decline sets in the food production rapidly decreases and a lot of people can’t eat. Collapse ( Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
) happens quicker because so many more surplus mouths are involved. The stampede to the next years seed, the decimation of the fisheries, the total scorched earth warfare allowed by mechanization, all are a result. This doesn’t even touch pollution or nuclear war ( The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War
) or genetic modification or global drought. It just says that unlike the past, we now have such a surplus of people that things will collapse quicker. And remember, we have already seen a slow build up of problems. The seas are already depleted and polluted. Oil production is already declining. We have already had several years of drought. Etc. And we’ve been in slow decline since 1979 when we reached our global peak in per capita energy. How much longer will slow collapse happen before the waterfall?
END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
Before we get to today’s pearls of wisdom inexpertly disguised as the inane rantings of a mere mortal, two items of business. First, I wish to fall to my knees in ecstatic joy and thank the not one but two separate worthy minions that sent me cash money. Jack, you can bet I’ll use the proceeds on more hair supplies. And Charles, you can bet I’ll declare your donation as income so the Handmaiden Of Lucifer gets more money. Bitch be getting another five grand as it is but I wouldn’t want the forces of evil to align against me any more than usual. Which brings me up to an observation I had earlier today. Normally the months of November and December are balls to the wall ( Balls to the Walls
) here, what with massive legions of Yuppie Scum trying to appease their guilt over unearned wealth ( I know I’m an ass but I can’t help but think of the mine labor as Union-like extortionists. Not to say I’m not grateful for the extra graft that circulates in town ) by donating food to the Food Bank. I’m not trying to appear that I don’t appreciate it, just being cynical. But, as nothing is free in life, it is a lot of work trying to stay on top of the extra donations. But this year, almost as if they smell looming disaster in the wind, the legions have stepped up their campaign a month early. I’m running around like crazy trying to figure out how I’ll keep my sanity for the extra time. My observation is: they be agin me. Everyone is agin me. They ain’t afor me, their agin me. These donations definitely came in the knick of time as they will sooth my insanity. Generosity disguised as a means of eliminating me. I’m on to everyone.*
My second order of business is an observation. I’m not saying for sure my conclusion is correct, it’s just something I bring up for you to think about. Notice how gold ( Rich Dad's Advisors: Guide to Investing In Gold and Silver: Protect Your Financial Future
) has followed a pattern recently? It shoots up drastically and then eases on down slowly. It bottoms out at the previous high level and then eases on up to the last high. It waits there, then repeats the process all over again. If I didn’t know better I would say this is a way of fooling people. Everyone either panics or soils themselves in glee ( such as the gold bugs [ The Gold-Bug and Other Tales (Dover Thrift Editions) ] forecasting five grand gold ). Then it eases down and everyone relaxes. This way, it isn’t a steady advance. Plenty of idiots can conclude things are getting better. Now, I’m not saying that high wizards of the bankers are sitting behind a curtain pulling strings, but there has to be some kind of manipulation with either/or the Plunge Protection Team and the holders of e-commodities ( those using derivatives to “hold” far more bullion than they physically process- far more than is in existence if you believe the hype ). Who might be one and the same. Again, I’m only spitballing here. But the pattern is curious.*
Today’s article was inspired by my reading this weekend. I was bored or done with my library books and so I just started flipping through Greer’s decline book ( The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age
). I’ve already read it two or three times so I just reread a few chapters. I like Greer ( The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak World ). He seems a very smart fellow. And I’m eternally in his debt for pointing out his bible ( and now mine ) “Overshoot”( Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change ). We draw drastically different conclusions from the book however. He sees a nice slow centuries long decline, peaceful transition interrupted by spats of violence. A stairway decline. I see a slow long decline measured in years followed by a sudden collapse. As I’ve said before, the universal lack of records following every collapse suggests to me that society was totally destroyed. But that is of course a rather flippant answer to the age old question, slow or sudden collapse. So let’s explore a bit more on the “slow” side.*
Slow collapse is premised on the historical record. From the Romans to the Mayans ( A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya
) to the Anazasi and more, the average decline lasted centuries. From the height of empire to the emergence of a few scattered villagers scratching in the dirt a few hundred years passed. Now, one could argue with that interpretation. After all, a consensus doesn’t mean the truth has been discovered ( contemporary example is when finally after decades of ridicule by his fellows the guy that proposed continental drift was vindicated. Near future example might be looking back from an Ice Age and wondering what the heck Gore thought he was talking about [ why anyone believed Al “I invented the Internet” Gore in the first place is unbelievable ] ). But let’s not quibble about that and assume most agricultural societies in the past did collapse slowly. The question then becomes why we are comparing apples to oranges ( and to corn in the case of the Mayans )? Why are we comparing the Oil Age ( The Age of Oil: The Mythology, History, and Future of the World's Most Controversial Resource ) to the Agricultural Age? For ten thousand years man lived on the soil. For the last two hundred years ( and that is pushing it to include a lot of coal use ) man has lived off of oil. The soil uses the energy it just received from the sun ( and also last years if you include fallow fields and green manure and compost ). That is a very diffuse form of energy. The oil we use is a highly concentrated form of millions of years of the earth forming hydrocarbons. You obviously can’t overpopulate with the surplus of solar to anywhere near the extent that you can with the surplus of oil. If you deplete the soil trying to feed extra people you run into a famine very quickly and with fewer surplus people. *
Feeding people with oil lasts a few years. And you allow quite a few generations to breed like rats. Let’s assume people are smarter than rats and can figure out a few ways to slow the die-off. In an agriculture economy this can go on for some time. You can plow forests, steal the neighbors land, centralize irrigation. Because you have a small surplus these steps giving small increases all work. For a time. But when you have multiple generations breeding off the surplus of oil in the end there is such a huge increase of people that once the oil decline sets in the food production rapidly decreases and a lot of people can’t eat. Collapse ( Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
) happens quicker because so many more surplus mouths are involved. The stampede to the next years seed, the decimation of the fisheries, the total scorched earth warfare allowed by mechanization, all are a result. This doesn’t even touch pollution or nuclear war ( The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War ) or genetic modification or global drought. It just says that unlike the past, we now have such a surplus of people that things will collapse quicker. And remember, we have already seen a slow build up of problems. The seas are already depleted and polluted. Oil production is already declining. We have already had several years of drought. Etc. And we’ve been in slow decline since 1979 when we reached our global peak in per capita energy. How much longer will slow collapse happen before the waterfall?END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
one to go?
ONE TO GO?
According to the comments section Friday, I’ve done a bang up job confusing those silly enough to ask my advice. I do have to apologize as I try to always go on the assumption that most folks are new to the game of prepping and I shouldn’t assume a prior level of experience or knowledge. Sure, of course there is a certain amount of middlin to advanced advice here but I hope I give enough background so that its not incomprehensible. Specifically, a bit of confusion on just what the heck I was talking about with grains and beans being added together for protein. And, yes, I know I was upstaged by Rawles here already publishing an article on Monday. But honest Injun ( did that phrase originate to imply that natives were honest in comparison to the whites who cheated them, or is it something more sarcastic- I never got its reference ) I was planning on Friday to add this to my next article. Hey, sometimes I beat Rawles ( How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times ) to the punch, such as by several years on Peak Oil Panic ( as opposed to the pixie dust and unicorn idea that we will gently float down the idyllic river of renewable energy, Volvo driving and tree hugging ) and sometimes he makes it look like I’m cheating and getting article ideas from him ( which most likely I am ).
*
Complete proteins have all their amino acids. I think 17 of them but that’s not important. An egg is considered a perfect protein as it has all those in the “perfect” percentages. A grain contains some amino acids, but not all and a bean has those amino acids that a grain lacks ( this is simplified but sufficient ). Think of it as grain having amino acids #1-9 and beans having #10-17. You combine them together and then you have a protein that is complete, such as if you had eaten a big juicy fat dripping tri-tip steak ( most folks don’t agree but I think tri-tip is the best cut ). The book to read, available second hand cheap, if you want way more information than is prudent is “Diet for a small planet”.( Diet for a Small Planet
) At first the author told you to eat both beans and grains in the same meal and in later editions changed it to make it “eat both in the same day”. I can’t remember too many details but my own personal preference is to eat them in the same meal as it seems to fill you up better and give you more energy. If you look at all “third world” dishes you usually find the grain/bean combo and in the same meal.
*
We all tend to simplify. Even I do it, both as I am vainly trying to get a point across to legions of stubborn minions and sometimes under time constraints when I don’t bother to elaborate. And we also tend to go for the simple to understand. We all fear the “big one”, whether it be a nuclear war ( The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War ) or avian flu ( The Fatal Strain: On the Trail of Avian Flu and the Coming Pandemic
) or whatever. But our luck, multiple problems both muddle the issue and make it more severe. A good example is our current economic crisis. It isn’t just one thing that is causing the difficulties. We have declining energy imports coupled with a real estate bubble added to an uptick in money creation combined with a socialistic federal government that thinks getting into more debt will cure the problem. You might also want to throw in global warming, currency wars amongst nations, food shortages ( Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization
) and pollution, but that is optional. The point isn’t that the derivatives market caused the problem, or will make it worse but that that combined with all of the above makes a mess no one can clean up. So today’s essay question that counts for 90% of your final grade is, do we have one to go? You know how I feel about the unfolding grain crisis. It is huge and going to go critical. Is there one more event that will push us over the edge?
*
For no darn good reason, the news on the current impending volcanic eruption ( La Catastrophe: The Eruption of Mount Pelee, the Worst Volcanic Disaster of the 20th Century
) in, I think, Indonesia got me to worrying about a repeat of the early nineteenth century eruption that caused worldwide crop failures. We don’t necessarily need Yellowstone to erupt to cause farm failures. We all worry about Yellowstone. My pet theory is that everyone is so concerned about it not because it will vaporize half a state or bury the east coast in feet deep drifts of ash or wipe out all that years crops but because the ash will clog up their internal combustion toys and their fat asses will have to use manual tools ( if you’ve run out of things to worry about, think about that ash clogging up your chainsaw and you can’t get wood to get you through the “nuclear winter” ). But that’s just me being critical and unsympathetic to marshmallow people ( and before you blather on about how wonderful a tool a chainsaw is, my point is that your modern miracle petroleum tools are not sustainable long term and might even be unusable short term- manual is best ). Volcanoes erupt constantly, and there are a lot of them. Perhaps we won’t see a dinosaur killer sized one, but at what size does enough ash get into the atmosphere that added to our other crop problems ( overpopulation, decreased stockpiles, drought or flood, potential wheat rust, potential pest infestation, “zone creep”, irrigation failures, Peak Oil,[The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
] phosphate supple issues, etc. ), we tip over the edge into mass starvation?
*
And remember, you never get just one disaster at a time. A hurricane comes along and floods you out and then the ghetto dwellers riot and the Blackwater ( Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Revised and Updated]
) troops fire wildly into the crowd and the feds hold up shipments to make sure the drivers are in compliance with DOT regs. And that’s all in the first day. Food problems will launch wars which might include nuclear weapons. At a minimum, add war to starvation, and don’t forget to sprinkle in some epidemics caused by malnourishment. The disease usually kills you off being the lack of food does. I don’t bring this up to cause you added worry. If you have a good food stockpile ( soon, “good” will not be freeze dried meat and dairy but anything, even plain rice or flour ) there isn’t worry about food ( although you should worry about war and disease ). Rather, my point today is a lot of little events you might usually ignore might add up to a new disaster.
END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
According to the comments section Friday, I’ve done a bang up job confusing those silly enough to ask my advice. I do have to apologize as I try to always go on the assumption that most folks are new to the game of prepping and I shouldn’t assume a prior level of experience or knowledge. Sure, of course there is a certain amount of middlin to advanced advice here but I hope I give enough background so that its not incomprehensible. Specifically, a bit of confusion on just what the heck I was talking about with grains and beans being added together for protein. And, yes, I know I was upstaged by Rawles here already publishing an article on Monday. But honest Injun ( did that phrase originate to imply that natives were honest in comparison to the whites who cheated them, or is it something more sarcastic- I never got its reference ) I was planning on Friday to add this to my next article. Hey, sometimes I beat Rawles ( How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times
) to the punch, such as by several years on Peak Oil Panic ( as opposed to the pixie dust and unicorn idea that we will gently float down the idyllic river of renewable energy, Volvo driving and tree hugging ) and sometimes he makes it look like I’m cheating and getting article ideas from him ( which most likely I am ). *
Complete proteins have all their amino acids. I think 17 of them but that’s not important. An egg is considered a perfect protein as it has all those in the “perfect” percentages. A grain contains some amino acids, but not all and a bean has those amino acids that a grain lacks ( this is simplified but sufficient ). Think of it as grain having amino acids #1-9 and beans having #10-17. You combine them together and then you have a protein that is complete, such as if you had eaten a big juicy fat dripping tri-tip steak ( most folks don’t agree but I think tri-tip is the best cut ). The book to read, available second hand cheap, if you want way more information than is prudent is “Diet for a small planet”.( Diet for a Small Planet
) At first the author told you to eat both beans and grains in the same meal and in later editions changed it to make it “eat both in the same day”. I can’t remember too many details but my own personal preference is to eat them in the same meal as it seems to fill you up better and give you more energy. If you look at all “third world” dishes you usually find the grain/bean combo and in the same meal. *
We all tend to simplify. Even I do it, both as I am vainly trying to get a point across to legions of stubborn minions and sometimes under time constraints when I don’t bother to elaborate. And we also tend to go for the simple to understand. We all fear the “big one”, whether it be a nuclear war ( The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War
) or avian flu ( The Fatal Strain: On the Trail of Avian Flu and the Coming Pandemic ) or whatever. But our luck, multiple problems both muddle the issue and make it more severe. A good example is our current economic crisis. It isn’t just one thing that is causing the difficulties. We have declining energy imports coupled with a real estate bubble added to an uptick in money creation combined with a socialistic federal government that thinks getting into more debt will cure the problem. You might also want to throw in global warming, currency wars amongst nations, food shortages ( Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization ) and pollution, but that is optional. The point isn’t that the derivatives market caused the problem, or will make it worse but that that combined with all of the above makes a mess no one can clean up. So today’s essay question that counts for 90% of your final grade is, do we have one to go? You know how I feel about the unfolding grain crisis. It is huge and going to go critical. Is there one more event that will push us over the edge?*
For no darn good reason, the news on the current impending volcanic eruption ( La Catastrophe: The Eruption of Mount Pelee, the Worst Volcanic Disaster of the 20th Century
) in, I think, Indonesia got me to worrying about a repeat of the early nineteenth century eruption that caused worldwide crop failures. We don’t necessarily need Yellowstone to erupt to cause farm failures. We all worry about Yellowstone. My pet theory is that everyone is so concerned about it not because it will vaporize half a state or bury the east coast in feet deep drifts of ash or wipe out all that years crops but because the ash will clog up their internal combustion toys and their fat asses will have to use manual tools ( if you’ve run out of things to worry about, think about that ash clogging up your chainsaw and you can’t get wood to get you through the “nuclear winter” ). But that’s just me being critical and unsympathetic to marshmallow people ( and before you blather on about how wonderful a tool a chainsaw is, my point is that your modern miracle petroleum tools are not sustainable long term and might even be unusable short term- manual is best ). Volcanoes erupt constantly, and there are a lot of them. Perhaps we won’t see a dinosaur killer sized one, but at what size does enough ash get into the atmosphere that added to our other crop problems ( overpopulation, decreased stockpiles, drought or flood, potential wheat rust, potential pest infestation, “zone creep”, irrigation failures, Peak Oil,[The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil ] phosphate supple issues, etc. ), we tip over the edge into mass starvation?*
And remember, you never get just one disaster at a time. A hurricane comes along and floods you out and then the ghetto dwellers riot and the Blackwater ( Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Revised and Updated]
) troops fire wildly into the crowd and the feds hold up shipments to make sure the drivers are in compliance with DOT regs. And that’s all in the first day. Food problems will launch wars which might include nuclear weapons. At a minimum, add war to starvation, and don’t forget to sprinkle in some epidemics caused by malnourishment. The disease usually kills you off being the lack of food does. I don’t bring this up to cause you added worry. If you have a good food stockpile ( soon, “good” will not be freeze dried meat and dairy but anything, even plain rice or flour ) there isn’t worry about food ( although you should worry about war and disease ). Rather, my point today is a lot of little events you might usually ignore might add up to a new disaster. END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
Monday, October 25, 2010
the cost of avoiding the stew pot
THE COST OF AVOIDING THE STEW POT
In groundbreaking news, Haiti has a cholera outbreak. This is news? You really think there hasn’t been a previous one for almost a year? Regardless, it does help illustrate a very important point to preppers. The area affected didn’t see damage from the earthquake ( Earthquake
). What happened was the refugees from the damaged area came there and overloaded the region. So, not only do refugees want to kill you and put you in the stewpot, they also want to crap in the water supply and kill off the ones they don’t eat. Refugees are STRANGER DANGER!!!( I Can Play It Safe
) Kill them all, do not let them in. Send them up to Idaho for good old fashion Christian charity. I would advise you to take your chances going to Hell by being a selfish bastard. And remember, folks turned away will have no shame and send out old people and little kids and hoochie mommas ( Hoochie Momma
) to entice you. And frankly, that just might work. A few weeks after the collapse all the fat bitches with fake boobs will have lost weight and actually start to look pretty good. And the kids will look all sad and pitiful. But unless you are planning to start a cotton weaving factory or other endeavor that utilizes child labor, don’t fall for it. Those little bastards will eat you out of house and home and then complain about having no batteries to play their GameBoy ( NINTENDO GAMEBOY ADVANCE SP, COBALT BLUE
)( after robbing the batteries from a critical tool ). Even if you kill the adult males that sent out the decoys, the cute/hot ones they are sending out will endanger your health anyway. Kill them all, there are plenty to spare in your area. Kids and ho’s. Or, ho’s that will have kids.
*
http://americanenergycrisis.blogspot.com/2010/10/glorious-day-to-blog.html
“The U.S. has done a marvelous job of ameliorating the effects of Peak Oil Imports; and while Peak Oil might still be debatable, I think any statistician would be hard pressed to counter the Peak Imports circumstance.)”
*
If I’m not mistaken, oil imports are down something like 25% ( if not a third ) from four/five years ago. Since we imported almost 75% of our oil ( we were using 20 million barrels a day before the decline and we only produce six ) this is a huge deal. As is quoted above, even the drooling inbred banjo playing mouth breathers who think resources never deplete and Peak Oil ( Peak Oil and the Second Great Depression (2010-2030): A Survival Guide for Investors and Savers After Peak Oil
) is just my own paranoid fantasy, import decline is oh so very real and could only be denied by the kind of life form even the aforementioned retard would look down on. Our own beloved government that is always so truthful and never fudges any numbers like the amount of VC killed or the numbers of Iraqi civilians NOT killed or inflation rates or the unemployment numbers, even they are reporting import numbers being down. So if you and your butt buddy Bammy who went to Stockholm together to get his Nobel prize and stayed in a fancy hotel while you sucked the peanuts out of his ass, if you both are trying to tell me that imports are not down than I must lose all my self restraint and impeccable manners and scream that you are dumber than a box of rocks. So, now that we’ve established that import decline is real by degrading and ridiculing anyone that doesn’t agree with us, kind of like the global warming ( The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World's Top Climate Scientists
) advocates who have stated that anyone not agreeing with them is a traitor and will be put on a melting icecap to die, we can get to the main point here. “The US has done a marvelous job of ameliorating the effects of Peak Oil Imports” by which he agreed to downgrade to simple “effects of import decline, no Peak Oil here, nothing to see, move along and remain calm” just to shut you up and get on with the statement, which I agree is a swell thing to do on his part.
*
What has been the price we have paid to avoid the stewpot? What did we have to do to avoid a full on economic collapse ( since we are talking about import decline rather than global supply decline, we won’t consider total collapse- just economic )? We nationalized a lot of industry, from cars to housing loans. We doubled our debt to keep the bankers going just a little bit longer. Our unemployment either doubled or quadrupled, depending on whose numbers you believe. We took almost half of our corn supply and turned it into ethanol. As a result almost everything in the food supply chain doubled or quadrupled in price. And that was just from corn no longer being cheaper than dirt. It had little to do with debased currency ( Debased currency and the London monetary conference
) or increased grain exports to feed a drought stricken world. The price of crude doubled even as we turned our food into fuel. We elected a complete and utter moron as President ( but that was just icing on the cake, as almost anyone other than Hillary Clinton would have done just as bad of a job- Hillary would have/will [ when she nukes the other government officials above her in the line of succession- remember, you heard it here first which will get me rendentioned to Syria ] do triple the damage ). Your home lost half its value and it is a matter of a few years- NOT decades- before you lose your pension. Personally I think the hoopla over privatizing 401(k)’s is a smoke screen for how close public pensions are to insolvency. And remember, for something like the last twelve out of fifteen months the US Treasury has had to make up for a deficient in the Social Security payments. That system has been broke for a year even as these whores on the Bammy payroll are telling you the program won’t be insolvent until some impossible date like 2031.
*
All this has been what happened when we lost twenty percent of our energy supply ( 75% of 20 million is 15. A third of that gone leaves 10, which added to our six is 16. 16 out of twenty equals a total lose of 20% of our energy supply- and I’ve used conservative numbers. I think our imports are only 8 ). Just twenty percent. If we’ve lost oil imports for five years I think we can all agree that we’ll lose more every year hereafter. Things going bad has only started. May we live in interesting times.
END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
In groundbreaking news, Haiti has a cholera outbreak. This is news? You really think there hasn’t been a previous one for almost a year? Regardless, it does help illustrate a very important point to preppers. The area affected didn’t see damage from the earthquake ( Earthquake
). What happened was the refugees from the damaged area came there and overloaded the region. So, not only do refugees want to kill you and put you in the stewpot, they also want to crap in the water supply and kill off the ones they don’t eat. Refugees are STRANGER DANGER!!!( I Can Play It Safe ) Kill them all, do not let them in. Send them up to Idaho for good old fashion Christian charity. I would advise you to take your chances going to Hell by being a selfish bastard. And remember, folks turned away will have no shame and send out old people and little kids and hoochie mommas ( Hoochie Momma ) to entice you. And frankly, that just might work. A few weeks after the collapse all the fat bitches with fake boobs will have lost weight and actually start to look pretty good. And the kids will look all sad and pitiful. But unless you are planning to start a cotton weaving factory or other endeavor that utilizes child labor, don’t fall for it. Those little bastards will eat you out of house and home and then complain about having no batteries to play their GameBoy ( NINTENDO GAMEBOY ADVANCE SP, COBALT BLUE )( after robbing the batteries from a critical tool ). Even if you kill the adult males that sent out the decoys, the cute/hot ones they are sending out will endanger your health anyway. Kill them all, there are plenty to spare in your area. Kids and ho’s. Or, ho’s that will have kids.*
http://americanenergycrisis.blogspot.com/2010/10/glorious-day-to-blog.html
“The U.S. has done a marvelous job of ameliorating the effects of Peak Oil Imports; and while Peak Oil might still be debatable, I think any statistician would be hard pressed to counter the Peak Imports circumstance.)”
*
If I’m not mistaken, oil imports are down something like 25% ( if not a third ) from four/five years ago. Since we imported almost 75% of our oil ( we were using 20 million barrels a day before the decline and we only produce six ) this is a huge deal. As is quoted above, even the drooling inbred banjo playing mouth breathers who think resources never deplete and Peak Oil ( Peak Oil and the Second Great Depression (2010-2030): A Survival Guide for Investors and Savers After Peak Oil
) is just my own paranoid fantasy, import decline is oh so very real and could only be denied by the kind of life form even the aforementioned retard would look down on. Our own beloved government that is always so truthful and never fudges any numbers like the amount of VC killed or the numbers of Iraqi civilians NOT killed or inflation rates or the unemployment numbers, even they are reporting import numbers being down. So if you and your butt buddy Bammy who went to Stockholm together to get his Nobel prize and stayed in a fancy hotel while you sucked the peanuts out of his ass, if you both are trying to tell me that imports are not down than I must lose all my self restraint and impeccable manners and scream that you are dumber than a box of rocks. So, now that we’ve established that import decline is real by degrading and ridiculing anyone that doesn’t agree with us, kind of like the global warming ( The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World's Top Climate Scientists ) advocates who have stated that anyone not agreeing with them is a traitor and will be put on a melting icecap to die, we can get to the main point here. “The US has done a marvelous job of ameliorating the effects of Peak Oil Imports” by which he agreed to downgrade to simple “effects of import decline, no Peak Oil here, nothing to see, move along and remain calm” just to shut you up and get on with the statement, which I agree is a swell thing to do on his part. *
What has been the price we have paid to avoid the stewpot? What did we have to do to avoid a full on economic collapse ( since we are talking about import decline rather than global supply decline, we won’t consider total collapse- just economic )? We nationalized a lot of industry, from cars to housing loans. We doubled our debt to keep the bankers going just a little bit longer. Our unemployment either doubled or quadrupled, depending on whose numbers you believe. We took almost half of our corn supply and turned it into ethanol. As a result almost everything in the food supply chain doubled or quadrupled in price. And that was just from corn no longer being cheaper than dirt. It had little to do with debased currency ( Debased currency and the London monetary conference
) or increased grain exports to feed a drought stricken world. The price of crude doubled even as we turned our food into fuel. We elected a complete and utter moron as President ( but that was just icing on the cake, as almost anyone other than Hillary Clinton would have done just as bad of a job- Hillary would have/will [ when she nukes the other government officials above her in the line of succession- remember, you heard it here first which will get me rendentioned to Syria ] do triple the damage ). Your home lost half its value and it is a matter of a few years- NOT decades- before you lose your pension. Personally I think the hoopla over privatizing 401(k)’s is a smoke screen for how close public pensions are to insolvency. And remember, for something like the last twelve out of fifteen months the US Treasury has had to make up for a deficient in the Social Security payments. That system has been broke for a year even as these whores on the Bammy payroll are telling you the program won’t be insolvent until some impossible date like 2031. *
All this has been what happened when we lost twenty percent of our energy supply ( 75% of 20 million is 15. A third of that gone leaves 10, which added to our six is 16. 16 out of twenty equals a total lose of 20% of our energy supply- and I’ve used conservative numbers. I think our imports are only 8 ). Just twenty percent. If we’ve lost oil imports for five years I think we can all agree that we’ll lose more every year hereafter. Things going bad has only started. May we live in interesting times.
END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
guest article
GUEST ARTICLE
Fixed Positions
I recently commented that fixed positions were a historically bad idea.Of course,
some "military expert" had to comment on his blog that I didn't know what I was talking about.
I have learned a great deal and got a lot of great ideas from the people who are kind enough to
comment on my little guest articles. Thank You!
Here is what I was thinking about when I said what I said:
Maginot Line France , ten years to build, two days to defeat.
Great Wall Of China , 2000 years to build .5500 miles long. proven ineffective against the
Mongols and was eventually abandoned.
Masada Fortress Israel, 70 A.D. 900 Jewish fighters committed suicide rather than surrender to
the Romans.Israeli soldiers still swear to never allow Masada to fall again.
Wailing Wall Israel , 1st one destroyed by the Babylonians
Walls of Jericho? , whether you believe the Bible story or not they did fall.
How about the Alamo?
The Battle of Thermopylae 490 BC 300 Spartans against the Persian Army teaches us several
valuable lessons. The Spartans defended the only road the Persians could use to pass.Hence
they created a bottleneck. Then when they had a few skirmishes , the bodies started piling up
and that created a choke point, even better. The hole got smaller and smaller until the Persians
had to dedicate troops to clearing out the obstruction. That's how 300 men held off an army for
two full days.
How did that spider hole work out for Saddam? When you are underground , anybody above
ground has you surrounded.
The Tortilla Wall,, Started in the early 90's. Being built between the United States and Mexico,
already controversy and widely known as ineffective.
My point is this: You are never completely safe. Never. You hear a noise you don't recognize
you will always get up to "check it out".
The "military expert" thinks whoever outside is unarmed and starving. I am talking about peeking
out your hole and seeing a looter army, a provisional government or some other organized and
well armed group. This "military Expert" always looks at every scenario like he sees it in his
fantasy.We will not be defending ourselves in someone's imagined idea of how it should go.
This is Rated X For Real! real extreme
There are some great retreats out there,don't get me wrong. I am just saying when you get over
confident you have jumped off the reality train and landed in never, never land.
the Mohave rat
Fixed Positions
I recently commented that fixed positions were a historically bad idea.Of course,
some "military expert" had to comment on his blog that I didn't know what I was talking about.
I have learned a great deal and got a lot of great ideas from the people who are kind enough to
comment on my little guest articles. Thank You!
Here is what I was thinking about when I said what I said:
Maginot Line France , ten years to build, two days to defeat.
Great Wall Of China , 2000 years to build .5500 miles long. proven ineffective against the
Mongols and was eventually abandoned.
Masada Fortress Israel, 70 A.D. 900 Jewish fighters committed suicide rather than surrender to
the Romans.Israeli soldiers still swear to never allow Masada to fall again.
Wailing Wall Israel , 1st one destroyed by the Babylonians
Walls of Jericho? , whether you believe the Bible story or not they did fall.
How about the Alamo?
The Battle of Thermopylae 490 BC 300 Spartans against the Persian Army teaches us several
valuable lessons. The Spartans defended the only road the Persians could use to pass.Hence
they created a bottleneck. Then when they had a few skirmishes , the bodies started piling up
and that created a choke point, even better. The hole got smaller and smaller until the Persians
had to dedicate troops to clearing out the obstruction. That's how 300 men held off an army for
two full days.
How did that spider hole work out for Saddam? When you are underground , anybody above
ground has you surrounded.
The Tortilla Wall,, Started in the early 90's. Being built between the United States and Mexico,
already controversy and widely known as ineffective.
My point is this: You are never completely safe. Never. You hear a noise you don't recognize
you will always get up to "check it out".
The "military expert" thinks whoever outside is unarmed and starving. I am talking about peeking
out your hole and seeing a looter army, a provisional government or some other organized and
well armed group. This "military Expert" always looks at every scenario like he sees it in his
fantasy.We will not be defending ourselves in someone's imagined idea of how it should go.
This is Rated X For Real! real extreme
There are some great retreats out there,don't get me wrong. I am just saying when you get over
confident you have jumped off the reality train and landed in never, never land.
the Mohave rat
Saturday, October 23, 2010
guest article
GUEST ARTICLE
THE “PISS ON IT” PHILOSOPHY OF SURVIVAL
Quietly Paranoid
NOTE – This article is NOT a criticism of anyone’s survival preps!
I do not have a bug out location, massive arsenal, 7 years of food or a trailer on junk land. Am I a “real” survivalist? Yes, I am a PISS ON IT survivalist. Let me explain:
My home is paid for but not ideally located. I live in a small, low crime town that is unfortunately located near three cities full of mouth breathing ghetto dwellers. The ghetto dwellers hate me because of my skin color and the fact that I own more stuff than they do. They conveniently overlook the fact that I worked my ass off, have no criminal record, and some college. In a crisis, some ghetto dwellers can be expected to storm into my area to get payback for “centuries of racial oppression“
Given that, should I pack up and move to a remote area? NOT ONLY NO BUT FUCK NO! I have friends and family in this area and a business that is not portable. I refuse to leave the home and business I worked for all my life for a pack of ghetto dwellers. Will I wind up dead? Maybe, but I hope a lot of attackers will die first. As Lord Bison says, people band together along racial lines in a crisis. The attackers will be facing the residents of a farming community, many of them deer hunters and ex-military. It will be amusing to see how ghetto dwellers with handguns do against a scoped 30-06. If I die anyway, PISS ON IT!
I am fat and fiftyish and was never a Navy Seal. Given conventional survivalist wisdom, I am roadkill and will be dead about 2 hours after a crisis. What I really am is a mechanic savant who can fix anything. I bought this property because it has a well with an easy to maintain pump, septic system, two springs that run 24/7 and a creek. I will have water even if the generator dies and plan to supply all my neighbors. Running the generator once a week for one hour will give me all the water I need for the week. My 30 gallons of stabilized gasoline will last a long time. If I die of dehydration anyway, PISS ON IT!
I have about 700 pounds of wheat, rice, oatmeal, and pinto beans packed away. I have a propane stove that works without electricity and an oversized tank. Along with the canned goods and other stuff, my wife and I should be able to eat well for about 2 years. I am going to pack away another 1000 pounds of wheat. I can also trade for feed corn with local farmers. If that is not enough and we starve anyway, PISS ON IT!
I have an older, drafty home that needs a tank of heating oil every winter to keep us from freezing to death. I have a kerosene and a propane heater for backup and will buy a wood stove soon. If we freeze to death anyway, PISS ON IT!
You can see where I am going with this. I would love to have a desert fortress like Lord Bison and move out of this corrupt East Coast Shithole. Trouble is, moving would require abandoning my family and business. After a lot of thought, I decided to prep the best I can and then PISS ON IT! I cannot afford a Rawles grade survival setup so the hillbilly makeshift setup will work or I will die. I used to obsess about my inability to afford the “Bunker in Idaho” Not anymore! I will prep the best I can then, PISS ON IT AND HAIL DARWIN
THE “PISS ON IT” PHILOSOPHY OF SURVIVAL
Quietly Paranoid
NOTE – This article is NOT a criticism of anyone’s survival preps!
I do not have a bug out location, massive arsenal, 7 years of food or a trailer on junk land. Am I a “real” survivalist? Yes, I am a PISS ON IT survivalist. Let me explain:
My home is paid for but not ideally located. I live in a small, low crime town that is unfortunately located near three cities full of mouth breathing ghetto dwellers. The ghetto dwellers hate me because of my skin color and the fact that I own more stuff than they do. They conveniently overlook the fact that I worked my ass off, have no criminal record, and some college. In a crisis, some ghetto dwellers can be expected to storm into my area to get payback for “centuries of racial oppression“
Given that, should I pack up and move to a remote area? NOT ONLY NO BUT FUCK NO! I have friends and family in this area and a business that is not portable. I refuse to leave the home and business I worked for all my life for a pack of ghetto dwellers. Will I wind up dead? Maybe, but I hope a lot of attackers will die first. As Lord Bison says, people band together along racial lines in a crisis. The attackers will be facing the residents of a farming community, many of them deer hunters and ex-military. It will be amusing to see how ghetto dwellers with handguns do against a scoped 30-06. If I die anyway, PISS ON IT!
I am fat and fiftyish and was never a Navy Seal. Given conventional survivalist wisdom, I am roadkill and will be dead about 2 hours after a crisis. What I really am is a mechanic savant who can fix anything. I bought this property because it has a well with an easy to maintain pump, septic system, two springs that run 24/7 and a creek. I will have water even if the generator dies and plan to supply all my neighbors. Running the generator once a week for one hour will give me all the water I need for the week. My 30 gallons of stabilized gasoline will last a long time. If I die of dehydration anyway, PISS ON IT!
I have about 700 pounds of wheat, rice, oatmeal, and pinto beans packed away. I have a propane stove that works without electricity and an oversized tank. Along with the canned goods and other stuff, my wife and I should be able to eat well for about 2 years. I am going to pack away another 1000 pounds of wheat. I can also trade for feed corn with local farmers. If that is not enough and we starve anyway, PISS ON IT!
I have an older, drafty home that needs a tank of heating oil every winter to keep us from freezing to death. I have a kerosene and a propane heater for backup and will buy a wood stove soon. If we freeze to death anyway, PISS ON IT!
You can see where I am going with this. I would love to have a desert fortress like Lord Bison and move out of this corrupt East Coast Shithole. Trouble is, moving would require abandoning my family and business. After a lot of thought, I decided to prep the best I can and then PISS ON IT! I cannot afford a Rawles grade survival setup so the hillbilly makeshift setup will work or I will die. I used to obsess about my inability to afford the “Bunker in Idaho” Not anymore! I will prep the best I can then, PISS ON IT AND HAIL DARWIN
Friday, October 22, 2010
fundamentals- buying wheat
FUNDAMENTALS- BUYING WHEAT
Fundamentals Friday starts in just a second. Just a short note to tell you that on Friday’s I’m going to move my regular useless blather about whatever odds and ends excite or annoy me from in front of the regular article to the end. This way you jump right into the main topic, become a-tingle from joy and then slowly ease into withdrawal as I wind up on another topic.
*
You must have wheat for your survival stockpile. You can’t affordably buy enough calories in regular grocery food form. Wheat must be the bulk of your post-apocalypse ( American Apocalypse: The Beginning (Volume 1)
) menu. Even the professionally packaged emergency food-for-a-year has a large number of its calories from wheat. You pay over a grand to have two hundred pounds of wheat with the remainder a few cans of freeze dried veggies and meat. A very expensive way to feed the family. First, there is no need to store vegetables. Just sprout some of the wheat. Sprouts ( Sprouting Strainer Lid - Fits Most Wide-mouth Mason, Kerr & Ball Canning / Pickling Jars - Perfect to Use for Sprouts & Sprouting in Salads. Convert Any Standard Jar Into a Sprouter. Growing Sprouts Is Healthy & Fun.
) are some of the most nutritious vegetables there are. Second, while convenient and possibly delicious, if you want to buy a frugal food storage you are going to have to get your protein through legumes ( beans ) rather than animal flesh. I love meat and believe that societies forced to subsist on crops alone are poor societies indeed. They are malnourished and impoverished peons. American vegetarians are ignorant and ill informed ( a small percentage may do well without meat but the average human needs it ). But you will have to be content with plant protein for the immediate future after the collapse. By combining a bean and a grain your body gets a complete protein. Either one alone is insufficient.
*
Having said that, you must concentrate on storing just wheat at first. Eating only wheat your body will have a less than ideal protein but at least it will have calories. But if you cut your wheat stocks 25% ( the price difference between wheat and beans is fifty percent, substituting one for another gives you a 25% cut in calories ) to have a complete protein you will face starvation from zero calories that much sooner. Buy your wheat first and then buy your beans. Whatever your goal is ( I would say three years per person at 400 pounds of wheat a year, but just 12 months is far better than most folks have ) ( Passport to Survival: Four Foods and More to Use and Store
) get it all in wheat, then start in buying the beans. And every pound of beans you buy stretches out the wheat a bit further. You need a minimum of 365 pounds of wheat per person per year for calories, with the remaining 35 pounds for sprouts. A pound of wheat kernels a day is 1500 calories. Less than a minimum but enough to keep you alive if you don’t engage in heavy labor. It is far from ideal, but better than nothing. Anything under 1200 calories and your body cannibalizes itself just to stay alive.
*
You want hard red winter wheat if you can get it. White spring wheat is okay, it just has a slightly lower protein content ( 13% instead if 15% ). Wheat has the highest protein content of all the readily available inexpensive grains. Corn has only half the protein which is fine in combination with beans but fatal if used alone exclusively. Rice is nice but the brown whole grain spoils quickly ( wheat kernels last forever by contrast ) and the white is a nutritionless food good only for empty calories ( kind of like white flour ). There are three good sources for wheat kernels. For buying bulk amounts quickly, go to a feed and grain ( After the Harvest, Indiana's historic grain elevators and feed mills
) store. Buy fifty pound sacks of wheat kernels. Not cracked wheat, not wheat with vet medicine added, not wheat with molasses. Just plain wheat kernels. I’m paying $15 per bag and that is expensive. You should be able to find them for 20-30% less in your area. If that fails, and you are really lucky, your local Wal-Mart MIGHT carry buckets of wheat. It is up to the individual store ( our area has a large Mormon population and sales justify the stocking ). I’ve heard horror stories from minions having no luck getting their store to order for them. Your luck may vary, but expect a hassle. Last, go shopping at
http://www.emergencyessentials.com/
I don’t make money referring those folks, but I’ve bought from them in the past and they are exceptional. Besides being a great company with Mom and Pop ( The Mom & Pop Store: True Stories from the Heart of America
) old fashion service, they have the best shipping policy. You pay a flat rate for your order, the shipping costs are build into the prices ( the highest rate, $12, covers any amount of buckets of wheat ). I can’t say they are the cheapest, but I’ve never wanted to buy freight collect. You can get an estimate but you can still be faced with sticker shock at delivery. All other companies want you to wait for delivery to see how much shipping is, these folks take the guess work out of it. For that alone they have my vote.
*
When shopping at Wal-Mart or the feed store or EE, factor in all your costs, especially the buckets. Which are a far cry from cheap anymore. And factor in the type of bucket. I can buy food grade wheat at Wal-Mart for the same price as packing it myself in non-food grade buckets ( 14 Food Grade White 5 gal. plastic pails without lids
). But, we’ll cover storage and grain grinders another time.
End of this Friday Fundamental. More drivel below.
*
I want to thank everyone for the discussion on chamber inserts. I hadn’t wanted to go with a pistol round in my rifle. I had preferred carbine as it sacrificed far less range and power. But since I could no longer buy the commie carbine insert the choice was the removable pistol adapter. I had doubts on its range, but one minion helpfully pointed out you had a ten inch drop at one hundred yards. More info is over at
http://newdawnsurvival.com/blog5/2010/10/20/rifle-chamber-insert/
as far as information from Mel Tappan’s survival gun book ( Survival Guns
) and pistol rounds. If I’m looking at a almost foot drop at a hundred yards, that’s aiming for the head for a chest hit. I think that is a decent and easy way to utilize a cheap pistol round and it seems to be much better than a rimfire. I’m still not 100% sold on the idea but will more than likely take the plunge and invest soon in this back-up to my back-up’s back-up arsenal ( surplus ammo, then commercial, then reloads, then rimfire and/or pistol rounds ).
*
Both days this weekend have guest articles.
END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
Fundamentals Friday starts in just a second. Just a short note to tell you that on Friday’s I’m going to move my regular useless blather about whatever odds and ends excite or annoy me from in front of the regular article to the end. This way you jump right into the main topic, become a-tingle from joy and then slowly ease into withdrawal as I wind up on another topic.
*
You must have wheat for your survival stockpile. You can’t affordably buy enough calories in regular grocery food form. Wheat must be the bulk of your post-apocalypse ( American Apocalypse: The Beginning (Volume 1)
) menu. Even the professionally packaged emergency food-for-a-year has a large number of its calories from wheat. You pay over a grand to have two hundred pounds of wheat with the remainder a few cans of freeze dried veggies and meat. A very expensive way to feed the family. First, there is no need to store vegetables. Just sprout some of the wheat. Sprouts ( Sprouting Strainer Lid - Fits Most Wide-mouth Mason, Kerr & Ball Canning / Pickling Jars - Perfect to Use for Sprouts & Sprouting in Salads. Convert Any Standard Jar Into a Sprouter. Growing Sprouts Is Healthy & Fun. ) are some of the most nutritious vegetables there are. Second, while convenient and possibly delicious, if you want to buy a frugal food storage you are going to have to get your protein through legumes ( beans ) rather than animal flesh. I love meat and believe that societies forced to subsist on crops alone are poor societies indeed. They are malnourished and impoverished peons. American vegetarians are ignorant and ill informed ( a small percentage may do well without meat but the average human needs it ). But you will have to be content with plant protein for the immediate future after the collapse. By combining a bean and a grain your body gets a complete protein. Either one alone is insufficient.*
Having said that, you must concentrate on storing just wheat at first. Eating only wheat your body will have a less than ideal protein but at least it will have calories. But if you cut your wheat stocks 25% ( the price difference between wheat and beans is fifty percent, substituting one for another gives you a 25% cut in calories ) to have a complete protein you will face starvation from zero calories that much sooner. Buy your wheat first and then buy your beans. Whatever your goal is ( I would say three years per person at 400 pounds of wheat a year, but just 12 months is far better than most folks have ) ( Passport to Survival: Four Foods and More to Use and Store
) get it all in wheat, then start in buying the beans. And every pound of beans you buy stretches out the wheat a bit further. You need a minimum of 365 pounds of wheat per person per year for calories, with the remaining 35 pounds for sprouts. A pound of wheat kernels a day is 1500 calories. Less than a minimum but enough to keep you alive if you don’t engage in heavy labor. It is far from ideal, but better than nothing. Anything under 1200 calories and your body cannibalizes itself just to stay alive. *
You want hard red winter wheat if you can get it. White spring wheat is okay, it just has a slightly lower protein content ( 13% instead if 15% ). Wheat has the highest protein content of all the readily available inexpensive grains. Corn has only half the protein which is fine in combination with beans but fatal if used alone exclusively. Rice is nice but the brown whole grain spoils quickly ( wheat kernels last forever by contrast ) and the white is a nutritionless food good only for empty calories ( kind of like white flour ). There are three good sources for wheat kernels. For buying bulk amounts quickly, go to a feed and grain ( After the Harvest, Indiana's historic grain elevators and feed mills
) store. Buy fifty pound sacks of wheat kernels. Not cracked wheat, not wheat with vet medicine added, not wheat with molasses. Just plain wheat kernels. I’m paying $15 per bag and that is expensive. You should be able to find them for 20-30% less in your area. If that fails, and you are really lucky, your local Wal-Mart MIGHT carry buckets of wheat. It is up to the individual store ( our area has a large Mormon population and sales justify the stocking ). I’ve heard horror stories from minions having no luck getting their store to order for them. Your luck may vary, but expect a hassle. Last, go shopping at http://www.emergencyessentials.com/
I don’t make money referring those folks, but I’ve bought from them in the past and they are exceptional. Besides being a great company with Mom and Pop ( The Mom & Pop Store: True Stories from the Heart of America
) old fashion service, they have the best shipping policy. You pay a flat rate for your order, the shipping costs are build into the prices ( the highest rate, $12, covers any amount of buckets of wheat ). I can’t say they are the cheapest, but I’ve never wanted to buy freight collect. You can get an estimate but you can still be faced with sticker shock at delivery. All other companies want you to wait for delivery to see how much shipping is, these folks take the guess work out of it. For that alone they have my vote.*
When shopping at Wal-Mart or the feed store or EE, factor in all your costs, especially the buckets. Which are a far cry from cheap anymore. And factor in the type of bucket. I can buy food grade wheat at Wal-Mart for the same price as packing it myself in non-food grade buckets ( 14 Food Grade White 5 gal. plastic pails without lids
). But, we’ll cover storage and grain grinders another time.End of this Friday Fundamental. More drivel below.
*
I want to thank everyone for the discussion on chamber inserts. I hadn’t wanted to go with a pistol round in my rifle. I had preferred carbine as it sacrificed far less range and power. But since I could no longer buy the commie carbine insert the choice was the removable pistol adapter. I had doubts on its range, but one minion helpfully pointed out you had a ten inch drop at one hundred yards. More info is over at
http://newdawnsurvival.com/blog5/2010/10/20/rifle-chamber-insert/
as far as information from Mel Tappan’s survival gun book ( Survival Guns
) and pistol rounds. If I’m looking at a almost foot drop at a hundred yards, that’s aiming for the head for a chest hit. I think that is a decent and easy way to utilize a cheap pistol round and it seems to be much better than a rimfire. I’m still not 100% sold on the idea but will more than likely take the plunge and invest soon in this back-up to my back-up’s back-up arsenal ( surplus ammo, then commercial, then reloads, then rimfire and/or pistol rounds ). *
Both days this weekend have guest articles.
END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. 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. Thank you.
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