Hold On

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Sauve qui peut. Sauve qui peut. This is me sounding the toc sin. Sauve qui peut. NOW.

Okay, you know and I know that I believe in the end we win they lose. But that’s in the end. There’s the in between time to get through.

And I told you the waters will get mighty rough. I failed to estimate just how rough. Partly because I failed to appreciate how Rat on Meth the opposition is, and how bottomlessly, bizarrely, almost impossibly stupid. Note this is not a natural stupidity. That has limits. This is the stupidity of otherwise normal (though not half as smart as they think they are) people. People who’ve gone to school to be that dumb. People so spoiled, so “educated”, so convinced that they’re speshul that they not only can’t find their ass with two hands but are convinced someone else will always wipe it for them.

Or as I have put it in the past, this is fourth generation communists in charge of every organization, every major institution, everything that is used to keep the nation running. Now, mind you the country isn’t communist. They just took over our institutions, which — given full control of the media, as they had when the long march began — in the past would have given them absolute and total control over the country.

Communism is an amazing thing. It achieves in four generations what took the royal houses of Europe ten to achieve via incest and genetic messes: leaders so useless that it takes three tries to figure out on which end to put the crown.

Worse, the crowned heads of Europe had some excuse. Most of them were genetic rejects. Communism does this with perfectly normal if not brilliant people by simply training them to bark like seals and clap at received wisdom and never, ever, ever, let a seed of doubt of a shred of thought get in the way.

The first generation of commies were evil (There is no option for non-evil, in a philosophy that enshrines envy as a virtue) but cunning and smart, and often lied to themselves about their own goodness. But they knew that given a chance people wouldn’t back them. So once they took over something (or even got a foot in the door) they had to bring in their ideological brethren. The problem of course being most of those weren’t that smart, and were more evil than cunning or competent. So the second generation was perceptibly less competent than the first, but still competent enough that given mass media control, and insistence that these were “the best people.” The fourth generation, which is where I came in, had become somewhat noticeably incompetent. If you were in the field (whatever field) you knew that they were selling less/doing less/less efficient/less sane than the preceding generations. But people outside still could be kept from noticing. And there were enough of us mobi-ing to keep the whole thing from collapsing by being normal-person competent. I suspect most of the left in our fields knew we weren’t on their side, or at least suspected so. But they tolerated us, while treating us like crap, because we sold just enough, or whatever to keep them in business. (Whatever the business.)

And then about 10 years ago that changed. You had to be fully on board zombified to stay employed. 4th generation. They don’t know how things run, and they don’t really think things need to run. They believe they can control everything by the same means they got promoted/hired/pushed up the ladder: WORDS. They think that words and performative and reality is irrelevant.

And here we are.

Apologies for linking National Review until they acknowledge their Never-Trump part in this mess, but As the Economy Crumbles and CALIFORNIA DROVE TRUCKERS OUT OF BUSINESS. NOW STORE SHELVES ARE EMPTY and so much, so much else. You can find it without looking too far.

And the problem isn’t even that everything is fucked. A semi-competent administration, say generation 2 commies, or an effed up but with some non-commie zombies in the midst could fix this up in no time.

The problem is that they don’t realize anything is wrong. They — and this administration is all 4th generation, including Joe who is an early member — are all 4th generation. All Cargo Cult Communism.

They’re going on the experience of their lives: say the right words and everything is WONDERFUL and PERFECT. It works.

So we get the administration laboring over PRONOUNS as the economy disintegrates. We get the Junta pushing “get the jab” in a labor shortage. And none of them would DREAM of challenging the holy environmentalism of California, even if it starves the country.

It is tempting to attribute it to malice. And there is malice. As I said, any ideology that sanctifies envy is not on the side of angels. BUT it’s not as coordinated and epic malice as you’d think. It’s just… performative stupidity and thinking they can say the right words and magically there will be rainbows and unicorns.

Part of the issue is that Occasional Cortex is not that far from 4th generation mainstream. She’s just stupid enough to talk about it. And her stupid, bizarre idea that in the green new deal we could just pay “Native Americans” to advise us on the environment is the type of thing they think. The noble savage spun through a thousand woke tales, and having nothing to do with real life blood and sinew humans, who you know? actually are mostly European since Amerindian genes got overwhelmed, but even if they weren’t wouldn’t be some of kind of magical mystical environment fairy.

They really believe in the magic of the right words. They really don’t believe in reality. Which means it’s all going to come apart at speed.

Yeah, we probably can put it back together. We’re Americans. But count on a rough, rough year. If we’re lucky no deaths from famine, but it’s going to come damn close.

And no, the idiots at the top of all our institutions will refuse to admit anything is even wrong. Because if they admit something is wrong, then they can’t change reality with their words.

They’re attempting a stunt on the level of levitating the Denver Mint, which they tried at the 2008 DNC, but with the entire country.

It’s going to get rough. And bumpy. Hold on to the sides of the boat. And prep.

Yes, like most kids who remember the 70s I’m skeptical of prepping. I’m also really bad at it. But we need to boys and girls. Food. Medicine (And that’s a how do you do given prescription meds. I’m trying to get some of my medical peeps to give us lists of herbal OTC stuff we can stock that while they might not be as effective as the meds (they won’t be) might keep some people alive.)

Get ready for year from hell, and then just very rough times as we rebuild. Remember freedom seeds because #teamheadsonpikes looks poised to have a go, and you know, our side has lousy target acquisition.

Good people are going to die. Innocents are going to die through this. Form what association you can, even among commenters here. Prepare to take care of yourself and those you love.

Don’t be fooled into a false sense of security. The type of collapse we — probably all — are sensing is first slow then very fast.

And yes, what a time (I picked to stop sniffing glue or rather) for me to be strapped for money and unable to fully prep?

The water is going to get rough. Keep your clothes and ammo where you can find them in the dark, and get ready for a year of suckage.

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299 thoughts on “Hold On”

      1. Seriously … I’m almost to the point where I am considering Kurt Schlicter’s “Split” not as dystopic fiction, but as current events…
        (Note to self. Buy more cooking oil. Propane bottles. Oil and necessary fluids for the cars. Something to power the freezer with, in case of another Snowmagedden. A small turkey breast for Thanksgiving…)

          1. A common plastic milk crate will hold a BBQ-size propane tank tightly and keep it from being tipped over. You can slide a short piece of 1-1/2″ PVC pipe in a back corner to hold the wrench and fire lighter.

            If using Mr. Heater burner heads, put them in a bag or box during warm weather. If they get dust in them, they smell pretty bad for a while when re-lit.

            The Mr. Heater knobs have three stops. Sometimes you just want a little extra heat, less than the first stop. You can position the knob in between “off” and “1” for less heat. As long as at least 25% of the mesh is glowing red, it will stay lit. My CO meter says the sub-1 setting is fine.

            Call *everywhere* when shopping for refills or exchanges. Prices vary widely. Also, stamped on the handle of the tank, there’s an expiration date. If you exchange tanks, make sure the one you’re getting in return isn’t expired, or you might have trouble exchanging it anywhere else.

            1. My personal preference is a vented propane heater, though these bring in TPTB for permits and inspections. OTOH, you can run propane supplies anywhere from 20 pound BBQ bottles to the 300 gallon tanks found in Deplorable country. (I use 40 and 50 pound bottles for the two outbuildings heated this way.)

              The smaller bottles fit into a plastic stand. No idea if they’re still available, but they’ll hold the 20,30, and 40 pound bottles securely. The 50s seem to be off the market, perhaps because they don’t use the overfill-protection device found on the smaller bottles.

              Locally, nobody pays attention to the date code on the tank unless the tank is in obviously bad condition. Really old smaller bottles without the overfill device won’t get refilled, but those date to around the mid 1990s or earlier.

              1. What makes you think that propane will be available when the #### hits the fan? Wood will probably be…

                1. [Looks at fire wood shelter.] Meh. What problem?

                  Hey, we’re rural. We expect *everything* to be non-available at times. Propane is viable for outages up through a few months. I have a backup system in place to take care of refrigeration if necessary, and the well is already off grid.

                  In a long term disruption, we’d move our travel trailer into the barn and fire up the wood stove. Pine and juniper aren’t as good as oak or other hardwoods, but when you have several cords already split and access to much more, it’s good enough. Electricity would be available by tapping power from the off-grid well system.

            2. We’ve been using a propane Mr. Heater for auxiliary heat in an add-on room since the mid ’90s.

              More than once I’ve reflected that I’m sitting there with a computer networked to the whole world, and capable of contacting the space station in orbit, powered by a nuclear reactor not far away. Yet I’m using fire to keep from freezing…

                1. Sarah, I’m not seeing “likes” or a website link attached to the name of the commenter. I use brave and haven’t had any problems with other WordPress sites. Pale Moon doesn’t like it either.

            3. Leave a window cracked open down stairs where the heaters are running and crack one open upstairs, the warmed air will form a draft replacing the heated air with fresh. Also remember if it is burning it’s using oxygen. A CO detector is a must

            4. Go to Home Depot, with the automated propane exchange. Go in, pay cash, go out and enter code and take away a newer tank. All those companies are skeevy rip off artists and deserve to spend a few bucks on an updated valve. They probably bribed the politicians to mandate the change anyway.

          2. It seems that the propane heaters by Mr. Heater are good – I have a small one which we bought off-season at Tractor Supply a couple of years ago, and which did very nicely for us last spring when Snowmagedden hit Texas. Runs on a small propane bottle – there are others on the market by Mr. Heater available at the Big Box home reno sores.
            Wouldn’t run any of them at night, when everyone is asleep, though. This is why lots of blankets, hot water bottles and feather comforters were developed…

            1. I have one (and a fan meant for atop a wood stove that is powered with a thermal junction – wedges fairly well in the wire guard). A two-bottle unit. Also an adapter so I can use a larger tank (I have a small one-gallon thing that’s easier to move than the ‘grill’ sized things. I wouldn’t use it unattended or asleep, either, but I can see using it to heat up a room and then sleeping for as long as the cold didn’t wake anyone up. I also picked up a couple properly refillable 1 lb bottles and a good rig so the bigger tank (the grill sized thing) isn’t precariously balanced during the process. And a battery powered CO monitor, of course. A test run for some time revealed no CO issues.

              Another such CO monitor is in the kitchen, so if I wind up using the butane/propane camp stove there won’t be any nasty surprises thus.

          3. There are propane catalytic heaters like a Mr. Buddy. There are propane RV furnaces, which could be adapted to residential use.

              1. One of the smaller indoor-safe Mr. Heater Buddy heaters or similar might do. They seem to run around $100, from online sources or from camping stores. Plus propane, of course.

                1. Good idea to get an adapter hose fitting that allows you to attach a 20 pound BBQ grill propane tank rather than the 1 pound small bottles, Not really meant for indoor use, but needs must.
                  Gasoline is a hazard when stored and goes bad over time. Propane does not, so a duel fuel generator makes sense. Also get one rated for at least 2,000 W as that will just cover the surge demand for appliances such as your fridge and freezer. Keep those shut tight as much as possible and only run them for 15 minutes 3 or 4 times a day and you’ll be fine.
                  If you have natural gas a whole house generator of at least 10,000 KW can be installed for around $5k. Major expense, but as the grid becomes increasingly unreliable worth your consideration.

                  1. “If you have natural gas a whole house generator of at least 10,000 KW can be installed for around $5k. ”

                    That includes your neighborhood as well as just your house, as I found out when I asked the gas company.

                  2. I haven’t been on natural gas since we moved here, but I wonder how well NG would work in a lengthy grid-down event. Propane has its issues, but so far (Murphy! Stay out of this. Pleeeeeeease!) we haven’t run into any disruptions.

                    The three propane heaters we have are all independent on electrical supplies, though the house would be tough to deal with if we lost electrics in the dead of winter. It would be necessary to drain the interior water lines, since the propane heater doesn’t have enough heat to prevent a freeze.

                    I suspect I should do a SHTF checklist, or maybe a binder of multiple lists for various scenarios.

                    1. Be very careful about propane if you survive on deliveries. We could NOT get the propane company to deliver last February. We ordered. We re ordered. We escalated tickets. we filed rush orders.
                      We called with emergencies orders. They all fell into a computer system run by no one while phone calls were handled by people at home. 6 weeks of calling, begging to buy propane, and we finally got routed to the actual local supplier when we called to cancel our contract at whatever cost that would be. Local supplier had never seen any of our requests for propane, not anyone else’s. Hundreds of people got dangerously low. Others ran out; bleeding that line is no fun.

                      We’ve been trying to get NG installed in parallel since summer. Can’t get anyone to show up to do the survey to get on the utility’s plan and can’t get anyone to do the switchover for appliances in our home.

                    2. ” we finally got routed to the actual local supplier when we called to cancel our contract at whatever cost that would be.”

                      The lesson here is: Go ugly early and avoid the rush.

                      Nothing gets someone’s attention like “You’re not delivering what you contracted for, so I’m cancelling the contract and not making any more payments.” That should have been said after the second call.

                    3. That scenario sounds like the propane company we *used* to have. They are infamous for poor service and a predatory attitude*. (Name is one word, starts sounding patriotic, ends rhyming with “ass”.) They also don’t bother with periodic maintenance on their equipment. The only good news was that the prices were comparable to the competition.

                      Our original installation was for a wood-stove-looking propane heater in the dining room. In 2012 we swapped out the electric range in favor of a propane one (natural gas is not an option here. Maybe in 20 years) and decided it was a good idea to swap companies. $LOCAL_SUPPLIER is regional, and my calls for refills go directly to the scheduler or to the co-worker a few feet away. Off season, they’ll come once a month. We don’t use enough to be on the auto-refill plan. Our norm is to refill once or twice a year (the rest of our heating is electric) when the tank gets to 60%.

                      They drained the old $NATIONAL_SUPPLIER tank, moved it out of the way, mounted a current regulator high enough to make it safe (Idiots at the first mounted it so high snow levels would block it. That made for a lot of fun one cold winter’s morning) and did the hookup. We got our propane back, too.

                      Multiple calls to $N_S and they didn’t get their tank. Eventually, I sent them a polite letter telling them I was ready to charge rent if they didn’t get the tank out by a certain date. A day before the deadline, they got it. A month later, they sent me a bill for the next year’s rent. I raised hell at the local terminal, and they unscrewed it. Took a couple of tries… The local reps have a very low opinion of the national.

                      (*) A friend got a bill from them for tank rental–it was an abandoned tank dating to the 1940s. A similar polite message telling them to stick the invoice where it hurts managed to solve the problem.

                  3. Get a weather station with a wireless outdoor temp sensor. Put the sensor in your freezer so you know when to run the generator without opening it.

                    Place the fridge or run a properly rated extension cable such that you can unplug it and connect it to the generator without trying to move it physically during the blackout.

                  4. It’s pricey, but I recommend the Honda EU2200i. Honda generators are incredibly reliable, and they use built-in inverters–so rather than running at only 2 rpms (full speed and half that), you can flip a switch and the engine will idle down to just the rpm needed to produce the wattage being used, thus stretching your fuel supply out when you don’t need 2000 watts.

                    Just make sure to treat your gas with a stabilizer (and use ethanol-free gas if you can find it), and exercise the generator for a few minutes each month or two. And make sure the exhaust can’t get into the house!

                    1. I bought the Champion 2500 dual-fuel inverter generator off Amazon, literally just now. It should keep my fridge and chest freezer running no problem, and it’s small enough that I’ll be able to lug it out to Tierra de Balzacq and run one power tool at a time off of it. It gets really good reviews and it’s like 1/4 the price of the Honda.

                    2. Ethanol-free gasoline is available at fuel terminals (if your area has any) or places catering to the boating crowd. I found low-test non-oxy gas, and it seems to be quite stable. Everybody except one terminal only sells premium; overkill for lawn mowers/generators and such. (That’s also the outfit that sells off-road diesel, kerosene and propane. They know me.)

                      I think I’m spending about a dollar a gallon extra for the privilege of non-oxy. State law says I can’t pump non-oxy directly into my vehicles…

                    3. Most of the stations in Iowa have ethanol-free as the only type of normal grade gas. The inexpensive, up to 10% ethanol variety is mid-grade.

                  5. Propane exhaust is also much less toxic than gasoline or diesel exhaust. Engines run a lot cleaner on propane, and last longer.

          4. Don’t buy Mr Buddy, Little Buddy, Butt Buddy, any Buddy heater. They only last a few hundred hours, and I’ve tried more than one, with fuel filter. Go to Sportsmans Guide and get the camping cast iron burner cooking stove ( if you have ventilation, obviously ) and just put a large piece of cast iron cookware over the burner. If not an option, you’ll need to spend big bucks on an indoor vented heater. But cheaper than buying multiple Buddy heaters.

          5. I have some experience with these, due to ice storm power outages and outbuildings with only AC.
            Using portable propane heaters is more trouble than most people realize.
            You have to use them in a small, enclosed space for them to be effective. And while they don’t output much CO unless they aren’t working properly, they do reduce the O2 levels and increase the CO2 levels in said space. Let this go on long enough and you won’t be feeling very well.
            I don’t advise using one without a CO alarm and an environmental monitor, so you know when your C02 levels are getting ridiculous and you need to ventilate.

      2. Compare TLC to the Buckman scenario in Kratman’s Caliphate.

        Also makes A State of Disorder look a mite pleasant.

          1. Caliphate helped me to see the inherent security issue with America’s northern border. It is my own doing that I take it seriously, somewhat.

            Troy Rising and Roger aren’t the grimmest of Ringo grim, but not Ringo’s least grim work.

          1. Our day will come and clear the way, if we’re being polite.

            Since wee free Irish was channeling Bobby Sands, I thought I’d channel Jim Larkin. The great appear great because we are on our knees. Arise!

      2. Best I’ve got is from The Hobbit, Fatty Bolger blowing the trumpet. “Fear! Fire! Foes!”

      3. In an earlier posting when a I was despairing you told me to “buck up”. So, right back at ya honey. N’ayez jamais peur

        1. I’m not despairing. I’m frustrated as we need an extra 1k to buy stuff, and the house just got delayed going up another week, because supply/labor issues for the last fixes. ARGH.

          1. Ah. Frustration I get but sauve qui peut is despair. On the other hand,I do agree that its usual companion throughout French history — Nous sommes trahis— is certainly true.

            They needed to do a crash bang gotcha, but they failed in the senate. They’ve lost the initiative, all we have to do is hold on.

            This too shall pass.

  3. It doesn’t help that the fourth generation is incompetent and evil. They are holding to the plan… but don’t understand why they shouldn’t say the quiet parts loud. I hope to hell there is enough people who wake up soon. (trying to stay white pilled)

    1. In my purely anecdotal collection of “data” I’m seeing more “waking” responses from my liberal and ultra-liberal friends and acquaintances. Yes, I still have some. They believe my former life as faculty insures my left credentials. I have yet to disabuse them of that and they have not figured out that my “I’m just pointing out that…” comments are the evidence right in front of them. I’m glad the quiet parts are getting said out loud. Means people will wake up a bit faster I think.

      1. Spoke with several vendors at the event we just attended (lots of upper-middle class females, “crafty,” sorts). They wore their masks because they had to, but I got a fair amount of, ” That’s the only reason we do.” The only one who still unquestionably believed the narrative is from the Northeast….and her family is hurting.

        1. The northeastern lady is hanging on by her fingernails. Supply chain is part of it, and bureaucratic idiocy. I feel for her. She’s an innocent.

    2. In the heart of darkness here, yesterday in QFC I see one other maskless face. A gentleman. Black T-shirt with white block letters: WAKE UP.

      There is hope.

      10% is enough. We just see the 90 percent that are descendants of rule followers and slaves.

      1. Black T-shirt with white block letters: WAKE UP.

        Nice! I had the perfect two word DIY t-shirt slogan, but it was at bedtime and now I can’t remember what it was. 🙂

      2. And there was the Florida congressman who yesterday on the floor of the Hallowed Halls reamed the Ficus Follies a good one, and finished up with that modern battle cry, “Let’s Go Brandon!”

        (IIRC the vid was on Forbes YT channel.)

  4. So, once upon a time I attended an event for undergraduate students, run by some competent but somewhat woke faculty. Students had made Popsicle stick bridges, and were loading them to failure.

    Now, the bridges would deflect as they were loaded. But, some of them would have a failure mode that would show in a deflection that was rather obviously wrong, but before the visible signs of plastic failure.

    We might be seeing the equivalent of a very bad wobble prior to failure.

    I think it is likely that those woke faculty are not seeing this, yet. There may have been a presentation involved in that confidence, by an economics grad student talking about how horrible the gig economy is.

    Anyway, the academic go along to get alongs who were peers of the second and third generations include some competent sorts, but very specialized, so very slow to grasp new ideas outside their fields. Also, by default inclined to trust the conclusions of other fields about the questions of other fields. The honest ones appear to be very ignorant of those matters where fields have come to the wrong conclusions by fraud or other misconduct of scholarship.

    Anyway, when a metal in tension fails by ductile or brittle failure, it does so by growth of defects that were present in the manufacturing of the metal. Metals larger than a certain size, statistically, have a little void somewhere.

    The Air Force has a scheme called Damage and Damage Tolerance. Basically, inspections have a minimum resolution, so when you inspect the most dangerous areas for a defect, a pass just means that the defects are smaller than that resolution. So, take the largest defect that will pass the inspection, in the worst location and orientation, and calculate how long it can grow and still safely be repaired. Do your inspection before that time passes.

    The woke have carefully disabled all the official alarms and inspections, so we have been seeing the growth of the defects in universities, businesses, courts and other organizations and entities. We have been very attentive to them.

      1. I’ve speculated for a while that the “Go woke, go broke” may have the causality reversed. I’ve suspected a lot of the movies that went hard work in their ad campaigns did it because they realized they had a dog, and were trying to find some convenient scapegoat for it.

        I think it was either Hello Future Me or Critical Drinker who did an analysis of what went wrong with the Captain Marvel movie. Apparently they actually had all the parts, including shot scenes to make a good movie, but ended up crippling it by showing everything in the wrong order. All they needed to do was show what they had in the chronological order and it would have been a pretty good movie.

        Lord only knows why they decided that out of order was the way to do it. It managed to convert every single “show” moment into a “tell” moment.

        There’s just been a lot of that in Hollywood lately. The skin suit brigade are one thing, but there’s also this grey dune brigade who keep grafting duck bills onto Bing Crosby’s forehead and thinking it’s good, because it’s different.

          1. Or die so roll left. There’s an awful lot of institutions that should have died out that are rolling left hoping that will save them. Look at Citibank and look for Wells Fargo. Citi has been a dead firm walking since 2009 and Wells has gone from disaster to disaster over the last few years. Facebook has always been lefty, but now they’re not hiding it anymore so their most recent results are consistent with this view. Once the tide goes out, it tends to keep going.

            1. The tide is going way, way, way out. And we know what that means. Too bad all the lefties are out there collecting seashells.

              1. Yup Balzaq I think you have it right. The tide is going out unexpectedly and going WAY out. The SJW/tranzi are going “ooooo pretty!” at the shells and following it out. What they don’t seem to know is that what is coming next is a tsunami, potentially of epic proportions. Head for the hills…

            2. https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nyse/c/ownership

              Scroll down to the “C Investors”.
              Vanguard and Blackrock.

              Now take a look at Blackrock shareholders:
              www DOT wallstreetzen DOT com/stocks/us/nyse/blk/ownership

              And an interesting article on this:
              www DOT lewrockwell DOT com/2021/04/bill-sardi/who-runs-the-world-blackrock-and-vanguard/

              And there appears to be a lot of “circular ownership”.

              There ya go, that One World Government without the bother and expense of being all official about it.

              Meanwhile, I consider how much attention is directed toward “soak the rich” when the “rich” are third stringers by comparison.
              .
              .
              .
              [Eat the rich. The poor are tough and stringy.]
              .

      2. I don’t think it’s XCOM2’s fault that a lot of the MSM bleatings sounds suspiciously like ADVENT propaganda. 😮

        1. Essentially, I finished a Sabotage Transmitter Guerilla Op and I swear the ADVENT news announcer was using the same “Together” propaganda you hear nowadays. Remember: Good citizenship means reporting attempts at sabotage to your nearest ADVENT Peacekeeper or you could be exiled from a City Center.

        2. Speaking of our feckless media:

          https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/10/26/establishment-media-shut-down-secret-chat-room-coordinating-facebook-whistleblower-document-releases-after-breitbart-news-inquiries/

          The entire point of this was for the so-called whistleblowers and the media to push for censoring non-leftists including news sites such as the NY Post, Breitbart, etc. Remember for these leftists, “hate speech” and “misinformation” is anything which challenges leftist orthodoxy.

    2. As I was reading here with one eye, with the other ear I was listening to a guy on Vladimir Jaffe’s channel (“Former Soviet Citizen”) giving a lecture on communism… one thing he said that was rather striking is that communism’s failure mode is not only built in, it’s designed in. What we think of as flaws, and the myriad reasons why communism can never work, are =intentional= thus the failure mode IS the end goal.

      The speaker (himself raised in that system) also relayed something from a party official damned bound and determined to hold onto his seat as long as possible despite being in a position where any sane person would retire: all the wealth and privilege he enjoyed was in fact largesse from the state, he had nothing of his own, and therefore it would all go POOF the moment he stepped down. So he was hanging on for the rest of his life, whatever it took.

      Well, if you want to design a society of puppet masters terrified of losing control, and cowed powerless peasants, yep, that failure mode is about right.

      1. That’s why Putin will die in office. If he retires he loses everything including his house. And he doesn’t even have his own dacha like Yeltsin and Gorbachev did.

        1. It is the type of society Democrats are trying to create here, except theirs adds extra odiousness with its identity group oppression Olympics.

          2. That’s owned by the office of President. He did that so laundering things wouldn’t come back to him personally. Dacha aside, if he were to “retire” somebody would likely assassinate him.

          3. If you’re at all interested in the sort of ‘inside baseball’ look at Putin and cronies, the book “Putin’s Kleptocracy” by Karen Dawisha is great. It’s a bit dense and as I said inside baseball, but fascinating.

    3. Well stated. It resonated with me. I am a NDT inspector for Kalitta Air in MI. Connie so far has decided to enforce the not-a-mandate of the not-a-vaxx. As such, I’ll be on unpaid leave (kinda like being fired, but without unemployment payments) come December…

  5. We picked an interesting time to move. But it’s now or never. We’ve been prepping…now I’m figuring what to put in the car and what to put in the truck. Emergency food, bug out bags, and other things will come with us as long as they fit. My plan is to stock up as soon as we land.

      1. Stop worrying about how pretty or fixed up the house and sell it now. At this point in time Colorado is a seller’s market and it may not last long. Somebody will buy it.

  6. The continually shocking part of all of this is how…… impotent….. they actually are.

    There is *ZERO* good reason for them to have not already rammed through a few hundred Library of Congress’ worth of horrific legislation. And yet, they can’t. They can’t even get their end run around laws to stick, reduced to the “scare people into doing what we say” plan.

    1. I find myself wondering if part of the impotence is because in their ideal world, they’d get a handful of the opposition to vote FOR their boondoggles. It would give them a veneer of “bi-partisanship” (HA) and then down the road they use the votes against as a reason to NOT vote along with the Reps.

      But now they’re staring down the barrel of a blowout in ’22 (presuming, of course, they don’t cheat the vote to the point of breaking) and they’re panicking and trying to ram through their hobby horses, only to see the “moderate-ish” Dems (all 2 of them!) slowing down their glorious march forward.

      At this point, my hope is Manchin / Sinema stand fast for 14-16 months (however long it takes to get past the “lame duck” session) But, in politics, that’s a long, long, long time…

      1. (presuming, of course, they don’t cheat the vote to the point of breaking)

        Which is yet another thing which I can’t satisfactorily explain: they aren’t acting like they have it sewn up.

        1. Maybe, just maybe, they’re self-aware enough to realize that the reactions to the ’20 election snatch-n-grab would be a pebble tossed in a lake in comparison to a similar steal in ’22?

          Too much credit to them?

          1. It doesn’t have to be a concious realization. Somewhere in the back of their monkey brain something is ‘off’ and they’re reacting to it. “everything is perfect so why do I feel the tiger breathing down my neck? PUSH HARDER.” Is my read. the form of push harder is calculated. The motivation behind it is not. And they’re not sensible enough to pause and actually examine the question of why they feel they have a tiger gaining.

          1. RE: “(presuming, of course, they don’t cheat the vote to the point of breaking)” and “and they know if they go too far”

            Next Tuesday in Virginia will be a data point; I suspect a lot of scrutiny will be placed on that outcome, whatever it turns out to be, and how it was achieved. Which could result in either a “heading for the lifeboats” response or a “we’ve got to cheat harder” response.

            Getting to this December 31 will be challenging, but it’s slightly possible we might make it to the end of 2022 without gun fire in the streets and blood in the gutters, but Desperation is a difficult task master; if we get well into 2022 without the wheels coming completely off the tell will be the 2022 primaries – if we see fraud, or preparation for more fraud in November, all bets are off.

            In any event, don’t slack off in preps. No matter which way it goes, this ride’s gonna get real bumpy for a while.

        3. 2. All the senators are really confident. The Speaker working to fraud a Senator in does not convince the other Democratic Senators that it should not have been them instead.

          And terrifying the voters enough that the voters haven’t stopped this yet does not necessarily terrify the Senators into going along meekly. The Senators are going to want their cut, and what they want may not be available to give to them.

          3. Tulsi Gabbard was pretty clearly playing for the long game, and had calculated that the Democrat plans for this cycle were not going to sustain her future career.

          That the core Democrat leaders are confident in having eternal tyranny in the bag does not mean that all of their nominal supporters are likewise so confident, as opposed to believing that tihs will crash and burn, /and/ that there will be a future for them personally in replacing those directly associated with the mess.

          4. The confident lunatics directly responsible, and directly believing that they will profit, are certain that reality will conform to a theoretical model. Or, a bunch of theoretical models. And, they are in ‘hit it harder to make it work’ mode. So, they are a little unsettled that things are not going exactly as predicted.

          They may sense something, and interpret it ‘keep going’ instead of ‘stop’, but they don’t necessarily have consensus in what the next step is.

          5. Or, they planned to have won by now, and don’t have alternative plans ready. Their ‘if all you have is a hammer’ is this carefully arranged manipulative stuff with either central command, or some sort of distributed decision making. If distributed, they maybe don’t have people who can independently come up with new things on their own. (I think the distributed model may not be correct. Remember, they think Republican activists are a result of central planning.) If central, they may have blown through years of leadership decisions for the current level of implemented manipulation. The core leaders may not be preparing new material rapidly, and they may not have developed, nor be permitting, any other leaders who could fill the gap.

        4. Their crime partners are refusing to help anymore, perhaps. I mean, they already made tons of money and the Chinese may not be paying, or the Biden crime family might have messed with one of the promises made.

        5. I think they somewhat understand, if only subconsciously, that you can’t govern without at least grudging acceptance from the masses. They did all they could to tear down President Trump, and are doing their lame bast to prop up Biden*, but people are chanting “Let’s go Brandon”, the Biden* poll numbers are still way below President Trump’s, and there are increasing levels of official state opposition to their tyranny.

        1. Well, at least I didn’t have *MUCH* hope of it happening…
          🙂

          (Dude needs to ease back on his caffeine intake!)

    2. 1. It is more likely that they fiddled with the computer program that assigns judges than it is that they have actually corrupted all of the judges in federal courts. Many law faculty are in fact very specialized, enough not to calculate the consequences of the scam. This doesn’t change the fact that if you flip the whole federal legal code, the whole legal profession has to figure out what happened, and if they figure out that it is fraud and nonsense, you are SOL when it comes to exercising power through them.

      Hearsay has been that Democrats owe a lot of trial lawyer support. If so, trial lawyers would have a way to express “don’t screw us over” to certain voices within the Democrat caucus.

  7. I forgot to add the Joe would be just as stupid and evil no matter what generation he was in, though I suspect he’d have been fragged by compatriots just to rid themselves of the nuisance in the Lennin/Trotsky/Stalin days.

    2. He would have been stupid and evil, but would he have risen to this position? That’s the question. The stupid and evil, like the poor, we always have with us. What matters is how much of a role they have in ordering (such as it is) society.

  8. I want to tell Sarah and the others here “I love you.” I may never get to say so in person, and I don’t want to have something happen that prevents me from saying so.

    Courage. Wisdom. Fellowship. So important, so wonderful.

    You ever wonder what people felt prior to the Civil War? Or any of the World Wars? The Oklahoma Dust Bowl? Maybe not quite *this*, but surely a feeling of “the world is collapsing as we know it and dear Lord can we put things back together? Can we survive?”

    1. The Dust Bowl was the gritty icing on a depression cake that had begun baking in 1919, when crop prices dropped from record highs (supported by govt subsidies during war) to lower than low. Prices didn’t rebound until the late 1930s, when international demand started to rise because of war. The ag sector started the Great Depression early, alas.

    2. I had a good friend who used to tell me that the ’60s were crazy (and not in a good way). I frequently wish I could ask him what he thinks of things right now. But unfortunately, he passed away in February, 2019, which was just before everything changed.

      1. The 60’s were a bit crazy, but these days are far more threatening to the average Joe (not Biden).

        1. Biden is a far-below-average Joe. Spent 40 years in the Senate doing little more than fill a seat. Come to think, Biden is still just filling a seat. Only difference is, now it’s the driver’s seat and Joe ain’t doing any driving. Nobody’s sure who IS driving. If anybody.

          The Ship Of State? No, what we’ve got is The Bus Of State and Ol’ Joe asleep at the wheel.
          ———————————
          Governments can’t create prosperity; at best, they can refrain from destroying it.

          1. “If anybody” is the correct option.

            The firing of anyone in the administration who used drugs was the clearest statement they could have made to that effect.

          1. It /might/ be the weed.

            Personally, I suspect most of it is the schools, and the effin’ labor laws, which have the effect of making the school bullshit less obvious in its insanity.

            We have a lot of employers, and a lot of professional organizations, that are very large bureaucracies. So, there are problems in making the local bit of the bureaucracy work, figuring out how to personally be excellent in one’s task, and in dealing with the rote cookie cutter things the bureaucracies do to ‘address’ the first bit.

            I renewed a membership lately, and for free they threw on a sub membership in the ‘young professionals’ group, which was partly about matching people to affinity groups. I’m pretty sure these are the ones some employers do, with black, hispanic, women, gay, and disabled networking groups, etc. IOW, shit that keeps people in the little age cohort sub ghettos that they are encouraged to invest in during earlier schooling.

            IF you aren’t working and socializing with a wider range of backgrounds and ages, you get a much weaker grasp of the variety in American society.

        3. In the ’60s we were all going to die in Soviet missile attacks. In the ’70s we were going to die by global cooling, or overpopulation, or lack of petroleum, or all of the above. In the ’80s we had a nice economic meltdown that few people remember, since the Fed denied it ever existed. In the ’10s we were going to run out of water. In the ’20s it’s COVID, so far.

          “We’re all going to DIIIEEE if you don’t do what we want!”

          “After you’re dead, I’ll take your stuff.”

          1. “We’re all going to DIIIEEE if you don’t do what we want!”

            –
            I’ve gotten to the point that with global warming, and covid, my response is “Whatever”. When I get “REEEEEE, What if you die?”, my response is “Well, Crap! Oops! Guess I was wrong … But ain’t dead yet. Global warming/climate change world ending has missed how many deadlines?” They have to get the last word in so “REEEEEEEEEE”, but then so do I, so “Whatever …” 🙂

            Yes. I know “Whatever” is dismissively irritating. That is why I use it.

  9. I don’t know which prospect is worse: that they’re total incompetents who are about to go down and take everyone they can with them…or that everything’s going according to plan. If there’s one thing these guys actually are good at, it’s staying in power.

    In either case, I’m screwed. My situation makes prepping ability fairly limited, and my survival skills are nil, but I hope as many as possible make it safe.

      2. Yeah SNL was mocking Biden. It’s not clear if that’s the writers trying to prep for President Harris (Who will make Biden look like a shining example of skill and capability). Or perhaps they’re getting signaled from whoever is “running” this mess to ready the battle space for something else. Maybe they’ve gone rogue in the hope of bringing the FAR left (AOC+++) into power over this collapse. If I had to bet its #2 combined maybe with #1. But it is a sign that somewhere on the left someone knows things are swirling around the drain and they’re trying to figure out what to do. I fear all they’ve got is “When in Doubt run in circles scream and shout”. Maybe the red states will see the whirling blades approaching, but in the Blue and purple states I fear it’s going to get real ugly as the commie leeches won’t let go even as they die. There’s a fair bit of “Apres Moi le deluge” in them and that means those trying to fix things are going to have a hell of a time getting hold of the levers that control things.

  10. So very apropos that Buttgig, or whatever his name is, is saying that the supply chain problems show that Biden’s policies are working.

    What, exactly, are the values of pi and e in the reality where that’s true?

    3. Pi would be 3 as is in the scripture, e would be because there can be only one special number.

      1. That passage in scripture is written to one significant digit. And Pi is 3 to one significant digit.

        1. right 1 Kings 7:23 (about solomon making the temple)
          Then he made the sea of cast metal. It was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.
          This is the ESVtranslation , my favorite translation the NET (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%207:22-24&version=NET) turns it to feet with 1 cubit ~=1.5 feet though its footnootes are helpful. To be honest if one could measure exactly I’d have expected ~ 31 1/2 cubits, but unless you’re getting VERY precise 30 is a good first approximation. As noted it’s accurate to one place, probably well within the measuring error when one of your units is the length of a mans forearm from elbow to finger tips (that cubit) and you’re probably running a cord of some sort around the outside.

        2. I had a variation on this argument with my son last week.

          One lesson said to use 3.14, the other said to use 3.1415.

          The concept of “close enough” was discussed…..

          1. Other day, I read on wikipedia about some old mathematical arguments about proofs, efficiency of proofs, and the difference between Pi and 22/7.

            1. I will worry about teaching them to program a calculator AFTER they learn enough to recognize “the calculator didn’t understand what I tried to tell it.”

    4. Working to achieve what goal?

      If the actual goal (as opposed to the professed goal) is “Impoverish and punish the deplorably uppity deplorables, as a step toward a final solution to the kulak problem” then how are the policies of the Biden regime not working?

    5. Well, Thanksgiving is coming up and my family wants to have nine different kinds of pie because of the children’s book “Harold and the Purple Crayon” wherein Harold draws all nine kinds of pie that he likes best.

  11. I just want to get through Grand Rapids Comic Con next month. That’s our last out of town show for the year. Holiday trips to visit family are less chancy — at least while we’re there, we’re with family, not strangers, although I’d prefer not to suddenly go from guests to permanent residents. (I get along much better with certain family members when visits are just long enough to make me wish they could be a bit longer when it’s time to go home).

    I’m hoping that by March, when we have our first out of town event of 2022, the “waiting for the hammer to fall” will be over and we’ll know what we’re dealing with. With luck, the working capital we put into next year’s events won’t vanish down a rathole and we’ll still have a functioning business model to operate on.

    We do have a stockpile, although I need to sort through it and see how much we have of what and where the gaps are (lots of stuff given to us, and lots of stuff bought off the scratch and dent shelf). I do have at least a year’s supply of thyroid pills, but the rest of the household have insurance plans that dole prescriptions out a month at a time, with no way to get ahead. Current plan is as soon as we get through GRCC and I have the Hallmark ornaments up on eBay for holiday sales, I do a thorough sort and clean of this house, then both personal and business storage units.

    OTOH, six months ago I honestly expected things to come apart right about the time we were on the road for our big trip, and trap us somewhere between home and Tampa, Florida. So at least that nightmare was avoided.

    2. ” but the rest of the household have insurance plans that dole prescriptions out a month at a time, with no way to get ahead.”

      I managed to get ahead on most of mine by calling up and saying “I’m out of town and I forgot my prescriptions; I need an emergency travelling refill.” YMMV

      1. Try asking for extra prescription medication because it is hurricane season (better late than never). May only work in regions that have hurricanes. Adjust for local disasters as needed, pointing out that FEMA says to have 2 weeks of food and medicine on hand.

        1. Our previous insurance had a pernicious system of handling refills. They used four-week months; 28 days. So you wound up missing two or three days of meds every month. Our doc was usually able to fill in the missing days by giving us samples left by the drug vendors, but it was a hassle for everyone.

    3. I’m ahead on my migraine medicine (sumatriptan.) I asked the doctor for the 100mg dose instead of the 50 mg. They still give you 9 per month. Then I cut them in half to use on normal migraines, and refill the prescription as fast as they’ll allow, whether I’ve used that much or not. Over a few months, I can build a few months’ surplus.

      That said, in a year my brain will melt and I’ll be in the same boat as that medieval dude who tried to relieve the pain with a rusty hand-cranked-drill.

      1. Taking CoQ10 daily has greatly decreased my migraines, from one or two a week to one or two a month.

  12. Just to correct you, CA has not “driven truckers out of business.” They have driven a very small number of indy truckers driving old, non-enviro-compliant trucks out of biz. The issue is that trucking companies in CA (and other places) pay virtual slave wages. Big industry has been complaining about “driver shortages” for years. The only shortage is that of experienced drivers willing to work for peanuts. The better companies have no trouble putting people in seats. It’s Swift and CR England and the other mega companies who are having issues. That BS meme about indy drivers being the reason for supply chain problems is horse hocky.

    2. You are aware, I hope, that the “very small number of indy truckers” is roughly 75% of the trucking industry, right? Not to mention that the kind of changeover when you are banning your primary providers *will* cause disruptions of this type.

      Also, in what world does “indy” map to “working for a trucking company”? The whole point is that these guys are independents.

    3. Talked to any truckers lately? Or is your opinion completely uninformed by, you know, actual facts? Hint: if a commenter named lazuhrus replies to you, he’s been in the trucking industry for years. He knows what he’s talking about. See his 5:08 PM comment.

    4. I wrote a long reply laying out the supply and demand dynamics then deleted it. Still, California has driven rather more than a few independents with dirty trucks out of business. The trucking industry is a low margin business and California’s tax and regulatory regime makes it almost impossible to make a go of it. Adding to that California has imposed a massive capital expenditure — none dare call it a tax — by requiring that efficient diesels be replaced by trucks powered by batteries made using material mined by slave labor, that have to be recharged using coal and nuclear power, and that do not currently exist. politicians and billionaires can ignore reality for a time, the rest of us cannot.

      In fairness, I’m not sure this person is a troll, Had he not written “just to correct you”, what a wanker expression that is, he would have come across as someone trucker adjacent who was simply wrong about the facts.

    5. Two areas that long-haul driver avoid are the Northeast, because of the tight roads and traffic, and California because they make driving a regulatory hell.

      A lot of former company drivers buy older trucks when they decide to start their own business. I guess California doesn’t like that type of startup.

      There’s perennially a driver shortage, because it’s frankly an unpleasant job, especially long haul. Gone for one or two months, home for two or three days, back out again. No places to park, sleep, or get decent food. Last ten years the wages have been stagnant because of rising fuel costs, and drastic increases in the cost of the equipment, because of federal mandates. Diesel engines can be simple, robust systems, but with all the crap hanging off them they’ve become quite fragile, with increasing downtime, thereby stacking the increased costs.

      Now with the breakdowns in the supply chains, we’ve got trucks down for months. We ordered trucks last year to be delivered in March, we got them last month. Some of them we cannot put on the road because they had problems out of the gate, unknown when we can get the parts to fix them. If I were an Owner/Operator right now I’d be, (ahem) passing kine, worried about a breakdown.

    1. So there is a troll saying California is not driving the truckers out, just non-eco compliant old ones, and trucking companies pay slave wages and and and REEEEEEEEEE.
      Do I let him through or not?

      3. I’ve been driving a truck for over twenty five years now, California’s been hell on truckers for at least ten or fifteen years longer than that, going by conversations with my elders through the years.

        Sucker’s (use alternate letters if you wish) going to have a lot of work getting past my experience, but those types tend not to let the real world affect their fevered dreams.

        2. Way back in 2002 we sold at the Worldcon in San Jose. Back then the old van had a CB rig in it, so we could listen to all the trucker chatter. I still remember at the state line hearing several truckers commenting about being glad to be out of California without some kind of trouble with the DOT. I can only imagine it’s gotten worse since then.

          1. I just remembered the anti-idling laws there as well. Something like five minutes run time? After that if you need heat, or AC, power for your mini fridge, or CPAP? Sucks to be you, get a hotel.

  14. One reason I scoped out the neighborhood around Tierra de Balzacq is to find out who actually lives there full time and who otherwise is an out of state owner. Just in case.

  15. I’m trying to come up with a one-word shorthand for the “meritocratic” elite parasites.

    Does merito, merito, à la lanterne! work for people?

      1. Yes, for values of actual merit. But their raison d’etre is that they’re just so gosh darned smart and they have fancy degrees from all the best colleges, they deserve to rule, so they call themselves a “meritocracy” even if they’re completely full of it and also totally inbred. Much like the “aristrocracy” of the ancien regime were a bunch of degenerate louts and hardly the best the nation had to offer.

          1. Oh hell, let’s just stay with “aristo”.

            We’re dealing with $NEW_PUPPY who has an acute case of separation anxiety, but a) I need to tend to some seed dispensers, and b) somebody in the household needs to learn basic dispensing technique. “B” is partially dependent on “A”, though there are a few people around who might be willing to help out on “B”.

      2. Actually meritos works in the same way the Greeks called the furies the kindly ones and the Irish the fairies the peaceful folk. I call them the good people but that’s irony.

    2. Clerisy? As in the pseudo-secular ‘educated’ who support a pseudo-secular clericism where the intellectually and morally superior folk – them – are in command and control.

      1. Somewhere in the blogosphere someone coined brahmandarin for that particular species of rat. A mix of the Brahmin caste with the pseudo meritorious Chinese Mandarins. I always thought it was a nice reference and fit well.

  16. I think this is the time to present:

    The 3 Laws Of Stupidynamics

    1. The sum of intelligence and stupidity in a closed system is constant.

    2. In any interaction between intelligence and stupidity in a closed system, the overall stupidity will increase.

    3. A closed system will eventually approach a state of Absolute Stupidity in which no useful interactions are possible.

    Bear in mind, the Democrats are doing everything possible to establish a closed system for themselves and exclude all influences from outside their closed system.

    2. Well, if you dive deep into the conceptual/philosophical weeds, entropy ends up being a measure of the degree of imprecision with which you know the state of a system. It’s actually a *subjective* quantity (see Gibb’s resolution of Gibb’s paradox.) (Though knowing that doesn’t let you discover what you don’t know about the motion of teacup-shards or 10^23 particles without thermodynamic cost, but it does let you play some very subtle tricks on people who have more primitive system-models than you do.)

      So stupidity very much does increase entropy. 😛 Sometimes the world forces you to lose track of the state of the world. Sometimes people give it away for free.

    3. A couple of years ago I found this version in a letter-to-the-editor in the July 1953 issue of Astounding. I typed it into my quote file:

      THE THREE LAWS OF STUPIDYNAMICS

      First Stupidity Theorem:
      The probability of predicting correctly in total ignorance is zero.

      Second Stupidity Theorem:
      The only thing you can learn is something you don’t know.

      Third Stupidity Theorem:
      You can’t tell a man something he doesn’t understand and expect him to make use of it.

      Thanks to Dr. Wayne Batteau, Harvard Speculative Society.

  17. no, not stupid. evil. yes plenty of stupid to go around, to go long with the plan. but the plan is evil. the plan is to crash everything so they can declare govt control over it. food, energy, everything. food is the most powerful weapon known. ask ukraine. the 600 dollar irs look-see is about watching for food “hoarders”. buy too much and get a visit from the stasi. maybe your house just gets torched by your neighbors, tipped off to your “selfishness.” after a few weeks they’ll kill you for a chicken leg. i’m maxed out on food, but i’ll probably give it to my neediest neighbors and friends only keeping enough to last until the stasi comes for me. won’t be long now. good luck.

    1. Look, dude: if you bought into their plan having a snowball’s chance in hell, you should stop huffing paint.
      That’s where the stupid comes in. This is America. America is NOT NYC

      1. Umm … “NYC” is not NYC. Just sayin. Just because a large proportion of the blowhards live here doesn’t mean that the blowhards are actually able to do what they say. Most of us are just folks trying to get by.

        Really, this black pill BS simply plays into their game. They can’t win, we can only lose and we only lose if we lose hope.

    2. It may be the plan, but it isn’t going to work, because too many people know who’s behind it. No one will hand over dictatorial powers to the very people who created the emergency they’re offering to solve. We may end up with a dictator, but he won’t be a Leftist, and he won’t tolerate the Left.

    3. until the stasi comes for me

      Well, maybe the Stasi will come for me and maybe they won’t. But if they do, I consider it a “win” if there are then fewer Stasi to go after the next person. See what Solzhenitsyn had to say on that subject (sadly, in subjunctive mood in his case–hypothesis contrary to fact; “what if”).

      Nevertheless, I am Asatru. Going down fighting is kind of our thing. (Not only our thing; the patent has long since expired, but definitely a thing of ours.)

  18. Thank you for this community, Sarah. It helps maintain my sanity, to have a place I can go where I know I’m among allies.

    1. I’ve been trying to get a couple friends here myself, so they have additional examples of sanity. And if you and yours need a friendly face for a lunch meeting, I’m down in in St. Lucie county five days a week for work, I can drive a bit farther on my days off.

      1. I’m in Brevard County. Glad we have some semblance of sanity here with DeSantis.
        Saw where Matt Gaetz had a serious threat against his life from someone in Seattle!

        2. Been a while since I was father east on the Cheney highway than 417, I need to try to make it over there for a launch someday.

          1. If I happen to know when a launch is scheduled I watch it from my front yard. It’s a distance, but still interesting.

  19. Only a dozen people came out for the great Netflix trans rebellion. Now, none came out over Netflix kiddy porn, but the woke mob can usually draw a crowd. It’s a start.

  20. Are you counting the generations from Marcuse advocating his Long March?

    I’m asking, because by my count we’re making the transition from 7th to 8th.
    Marx got a big boost at the end of the ACW, as the sudden glut of labor made his Theory of Value respectable.
    Then the second gen led by the labor unions tried to launch a bloody revolution across the Western states at the end of the 19th century. (McKinley was assassinated for declaring martial law and putting it down.)
    3rd gen, you had Russia taking control of the American movement, and Wilson cracking down on a rival Leftist movement.
    4th, you had the Great Depression bolstering their numbers, and the Democratic Party making peace with the movement by nominating one as VP.
    Then you get to the Frankfurt School and the like with the 5th.

    1. That seems about right historically. But only the 4th gen in living memory, to figure it that way.

      2. I was specifically talking about the US.

        😉 I claim a sea of overwhelming ignorance of European history, with few scattered buoys of light. (Shrug) I’ve got a pretty good handle on British history up until George III, but the post-Roman/pre-Modern continent? Not so much.

        The end of the American Civil War caused a massive surplus of labor, along with society-wide population displacements.
        Add in that the Southern Planter Class had become a stock villain. (Which, fair enough, they earned.) Northern Industrialists weren’t exactly behaving themselves. Nor were the Robber-Barons across the West. Appointed Territorial Governors were literally stealing the public treasury. (This is a very partial list. Corruption was running rampant..)
        It was fertile ground for the mental virus.

        The existence of, and reality of, The Frontier mitigated it somewhat. But San Fran was pretty hard Left well before Jack London showed up. (And you don’t have to squint very hard to see the whole Emperor Norton thing as a mockery of the upper classes.)

        1. Sure. But it wasn’t outright communism. I mean we had “progressives” but not the full shebang, which I maintain were agents for the USSR (and occasionally China.)

          1. The only difference between “progressives” and communists is the rate of speed they are willing to accept to impose totalitarian socialism.

            1. There’s no real difference between modern progressivism and communism, and hasn’t been for years now. From what I’ve read of the time, I get the impression the American progressives of 120 years ago were far more heterodox, by and large patriotic, and they preached more of Jesus than of Marx. Alas, there were already too many theorists, idealogues, and socialists among the crowd. Things only got worse over time..

          2. Eh. Not quite.
            Up until about 1895ish, calling yourself a communist, socialist, or Marxist didn’t seem to carry much social stigma. (Although anarchist and International were co-opted as well.)
            It was after the attempted armed revolution failed (badly) that the name game really got going.

            The Progressives didn’t start out Left Wing, it started out as a broadbased anticorruption movement. It was when corruption within the Republican Party stole the nomination from Teddy Roosevelt, that the Leftists did their skinsuit thing and claimed the mantle. Those were nationalist leftists, though, not internationalist leftists. They went hard after communists. (Progressivism *did* have a focus on centralization. Bethlehem Steel might own Pennsylvania, for instance, but their ability to influence the national government was limited. And at the time, centralization seemed more efficient, especially with the ability to communicate almost instantly at long distances.) IIRC, before that point, they’d taken to calling themselves “pragmatists”.

            After Wilson tainted the Progressive name, they took to calling themselves Liberals as a way to distance themselves from the coercion Wilson so thoroughly enjoyed. (I believe they also dusted off “pragmatist” title, but it’s been at least fifteen years since I had that short-lived obsession.)

            Then FDR staffed his administration with both proto-fascists and communists, but went hard international when Hitler broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

  21. My herbalism experience is limited, and I am torn between “must know more NOW!” and “don’t want to need it”. But off the top of my head:

    Yarrow for blood pressure plus general health and comfort, better for women. It’s tough, grows damn near anywhere, and a pack of seeds will give you literal hundreds of plants. Easiest thing is to dry it and brew it into tea. It tastes like grass and Lysol. You cannot improve it, so don’t waste the sweetener; just brew it, cool it, hold your nose and chug it.

    Feverfew for migraines. Doesn’t work for everybody, works like a charm for some. Tincture it (chop, cover with drinkable 40+ proof alcohol for 4-6 weeks, strain), and take 2 or 3 drops every day, or a teaspoon 2x a day for sudden attacks.

    Goldenrod for arthritis, especially small-joint. I have about a 75% success rate with this one, from an admittedly small sample size. Infuse it in oil. If you can, mix the oil with melted beeswax for a spreadable salve. If not, rub the oil in on its own.

    For diabetics, basil and cinnamon are supposed to lower blood sugar, but I’ve been having trouble finding trustworthy confirmation of this. Moringa tree leaves look promising, but again there’s more woowoo than science whenever I try to run down information. HOWEVER, moringa leaves and unripe seeds are edible. (However again, it’s a tropical tree and therefore grows like Speedy Gonzales runs. I’ve had some luck with them in my Southern state. If you’re not tropical, might make a good windowsill plant in the right spot.)

    Anybody with specific meds…I’m not saying I can help, but I can research reasonably well. I give SOME credence to herbal stuff and old wives’ tales, but I prefer doctors to crystals by a long, long shot.

    1. Anything you can do with thistles? That seems to be all my garden produces: Wheelbarrow loads of thistles. :-/ I do have some strawberries, but other than keeping them alive and free of the birds’ idea of what my garden should grow, I can’t take credit for them.

      I burn them, but it takes a week or three for them to dry out enough to actually burn. If they could be rendered down into fuel or something, I’d really have something.

      2. Milk thistles are usable. Sadly, what you have is probably bull thistles, which are…edible? With work? The consensus on the wild-edibles blogs that I follow is “good to know about in a famine”, so: flowers, young stems, and root are edible. Not GOOD, just edible.

        (A tip for growing berries and tomatoes – scatter Christmas ornaments or red marbles around the area sometime in February. This gets the birds in the habit of pecking the tasty red things and learning that they are NOT tasty. Efficacy depends on the stupidity of your local birds – won’t work on crows, might work on mockingbirds, will most definitely work on doves. 🙂

        1. And a lot of “edible” are “but not for long”. Frex, lambs quarter is “edible”, but exceedingly high in oxalic acid, so not a good idea for the long term, and will mess up growing bones and make kidney stones. Considering the poor caloric value, you’re probably better to go hungry, and not spend the calcium that’s harder to replace.

          A fair general rule is if it’s got any bitterness at all, it’s not good for you. If it’s a lot bitter, it’s probably toxic.

          1. Canada thistle is high in nitrates, and AFAIK, the only livestock that can tolerate it are goats. That’s the dominant variety on our land, though we get a selection of others. Noxious Weeds of Flyover County has a What’s What for the nasties. We have representative samples of a bunch of them.

    2. I may try the feverfew thing for migraines. Can’t hurt any worse than other things I’ve tried.

      1. It shouldn’t hurt. The batch I mixed up didn’t even taste bad. Most tinctures mix quite smoothly into tea or coffee, which makes them easier to take. (Except for the above-mentioned yarrow. Nothing can fix yarrow.)

  22. For medical alternatives, check if there are any Functional Medicine providers in your area.

    They specialize in helping the body heal itself. Most are Nurse Practitioners and can prescribe medication but they will know how to get the same effects from nonprescription medication if it a possibility.

  23. Goats Rue from which metformin was derived has been used traditionally to treat diabetes. Please do your own research.

    1. What he says. I know a little more than average, but it’s mostly just enough to point at something and say “this might be helpful”.

  24. I’ve been building a workshop over time. In addition I’ve always had an interest in the “bottom levels” of our industrial technology: How do you begin to make the tools that make the tools? Can you start with hand lathes and mills and climb a ladder of precision to build smaller/more precise/more capable things?

    But while it provides me some versatility, none of it’s going to survive civilization blowing up down to the level of Mad Max. Despite Mao-Tse-Tung’s fantasies, you can’t actually refine your own steel out of the dirt you can shovel from your backyard. I suppose you can go all the way back to stone-charcoal-furnace blacksmithing, but that implies an entire ecosystem of woodcutters (deforestation ho!), charcoal furnaces, and people who still cart in tons of red dirt from communist Minnesota. And that implies you don’t have a government trying to shoot you for doing it.

    I’ve idly contemplated solar array/battery systems to run my tools (but there are subtleties there: You still need some sort of phase-converter/flywheel system to handle inductive kick from motors. None of these prepackaged home inverter systems would cut it for even something as simple as a 3hp motor starting up.) Would insist on lead-acid instead of lithium ion, another heresy. Can’t afford the fire risk. That doesn’t fix there being no steel/aluminum/brass to cut or cast.

    Same with chemistry: Aside from very simple things like potash and charcoal and cooking grease, it’s hard to find the “bottom” of the chain of technology. Electrochemical separation of brine gives you chlorine and potassium-hydroxide, but without a gas plant, you can’t really collect the chlorine and react it with anything to make bleaching powder, or the rest of it.

  25. Buttigieg is a shining (?) example of incompetence and narcissism. In addition to taking paternity leave and being invisible for the supply chain mess, he has been looking forward to (and possibly helping with) a Netflix biography on himself. And now he’s out campaigning….for parental leave. Because he’s a victim of homophobia, don’t y’know.

  26. Couple of years ago I bought a couple of books (in dead tree form) on herbal medicines and such. I don’t think they’re packed yet. I’ll look for them and let you know.

    1. Found ’em.
      Gladstar, Rosemary. “Medicianl Herbs: A Beginner’s Guide” Storey Publishing.

      Swift, Katja and Ryn Midura. “Herbal Medicine for Beginners: Your guide to healing common ailments with 35 medicinal herbs.” Althea Press.

      I found both on Amazon I think.

      1. Gladstar is *widely* acknowledged as an expert by science-y and woowoo types alike.

      2. There are also a few regional wild plant and traditional medicine guides that are good. I check for cautions. If I see things like, “this is OK for skin, but don’t even think about making a tea of it and here’s why” I feel pretty comfortable with the rest of the info.

        1. Some years back I bought the Physicians Desk Reference for Herbal Medicines. The side effects and interactions for most herbals are… alarming. One must remember that if it works, it’s not an “herb” — it’s a DRUG, and should be respected as such.

        2. I looked at the Wiki article on Warfarin, and I doubt I could do a home-brew anticoagulant. OTOH, I’ve been ordering a week early every 90 days, and this has been going on for mumble years. I have enough cushion that I’d not panic for a while.

          The only drug I don’t have a lot of is considered of marginal help, so prescriptions aren’t a big concern.

  27. As the saying goes, when America sneezes, the rest of the world starves. When we are on verge of government created starvation, the rest of the world will be real bad; and some of those who will be suffering have nukes, and are even more delusional than the Communazis that go by the name Democratic Party.

    I really worry that some of them are going to think if they can just “deal with” the USA, that they can 1) solve their own problems (it won’t, but again, stupid here) and 2) can distract their own people. The fact that senile Joe and the junta propping him up have given all indication that retalitating against use of force against us is anathema to them encourages them to do exactly that.

    It is almost certain that the mad Mullahs are going to go after Israel at some point, particularly because they have effectively been given a green light by Team HarrisBiden. That will result in India v Pakistan and much more.

    Apparently the lunatic left’s “solution” to their own “climate crisis” hype is to achieve nuclear winter.

    1. The fact that senile Joe and the junta propping him up have given all indication that retalitating against use of force against us is anathema to them encourages them to do exactly that.
      My worry is public pressure and their desire to look tough. If there were a harbor nuke in the US, the pressure to nuke back would be IMMENSE. Frankly, I wanted nuke (or FAB equivalent) response to 9/11. I don’t see the Dems having the backbone to stand up to that sort of pressure. More worrisome, I don’t see them having the brains to do it a way that doesn’t cause WWIII – if that’s even possible.

      1. Is a nuclear world war really worse than indefinitely tolerating the CCP releasing bioweapons all the time?

  28. Nothing I can add other than let’s hope things work out to where we can all be prepared for this mess one way or another and then get through it intact. A bit much to ask for, I know, but it’s all I can manage for the moment.

    1. Oh yes, the mentality of “if we just punish them harder, things will have to start going right.”

      Dealt with a few bosses who thought like that. A few promoters too, who thought that yelling at us and threatening to impound our merchandise would get us loaded out faster when we were exhausted (and in some cases, sick too).

  30. Not sure if I have anything useful to contribute to this one, outside of agreeing with the general feeling of too much pressure building up and not enough time or money to prepare for what I can feel coming.

    1. Same here. I know we should move. At least out of our neighborhood to land of at least 2 acres, and out of Eugene growth area, at minimum. Out of Lane County, if not the state. Sigh. Too late for either. Not sure exactly what moving out of Oregon buys us, but it would something.

  31. Thing that I’m wondering, if the US south is overflowing with feral hog, how does one go about finding it for sale?

    Surely there’s a way? We’re likely spending enough just trying to chill the herds.

      1. Yeah. I’ve read comments from biologists like “they’re so full of parasites I wouldn’t eat that meat if I were starving.”

      2. Wasn’t quite thinking bosmer style…

        But seriously, the American south has had a serious feral hog issue for years now, and it hit me, if we’re getting ready to have a major logistics breakdown and loss of access to normal food supply networks, it seems like it’s time to seriously take advantage of the invasive species.

        Same with freshwater carp. I gather they cook up sort of like catfish and are considered really good in asia.

        1. I go walking through the woods a lot, and see patches of earth the size of a double wide that look like they’ve been rototilled quite a lot. Made me change my carry.

          1. Yeah. I haven’t hunted myself, but I’ve heard the stories. The boat tanking multiple shot gun shells. The one that took a round to the head and just got angry. The one that treed a friend of my brother, then *knocked down the tree*

            1. Fortunately, most hogs I’ve seen here are smaller, a hundred, hundred and fifty pounds max. But a pack of six or ten on them makes me wonder if I want to start carrying a thirty round stick.

  32. Sarah, one of the best sources of information for herbal information I know is Doc Jones at Homegrown Herbalist. I have his books and use some of his tinctures ( I use tinctures because the alcohol acts as a preservative so the tinctures last longer than fresh or dried herbs.) and my wife has met him at one of his seminars. I have consulted him by phone. Here are links to his website, his you tube channel and the page for his books.
    https://homegrownherbalist.net/
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQaTjA3oQb3Wm1ouUdUUoDQ
    https://homegrownherbalist.net/product-category/herbal-education-products/books/

    Winter is coming and last year there were deaths in Texas due to power failures. Open cell polyurethane will keep you comfortable out of the wind. I have included links to information clothing and more. The TMEN article is a fast and dirty method for using foam as clothing, Bryan Sorenson gives more thorough information and Jim’s Way is the blog for Jim Phillips who originated this with his father and knows more about survival without fire or shelter in artic conditions than anyone else I know of.
    https://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/make-your-own-cold-weather-clothing

    Click to access Foam-Clothes.pdf

    https://www.jimsway.com/

  33. And, um. As long as we’re talking panic and famine here, let me evangelize for lamb’s quarters. Pros: they are hellaciously good for you and deliver a lot of nutrition for their itty-bitty footprint. Cons: oxalic acid when eaten raw, which can screw up absorption of other nutrients. I still have some of last November’s raw grain and will snail-mail it by the handful if anybody wants to grow some. Hit me at trufox@protonmail.com, and I will send you seeds, a rundown of what to do with them, and a more complete pro-and-con.

      1. Nothing stopping you from swiping a handful of seeds when they’re mature… (which is about the time when the stems start to go dry and brown. Seeds are teeny-tiny and look more like a spire of flower buds than anything else.)

  34. The truck issue is being ignored here in California, of course, since that would threaten two grails – environmentalism, and AB5. However, another problem is being looked at. One issue that the ports are having is that there’s a sizeable build-up of containers. Because of this, ships can’t be unloaded because there’s nowhere to store the containers.

    With that in mind, the City of Long Beach recently instituted a 90-day modification to a local law that only allows yards where these containers are stored to stack them two-high. Now they’re allowed to stack them higher (I can’t remember whether it’s four or six high). This should allow the Port of Long Beach to start unloading ships again.

    Of course, the big question right now is what happens after ninety days if those containers are still stacked more than two high. Yes, in theory the city should extend the rule again if the problem still exists. But you and I both know that there are plenty of petty business-hating tyrants who would happily play “Gotcha!” and fine the yard owners.

    I’ve also heard that at least some of the container build-up is because there are ordinarily a lot of trucks that bring empty containers back to the port, and the containers are then loaded onto cargo ships, which take them back to their ports of origin. But that’s not happening right now because it’s currently more profitable for the shipping companies to head back immediately instead of taking the empty containers with them.

    1. I’ve also heard that at least some of the container build-up is because there are ordinarily a lot of trucks that bring empty containers back to the port, and the containers are then loaded onto cargo ships, which take them back to their ports of origin. But that’s not happening right now because it’s currently more profitable for the shipping companies to head back immediately instead of taking the empty containers with them.

      That is an almost textbook case of something preventing the market from clearing.

      What *should* be happening is that some combination of increasing container cost, increasing storage fees, and wait times decreasing the profit from bringing in more containers would incentivize loading up on empties while they still have the berth.

    2. And like I said elsewhere, when those empty containers don’t return to China the shortage will form another bottleneck at that end. The supply chain is a loop. Think, bicycle chain. It gets bound up anywhere and the effects go round and round and round. We’ve barely gotten started on Round One.

      1. The good news is that at that point, it likely will be profitable to send a ship to a US port just to pick up empty shipping containers. And I suspect that the ports would be more than happy to oblige such a vessel.

    3. I’ve heard that has a lot to do with China no longer taking our masses of garbage we call “recycling”. That used to fill a lot of the containers going the other way.

        1. A better way to recycle is to throw it in a hole and bury it for a few hundred years. Then someone can mine that lovely ultra concentrated resource stash.

          Once you have fusion torches all things are recyclable.

  35. It’s always good to hear that we going to get through this. An end date would also be great but I take the light where I can find it.

  36. Partial list of vits, herbs, supplements to use for daily health, fight colds and the CHINA FLU

    Potassium 99mg
    Glucosamine/Chondroitin 1500/1200mg 2 x day
    AppleCiderVingear 1000mg
    Curcumin 2250mg Serving size 3 x day
    Saw palmetto 585mg 1 x day
    Magnesium 250mg 2 x day
    Ginger Root 1100mg 2 x day
    Flax seed oil 1400mg
    NAC 600mg
    Red Yeast 1200 x 2 /day
    Alpha Lipoic Acid 600mg x 2/day
    ZINC 50mg x 1/day
    Glutathione Reduced 500mgx 1/day
    VITAMINS
    Adult Multi 2 x day
    Vitamin C 500mg 2 x day
    Vitamin D3 1000mg 3 x day
    Quercetin with Bromelain

  37. “The problem is that they don’t realize anything is wrong.”

    That’s the thing – for them, nothing is wrong. They have all that they want/need. Scarcity and shortages aren’t a problem for them; it only hurts the peasants. Rising street crime doesn’t touch them; it only hurts the peasants. All of the bad stuff is just hurting the rabble – the same rabble that they want impoverished and then dead.

    1. Pretty much this – especially in light of Peppermint Psaki’s sneer about the tragedy of delayed exercise machines. What that ignorant, overprivileged tw*t may possibly not realize is that more stuff than consumer goods is stranded in those containers stacking up at the ports. Essential materials, parts, and components are in those stranded containers.

      Frankly, I’m going to do my Christmas shopping among local vendors and craftspeople, or for vintage American goods … which are not stuck at a west coast port.

    1. Or he might write a completely new song just for you. Like ‘United Breaks Guitars’. 😀

      They would have been SOOO much better off if they’d just paid for the guitar.

    2. “I moved out to Langley recently, with a plain and simple dream.
      I want to infiltrate some third world place, and topple their regime.”

      Can be heard a lot differently these days.

  40. Four generations is about right. Socialism (by whatever name) is the theory that people are too stupid to run their own lives, and therefore must have government to do it for them.

    The problem, of course, is once you raise a couple of generations who never learn to run their own lives, you end up with a generation which has no clue how to run everybody’s life.

    That’s when the wheels fall off.

    2. You wind up developing a leadership cadre that are either stupid enough to believe that they are doing a good job, or dishonest, or both.

      People outside that leadership cadre may be quite a bit more effectively trained in using their minds, or trustworthy, or both.

      Communists, you at least had someone at the top who understood that they were, personally, a criminal, and were running the state as a means to commit crimes on other people.

      Sure, our guys are friendliest towards murderers, thieves, and rapists, but there is a sincerity to some of their stupidity that sometimes rubs me the wrong way a little bit extra.

  42. I hadn’t thought about the parallel between the current state of incompetence and what the European royalty ended up as, but it’s an apt comparison.
    The problem the boil-the-frog incremental Socialists have is that turning the education system into an indoctrination system has produced an entire generation of people who actual believe in their own BS. These people thus have no patience for the concept of incrementalism espoused by the Fabians, they want the Utopia they were promised and they want it NOW.
    In another generation, perhaps two, the Fabian strategy would be a fait accompli but they won’t be able to wait that long.

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