Joel Simon
November 19, 2009
18:07
Yeah, I was eating breakfast this morning when my cell phone rang, a not very usual occurrence. It was L, my neighbor from maybe a mile and a half away as the crow flies. "We've got Little Bear and Beauty over here," she tells me. She doesn't sound real pleased.I was wolfing the last of my egg when W comes over. "L called, I'm gonna go get Beauty and Little Bear," he says. I said okay, I'd been about to go myself but if you wanna that's fine with me.Now, LB has shown up at D&L's before, but on those occasions it has been in the company of Ghost when they went chasing one of our trucks. In this case all the trucks were sitting in the frozen yard, right where they belong. No, this time Beauty and LB just decided they'd waiting long enough for their morning walky. This Would Not Do. And it is true that Beauty and LB have gotten to be a rather mischievous team. Out here, mischief can get you hurt or killed.W came back with the two miscreants and a rather stern request from L that we do something about our dogs. We couldn't think of anything to do but confine them during the times when they're most likely to get each other in trouble. So this afternoon while buying flashing for the stovepipe, I also bought some stake-out augers and cables. I drove my auger into the ground, connected LB to it, and went into the barn to take a shower, wondering what havoc would have ensued during my absence.When I returned, LB was...Well, he was...
14:00
M came by this morning and said, "I'm hung up on plumbing. You wanna go put up the ceiling box and roof the cabin?""Why the hell not?" said I. And so that's what we've been doing.Last Saturday, D helped me build the ceiling box for the stovepipe, but it's been sitting ever since while we put walls up in M's Dome. We're back for lunch at the moment, but have to run to town right after because the people who sold me the stovepipe kit also sold me the wrong @#$% flashing. But the box is installed and there's stovepipe sticking out through the roof.Full disclosure: The reason I need help with what would otherwise seem a simple task is that the cabin's roof (I really must post pix at some point) is truly, massively pitched, I have one leg which means one ankle that bends and one foot that gives me feedback, and - oh, yeah - I'm terrified of heights anyway and at the top the bugger's about 20 feet off the ground.It'll be really great to get the roofing on the poor thing so it will stop filling with water when it rains. :-(
November 18, 2009
18:32
Who knew you could thwart pirates by shooting them?NAIROBI, Kenya - Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months and were thwarted by private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship who fired off guns and a high-decibel noise device.Of course, more enlightened voices were immediately raised in shocked protest. Defend yourself against armed pirates...with guns? How horrid! How...unmutual!"Shipping companies are still pretty much overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of armed guards," Middleton said. "Lots of private security companies employ people who don't have maritime experience. Also, there's the idea that it's the responsibility of states and navies to provide security. I would think it's a step backward if we start privatizing security of the shipping trade."Backward from what, exactly? Acting like mature creatures, rather than helpless, mewling infants?They're three or four guys in a skiff, for god's sake! You've got a great big cargo ship, which is a far superior shooting platform! Last time piracy on the high seas was a big problem, in the 18th century, do you know what made it go away? Cannon, that's what. Great, big expensive deck cannon. Not owned by navies, but by private shipping companies that didn't want to give their property to pissant coastal pirates. It's really very simple.Take some freaking responsibility for yourself! Daddy's not here to protect you.
November 17, 2009
09:51
Earlier this morning, on a prepping forum where I spend too much leisure time, somebody posted a poll titled "Do you actually want SHTF?" I read through the answers, some of which were quite thoughtful. Then I added my own Deep Thoughts.I voted "none of the above."When I was an angry young man I dreamed of it. Fantasized about it; it was in all my plans. Would have done anything I could to bring it about, and if I didn't survive the doing I'd still have believed I'd left the world ultimately a better place. Angry young men can be stupid that way. Having studied a bit of history since then, and acquired more than a few gray whiskers, I realize that at best it wouldn't bring an improvement. A real, catastrophic breakdown might or might not toss out the Czar, but if it did it would bring the Bolsheviks and they're way worse.No, the things I hate and fear in this world will be with me till I die. The best I can do is learn how not to fear them. I can't make the world a better place; it's not in my power. But I'm still free to work on myself. And another thread of my youth was a sense of deep inadequacy whenever I thought of my ancestors, and how they, unlike myself, were not dependent for every tiny thing on the grocery store and the centralized infrastructure. The thought of dying of cold or hunger because the trucks and the electrons stopped moving always used to disgust me. I wasn't disgusted with the trucks or the electrons, which were out of my power. I was disgusted with myself, for being so dependent on masters I hated and forces I couldn't control.When I got a little older I put all that out of my mind for decades. It seemed, at the time, the path of maturity. I became Mr. Suburban Man, but it never brought me peace. And older still, I decided that one part of that stupid, angry young man was right all along. I no longer give a damn whether this system endures or not, or what form its theoretical breakdown might take. I no longer debate calderas or asteroids vs. hyperinflation or civil breakdown. Instead I wrestle with balky solar batteries and help like-minded neighbors build their houses in the desert. I don't worry about the world outside me, because I can't do anything about it and wouldn't know what to do if I could. I work on myself.So now, for me, prepping isn't about some end-of-the-world fantasy. It's about the way I've chosen to live now.
November 16, 2009
10:44
At some point when you've lots of time on your hands and want a giggle at someone else's expense, check this out.I kept looking for the cues that this was a spoof site. But as far as I can tell this person is as serious as a heart attack but (unintentionally, no doubt) funnier than that.Sample, from the Department of Made-Up Statistics:Conservatives like to portray America as the land of “rugged individualism” where people would rather go it alone than ever depend on government for anything. And surveys show that a large majority of Americans believe that people should take individual responsibility for their lives. But these surveys also reveal that surprisingly large numbers of people believe that the government should take the lead and be responsible for dealing with a wide variety of social and economic problems. 71% of Americans believe that the government has an important or essential responsibility for seeing to it that anyone who wants a job can have one. 63% believe that the government has an important or essential responsibility to provide citizens with adequate housing; and 78% of us think that the government has an important or essential responsibility to provide citizens with good medical care.6 Similarly large majorities strongly support the notion that it is the responsibility of the public sector to “guarantee a quality public education,” “protect the environment,” and “ensure equal opportunity for everyone.”7 Clearly when we stop to think about what government can do for us in specific areas, we don’t believe that we should be going it alone without any help from the government.
November 14, 2009
22:34
Who said I could blog it. Just a day in the life of a citizen, citizens.I'm visiting a friend in Tucson, Arizona, this week and this morning we set out toward downtown for an arts event. We hadn't gone very far. We were stopped at a stoplight at an enormous intersection of a parkway and the I-10 freeway. The light turned green, but traffic didn't move.Into the intersection, against the light, came screaming two motorcycle cops, lights and sirens blazing. They paused in the middle. Behind them came a police pickup truck, lights and sirens also blazing. And behind that another motorcycle cop, ditto. Then they all kept moving right along.They weren't moving fast enough for it to be a chase, so my blood pressure started rising, wondering what sort of oriental poobah of a politician they were escorting.... When into the interesection came a semi truck with its long, narrow cargo wrapped in a decorated tarp. And behind it came a smaller, but similarly tarped and decorated truck.In big words on the side were: "Arizona's Gift: The Capitol Christmas Tree 2009."http://www.capitolchristmastree2009.org/funfacts.phpEvery year, it seems, some state is sucker lucky enough to be chosen to provide a tree as a "gift" to Congress. This year, it's an 85-foot blue spruce from the mountains of northern Arizona. (Yes, much to the surprise of people who've never been here, Arizona has extensively forested mountains.)Geographically astute readers will recognize that Tucson is nowhere near northern Arizona and isn't on any logical route from northern Arizona to Washington, DC. Yep, you guessed it; the tree is being escorted around the state for 10 days at taxpayer expense before heading cross-country for another 10 days at further taxpayer expense.And this just a day or two after a report noting that Arizona is second only to California in its state of governmental economic disaster.The link above says the full convoy contains 12 vehicles, so we clearly didn't see every bit of the grandiose waste. But we did see this parade tie up traffic in an already traffic-snarled city and can only imagine what it's going to do (and how much it's going to cost in both dollars and annoyance) when it reaches Phoenix.Your hard-earned dollars at work, Arizonans!Oh well, at least we can say that not one of those cops, at that moment, was tasing anybody or accidentally setting anybody's house on fire by throwing a flash-bang onto a bed. Nor were they out committing highway robbery against innocent motorists, nor arresting anybody for contempt of cop.So all in all, I guess it was a good day.Also, in downtown Tucson, in the very center of the highest-rent area of banking and business, there's a big, impressive-but-friendly business with fancy logos, signage and super-slick posters in its big bronze-tinted windows. The "business" is "HUDNextDoor." And yes, it's the federal department of Housing and Urban development, selling itself like crazy. Exactly what it's selling, I don't want to guess. But it's clearly selling it at a high price to thee and me.I see why you prefer to live as a hermit, off in places where your mind doesn't get bonked by things like this.[REDACTED]P.S. The Capitol Tree website claims "the tree is being privately funded and donations are being sought."Uh huh. Yeah. I'll just bet private donors paid for all those siren-bearing cops and that no governmental money or force was used to tie up all that traffic or to pay for governor Jan Brewer's trip to DC to stand next to Nancy Pelosi while she lights the thing up.
09:15
...between being hated or being ignored - you can only have one, but you must have one - which would you choose?Once upon a time there was this uber-troll - it's the only fair designation - who went by the nym Gunkid. If you spend time on gun forums, you've heard of him. Gunkid's actual name was known to the community, but I don't remember or care what it is. Gunkid's claim to fame was that he could disrupt even the most draconian moderation: He could bring any forum anywhere to its knees during his stay. I've watched mods frantically ban one Gunkid sockpuppet after another, several times a day. Gunkid was a lunatic: He made outrageous, idiotic claims about guns and suppressors and SHTF scenarios (If you've ever heard of a 'tactical wheelbarrow,' that's a Gunkid reference.) and just tied up the boards for days. It was a hoot. You couldn't really say your forum had arrived until it had suffered its first Gunkid infestation. And it would, too - that ol' boy got around.Moderators hated him. I suspect most posters had a sneaking, almost guilty affection for him. I know I did. I mean, c'mon - he's disrupting what is essentially a recreational distraction from work - on the boss's computer - when you're being paid to work but aren't doing it. It's hard to get too self-righteous.When Gunkid was around - wherever "around" happened to be - it was all about Gunkid. And I guess that was the whole point, because nobody made it any secret that they were laughing at him. And I don't recall him ever posting anything that wasn't laughable. He would have to have been every bit as delusional as he came across, which is too delusional to function more than a few minutes in society, not to understand that he was a laughingstock. And I often wondered at first; what was the point of that? I'd have hidden under my bed for a month if I ever got a reception like that and knew I deserved it, but he sought it out. He did it incessantly.The point, I suppose, was that people were paying attention to him. He didn't know how to be respected in the way he wished he deserved, so he settled for becoming this ridiculous internet legend because at least then he wasn't being ignored. He couldn't make a positive difference, so he settled for being a disruptive influence and seemed to find it just as good.Gunkid has come to mind several times in the past few days. I think he's helping me to understand the motivations of politicians and bureaucrats. I mean, here's Pelosi & Co. busily finding ways to shove their "health care" takeover down our collective throat. The simplest economic logic demands, and recent history in one place after another proves, that it will be a disaster. But they're doing it anyway. And it doesn't matter how many times this proposal or that is voted down - it doesn't matter how many near-riots they cause in how many "town hall" meetings: Their minds are made up. This is the way it's going to be. Not because it's the right thing to do. Not because it makes any sense on any level. No - they're doing it because they can, and because it will by god have an effect on the lives of everybody here. For good or ill people will remember their names, boy.I finally understand. Nancy Pelosi is Gunkid in a skirt....which is a mental picture I could have done without this early in the morning. I'm gonna go walk the dogs now.
November 13, 2009
18:25
"To me, hope lies on the path where individuals accept the cost of duplicating what the state’s managers promise but can’t deliver. By traveling this path, we may preserve a remnant of civil society while the rest of the herd and its elected parasites bleed themselves dry." - David Calderwood
12:03
Joe Biden's security vehicles have killed more people than my gun. - AnonH/T (and pic) @ War On Guns.
10:04
The shotcrete crew actually arrived early, having left the city at something like four in the morning and apparently mounted JATO bottles to their truck. That was pretty weird, but when the first concrete truck arrived dead on time, we knew something very, very strange was happening. Things were going right. We really don't know how to deal with that. And they spoke not a word (of English, anyway,) but went straight to their work. Spraying all the way around the bottom of the dome, then mounting scaffolds and going around again. These guys mostly do swimming pools. Nobody out here has a swimming pool, but if you think of M's Dome as a sort of upside-down, inside-out swimming pool, then these were the right people for the job. Certainly the unfamiliar geometry didn't seem to bother them. I love it when a crew knows what it's doing and just does it. In accordance with the instructions from the manufacturer, M had turned the inside of the dome into a maze of braces and chains to take out as much flexibility as possible and support the burlap and mesh against the very considerable weight of the wet concrete. This became essential at the beginning of the second pass, which was high enough to exert some real force on the steel, which promptly started flexing. For a few minutes, until we rearranged things, braces were falling like dominoes. But no damage was done. I really wondered how the burlap was going to react to all that wet concrete on top. I know it's been done before and works, but...well, it just didn't seem natural. But it works great! The concrete permeated the cloth but never once blew through it. And then...right at this point...they ran out of concrete. It took three hours to get another truck, and I went home. But sometime right around dark M showed up at my lair with a bottle of good rum and a shit-eating grin, looking for somebody with whom to toast Successful Completion! It works! The dome is now comprised of concrete, not just burlap and steel. Yes!Now the wind's been blowing all night, so if you'll forgive me I have to go help wet down a whole bunch of concrete before it cracks and falls away. :-()
November 12, 2009
07:24
Today, if the good lord's willing etc., we (watch someone else) shotcrete M's Dome. Trucks arriving from far away in the city...all sorts of things await to go wrong with that...we're on the ragged edge of the time of the season when you should be doing things like this...will the cement truck driver(s) get lost again?...ohgodohgod...M is, as has become traditional, a total nervous wreck. I sincerely hope I'm completely sure that everything will be just fine. Whatever happens, we'll be right there watching it, our toes curling in our boots, ready to jump in with braces when the burlap collapses under the weight of the concrete applaud with glee when the whole operation goes forward without hitch one, because damn didn't M cover all the bases and leave nothing whatever to possibly go wrong!Okay, I'm a nervous wreck too and it isn't even my house. We'll just have to endure this day and see how it all turns out. Report with pix follows.
November 11, 2009
15:08
Two vehicles owned by the federal government and being driven by secret service employees strike and kill a pedestrian at a crosswalk in Washington DC. Both vehicles strike the pedestrian.Blood alcohol and drug tests are administered to:A. The driversB. The victim
09:24
Last winter was a cold one here at the secret lair, Mk I. I was (still am, lazy ass) in rather improvised quarters and got my heat where I could. For part of the winter I heated the barn's scriptorium with a small Mr. Heater, scavenging a hose from my campstove and connecting it to a 20-lb propane bottle. At the time I didn't give any thought to the advisability of doing this; it could be done, so I just went ahead and did it without reflecting that I get into the biggest problems when I do that.This fall, just prior to the first good cold snap, I dragged out the Mr. Heater and found that it didn't work at all. Didn't even try; didn't behave as if propane or heat were in any way connected with its function of being a large, clumsy paperweight. Oh, dear.A (very) little belated research pointed out the reason for this. In fact, it's right in the instructions which I didn't have but could have easily downloaded. It seems that the oil to be found in any propane bottle other than the little 1-lb "You won't get through the night with this" camping bottles chingers up the works of a Mr. Heater in fairly short order. Once it's had time to congeal nicely over the warm season, you're done.So in connecting one of these handy space heaters to a remote propane bottle, you need more than the dedicated hose. You also need one of these filters. Learn from my expensive mistake.
November 10, 2009
November 9, 2009
17:53
M got back from his trip to the city, and the landlady sent up Magnus headstone. Not a very good likeness, but I like the epitaph she settled on. It's very him.
12:10
Yes, believe it or not I am working on the secret lair. Though I admit that for some time I just sort of patted it on the head in passing, I'm finally getting back to work on the interior. As soon as I've got the wire run, I'll be packing the walls with insulation. Got lots of plastic for vapor barrier, and I'll put up the siding as needed to hold it in place.There are, of course, a number of impediments: I have everything I need for the roof and to install the wood stove except two things: the services of Clark Kent to move the stove and its pedestal into place, and some dreaming clue what I'm supposed to do then. But that'll work itself out...I'm sure. Eventually. Before the next ice age, for sure. There's also the matter of the interior wall for the bathroom, which I should probably at least frame in before doing all that other interior stuff. But I'm out of framing lumber, and besides I find logical procedure such a bore. Don't you?
08:09
It used to have pride of place in my study, in a little glass case that showed it off like some expensive crystal figure. I remember thinking often what a lousy job of mixing it represented; it was soft, porous as hell. Rotten as the purpose that had caused it to be poured.It was a piece of the Berlin Wall, a gift from a friend who had received it, along with several others, from that East German branch of her family that the West German branch hadn't seen in several decades. After the wall came down, twenty years ago today, all the family got together in Berlin and my friend came back with a suitcase full of these broken chunks. I imagine they were a dime a dozen in Berlin for a while: It was a pretty big wall. Good riddance. Most of the tyrants of the corrupt communist regimes of eastern Europe survived; some even flourished in different guises. Only a few went to a different kind of wall, that that's a damned shame. But whatever our species' failings in the matter of maintaining the freedoms of its individuals, at least we have this to our credit. That damned wall is no more.
November 8, 2009
08:49
So yesterday the visits to this little backwater blog suddenly went, by my modest standards, through the roof. It seems my comments concerning a certain pro-military song were not appreciated by another blogger, one who apparently enjoys a lot more traffic than I get. Well, disagreements happen: The thing with being politically, er, unaffiliated is that you get chances to piss off conservatives and liberals alike. It's part of the fun.So yeah - Hi, guys! I'm the milquetoast. Welcome!Then this morning somebody linked the "modern policing" post to reddit.com, and that's already doing alarming things to the normally somnolent stats. Whom have I offended this time, he wondered, rubbing his hands together with glee.Anyway, if any of my visitors has clicked to the homepage and read this, Welcome! Stick around for a while. Take your shoes off. Whatever impressions you may have gained from the post that led you here, I guarantee it's worse than that. :-)
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