According To Hoyt

(Note from Holly the Assistant: yes, this is a Blast from the Past, no, it is not by Sarah. I figured given that we’re heading into either winter or summer, depending on where on Earth y’all are located, and the general political instability, y’all could have a reminder to please go check your BOBs. You never know when a storm or other unpleasantness will make your supplies necessary. I have not checked that the links included are valid. Original post here: https://accordingtohoyt.com/2021/02/15/many-shades-of-bob-by-doug-irvin/)

*VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: BOB IS A BUG OUT BAG.

*Also, yes, it’s long. You don’t skimp words or preparation. Also Doug Wishes me to make clear this is not precisely his, he just compiled it from various places — SAH*

Foreword: I started compiling ideas and source lists for emergencies some years ago. Not all of the material below is from my own research. Some of it is from other sources. I didn’t keep track of the sources at the time, since this was primarily for my personal use.

If someone claims this is their work; fine. I’ll split the proceeds with you. You can have half the zero amount I got. OTOH, I would note you as a source then.

The Absolute Minimalist BOB

The minimalist BOB is something you can chuck into your trunk and forget about until needed. It is for the family member who is resistant to the idea of a BOB, or meant as an extra bit of smart packed into each of your car’s trunks to augment a basic BOB.To assemble it you will need:

Several quart sized and one gallon sized Ziplock type bags.

A lighter. Fire is our friend.

One flattened roll of toilet paper with the cardboard tube removed. Toilet paper is also our friend. Once flattened, place in appropriate ziplock bag, squeeze out all the air and close Ziplock bag.

A pocketknife, preferably a Leatherman Supertool or something similar that is high quality. This is without a doubt incredibly useful. You shouldn’t even put it in the bag unless it is a spare, put it in your purse or on your belt. This isn’t a pocketknife, it is a toolset. It is a can opener, a knife, a saw, a file, an awl, a bottle opener, a pliers, a wire cutter, a crimper, a flathead screwdriver, a Phillip’s head screwdriver, and both a metric and English ruler. This ain’t your Daddy’s Swiss Army knife. Spyderco also makes a gadget knife with a blade so sharp you could do surgery, so check it out as well. http://www.SPYDERCO.com

Five Maxipads. This is optional, but in addition to their accepted use, they are very absorbent and sterile, so they can be used as pressure bandages in case of an accident. Put in Ziplock and squeeze out the air.

2 pint bottles of water. (optional).

2 or 3 power bars. If you can, get the horrible kind like they put in military combat rations, the dreaded MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat), these bars will last longer than commercial counterparts.

A flashlight. They now make small disposable LED keychains that are extremely bright and run off of a watch battery. Normally these things run under $1.00USD, although some places charge more. While this is good from a size standpoint (they are about as big as a quarter around), and from a weight standpoint (maybe a quarter ounce), they are not terribly rugged. Mag-Lite makes a very small flashlight that uses AAA batteries called a Mini Mag-Lite that is very bright and about as big as a man’s middle finger. All Mag-Lite flashlights can be used to kill or injure a grown man, so look at getting one of those. It is more expensive, but wow! Tough as tough can be, water proof, and they come with a spare bulb in the base. Leave the batteries in their package and stick the light into a ziplock bag with at least 2 extra batteries.  Other light sources are http://www.MAGLITE.com, and http://www.surefire.com  

If you have these items you will be set for the vast majority of life’s little curveballs. The Leatherman or a similar tool alone will solve the majority, but the others really do matter.

Take the stuff and put it into the gallon ziploc bag. Express the air and zip it shut. You can then take the second bag, place the full bag into the second so that the zipped portion is put in first, express the air, and zip the second one shut. This will provide a lot of moisture protection.

The Basic BOB

The Basic BOB is meant to be carried every day, and is geared towards an urban or suburban environment. This is something that, since it is meant for everyday carry, must be comfortable, rugged, and useful in daily life.

The bag itself. We suggest something inconspicuous and easy to carry,

but with an appreciable load capacity. A medium sized briefcase will suffice, but try to get a North Face or Jansport type bag that college students use as book bags. The bags will have extra external and internal pockets which will come in handy for little things you need to get to quickly such as toilet paper or food. The bags often come with Fastex buckles which allow the bearer to externally attach other items allowing the user to customize his carry.

A Leatherman Supertool or something similar as mentioned in the Minimalist BOB.

Spare glasses. If you wear glasses get a spare set and put them in. If you wear contacts, get a pair of glasses and store them in the bag. In an abrasive or caustic atmosphere you can seriously damage your eyes with contacts, and you may not be able to clean your hands enough to replace dirty or lost lenses. So, glasses it is.

One roll of toilet paper. Never be without at least one roll of toilet paper. For ease of carry remove the cardboard tube and smash it flat. Then take it and put it into a ziplock bag. Express the air from the bag and seal it tightly. If you’ve ever in a position where there is no TP, you understand the necessity for this one.

A multifuel lighter (zippo-type) or an unopened drug store butane lighter. If you don’t smoke you may never need it, but fire is man’s most basic tool, so get it and have it. If you get the Zippo, remember extra flints and fuel.

Food. Have some power bars or some cookies. The best way to figure your needs is to miss lunch, then see if one or two packs of Oreos or a power bar or two takes most of the edge off. The prepackaged cheese and crackers snacks for kids are a good idea also. Plan on a 48 hour period of relying on your BOB. Have six very small meals, each in its own ziplock bag. Eat them once a month and restock so they don’t go bad on you.

Water.  Have a minimum of 4 20 ounce bottles. If you can stomach warm Gatorade, get that instead. Most hunger pains are actually thirst, so try drinking a half a bottle of fluid with each mini meal you eat.

Medicine. Be absolutely certain you have any daily meds you take. This may be something you have to put into and remove from the bag each day, but don’t forget them. If the medicine you take is not easily perishable and not a controlled substance, get your doctor to write an extra prescription and keep a spare bottle, that you rotate out monthly, in the bag at all times.

Space blanket. There are emergency blankets that fold up to about the size of a sandwich. They are inexpensive and very warm. They are also usually waterproof. Get one or two. http://www.SPORTSMANSGUIDE.com

Toothbrush and toothpaste. This is optional, but performing personal hygiene can make you feel worlds better in a bad situation. Put them in a ziplock bag together.

Money. A spare $100.00 is a very good idea. At the very least get a roll of quarters for vending machines since they may work in the absence of electricity. Be aware that money may not have much value in a true SHTF situation. Money is a good idea, but it only works in a civilized paradigm.

Deodorant. Very optional. This only applies if you are from the US. Other countries don’t seem to want it.

Spare clothing.  This is optional, but not a bad idea. At the very least you will want some spare socks sitting snug in a ziplock bag.

Personal protection. Get the strongest pepper spray you can find and rotate stock every six months or so. If the button gets pushed, get rid of it. The can will leak.

Firearm. If you live in a free state, get a concealed carry permit so that you can carry your weapon without fear of arrest. If you are in a state where the rights of all people are not recognized, rely on the pepper spray. For a BOB firearm, the suggestion is for a something reliable. It has to go boom every time the trigger is pulled. A compact lightweight revolver such as Taurus or Smith & Wesson makes may be the ticket. Firearms are a very personal sort of equipment, and if you don’t know anything about them, get help and get good teaching.  At the very least get a small semi-auto .22LR pistol and learn how to use and maintain it. Keep it in a holster or case so the sights and trigger can’t be bumped. Any gun is better than no gun when people around you lose their minds.

Feminine hygiene. Get some maxipads. Remember they can be used as pressure bandages.

Pencil and paper. Being able to write a note can be very necessary at times. You may need to write down a license plate or a description for the police, so get a small wire bound 3”x5” notebook and put it in a ziplock with a pencil.

Band-Aids. Always a good idea. Stick 10 or so in a ziplock bag and seal it tight.

Radio and batteries. A cheap transistor radio can be a big help. If nothing else it can tell you if there are road or bridge closings or if there is a shelter nearby. Make sure the radio isn’t a flimsy headset design that will break with rough handling, and make sure it is a RADIO, not a CD or an MP3 player when you buy it. Put the radio and batteries in ziplock bags.

A flashlight. Just as described in the minimalist BOB, get a small AA or AAA battery using Mini Mag-Lite or a LED keying.

A respirator. This is optional. Lowes, Home Depot, and other hardware stores stock painter’s respirators that run about $15.00 USD. They use replaceable canister filters that are really very good for what they are. This isn’t a gas mask of course, but if there is a lot of stuff in the air these cans will help keep it out of your lungs, especially dust in the event of a nuke or radiological “dirty” bomb. A respirator doesn’t weigh much, is about as big as a fist, and is cheap insurance. Get one and put it into a ziplock bag.

Soap. One or two bars of hotel sized soap can help with cleaning hands before eating or for just getting yourself a little cleaner. This is especially helpful in the event of a small wound. It may hurt to wash a scrape or cut, but it is the best way to avoid infection.

A fork and a spoon. Eating with your hands isn’t just bad manners, it is a health hazard. Remember the Four F’s of Food Sanitation: Fingers, Face, Flies, and Feces. Getting food poisoning when you have no ready way to care for yourself can be very problematic. Even freshly washed hands can carry enough bacteria to make you ill in dirty conditions, thus poor personal hygiene coupled with a failure of civil sanitation is a recipe for trouble.  If you have a regular metal fork and spoon, you can sidestep this large potential problem. Put them in a ziplock so they won’t get lost and put them in the bag. You can make a cup if needed by cutting the top off a plastic pop bottle, or by using your can opener on a soft drink can.

Intermediate BOB

Now we move on to something a little more substantial. Since cold weather is the most difficult thing to deal with, this section is geared towards people who travel in rural areas and who may experience unpleasant winters. This is a BOB you will fill and put into your vehicle, opening it only to rotate stocks every so often or if you need it.

The bag itself should be larger. We suggest a medium sized rucksack with or without a frame. An internally framed ruck is better, but it is not necessary. A cheap solution is a medium sized military issue ALICE rucksack. ALICE stands for All purpose Light weight Individual Carrying Equipment. Leave it to the military to come up with a 7 word name for rucksack and then an acronym to shorten it. The ALICE ruck’s design was employed in numerous conflicts and to the best of my knowledge no one ever complained about the rucksack except to say the frame was somewhat flimsy. The frame is aluminum, and will bend if abused by being sat upon or in some other fashion. If it is used in its intended fashion, it will last a lifetime with no care at all. Read some reviews on the ALICE here-www.trailspace.com/gear/review/00002483

Another alternative is a gym bag of tough construction, preferably with 4 or 5 external pockets. Several sporting goods places on the web offer “range bags” or “shooter’s bags” that are made of very strong stuff and have many external pockets. Get one with good sewn in handles and, if possible, end handles as well as the standard top handles. Good quality gym bags can be found at most retail outlets like Wal-Mart.

If you drive a truck with no back seat, try to get a gym bag with a bottom width the same as the floor with the seat moved to the rear. If you have to put the bag in the back of the truck, try to avoid putting water in the bag as it will freeze and burst the container.

Consider this list a continuation of the basic BOB:

Clothes. Put in a spare set of jeans, a shirt, socks, spare boots or athletic shoes, a scarf, a balaclava or a ski mask, good gloves, a lightweight waterproof parka or windbreaker, and some long underwear. Put them separately into plastic bags and seal them as best you can. That which will fit into a ziplock, put into a ziplock. As always, get the air out of the bag before sealing.

Fatty, salty, and sugary foods. Get a can or two of Spam, yes Spam. I said Spam and throw it in there. A can or two of Dinty Moore stew should go in there as well as junk food like chocolate chip cookies, etc. A good rule of thumb is if your kids whine for it, you will want to carry a little of it for any potential on foot impromptu camping trip. Get also a few packets of dried noodle soups like Hot Ramen or Cup A Soup so that you can drink stuff to warm up. Hot chocolate packets and instant coffee is also recommended. The General Foods International coffees are about half sugar and come in a sturdy tin, but beware, after drinking a cup you may feel compelled to start talking about your feelings. When the temperature drops and you have to walk through snow and ice you need to eat and drink horrible crap like that. The drinks and noodles will warm you, fat will feed you, and the salt will constipate you. Constipation is good because who wants to stick their derriere out and squat in 10F weather?

A small pot. Get a 2 quart, preferably iron, pot for melting snow or heating water for drinking or making soup.If you feel that a 2 quart pot is too much to carry, there are alternatives. One may choose to go with aluminum cookware, but it may be damaged or crushed if abused in some fashion. It may also make your food taste nasty and is unhealthy from a long term perspective. Another suggestion is titanium cookware which will only crush your wallet.

Get a small camper stove. This is optional. They are simple inexpensive affairs of flat stamped metal that you can build a small fire under and put a pot on. Alternately you can have a small propane stove with a cylinder of gas.

Maps. Don’t forget the map if you have to ditch your vehicle. Try to avoid going out without one. You will want that piece of paper if you are unfamiliar with the area, and you will want it if you are. Things look different at 3 miles an hour, land marks won’t pass with that familiar tempo.

Yes you have a map function on your phone – how well does it work when the battery is dead?

A tent. Get a small inexpensive pop up tent and put it in your bag. A $20.00 USD tent will be more than enough to keep the wind off of three huddled people, which can be the difference between life and death in a nasty winter storm, especially if wet.

Candles. Get two or three emergency candles. You would not believe the amount of heat these things throw off in a confined space. Try it out. Get in the tent sometime, seal it up, and light a candle. You should have to start taking off clothes within 10 to 15 minutes. A note about clothes. If you are cold with your clothes on, try taking some off or opening them up. The cold may just be there because your sweat can’t get away from you. Dry is warm and warm is dry.

Sleeping bag. Get a decent bag. Try to get one that goes into a “stuff bag”. They compact the best and are easiest to carry.

Poncho. Get an army surplus or, better yet, a new poncho. We wouldn’t advise wearing one because they will make you sweat, which will make you cold, but they are great to rest a tent on. Also, they make a great hasty tent or sleeping bag. You can find quality stuff at http://www.rangerjoes.com.

GPS and a compass. This is most likely unnecessary except in a blizzard, but hey, be prepared. Get a moderately priced GPS with preprogrammable waypoints and an expensive compass. Preprogram your waypoints along your most traveled routes. Never be lost again, right?

Spare fuel. There are emergency fuel packs sold in Wal Mart, K Mart, Auto Zone, etc. These are “trunk safe” containers of mineral spirits that can be used in a pinch if you run out of gas. One or two is a good idea. If you have a diesel, cooking oil can serve as an emergency fuel, so keep a couple of gallons of vegetable oil in your vehicle.

A small can of red spray paint. This is optional. If you need to mark your way whether by marking trees or by leaving a directional arrow in the snow, have this item.

Water. If it is snowy, you have water. If it isn’t you need at least three 20oz bottles per day. Figure to have on hand a 3 day supply. Gatorade is better, but have something to drink.

A charcoal hand warmer. These can be found at sporting goods shops. Have one and extra fuel. Store them in ziplock bags. This item can be the difference between losing and keeping digits in a frostbite situation. If you can, get two so you can warm your hands and feet at the same time.

Personal protection. I know I am repeating myself here. Carry pepper spray. There are bad people in the world and you don’t want to get to know them. There are good people on the road, but that’s not the expectation you should use.

Firearms. Get a quality pistol and get good with it. Stick it in your parka pocket and zip it shut when you walk. If you have it on a holster it might show and people might not slow to help you. It will also be more difficult to get to under a parka. If it is in the pocket you can keep your hand in there and no one will notice. They will assume you are just cold. Make certain you zip of button you pocket when you walk as to prevent your weapon from falling out.

Advanced BOB

Oh dear, it finally happened. Some jackass nuked half a dozen major cities simultaneously, the food and petroleum supply has been disrupted, there is a plague that makes the Black Death look like a head cold and we can’t fight it, or Mike Tyson is in an elevator with you. Whatever it may be, it is time to haul ass in a big way, and you have a long way to go. This isn’t just getting home due to a bad hair day, this is Bosnia for a Croat or Rwanda for a Hutu time. It is time to “Run Forrest, run!” or “Run Luke, run!” depending on how grandiose your self image is.

When you go you know that travel may be uncertain. There may be roadblocks as is routine in rural Africa when there is one of their periodic disease outbreaks, there may be civil unrest like the Rodney King riots, there may be martial law declared so you can’t use the roads. Any way you slice it you have to maximize the chances of getting yourself and your family safely to safety, and this may involve transition from wheels to feet in order to get there.

Before you can even consider this level of planning you need to consider the goal. If you wish to go to Grandma’s farm 300 miles away, you need not one plan, or two plans, you need several alternates. What takes 5 hours by highway may take weeks with a family in tow on foot. Write down the plans in a notebook and have the appropriate maps. If you catch some Apache’s arrow, the rest of the family will still need to make it there if they can.

Consider the size of your family and their ages. This will be a major indicator of what needs to happen with regards to provisions.

Never try to carry any more than 50-60 pounds per healthy adult male, and never try to go 25-35 pounds per woman or teen.

Always plan for the worst. If you have 3 kids and a wife make every plan as though it would be made over land without roads and carrying at least one member. Figure that if you can go 15 miles a day with a family on foot, you are really doing well, so 300 miles equals a minimum of 20 days of travel, with a realistic expectation being 30 days. And an angry, dirty, whining, X Box withdrawal group of unhappy campers they will be.

This list is a continuation of the above BOB lists. The first two lists were just for a single person. Do the math. Multiply where you need to, more tents, ponchos, etc. Figure a roll of toilet paper lasts an adult male a week when he eats regularly, so multiply rolls times people times weeks. Family of five going 300 miles? 5 people X 4 weeks is twenty rolls of paper, which is a lot of volume, so everyone carries their own TP in their personal ruck. Another thing, get the roughest TP you can get. It wipes off the poop better, it stores better, and the women won’t use as much.

The bag or bags. Go to a dive store, that is a place SCUBA divers shop, not a store with cheap beer and cheaper women. Get one of the large dive bags they sell. These bags are designed to hold heavy and bulky stuff in harsh environments and are extremely rugged. Don’t forget to buy individual rucks for those who don’t have them. They make good book bags for kids, so tell them that is what they will use them for. It will get them used to carrying them.

A shovel. You will need to bury your poop and scrape a fire pit.  You may also need to bury someone. If you have to bury someone, mark the location in your GPS. It may be important for you to return later. Bring at least a military issue entrenching tool. They are small, inexpensive, light, and they collapse.

A water filter. You cannot expect your wife or kids to drink ditch water. Get a reverse osmosis filtration pump with an iodide filter. An inexpensive backup that you must have is regular household bleach. 3 to 4 drops per gallon is all that is needed to make water safe for consumption, so get a small medicine dropper and fill it with bleach. Add the bleach to the water, stir or shake vigorously, and let it sit for an hour. It will then be drinkable. Try to avoid ingesting any sediment.

Binoculars. Have at least one pair. You may have a need to look at things at a distance. Don’t go cheap on binos, this is one area where expensive is good.

A wagon. Go to Lehman’s online catalogue or go to Lowes or Home Depot, etc. They will have very sturdy wooden wagons or metal garden wagons. The metal garden wagons typically have better handles, better wheels, better suspensions, and carry more, but they can be uncomfortable to touch in winter and they can rust. If you have to put an infant in one, you don’t want there to be a chance of instant frostbite just because he was fussy and flailing around. The suggestion is to go with wood. You can order a Lehman’s wagon with very large wheels for off road use. If you have small children who may need to be pulled, get two wagons. One wagon is for provisions and the other to carry rug rats. http://www.LEHMANS.com  These wagons can carry two or three hundred pounds easily, so these are not your old Radio Flyer.

Food.  Half a cup of dried rice is equal to roughly 1 ½ cups of cooked rice. That is a lot of rice per person, so no one should be very hungry. Figure a family of five eating twice a day is five cups a day times thirty days travel is 150 cups of rice.

With 16 cups per gallon two 5 gallon containers should suffice for a month’s travel. Get PVC buckets with pour spout lids.

Beans. Rice and beans twice a day for a month will cool ardor and may lead to acts of violence, but you will be pleased to see that they have plenty of energy to argue, since rice and beans will provide almost all the nutrients a body needs.

The question is, “How much of beans do we carry?”  If you plan on canned beans figure 60 eight to twelve ounce cans. If you get dried beans, figure ¾ a cup dried volume per meal, or a little over 3 gallons of dried beans. The drawback to dried beans is that they have to be soaked for 24 hours, so you will have to start soaking beans 24 hours in advance of each meal which is a pain.

While dried beans are better in the long run because the excess can be planted at your destination come warm weather, you may wish to opt for canned.

Fat.  Get a two gallon jug of Crisco. You will need it in order to cook wild game which is  always extremely lean meat. You may wish to  get a three pound block of lard instead. Lard would actually be better since it is a solid and can’t leak. It also tastes better, and takes up less space.

Salt. Carry a pound box of iodized salt. You will use it at your destination or for barter. Ever wonder where salt comes from? It most likely isn’t a local product. You will be sweating a lot on this trip, so you will need salt.

Meat. This will be provided by Mother Nature. Do you know the Iroquois word for bad hunter? Vegetarian.

Cookware. Bring a metal measuring cup. You need to measure that rice. Bring a cast iron skillet and a cast iron 2 quart pan with a lid. Get a metal serving spoon and a metal spatula. That should take care of all your cooking utensil needs.

An axe. Never be without a good axe. Get one with a hammer side if you can.

Soap. Carry a few bars. You need to bathe once a week, and daily hand washing is very important. Try to stock anti-bacterial if at all possible. Don’t carry liquid soap as it is heavier and can spill.

Radio. Get a hand powered radio. They will pick up shortwave, weather stations, AM, and FM stations. They don’t take batteries, so that is one more thing you won’t have to bring. Also consider getting some walkie-talkies. Have extra rechargable batteries and keep them charged.

Insect repellent. Get some suitable repellants for the older people and for any infants. You can’t use high concentrations of DEET on infants and toddlers because it can cause skin irritation and seizures. Remember, spray it on your hand and wipe it on the kid, don’t spray it on them.

Fishing tackle. You can make a fishing rig out of a bean can or a Coke can, some monofilament line, a float, and a hook. Fishing rods can get broken, so unless you are one of the lucky few with a Pocket Fisherman, you will have to improvise. They are available on Amazon.

Hammock. Get a cheap fishnet hammock for every member of your party except the littlest ones. The hammocks will serve as hammocks, naturally. They will also serve as a hasty stretcher and as a hasty fishnet with the use of saplings cut for poles. You can simplify putting them up and taking them down by tying a heavy duty D ring on the end ropes. You just wind the line around the tree trunk a few times and snap the D ring onto the rope to secure it. They are cheap and will roll up into a ball the size of a man’s fist. They fit easily into a small ziplock for carrying.

Rope. Get about 20 or 30 feet of stout ½ or ¾ inch rope. You may need it to pull the wagons or for some other unforeseen purpose. Learn some knots. A ready source (and free!) Is  A. Hyatt Verrill’s Knots, Splices and Rope Work, on gutenberg.org. If your Bug Out is by water, his “The Book of the Sailboat: How to rig, sail and handle small boats” might be handy. But regardless, knowing a handful of useful knots will always be helpful. A couple of hundred feet of paracord will always be useful. An older copy of The Boy Scout Handbook would be handy.

Firearms. Have a .22LR rifle at the very least. It isn’t much of a self defense weapon, but it will kill rabbits and squirrels. A 12GA shotgun is also strongly recommended with a variety of loads. A centerfire rifle is even more strongly recommended. Every able bodied member should bear a long arm on the trip, even if they don’t know how to use it. If you carry some slugs, some #1 buckshot, and some #6 shot, you can take deer as well as small game. Again, firearms are a very personal choice, so make yours wisely, and get some training.

Personal bags. Each person who can carry one should have a backpack of some sort. In addition to toilet paper, let them put whatever they want into it without comment when you leave, they will need that psychologically.

Medicine. Over the counter meds are strongly recommended if you have needed them in the past. Also make sure you get some Imodium for the treatment of diarrhea. Diarrhea can be fatal in kids. Children’s vitamins are also a good idea if they are already taking them.

A sewing kit. A good all purpose emergency sewing kit will weigh only a few ounces and take up less space than a pack of cards. It is good not only for suturing clothes, but skin as well in a pinch. Get one and a few extra buttons.

Gas mask. A gas mask, better called a protective mask, may be something an individual may consider not carrying at all. Protective masks are good for filtering out nuclear, biological, and chemical threats.
Lets talk about the three NBC scenarios.

Nuclear
They work best against a nuclear threat where they will act to keep radioactive dust out of your lungs. Since an area that has been bombed will lose most of its danger due to fallout in days, hours if there is a strong rain, this mask will be of limited usefulness. In fact, this degree of protection can be approxamated by breathing through a wet rag, and an almost identical degree of protection can be given by a cannister type painter’s mask. A promaks is a good thing to have in this instance, but the remotenet possibility of an nuclear attack along with the extremely remopte chance of your encountering it may not justify the purchase of this item.

Chemical
Chemical warfare agents are difficult to make, transport, and employ. They just plain old don’t work very well, and as a result it is almost an impossibility that even soldiers in a combat zone will ever encounter them much less a civilian.. A good quality mask will protect you from inhalation of toxic fumes for several hours to several days.

Biological
In the event of a natural or man made plague a quality pro mask will provide excellent protection. Virises cannot easily pass through, bacteria certainly cannot at all. The problem here is that most likely by the time you discover there is a danger of infection, it is too late to don your pro mask.

The problem with pro masks is that they provide temporary protection. You can’t live in one, so you must leave the area. Another problem is that if you have a family you may be able to protect your adult and young adult members, but infants can only be protected by “Gas Tents” that use battery powered filtrations systems, and retail for several hundred dollars each.

A good source for these items is http://www.APPROVEDGASMASKS.com. This is another place where expensive most likely means good quality. Don’t skimp if you buy one of these, it is a false economy.

Did you know that Staying Alive is the song one is trained to administer CPR to? Keep that in mind.

I was somewhat shocked everyone thought yesterday’s post was super-cheery. Um… I did tell you the world isn’t ending. And hey, remember I tend to go pessimistic. We could by a miracle thread between catastrophes and emerge wonderfully. I don’t think it will happen, but–

For perspective on how optimistic I tend to be, at the beginning of Obama’s first term, someone said by the end of the term we’d be missing not just change but major bills. This was in the comments of a now defunct site. After a series of semi-joking riffing on what we’d be missing, I said “We. We will be missing.” I meant it. I’ve read the grim history of left-lurching regimes and fully expected it.

And at the beginning of 2021 I expected… worse. Far worse. And I write this without suffering amnesia and fully remembering how bad things were getting at the end of the reign of the autopen, including living in constant fear of debanking. (I still resent not being able to use gofundme which is a far more functional software than givesendgo. BUT I can’t afford to have everything confiscated, after fundraisers.)

So, what is this post about, other than trying to re-depress you?

Well, first of all I’m not trying to re-depress you. As I said, I trend depressive. There’s a chance miracles upon miracles occur and we brush through this tolerably well. As BGE said in the comments, G-d looks after fools, drunkards and the United States of America. And thank G-d for that.

But we’re entering scary times of turmoil, and there are things you need to do to stay alive. Oh, I don’t mean just physically alive, but really alive. Though the physical is pre-requisite.

I hope — and honestly, expect — that most of the physical fighting and physical danger — if it comes — will be localized and restricted, because honestly the other side simply doesn’t have enough people. Yes, yes, of course, the caravans of “migrants” were supposed to furnish that. But it turns out most of them make pretty good brawlers, but not particularly herdable much less forged into a unified force. So, instability and petty crime, not armed insurrection.

For that you know what to do. Most of you are probably better preppers than I am at that. And a lot of people on our side have been covering such things all year, in anticipation of things going weird.

Now for other forms of “staying alive.

UNLESS you’re an idiot who can’t shut up, runs a blog where she speaks politics and tells the truth as she sees it, you’re unlikely to be targeted. But it doesn’t mean it can’t happen. After all, we remember how many completely normal people suddenly find themselves in the cross hairs of the woke monster. See, Covington kids, for instance.

So how do you prepare to survive that?

Well, would you believe that increasing your online profile would help?

No, seriously, the safest places to be when the regime might take umbrage with you is either at the very bottom of visibility or at the very top. At the very bottom is safe because it will take truly spectacular bad luck to find yourself in the crosshairs. At the very top, your disappearing would cause too much of a ripple, so they hate you but they suffer you. The most dangerous place is just well known enough and still obscure.

I MIGHT be somewhat safe mostly because of the gig at instapundit, though this blog helps a bit as well. I have plans to become stompier that I would if these elections hadn’t gone this way. “Stompier” as in making more noise online. A lot of it fiction in a new way. You’ll see. But possibly also here. Of course here is not always under my control. I either wake with posts in my head or don’t. And when I do they tend to be my riskier posts.

Anyway, if you can, make yourself really big on line. If you’re not of the type to do so, or don’t want to, I completely understand. It’s a pain in the behind. And the chances are small someone will pick on you.

Keeping yourself alive mentally: remember most of the communists 5 or ten year plans failed. And those communists were intellectual giants compared to our present afflictions. It’s understandable — and healthy — to be mad at them, but ultimately? most of their plans won’t come to fruition. It’s good to know how horrible those plans are, but don’t let them get in your head.

And as part of this: I’m one of those people who has an acute fear of confrontation. I’ve managed to overcome it in this medium and in writing, but getting me to tell, say, a waiter, he brought the wrong dish is almost impossible, because I become embarrassed. How bad is it? I’ve eaten steak that was served by a waiter who was not paying attention when I said “please no bread, I’m celiac” and came to the table with a slab of bread on top. I removed the bread, scraped the steak, all of it knowing it wouldn’t be enough, and submitted to two weeks of itching after rather than tell him “Uh, I can’t eat this.” The second time it happened, DAN told them I couldn’t eat it and explained. They haven’t made the same mistake since.

But anyway, that’s how bad I am at confrontation. However, I’ve decided part of the reason the left proclaims their daft views in public at the top of their lungs in the tone of self-congratulation that denotes expecting “everyone clapped” is that they really think they’re unopposed. Because myself and others like me will not talk back. (And this helps the fraud, because it gives the impression that their support is much larger.) So I’ve made a decision that when someone is carrying out in public, I will approach and very politely and firmly point out I don’t agree, and I’m not going to listen to their nonsense. So far it has worked twice, and they’ve neither tried to draw me into an argument nor screamed swear words at me. This is good. Now, I do this in the understanding that I’m self employed and old. I do realize those of you who are young and depend on professions that are solid left (Or seem to be) can’t do this. Don’t put yourself or your job in danger. BUT do be brave enough to risk social confrontation.

And on this, I must beg you if you have kids, talk to them. Explain what you believe and why. If you don’t, they will assume you can’t defend your beliefs. Don’t be amazed they go the other way. Yes, I know, you’ll have to contradict everything they’re taught in school. That is rather the point.

If you’re a worker in culture — or can be! — writer, artist, someone else who can and always wanted to create, throw yourself into it. If you’ve been doing it, do it more like you mean it, and study how to promote it. Your work reflects who you are, even when it seems not to, and fiction can be far more persuasive than any careful explanation.

Maybe we don’t have enough time to change the culture to feed into the politics to get us out of this particular bind, but then again, why not? The best time to have started was twenty years ago. The next best time is today. Chop, chop, get to it.

Mind you to explore new ways of doing things. AI “slop” might be all that, but make it tasty and people will want it. That “slopcore” music channel I loved has gone all dark and “AI is evil” so I unsubscribed. Any of you feel like creating a new one, all positive on tech and full of fun? I’d appreciate it.

Which brings us to tech: if you’re in tech, now is the time to push on that too. One of the chances for that miracle, in which we walk through the red green alliance’s dominance dry-shod is that we tech our way out of it. That our tech people are good enough and fast enough that in the end it doesn’t matter what they do, there is too much wealth to be able to break us.

I’m not a techy, I can’t tell how that would happen, but I can “sense” the shape of it, if that makes sense?

No one can predict genius breakthroughs, as Heinlein pointed out in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but we do know they happen. And like genius breakthroughs in the arts you are more likely to have one if you’re working really hard and trying a lot of different things.

If you’re neither a writer nor an artist, nor a techy, you can still support those who are. Sure, sure, money is lovely. I’d like some, myself. (Look, the cats like the expensive gooshy food, okay?) BUT if you don’t have that, there’s stuff you can do. I don’t think I’d ever have finished No Man’s Land without the Chinchilla of Hope gang. I’m sure there are unloved writers and artists whose work you like that you can encourage. And then as Mary says in every promo post comment section: reviews. I’m not joking. Ratings and reviews are invaluable to tweak the algorithm so we can actually be discovered and sell. (Please? My Amazon and youtube would love you.) And as for the tech guys, let me tell you, the number of times I just listen while my own tech guy explains what he’s doing until he talks past the snag in his mind… They also serve who sit and imitate a rubber ducky.

Oh, yeah, and speaking of serving. You know your politicians are surrounded by loud lefties pulling them one way (even those on the right.) Consider calling/sending a polite card whenever one of these critters does something you APPROVE of. Yes, you should be hitting them on the head in the more common case when they do the stupid, but seriously, the carrot works too.

And as SNelson tells us, and it’s true, you can volunteer with your local lodg- I mean branch of the stupid party. (I don’t recommend volunteering with the evil party unless you are something special in the way of op-sec. If you are, more power to you.) On the one hand, you can watch polls and help with their get out the vote effort, and such. On the other, you will be making connections, and maybe be able to pull things towards greater election security. Heck, if all else fails, you can document the fraud. If you have the time and are a people person, do consider that.

Holly will give you more “subversive” things you can try, in terms of social interaction. Yes, I’m volunteering her. (I Holly! Honestly, I don’t pay this poor woman enough. I’d say I’ve made her hair white, but the color it started out, it was hard to tell. :D) She is far more “social in a feminine way” than I am, and I know she has ideas because she was giving them to me. (I don’t even think I could start. No seriously. My idea of being subtle is I don’t scream “NO.” before telling you I’ve had about enough of what you’re saying. Also most of my social interaction is with Dan, who already knows what I think, and the cats who don’t care) I’ll let her do it on Friday.

Most important though, through it all, remember, yes, the pudding heads shall always be with us, but very few are truly on the side of the civilization killers.

If you strive to be a decent, hard working, sane human being, you’ll be doing more to preserve civilization than the minority that wants to destroy it can undo.

They can hurt us — badly — but they can’t take us down unless we cooperate, by giving in to despair and letting them into our head.

If you can’t think of anything else to do — as Jerry Pournelle told me in 08 (miss him every day) — go clean and organize your space. I know this sounds like make work, but what I found in 08 is that a really clean and organized and nice-smelling house makes it hard to despair. Besides, you can organize (and hide) the canned and the ammo, and make sure you can get to the essentials if you need to evacuate temporarily.

And if you can keep your head above water, be ready to lend a hand to those who can’t. (We don’t probably have too much worry for the next two years, but economic shenanigans are always a possibility.)

We found at the height of “bad things” (Part of the reason I know the whole affordability thing was a psy ops, besides Temu Obama telling us outright is that recently it has not been nearly so dire) that we had to budget what we could afford to give to people in trouble, in our extended circles. Because it easily climbed to 1500 a month, and no, we can’t afford another mortgage, thank you so much.We had to budget it way down. And taking in account times might get bad, we’re going to sit down and make that budget again, in case it’s needed. And make one for supporting artists and others we believe in, because they have to live, as well as get ego boos. (And no, this is not a hint. If I get in trouble I’ll let you know. I appreciate everyone who supports me, I SWEAR I’ll post on substack too soon, as well as link Holly so she can update when I’m moving, a family member dies, etc. etc. (Can this year at least SLOW down a little?) But I’m making it.(Thank heavens No Man’s Land did so well. Now to finish Trade Goods.) I’m speaking in general though. I have too many friends who are great writers and artists and not making nearly what they should. We plan to support them, yes, in the measure of the possible.)

These things (and others I’m sure you’ll suggest in the comments) will help you feel better about yourself, about the world and what you’re doing. And they will make a difference too.

It will help you stay alive, not just physically but in purpose. And not boil your acts of resistance down to backing into a corner hissing and clawing and hating on them. They deserve the hatred, but you deserve a better life than that.

If all else fails, remember that staying alive is a great tune to remember for CPR. Even when the CPR is on the culture. (A friend informs me so is “Another one bites the dust” which can also be very cheery when sang at the appropriate time.)

And to cheer you up:

I have possibly the weirdest collection of white pills you’ve ever even thought of taking. No, seriously. But they are important and I want you to at least consider swallowing them.

Do not make me chase you all over the house and scruff you.

Realistically, there is no reason that the left can’t hold the US by fraud, as they’ve held California, as they’re holding my beloved Colorado, or most of the Pacific Northwest or a lot of New England, or–

Except there is. It’s easy to hold a state by fraud, as people who really are unhappy with it take off. A whole country, and one as varied and complicated — and well armed — as ours? Well, that’s different.

Your first white pill, and it’s the most important one, because it’s the basis of all the others: Remember you don’t live in a novel, and the enemy doesn’t get all its plans to work just because they’re plans. Remember the USSR had great plans too.

The only thing leftists are good at is psy ops. Even their fraud is not particularly competent. It’s just that our system is strangely vulnerable and has been vampirized for 100 years.

Your second white pill is that they’ve gone blatant not because they’re secure, but because they’re desperate. They had an enormous level of control through mass media, and that’s been dissolving. At this point all mass media is good for is battle space preparation to hide the fraud, and even that will fade.

Your third white pill is that their paymasters will want payment chop chop tout de suite. Now some of this will be terrible for us too, except where I don’t think it will stand for long.

The Cartels are already sending caravans to the border. This is why it was so important to capture TX and make it a sanctuary state. I have this weird feeling Texans are not going to take well to this, and spicy might be an understatement for their reacion.

China will want to start a civil war here in order to be able to take Taiwan in Spring. China is not… in a good state, they’re in a hurry. They also don’t understand our system of government and are going to be very puzzled at how little power their lackeys actually have. Or not understand they don’t have power at all till January.

Then there’s the Muslim Brotherhood who doesn’t get us at all, and who will start acting like they are in England. The likelihood of Cowboys and Jihadis is high and rising.

And that’s just the beginning. And if you think “but those are bad things” — sure they are. But don’t forget they can’t accomplish any of them unless they disarm us. They are ALREADY attempting to pass highly restrictive gun laws in TX. It’s not going to go well.

This is their golden grail, which they tried ever since Clinton and particularly under Obama, and they keep losing battle after battle. It’s not going to get easier for them. (And seriously, I can’t help. I lost all my guns in a boating accident. So this doesn’t affect me at all.)

But it goes beyond that. WAY beyond. Look, it’s soon going to become really obvious they frauded themselves in. Because they always do the same thing when they get in by fraud: they try to punish the population that didn’t vote for them.

In California, in NYC, everywhere they have frauded themselves, people KNOW it was fraud. Because no government legitimately elected acts that way.

It’s not going to be any different here.

And for at least two years — pray very hard, because you haven’t seen attempts on Trump yet. Not like you’ll see. — they really don’t have much chance of succeeding at most of their attempts to punish us. BUT they have a really great chance of removing their mask completely.

If we’re lucky — really lucky, but we can hope — by 2028 there will be an overwhelming push for clean elections that even they can’t withstand. Hopefully without flipping the switch. Hopefully.

I suspect the first troubles will begin within a month, almost certainly by Christmas. (Did you know ammo makes lovely stocking stuffers.) And yes, as expressed in the comments, if we’re lucky all the trouble is in highly concentrated spots.

To be fair, I think it will be. We saw in 2020 they have neither the people nor the training. And I think their paymasters are going to get stingy on money soon. (Look, they’ll expect results these sh*theads can’t deliver for at least two years, and probably ever.)

Particularly because their sportive shenanigans in Europe stand a good chance of sending the Europeans looking for their grandfather’s old jackboots behind the barn.

They suffer from the mindset of all savages and think that because we haven’t really fought back yet, it means we can’t. They will indulge in all sorts of stupid and petty cruelty.

No minority standing over a heavily armed majority and inflicting petty cruelties for the heck of it has ever succeeded. The miracle we need to pray for is that the blood won’t run in the streets, that’s all. Mostly their blood, but there’s always collateral damage.

Take a deep breath. I said it was going to get choppy. I said to get ready for all sorts of disruptions. But I think we come out of this okay, with the advantage of having seen all the masks come off.

Look at the coats that turn and REMEMBER them.

Yes, there is a chance we don’t get our country back in the rest of my (natural) life. Maybe. If we have to get really angry, if the switch flips, if we have to find a leader who looks more like Bukele than Trump, then yeah. it’s going to be a long time.

But it’s not going to be a long time to get rid of the commies. Just to right ourselves afterwards. So keep that in mind.

And you, me, all of us, are going to be needed to ensure what we have at the other side of this unholy mess is as close to our Constitutional Republic as we can make it. It was a good design, and we should get back to it.

Europe… well, they’re likely to create their own solutions. Ours wouldn’t work for them, anyway.

In the meantime: take care of yourself, we’re going to need you. Stay engaged. Build. Create. Work. Do all the things our opponents seem incapable of doing.

And in the middle of the turmoil, try to stay as happy as you can. They hate that.

Be not afraid. They think they’ve conquered us with “this one easy trick” but they haven’t. Yes, they can hurt us, but they can’t hold us.

Anytime now, real soon, they’re going to find out they’re riding a tiger. We know how that story ends.

They were scared at their loss of power before. Imagine how they’ll feel when they realize what they’ve done.

As always when dealing with emotionally incontinent barbarians, keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark, but…

Be not afraid. We got this.

Go out there and be as American as you can possibly manage.

I don’t want to talk about fraud. Heaven knows it starts feeling stupid to say “but it was fraud.” And some of you out there are saying “Oh, yeah, when the left wins Sarah always says it was fraud.”

Which is true. What you’re missing in that calculation is that I also think there’s massive fraud when the right wins. I just think the right beat the fraud in those cases.

I think there’s massive fraud because, even when machines aren’t used, it’s insecure by design.

Motor Voter prioritized getting everyone in the States registered to vote whether they could prove they were citizens, whether they were here on a visitor visa, whether they even WANTED to vote. If you go to get a driver’s license, which is absolutely necessary because driver’s licenses or non-driver ID gets used as a national ID card, you get registered to vote. This happens even if you present as your ID a foreign passport with a temporary Visa. And even if you can’t speak a word of English.

Why on Earth would any country do that? Well, because the law requires them to do that. After all, you might be a dual citizen of another country. Or you might have grown up in a foreign language enclave. Wouldn’t want to upset those poor lambkins, would you? No siree bob. No discriminating against people who sure as heck look like they aren’t even vaguely acquainted to the US.

“But Sarah,” you say “Most of those people won’t vote. Ever.” Yeah. Most won’t, but it doesn’t mean their registration doesn’t get voted. Like the 130 some year old woman in Colorado Springs who is still reliably voting.

Like most — right? — Americans, and because I grew up reading American fiction, I viewed this as “our little flaw” which mostly happened in Chicago and was funny ah ah. And it might have been, mostly, without the added floodgates of Motor Voter. I mean, we know at least one presidential election was stolen before that: JFK’s. But it was the occasional election, not endemic, right?

I thought that until 2012 when I volunteered to poll watch. 1/3 of the people who came in were told that they had already voted. ONE THIRD. I was told in Denver it was 2/3. At least in some precincts. I don’t know if it’s true. I wasn’t there. And people were sent away happy because they were allowed to “provisionally vote.”

They didn’t know the provisional votes aren’t counted unless the election is close enough for them to matter. And the bad votes CANNOT BE GOTTEN OUT.

Fraud? Dear Lord. In 2012 we were already choking on fraud.

There was hope in this though. With all the fraud, the left BARELY squeaked a victory in Colorado. BARELY. And they knew how much fraud was in it, because then they — AGAINST THE RESULTS OF AN ELECTORAL REFERENDUM — instituted “vote by mail” as the default system. The most easily fraudable system. On the excuse of “saving money” which as we all know is the left’s main worry, isn’t it? Fiscal responsibility. Right.

Then came twenty twenty, aka the hokey stick election. And every election more states go vote by mail, which ends up putting more and more states in the “taken over by the puppet masters” camp.

I’m still surprised we got in 2024 and I THINK the only reason we did is that we’d figured out what the fraud was in 2020 and obviated that.

BUT THE ELECTION WAS STILL CROOKED FOR THE DEMS.

Sarah, you whine, why do you think only the dems do it?

First of all, I don’t. It’s the dems and the controlled opposition. But IF THE RIGHT WERE FRAUDING to any significant amount, the press would be on it like flies on sh*t. You know it, I know it, my cat, Havey knows it, and he was never that smart and is now dead.

So the left is mostly fraud. They know it. As hard as they fight against even minor clean ups of elections THEY KNOW IT. Without the fraud, they’re done.

So. There was fraud. Of course there was fraud. There always is. But fraud enough for the results? Becuause it wasn’t done the usual ways 2024 is clearly a new animal. So, I’m going to tell you what the reasons I have to suspect the fraud was NEXT LEVEL.

First of all, the numbers — if they are true. The caveat here is that we’re not on lockdown, husband is not off work, and I can’t get him to make a program to pull numbers as he did with Covid — are impossible. There is no way in fricking heck the Dems pulled a new 10 million voters out of Marx’s dead ass. That’s fricking impossible. Particularly since there have been a number of self-deportations, etc.

Also if true, there is this: The 15% band. Is it true? I don’t know. but one of my friends on the night said that there appeared to be a 15% swing everywhere he was looking.

Because a lot of you aren’t mathematical, let me explain: for the 15% to be a steady band across the country? it would take a miracle. Like, a pigs are flying overhead to winter in FL type of miracle. It’s not possible. Particularly in elections that are local by nature. It’s never that steady. Some places the swing would be 5% or 10% or 2%.

It is however indicative of a PROGRAMMATICAL fraud. I.e. something programmed in.

I don’t think I’ve confessed this — have I — but my husband decided he wanted our weekends back, and therefore one evening wrote two programs: one to post the memes (I still harvest them manually) and another to post the promo post. To those looking to exploit this: give it up. It creates a draft and I still go over it. And the promo one is buggy, so I usually still enter half of them by hand. It just took my time to post memes and books from all morning Saturday ad all my time after church on Sunday to a couple of hours divided between the days.

Why I’m telling you this: for the programs to work, I had to alter my workflow. Like I put coffee memes, non political memes and political memes in different folders. And the program seems to gag if you don’t have the link to Amazon on the first line of your promo email. (I don’t know why, no. And that’s a bug to be fixed.)

Programs are stupid. In the sense they don’t think. They’re a mechanical process, even if software. So they tend to produce uniform results.

This 15% thing if true is the thumprints of a computer program all over it, and prima-facie evidence of tampering.

But wait, there’s more. Two very weird things happened in these elections, one of which is “uh” and would cause Sherlock Holmes to go poke the dog till it barked night and day. The other is just impossible. Like, bloody insane impossible.

The highly unlikely one: the cities reported first. The big machine cities, where they’re finding votes in car trunks for two weeks after? They reported first. That’s enough to make you go “Uh, I wonder”…. Of course, if the fraud was already baked in, they COULD.

The absolutely utterly impossible: the left outperformed the polls. As skewed to the left as the polls are that’s … unlikely. As incapable of shutting up with their incessant signaling as every leftist everyone knows is, that’s impossible.

Those are the number reasons to think there was significant — hellishly difficult to prove — fraud.

Outside the number reasons… I’m not good with numbers, actually. I’m good with patterns. It’s a ’tisms thing and you wouldn’t understand I mean most of you understand completely at an inner, personal level.

The reason I stopped sleeping running up to the elections were the patterns, some of which I didn’t fully understand.

One, the dems were stealing signs again. I don’t mean retail stealing opponent signs. I mean stealing signs as a coordinated campaign from above.

This is stupid if you’re doing it to influence people. I don’t think that’s how people decide whom to vote for. HOWEVER it is a masterful way to do battle space preparation for fraud. When your guys wins by ONE BAZILLION VOTES people go “Well, I didn’t see any signs for opponents” and it quiets them down.

So I was expecting fraud, fraud, fraud, delicious fraudy fraud.

The other thing was the “plans” that DataRepublican revealed for the “color revolution” i.e. to strike back at Trump if he declared the results fraudulent AND the revolts and destruction in Europe.

Look, I recognize patterns when I see them. In 2020 it was the BLM peaceful yet fiery protests. They were never big enough or widespread enough to threaten the country. BUT THEY WERE ENOUGH TO SCARE JUDGES. So that when the blatant fraud was brought before them, they found reasons to refuse the cases.

In 2026, it was the protests in the rest of the west, the attempted coup in Poland, and the threat of doing the same here. And no, I’m not blaming DataRepublican. I do think she got a “leak”. I’m just not convinced the leak was not deliberate on the other side. (She’s amazing and almost magical with data, duh. But this is people things.)

Which means Trump feels his hands are tied on revealing/persecuting the fraud unless it’s in your face obvious. Which it is, but not in ways that are easy to explain to the man on the street who thought 2020 was too opaque to be obvious fraud.

I’ll add to this that my repost of the 15% twix above brought someone self-idenfying as part of the “intel community” and telling me there was no fraud, because some weird hacking convention created by a guy who used to write for the Nation “proved” it. He came in calling me names, and ended by snarling “prove it.” which is so movie villain it’s impossible to explain.

So — my conclusion is that there was fraud. Massive fraud.

Massive, hard to prove fraud, which members of our government are afraid to contest for fear of a revolution/civil war. I think that’s nuts, btw. The left can’t. They don’t have the numbers nor the weapons. Their only weapon is the threat and the “look at what we’re doing to Europe.” But Europe isn’t the US. They don’t have our guns. They don’t have our veterans and they don’t have our widespread spaced out population. But they wanted to do project the impression they could and I think succeeded.

Now, before all of you threaten suicide or doom hard: No, I don’t think we can prove fraud. Or at least not right now in a way that the dear little LIVs will get it through their heads. The normalcy bias holds.

But I’m not without hope. In fact, it’s almost impossible for us to lose this in the long run. AND as a side effect this might manage the purge of the rest of the quislings in the party, or a major portion of them.

Yes, yes, I know they’re proclaiming that MAGA is dead. Same as the last fifty times. This is mostly the establishment republicans who still expect us to come home.

But the fundamental mistake is thinking that Trump has MAGA. It’s the other way around. MAGA — aka revenge of the tea party — has Trump. And if this goes on, we’ll have someone far more like Bukele. Now, I don’t want that here. BUT the left should want it even less. And that’s what they’re bringing about.

Anyway, tomorrow let me go over reasons for hope, and also why you should beef up (eh) your canned and your brass. And make all your emergency plans.

And shut your trap and sit tight for at least a month. My gut feeling is a month. (Though it could be longer.)

And not to doom. No dooming here.

In the end we win, they lose. But buckle in. It’s going to get mighty choppy and rough for a little while.

Unless we get luckier than I think possible. (Which has happened before. See 2024.)

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FROM C. M. CRAIG: Astral Adventures

Rob Falcon is about three seconds from being eaten.

He is fourteen, the only midshipman aboard a pirate-hunting warship, and currently strapped into a lifeboat that has just been launched into open space with a jelly slime wrapped around it. He blows up the slime. The blast tears a hole between worlds and drops him face down in the surf of a beach where the trees come up to his chest and the whole population is nine inches tall.

Will Foster is one of those nine inches. He is twelve, he lives in a tent on that beach, and the entire island blames his dead parents for the tidal wave that flattened the town four years ago. Nobody feeds him. Nobody stops the mayor’s son from beating on him. And he is still the only person who wades out to check whether the giant washed up in the water is breathing.

Rob needs a signal strong enough to reach his captain. Will needs off this rock. What they get instead is a mine full of gnomes with pickaxes, a ninja with a knife made of light, a ten-year-old who has been forced to a hundred and thirteen feet tall by a bracelet he can’t remove, and a pirate captain in a scavenged suit of armor who already knows Will’s name.

Nobody gets rescued in this one. They have to do it themselves.

A shipwreck story where the castaway is the giant. First adventure in a world of astral galleons, gear-driven pirates, and a song at the edge of hearing that only a few people can pick up. Written for the kid who says he doesn’t like reading, and for the parent who is tired of hearing it.

Complete story. More to come.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: The Last Pendragon (Legends Book 1)

“The last thing I expected when I went to grieve in the mountains was to get chased by werewolves, kidnapped by a dragon, or meet a legend. But that was exactly what happened.”–Sara Hawke

Sara Hawke, a highly-educated former PhD candidate in Linguistics, is plunged into a situation that strains her skepticism: first she meets a pack of werewolves while camping on the night of the full moon, then she’s rescued by a man the werewolves seemed to fear. Her rescuer then decides that she’ll be good company until he decides to let her go. Then he tells her that she has the potential to be a sorceress, and offers to teach her.

Along the way, she learns that legends aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be, and are occasionally more than they seem…

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Last Jade Crown: The Jade Dragon Protocol, Book Three (The Four Banners 4)

THE CROWN WAS NEVER MEANT FOR A KING.

Two years after the Emerald Relay affair, Major Hiroshi Takamura has returned to the quiet pursuits of retirement. His antique aircraft needs attention, his latest book needs defending, and several governments would be happier if he remained somewhere else.

Then a museum curator disappears.

A fragment of ceremonial jade has been stolen.

And an old enemy returns with a warning that could change the future of four civilizations.

The object of the search is the Jade Crown of Harmony, an ancient artifact created by the first explorers of the Four Banner worlds. Its four components embody wisdom, craftsmanship, science, and exploration—the principles upon which an interstellar alliance was founded.

But the crown is only one part of a much greater system.

Chairman Liang Zhenyu has spent years preparing to complete the Jade Dragon Protocol. He does not seek conquest for its own sake. He wants to end war, eliminate political instability, and bring permanent peace to a troubled galaxy.

His proposed solution appears irresistible.

Ships will cease fighting. Weapons will fall silent. Governments will be guided by a system capable of anticipating conflict before it begins.

But what happens when a machine that promises to protect civilization begins deciding how civilization must live?

As Takamura and his companions pursue the crown across the Four Banner worlds, they uncover a secret deliberately buried by the original explorers. The greatest safeguard against tyranny was built into the system itself—but activating it will demand something that rival civilizations have rarely demonstrated.

Trust.

With the Longhua Directorate closing in and the future of an entire region at stake, Takamura must solve a mystery that cannot be settled by superior firepower, clever deception, or the defeat of a single enemy.

Because peace without freedom may be the most dangerous victory of all.

THE LAST JADE CROWN is the thrilling conclusion to The Jade Dragon Protocol , a science-fiction espionage adventure of ancient mysteries, interstellar intrigue, political ambition, and the enduring struggle to keep power in the service of people.

The final question is not whether civilization can achieve peace.

It is whether civilization will remain free to choose it.

FROM JOHN E. SIERS: Daughters of Two Worlds (Children of the Lunar Free State Book 2)

Two worlds. Extraordinary daughters. One dangerous future.

Aurora Drew escaped Tatanna as a frightened child. Seven years later, she’s returning with the knowledge to change her homeworld forever. But bringing modern medicine to a primitive society isn’t without its dangers, and the past she thought she’d left behind may be the greatest threat of all.

On distant Xanadu, teenagers Kang Seri and Li Zhiruo have developed extraordinary telepathic abilities through their connection with the mysterious aliens known as Kitties. Their gifts make them unique—and potentially invaluable to the Lunar Free State.

Because the enemy is watching.

Confederated forces are preparing their next move, and the fragile peace on Xanadu is about to be shattered. As hidden threats emerge and old enemies return, these young women may hold the key to defending everything their people have built.

On two worlds, a new generation is coming of age. And the future belongs to those willing to fight for it.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Mesopredator Hustle

A dying star, and a station harvesting its planetary nebula for resources vital to a centuries-old war.

Amidst this beautiful but deadly stellar environment, a spy has infiltrated the star-lifting operations, creating “accidents” to take the lives of the crew. Can two troubleshooters from Engineering, one a human and the other a member of the feline Chongu, track down the killer when Security is certain the real problem is carelessness?

A short story of the Chongu Empire.

FROM LIANE ZANE: Helsing: Demon Slayer (The Dragon’s Paladins Book 1)

Book One of The Dragon’s Paladins

A shattered world. A relentless hunt. A collision of dark angelic forces.

Dianne Markham never asked to be part of a supernatural war. All she wanted was to survive a broken world and find something real. But when demonic forces strike her cruise ship as it docks in Split, Croatia, her pursuit of peace becomes a desperate, bloody fight for survival.

Enter Ryan Helsing.

A decorated Army Ranger with a past forged in fire, Ryan is battle-tested, emotionally scarred, and sworn to protect a hidden race of angel-blooded warriors. His orders were supposed to be simple: retrieve Dianne and escort her to a fortified sanctuary in the Albanian mountains.

Instead, it becomes a lethal race across a crumbling Europe. Hunted by forces both human and inhuman, Dianne and Ryan are drawn into a deadly web of ancient bloodlines, harmonic technology, and dark angelic forces.

As the unseen enemy closes in, Dianne realizes she carries secrets even she doesn’t understand—and she might be the key to the coming war. Ryan will risk everything to protect her, even if it means confronting the echoes of his haunted past and risking the very sanctuary he is sworn to defend.

Helsing: Demon Slayer is a pulse-pounding romantasy thriller. Whether you are returning to the overarching Elioud saga or stepping into the universe for the first time, this standalone road-escape delivers high-stakes action, visceral survival, and a fierce first strike against the dark.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: Saving the Spring: A short fantasy (Seasons Book 1)

Jack Randall knew immediately something was off when he pulled up to the old roadhouse. Little did he know that crossing paths that night with the establishment’s beautiful bartender and her handsomely-rugged boyfriend/cook would lead to him recalling his former life as a god – or fighting a rematch with the god who had stolen his memories.

FROM PAUL MICHAEL DURIVAGE: The Crossing

HE LEFT THE HOUSE. IT NEVER LEFT HIM.

As a child, Evan slept behind a locked door while wet footsteps crossed the hall. His parents called it the pipes. He knew better.

Evan grew up, left Connecticut, and built a life with Sarah and their daughter, Lily. Now he works with the Church, helping families confront things they cannot explain. Sarah knows how much his work has taken from their marriage. She does not know how much of his own past he is still keeping from her.

Then a call brings him home to Ripley, Ohio. A young woman is badly injured inside St. Jude’s. She is speaking in the voice of a priest’s dead mother.

Evan recognizes the black water. The river mud. The demon that knows where to hurt him.

As he fights to free Emily Hart, Sarah hears their daughter’s voice calling from an empty room. Lily is standing beside her, holding her hand. The danger has followed Evan home.

To save Emily without losing his family, Evan will have to trust people he cannot keep safe and stop deciding what they can bear to know.

FROM ROSS HATHAWAY: Grimm’s Anatomy 2: Leaving Is Not Loss

Mercy General has finally learned how to treat supernatural patients without turning them into monsters, myths, cautionary tales, or billing disputes.
Naturally, someone decides to standardize it and turn it into software.
Dr. Tessa Ward and Nurse Hattie Boone helped create Witness-Based Narrative Stabilization, a deceptively simple approach to supernatural medicine: listen to the patient, preserve what matters, and never confuse the story with the person trapped inside it.
It works.
That is when the trouble starts.
A regional healthcare system wants to expand Mercy’s methods using Continuum, a new technology designed to make sure critical information follows patients wherever they go. Allergies will not vanish between hospitals. Dangerous histories will not disappear under old names. No patient will ever be lost again.
Unfortunately, some things should stay in the past.
When Megan Bell arrives with back pain, insomnia, and a hallway that has mysteriously grown six feet longer, Continuum discovers that twenty years ago she was known as the Maiden in the Tower.
Megan escaped that story once.
Now the healthcare system remembers it for her.
As old diagnoses regain authority, forgotten identities begin shaping reality, and well-intentioned safeguards become increasingly difficult to distinguish from cages, Tessa faces a problem medicine rarely admits it has:
Sometimes forgetting can kill you.
Sometimes remembering can do something worse.
Darkly funny, strange, and unexpectedly human, Book Two of Grimm’s Anatomy returns to Mercy General, where werewolves still get pneumonia, ghosts still need discharge plans, bureaucracy remains incurable, and the most dangerous diagnosis may be the one everyone agrees is true.

FROM STANLEY WHEELER: Accidental Wizard: The Accidental Adventures Series

Two brothers. One dead wizard. And a spell nobody warned them about.

Twins Chris and Kenny only meant to walk through the giant fallen log at the end of Grandpa’s trail. Instead, the world explodes into fire and thunder, and they crash-land in a medieval kingdom on the losing side of a war. A dying blood mage summoned them on purpose, and now Chris is expected to take his place.

There’s just one catch. In this world, magic is paid for in blood. Every spell Chris casts — fingers of fire, a flick that stuns, a stone that breaks locks — opens a fresh wound. They call it the mulct, and the bigger the magic, the bigger the price. Meanwhile Kenny is handed an enchanted sword and mail shirt and told he’s a knight now. Ready or not.

To get home — and to stop a dragon-sorceress whose army is already crossing the Wide Waste — the boys have to find a staff sealed inside a mountain since Merlin’s day. Between them and the prize: flying blood wolves that hunt mages by scent, a valley of shape-shifting trolls, a traitor on a war-wolf, and a one-eyed pirate they were sure they’d already blown up.

Fast, funny, and packed with courage, quick thinking, and brotherhood, Accidental Wizard is Book Two of The Accidental Adventures Series. Adventure the way it’s supposed to be: the good guys outnumbered, outmatched, and not backing down.

FROM ELISE HYATT: A French Polished Murder (Daring Finds)

PIANO FORTE, MURDER FORTE She restores furniture. Murder restores itself.

When furniture refinisher Dyce Dare decides to spruce up an old piano as a gift for her boyfriend Cas Wolfe, she expected wood stains and varnish—not stained reputations and varnished truths. But that’s exactly what she gets when she discovers a mysterious letter hidden inside, pointing to a murder that’s been gathering dust longer than the piano keys.

Suddenly, Dyce’s biggest problems aren’t just that her well-meaning friend gave her son a miniature motorcycle (what could possibly go wrong?), or that said son has formed an unbreakable alliance with Pythagoras, a neurotic black cat with enough anxiety to power a small city.

No, her biggest problem is that someone out there doesn’t want this particular skeleton dancing out of its closet—and they’re willing to add Dyce to the body count to keep it quiet. As danger creeps closer to her doorstep and her parents’ mystery bookstore, Dyce discovers that old murders are like vintage furniture: they may be hidden away, but eventually, someone always finds them.

A French Polished Murder – When the music stops, the real mystery begins.

(Warning: Contains refinishing tips, parenting mishaps, and one cat who absolutely refuses to be a proper sidekick.)

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: BRAINY.

Because my brother was older than me, my tastes in music were weirdly dislocated in time. Okay, it saved me from Disco. They were also a little odd, because my brother was odd.

Before we could even afford a tape recorder (or were sure they weren’t a myth) when his transistor radio was the height of luxury, I fell in love with this song heard on his radio, and he enabled me into going across the street to the general store that became a tavern after 9pm (and this was around 10 pm) to call the requests program (he dialed and paid for the call) and ask for Dock of the Bay by Ottis Redding. I remember the announcer was so amused he asked me to repeat it. I must have been around four.

And yes, he used to sing this to me with all the silly flourishes:

At some point, we discovered John Denver. Weirdly the favorite was not Rocky Mountain High, but that song about the exotic and exciting land of West Virginia. In my pre-teens I used to belt this while walking home alone from middle school, along the ride overlooking the train line.

Tonight, I guess I’d rather be in Colorado:

And we had no idea what or where MacArthur Park was, or why it would melt or why leave a cake in the rain, but we loved the song anyway (yes, in this version.)

He sang this to his future wife (of course).

When I was ten and unbraided my hair, it came to my knees and being a kid, I would often forget to dress and come running downstairs dressed only in my hair (there’s a picture somewhere. You can’t see anything.) My brother nicknamed me Lady G. and sang this for me.

He said this was our song, and improbably, though we were never that old together and we were never both men, it feels right.

I just got word that my brother, Alvarim, died this morning.

We meant to go visit this fall, because I feared it might happen, but with the move and all, we were low on money and…. it didn’t happen.

We were so far apart in age that we were practically both only children, and he was ALMOST a third parent. And no, that’s not the best picture above. He hated having his picture taken, and I was weird. BUT–

For a long time I was his shadow. doing what he did, because that was the way to be in my mind. I followed him everywhere. I pretended to read the same books, and then later on read the same books and for a while we spoke almost exclusively in quotations from those books, driving my poor parents nuts.

He read to me when I was sick as a small child, was very patient with my notions when I was a teenager, and since we always thought no one would be stupid enough to marry either of us, we’d planned to get old and crazy together in our parents’ house.

It didn’t happen that way. He was very good to my kids. During the lean, tight years he’d send us money to buy them gifts.

We diverged politically as I came into my own mind, but the love was always there. And despite our differences, until he grew too ill to read much, when I visited, every five years or so, the book on his bedside table, often an history book or a classical mystery, was the same — in translation — as the one I’d left on my bedside in the US.

He died, and I never got to say goodbye and I don’t know what to do with this.

And my poor father, burying his first born little more than a year after losing his wife.

At least he came back to the church before he died.

Please, if you’re the praying kind, pray for my brother, Alvarim Marques de Almeida.

And pray for my father.

This is new year 1980. Of the people in this picture, a good half are dead.

Alas, I remain.

I’m not going to be okay for a long time. I will come around, but forgive me if I’m a little weird now and then.

And pray for me too, if you’re the praying kind.

(A Blast from the Past: https://accordingtohoyt.com/2020/06/29/routing-around-damage/)

Sorry this is so late. I got up this morning ready to give the last coat to what will be the household accounts office, so we can move furniture in on Wednesday, So I can do what will be my office over the weekend.  And then I remembered the stairs to the basement needed to be Zinzered (Totally a word. Like Killzing only more so) because grandcat did a number on them when older son was at work or school and not spending the requisite time with him. (Which in D’Artagnan’s mind means, of course ALL the time. 24/7)

By the time I looked up it was 12:30.  And now I shall try and go work, though not absolutely sure I have enough energy.  In the past I’ve found a nap helps reset the mind after hours of physical labor, but one also doesn’t like to employ it. It is admitting the body is getting old, I guess.  We’ll see.

Because I was working on the stairs, my mind was ranging over a bunch of things, including the old tale of the garden, and of the entity that offers that you shall be “like gods, knowing good from evil.”

For some reason this seems to be an unavoidable temptation of mankind, the sort of thing we can’t resist, just like we can’t resist the feeling that whatever one has should be divided equally.

I suppose it makes perfect sense from the point of view of a clever ape.  In the ape band, if things aren’t divided equally — say the hunt or the produce of foraging — then someone will grow fat, and someone will starve. We are, after all, as a species, scavenger apes. Which means that most of our ancestors, since well before we became human and throughout our past since that time lived at the edge of starvation.

At the same time, being clever apes, we want to know. we need to know. And we want to know what the rules and are and what we can impunely poke at, and what will turn and sting us into next Wednesday or the next turn of the wheel for that matter.

We also, being clever apes, and scavengers, distrust the good times.  We hate it when things are going too well, people have fat babies and there’s peace on the land.  We hate it, because as every scavenger knows too many fat babies mean a time of famine around the bend. It’s unavoidable. There are only so many resources. You have too many scavengers, and the food supply is stripped bare, and then what?

All of this probably explain the 20th century. Well, as much as anything can besides “Dear Lord, that lousy century!”

Because through the wars, the horrors, the killing by the numbers by government fiat (which we show ourselves quite ready to continue this century, by the way) life was pretty good, for most humans.  You know, in raw terms of food and fat babies, humanity was doing pretty well.

Except —

Except the Cassandras were out full force, and often spurring on the government killing by the numbers — and still trying to do it — alarmed at the number of fat babies.  We won’t go into the various theories of Paul Ehrlich. Honest, the man is impressive. How can you be wrong so consistently? It’s like ALWAYS guessing the wrong number in a set of two. By pure luck, sometime, he should be right. By accident even.

And we won’t go into the climate doom and gloom, because honestly, I’m forever astonished at anyone my age who takes it seriously. Because in my lifetime we were going to freeze to death. I bought it then. How could I now? All the smart people and scientists said so.  And the prescription was socialism.

Oh, they didn’t call it that. They call it being sensible and careful and sustainable. What it amounted to, to the kid who read science fiction, was belt tightening on a global scale.  We all needed to live small lives. Ask permission to have kids, earn permission to live in a little cubicle and eat our ration, and be happy for it, because without that we’d all freeze to death by the early two thousands.  Oh, well. It was just my luck, the time I’d been born into.

At the same time we were running our of oil, out of gas, out of coal, out of minerals. Out of everything.

And then a funny thing happened.  Not only didn’t we run out of any of those things, but learned to use them better, found new deposits, but the weather didn’t grow markedly colder.

In the middle eighties, the consensus pivoted in the space of a year to “We’re all going to boil to death.”  Perhaps by then I was more cynical.

I’d realized a few things.  Like, we weren’t running out of anything, and Paul Ehrlich had rolled snake eyes again.  Another was that the prescription to avoid boiling was the same as to avoid freezing. More socialism. And the other was that these prophets of despair didn’t want us to go to space. No we had to “learn to take care of the Earth first.”

That seemed weirdly moralistic. More a religious position than a scientific one. Because, really, who judges when we “learn to take care of the Earth?”  The Earth seems to be doing okay, honestly, humans or not.  How many trees do we need to plant, before we can have a colony on Mars? What sense does THAT make?  Or as I used to put it — to much sputtering — “I don’t think we’d ever have learned to take care of Europe, if we’d not struck out to other continents. Or if you go back far enough, to take care of Africa, before homo sap migrated.  That’s not how any of that works. You don’t learn your language properly before you learn another. And knowing other planets is what will allow us to take care of the Earth. It’s just the way it works.”

Anyway, I think that’s the other, third flaw of the human brain, born of our biological heritage. We’re jumped up scavenging apes. We can’t help worrying about how bad things will get now that they’re good. If there’s enough food today, there won’t be tomorrow.

Unfortunately add intelligence and shake, and what you get is people convince that they ARE like gods, knowing good from evil, and that they get to tell everyone else what they can do and what they can’t.  That of course, being the other curse of apes. You want to be the band leader. Fraught as it is it’s the safest position.

Well, except those of us who are broken apes, and feel safer by ourselves, in our own branch.  I don’t think any of us would have survived too long out in the wilderness, though.  A solitary ape is known as “lunch” to too many things.

I have friends who run terminally ill computers.  I’ve done it myself in the past.  Now that writing pays, even if irregularly (Dear Lord, I need to stop flooring rooms and start writing more, because indie does pay, and so does PJM…. indie more, but PJM faster) I usually don’t fool with computers past the point the they fail me twice. But in the bad old days when I was just starting out, I normally inherited my husband’s computers, once they started sputtering (or we bought them from his job when they upgraded. That’s how the boys got their own computers when Marshall was 3. Which prevented my losing half the workday because the toddler wanted to play the Winnie the Pooh game.)

Because husband is a genius with computers (he just is) he found ways around the damage of computers that weren’t working very well.

Sometimes he wrote programs, that made the computer not get trapped in dead sectors.  Or at one time he (at least tried to) made me use Linux, because the computer was too slow for Windows.

I’m glad we don’t have to resort to that now. The computer fails twice and I point out we need a new computer. (Though I’m a little nervous at replacing three computers with one. I hate single points of failure. Well, I still have the travel laptop, at least.  That will do for writing, if not for rendering or publishing work.)

But there is no such workaround for humanity.  Maybe in the distant future we can get rid of the persistent illusions that are part of being human.  This idea of “fairness” and omniscience and, oh, yeah, that doom is just around the corner.

Perhaps. I wouldn’t trust anyone capable of doing that, mind, capable of tampering with the very essence of what being human means.

Those of us who are religious believe that eventually there will a New Heaven and a New Earth.  Which ultimately means new humans. We believe something will happen, and the good old hardware will be fixed or fix itself automagically.  And, well, if there is an engineer who put us together, then it’s okay if He fixes it, I guess.

But  I’d be really leery, as my fiction probably shows, of any humans trying to fix the old hardware.  Why, even with computers which are orders of magnitude simpler than you or I, and even with as good as husband is with computers, I always tense when he says “oh, it’s just the motherboard.  I’ll get a new one and–”  Okay, it’s been years since he’s made the problem worse. But it can happen.  I know that. And then the computer catches fire.  (No, seriously. Two of mine so far.  Yes, it’s my fault for all the heretical stuff I write, like this post, I guess.)

So, what is to be done?

I don’t know.  So far, we know that the flaws of mankind can be compensated for with software.  And the best software, so far, seems to be called “Western Civilization.”  At least in terms of leading to fat babies and lots of food.  Sure, it also led to government by the numbers, and killing by the numbers, or as we call it around here “20th century.”

But the thing is, it’s hard to tell how much of it is the software “Western Civilization” and how much is the flaws in the hardware.  The Zulus, who were virgin of the software, left enough corpses strewn around Africa that some of them form the basis of hills. And the things the Chinese got up to in their history are best read about thy those with a strong stomach, and not after lunch.

And then there’s the virus of socialism, which takes advantage of the hardware’s flaws of “fairness” and “knowing good from evil” and “oh, no, too  many fat babies, famine around the corner.”

In fact, the Marxism/Communism/socialism virus is almost too perfect, slots too much with the human hardware flaws to be accidental; just like Western civ and bourgeois values might be too perfect, leading too assuredly to enough food and fat babies to be accidental.

Maybe.

Or maybe cultures, like species are subject to evolutionary law and the best adapted one emerges the victor.

Which would mean we win, they lose. In the long run. The very, very long run.  But neither of us will see it.

I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. I’m not the engineer, and I’m not the software designer.  In fact, I’m not sure any of us is qualified to design software at that level. All attempts at doing it seem to result in a lot of dead hardware.

I do know that if the program is not running on “Respect individuals, don’t hurt them and don’t take their stuff” it ends up in a lot of broken hardware.  A lot of it.

I do know that I cannot be like gods knowing good from evil.

And I will fight against anyone in the grip of the illusion that everything can be made fair, who thinks they can hurt people and take their stuff and somehow bring about paradise.

I’m not the Engineer. I’m not the software designer. But I can read print when its engraved in all the sorry history of mankind, and elsewhere too.

And in the garden there was a serpent….

Do you guys ever wonder if time is circular, and if those writings, metaphorical, of course, are the result of many-times-experience of mankind?

Man, if that is true, we must be the worst students ever.

Of course A Canticle of Leibowitz posited something like that, but the idea was that it was all designed to warn about nuclear war and how to avoid it.

Bah. No nukes needed. To destroy civilization, the inherent flaws of mankind suffice, and are plenty.

“You shall be like gods, knowing good from evil.”

It always leads to destruction and death, and the dark of night, and sweating while laboring to extract our livelihood out of dirt.

Perhaps this time we can avoid it, yes?  Perhaps we can take the old snake and make a pair of shoes out of its skin?

Probably too much to hope for, but at the end of the Pandora Box that’s 2020 maybe some hope remains.

Route around the damage. Write a new program.  Not the same old stupidity again.  Let’s try new and exciting stupidity.  Let’s go elsewhere and try our all too human flaws.

Enough is enough. They shall not pass.

Still here, and rocking you into your new Build Under, Build Over, Be Around, keep chill, check your ammo and count your canned!

Once, I woke up in the middle of a hurricane, (Hugo, in Charlotte, NC) looked out the bedroom window and a tornado was crossing our backyard. I thought “I’m dead” and went back to bed and turned on the radio. This came on. I fell asleep to it. I didn’t die. And neither will we:

And from exile with love and longing and loss…

For all of you (and sorry for using my clanker stuff… but you get the point):

And for my family: