Two Sides

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

In this dispute there are two sides.

I say this because telling you the other side gets a vote is stupid. We all know that. They have seized the levers of external power, and are doing their best to convince us — and perhaps have already convinced themselves — that only they get a vote.

Honestly at this point in their descent into madness while dragging us along for the ride, it’s hard to know what part of this is crazy propaganda, and what part is what they believe.

Except that I’m fairly sure there is a demoralize and cause to desist campaign going on by those slightly more competent services that until recently were forbidden from working in America.

And of course, it’s working because people born and raised here are so bizarrely unused to psy-ops and being messed with.

So, I feel it’s my duty to remind you that we also get a vote. Oh, maybe not in the vote-box (Considering PA also has enlisted into the full vote fraud operation.) But we get a vote. They can issue commands, but we don’t need to obey. They can forbid this and that, but they’re going to have a hell of a time doing so when it’s things necessary for life.

Remember the left, like our — special needs — European cousins has no idea of the geography or exigencies of life in America. Most of them are denizens of big cities or so stupid that without their trust funds they’d already have died from not knowing how to walk and chew gum at the same time.

So, you know, they don’t understand that no, we can’t make do with renta-a-mopeds when the grocery store is a minimum of a half hour drive down the freeway. They don’t understand that no, delivery trucks can’t be all electric. They don’t understand that if you forbid airplane flights, people will get pretty pissed at not being near aunt Minnie in her final moments.

They don’t know who we are or what we do.

Their crazy dictates can’t work here. Truth be told, they can’t work anywhere, which is why Europe — Europe! — is one step from open war, stopped only by the fact that they only have pitchforks to go after the bastages with, and that they bought the “climate” BS so long that they now probably also don’t have cars to drive to their capital.

But Europe could get that far, because in Europe you can accommodate that sort of insanity that much farther without the wheels coming off. Even their “rural” folk are closer to urban than most of our country. And they don’t routinely need to go the distances we do to transport everything from produce to packaging materials.

We can’t. They try that, the wheels come off. They come off fast enough that they won’t be beyond retribution.

And we’re armed. They know that. Which is why they’re buzzing on about guns, again/still trying to find a way to convince us to give it all up.

If you think they’re going to come door to door, you’re out of your mind, worse than the left. Note the left hasn’t done that. They haven’t done that even in the cities that are nominally wholly under their control. Because if they do that, they — even they — know will light the fuse and they won’t be able to put it off again.

My guess, if I had to make a guess, is that the reason they killed that poor elderly man in Utah was because he was talking about his guns and was a gun nut. And they though this would maybe scare the other armed to the teeth people.

It doesn’t seem to have worked. In fact, the result of their new offensive on guns, is, at a guess, that credit card reading machines in every gun shop across our great land, are smoking.

And make no mistake, the possession of guns by we the people (how many no one knows. I mean, a lot are at the bottom of lakes and rivers. People, learn to boat) is the ONLY thing keeping the second civil war from erupting.

They have a mental plan for this and it’s roughly covalent to how they seized Russia. Starve, send the army in, destroy, etc. etc. etc.

But those dang guns, and those dang Americans are in the way.

And we’re going to continue being in the way. Yes, their goal is to starve us of fossil fuels. People, we are Americans. You and I and the little aardvark in the corner know d*mn well if they make it uncomfortable enough, we’ll come up with solutions. For all I know there will be crazy guys in a shop in a corner of every town pounding out steam engines and dropping them into re-fabbed junkyard finds. Or other things we can’t even imagine. But two guys tinkering about will figure it out, and that night word will go out “Hey, they have a new car that” and copycats will spring up.

You know it, I know it. The big idiots in charge know it too.

They know we get a vote. Which is why they keep trying this and that, and talking really big, but not getting to do anything, other than, well, take the economy into the ground. They’re good at that. They do that as a default, even when they think they’re making things good.

But the thing is, as an aunt of mine once put it, the bad here is still better than the good most places. And as Trump showed in 16, if we wrest control from the left’s dumb and greedy little paws, America comes back like that. All we need is the boot to lift off a little. Or to press down harder and make us go … inventive.

But the thing is we go inventive by default.

Which, again, is why they’re trying so hard. Oh, you think the Roman Empire (guys thinking about it, or this being exactly like the fall of Rome) came up naturally on social media everywhere at once?

You are adorable, do you guys know that. Sweet Summer Children!

Listen, the comparison of America to the Roman empire was a favorite of the Soviet agit-prop thing, here and at home. “The decadent Roman Empire” made their people PROUD of not having the minimal comforts needed for life, much less the type of wealth we have. It made it seem like there was virtue in living in stack a prol apartments and eating rotten beets while standing in line for clothes.

We were never the Roman Empire. We were never an Empire. Sure, sure, garrisons in other lands. And tell me, did they even suppress anti-American sentiment, let alone install our hand picked puppets? Bah. Trust me, I was in Germany in the 80s. No. No, our garrisons did nothing except stand ready to defend the populace.

As for buying from other lands — dudes, that’s commerce! Only the dirty communists think of that as oppression. America’s appetite for cheap gauds and trinkets has spread the most prosperous of times across the world.

Sure, we buy cheap. Again, commerce. But there are always the dodos invested in fair trade also known as “paying more than you need to, because it gives you warm and fuzzies.” Because some people are like that.

However, our cheap is the expensive of other countries, and again, spread prosperity across the world.

What we don’t do is send our armies in to strip the locals of anything valuable to us.

In fact, the Roman Empire is closer to the Soviet Empire, spreading across the Earth to get bread crusts for those at home.

An American empire, operating the same way, wouldn’t be able to feed the country for a month, after the commies destroy food production at home.

And opening the borders isn’t going to do to us what it did to Rome. Americans aren’t disarmed. More importantly — trust me — is the fact American sons and daughters still served in the armed forces until very recently. So America is full of veterans.

In Rome most of the legions by the end were pretty much foreign. Though there was provincial too. Only we don’t have provinces. All our veterans are right here, in possession of know-how and armed for bear.

But yeah, they’re trying to make you think we’re just like Rome. We’re doomed, and we should give up. And that’s why that meme came up. And some of you rockheads are spreading it instead of thinking and pushing back.

Look, right now they can’t push further. They can’t. Yes, they can cause confusion and destruction and they can fake elections. (Maybe. I still say it’s going to take faking 400 million votes for the Bidenfuhrer. And then we win that battle by virtue of “eyes on your face.”)

But they can’t seize the total control they want.

We are not early-twentieth century Russia. We’re not like any of their models. And we’re damn flexible and inventive. Which they’re not. And scares them.

So sorry to interrupt your doom podcast broadcast into your head 24/7 by the enemy, but the fight isn’t lost. Hell, the fight is damn near won, though the mop-up will be a right bitch.

They had to lock us up and take all sorts of blatant measures, after four years of 24/7 everywhere propaganda and the cooperation of the deep state in it, to make it appear Trump was corrupt and in the pay of the enemy (Dear Lord, they had to pick Russia, because they’re stupid, and didn’t realize we were all looking at it and going “that makes no sense.” Because in their minds we all naturally hate Russia, since they never got what we hated/hate is communism. Sigh. Such special children. Makes me think the Spartan methods of culling had a point except “addled enough to be a commie” doesn’t show at birth.) And then they still had to fraud at the last minute, in front of G-d and everyone. Because their most extensive and “diverse” (WTF does that even mean) network of fraud came up short.

After unprecedented propaganda war on all Americans, and trying to put the country under house arrest.

Note also that all their powers of propaganda have failed to gin up a second scare. And note that their attempts to re-ignite the “summer of fiery love” have been limited and looked at as crazy.

They aren’t winning. They can’t win. The truth is all their agendas and five year plans always fail. Always. The fault is usually of wreckers and hoarders of course, though everything from agriculture to foreign enemies can be named.

The truth is their program can’t work. And we’re not about to let it anyway.

Because we have agency.

We’re the people who didn’t let them keep the lockdown going forever. (Yes, they really had planned on that. Lock us down, move us to their “15 minute” cities, and make us eat bugs. Go and look at the media of two years ago. They weren’t subtle and they weren’t hiding. They saw it so close they could taste it. Hence “new normal” (Spit))

We’re the people who have thwarted them at every turn, and looked at their clever propaganda operations and made up memes to mock them.

Because we’re American and they — poor sods — have forgotten they are.

Go be inventive, devious, and always, always:

Go be ungovernable.

That will do!

336 thoughts on “Two Sides”

  2. Apparently, Border Patrol has been cutting Texas’ fences, and fist-bumping the illegals as they invaded the country.

    One sees what needs to be done.
    But one is too far away and does not have the necessary skills or equipment.
    No need to be more specific, a wink’s as good as a nod to those what know.

    So one just has to tend to one’s own knitting, locally, at home, and hope that one can finish fast enough that the finishing doesn’t have to be hand-hewn out of one’s own woods.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. That is quite likely activist activity specifically set to isolate Border Patrol.

      They’ve done it five or six times already– remember the “border patrol whipping immigrants” that got laughed out?

      They don’t care WHY people don’t like BP, they just want to make it harder for them to do a job that they don’t want done.

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      1. Ah, so people dressed in “Border Patrol” costumes from Spirit Halloween?

        Or actual Border Patrol employees for whom activism is more important than the job they were hired to do?

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        1. … of course, if it is activists, the solution is still the same.

          To encourage people to not be activists.

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        2. There were border patrol uniforms at the Goodwill in El Paso, don’t know about elsewhere.

          There’s a long running issue of corrupt BP, just like any other law enforcement– breaking the law on demand for a price.

          You can ask IIRC WyrdBard about the corruption of activists in the Forest Service, who will actively join the group they want to subvert.

          Last time that there was video of similar BS, during Obama IIRC, they were seasonal hires and/or interns that ‘strangely’ had some ties to… oh well nevermind let’s not look there.

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        3. Oh! I forgot the other option, the out of context clip– for example, they’ll show someone cutting the wire and waving folks in, but they won’t show the huge mass of folks there to process them right back over the border– or it will be them cutting the fence and waiving them back into Mexico.

          There’s lots of ways to blacken a group you want destroyed’s reputation, especially if folks are able to selectively show stuff to create the desired impression.

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            1. Or at least “carefully curated”, like ‘children in cages.’

              Or that one general in … Vietnam? … shooting an unarmed prisoner. (who had just terror-attacked folks on a high holiday, specifically targeting women and children, and had killed said general’s own family)

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  3. It like how the Red Dawn remake where it was North Korea invading didn’t work. Except that, even if Russia could have at least appeared credibly able to invade the US in the 1970’s, they sure as heck don’t now.

    And on the car thing, when I was digging around in car stuff, I discovers just how easy it is to get a brand new classic Ford Fairlane V8 rated to 400+ hp on regular gas. The only limitation was you could only drive it in either grandfathered cars or states without emissions requirements. That’s just an enforcement question, not a technical one.

    What do they think is going to happen once they’ve made all federal laws meaningless by burning them down just to prosecute one guy?

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      4. On the contrary, Ma’am! That which no laws forbid is quite permissible. It isn’t rogue at all, but the exercise of freedom like everyone else. No dog ever slipped his leash once the leashes were cut!

        (Of course, we must also know, ourselves, to never bite through our own side’s leashes! Chesterton and fences, and all that.)

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        1. “That which no laws forbid”

          Oh, there will be all KINDS of laws to forbid…. but they’ll only apply to wrongthinkers….

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Ah, but there’s the rub! Either they write the laws to explicitly discriminate and watch them burn in the courts, or they enforce what is no law, or we help them discover that their loopholes go both ways.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. “Either they write the laws to explicitly discriminate and watch them burn in the courts, ”

              That’s not how it works. Look up “prosecutorial discretion”, and then reflect on how BurnLootMurder were kicked loose, while J6 are in jail.

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              1. But that is what I mean, too. As Solzinytsin* put it, “They lie, we know they’re lying, they know that we know, and still they continue to lie.”
                This is the sound of lug nuts rattling on the pavement, Lord willing.

                *Probably misspelled.

                Liked by 1 person

    2. Well, the original had Cuban mercenaries, not Koreans.

      Somewhat more credible was that network movie with Kris Kristofferson (I don’t recall the name offhand) where the dictatorship was imposed from within. Now, I’m sure the people breaking into the Congress and machine-gunning the bunch of them in the opening were, in the producer’s mind, “right wing extremists” – but everyone that ever saw it, at least that I talked to, saw it as the wet dream of the very, very Left.

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      1. The miniseries was titled “Amerika”. It also featured Sam Neill as a Communist collaborationist. Seems he always ends up working with dinosaurs …

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          1. “I would like to have seen Montana …”

            Which ironically is pretty good hunting ground for paleontologists.

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        2. Ah, that is right. But apparently my memory from when I was 17 is not all that good – it WAS actually written as a Soviet takeover (but with plenty of internal help from home-grown Marxists).

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  5. “You’re missing the point. There is no throne here. There is no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes for us and maybe it’s too much for us, but it’s all on you. Because if we can’t protect the Earth you can be darn well sure we’ll avenge it.” – Tony Stark, Marvel’s The Avengers

    Liked by 1 person

    1. There is no throne here….

      Followed sometime later by the Hulk grabbing Loki by the ankles and smashing him back and forth and leaving him indented into the floor.

      “Puny god!”

      May their many gods be shown to be just as puny. And soon.

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  6. The other side’s next move. This is precisely what I’ve been saying. And they won’t come door to door.

    https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2023/10/02/heres-the-next-damn-way-the-left-will-go-after-your-car-n1731561

    “Gas furnaces and kitchen appliances are being regulated out of existence — without lawmakers having to take the unpopular step of outlawing them outright — with impossibly expensive emission standards. Similar rules are slowly being applied to gas and diesel engines until nobody will be able to build them to satisfy the bureaucrats. But that’s OK because nobody would be able to afford to buy one.

    With this report from The Drive, now you know how they’ll come after electric vehicles, too: by making the tires impossible to afford.”

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    1. And it will work for a very short time. And then America will swing into action making things they don’t understand and can’t regulate. And frankly enforcing those will be suicidal. for them.

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      1. If you will forgive me, I am reminded of a line from Star Trek: Deep Space 9:

        “Let me tell you something about Humans, nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people… as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy for an extended period of time, and those same friendly, wonderful people will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon.”

        I get the feeling that Those Who Consider Themselves Our Betters are about to learn that the hard way. And God help us all when they do.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. You and me both.

            Or, better yet, scare them enough that they leave said ill-gotten gains behind when they run. But either way, better that than the hornets nest kicking off. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if things do ever Go Loud, it will make Sarajevo and Srebrenica look like Sesame Street.

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    3. I’m guessing she could be registered to vote on Mars for all the difference it makes to them.

      It’s not like she is a Trump appointee, don’t ya know.

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      1. The Constitution requires that an individual be a resident of the state that they are to represent in the Senate. Voter registration typically requires residency. It provides an opening for a gadfly-style lawsuit.

        She does have a residence in California. So she can probably get her residency changed quickly, since a local utility bill with your in-state address typically qualifies as proof of residency. But if someone decides to sue, it suddenly becomes important to ask how long the process takes.

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          1. Conservative judges have a habit of turning up in the strangest places. If this generates a lawsuit, they’d better have a paper trail for her residency.

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              1. There are minimum times for living in the US, but none for state residency. I will be curious to see if the senetrix files taxes as a CA resident this year and next.

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                2. It might have been largely thus, but I believe  that  mostly changed in the ‘90s 

                  The colleges got very unhappy that out of state students were declaring residency and paying the much lower in-state rates after their first year. 
                  So they spent a lot of money lobbying, and got it changed so that declaring residence to receive a benefit from the state has high hurdles, with lots of hidden pitfalls. 

                  I’m not entirely sure of California’s laws, but we are talking about a state that aggressively tries to tax people outside their state on the flimsiest of excuses. 
                  I bet there’s Jay to be made. 

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                  1. Tries to tax so aggressively that I’ve heard some people who make no money in California but frequently pass through the state will actually file a California tax return stating that they made $0 just to get the clock ticking on the amount of time that the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) has to come after them with faulty income information.

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                    1. We have a neighbor who I suspect is filing $0 every year in CA he doesn’t work in CA. Only because he has in the past and might in the future. Company he works for, while not linemen, constructs major power center infrastructure (been told, just don’t remember exactly what the company specialty is). Currently working out of Redmond WA. But they’re been assigned all over the west for weeks at a time. Home with significant other and kids, only on weekends (unless working 7/12’s), holidays, or vacations.

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                  2. I can vouch for the “tax it if it passed through our airspace.” I had to pay CA income tax on my full income for two years after I was on a game show. And if you had stock in a CA corporation, you had to pay taxes on any income from said stock, in addition to your own state and federal. That was back in the 1980s-90s.

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                    1. She has a wife, no doubt they are leaving her residence in Maryland and moving all the necessary finances into her name. The best Cali. will get is her senate wages. Remember, these people aren’t totally stupid and they do love their money all the while decrying everyone else’s money.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    2. The rule my employer works under is “Over 80 hours in a year, and you’ll have tax withheld, and we’ll help file the paperwork at the end of the year. If you end up paying any more than you would working in your state of residence, and we’ll reimburse you for the difference.”

                      One reason we moved to TX.

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  8. “They don’t know who we are or what we do.” The problem is, in my opinion, neither do we.

    For example they run everything from Washington; decide how much water flushes our toilets, requirements for and size of kiddie seats in cars, gas stoves, no, electric cars yes, etc., etc., etc.

    However we are the folks delivering food to Washington, treating, removing their sewage, assuring power to their AC systems…

    For example everybody knows a trucker, OK maybe 3 degrees of separation but, “Hey Joe hear you’re hauling three tons of cabbages to the Capital? Maybe you otta drop off that pound of carrots in George first, don’t ya think?” or “Ya Boss, I know the sewer line from the White House is blocked and the toilets are overflowing and the basement bunker is knee deep in, but this here vac truck has an oil leak, see that drop on the floor? You gotta get that fixed before I can run it and clear that sewer, EPA sez so!”

    Trouble is we can, we could, we should but we just don’t. Apparently we just don’t care who or where John Galt is.

    But we, all, me too, love to talk about what we will do if, -even though a hell of a lot of ifs, ands and butts have passed.

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      1. I do my best to point out the problems on all sides of the aisle, as appropriate, when I teach civics/government/current events. innocent kitty expression

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            1. The response to higher heating bills and no gas or limited natural gas will be to once again install fireplaces and burn wood. Just like the last time.

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              1. I recall a good chunk of the 1970’s having wood as the primary heat, with fuel oil as the (seldom used) backup. For about a year in the 1980’s was in a place that had ONLY wood heat. The second story relied entirely on convection from the ground floor. I do NOT miss waking up cold at GRUMBLE:30 AM to stoke, or worse rekindle, the fire.

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  9. “…credit card reading machines in every gun shop across our great land, are smoking.”
    Smoking? Heck, even here in Totes Centrist Moderate Gavin’s Glorious Bear Flag People’s Republic, they are regularly melting. And when the stay comes off the CA normal-sized-mag-ban striking-down (St Benitez pbuh) those credit card companies better have their extra compute servers up on line.

    And ban fossil fuels? Diesels will run on used fry oil, for Jiminy’s sake, and there’s lot of diesels out there. Heck, one could run a diesel genny on fry oil and charge one’s electric car if one wanted to, and look all environmentally green and stuff while on the road.

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    1. It’s going to be a while yet before the stay comes off the mag ban. The 11 judge en banc panel that heard the original en banc appeal has taken the extremely unusual step of rehearing the case (with the original panel’s judges) before the Circuit could decide whether or not to have a 3 judge panel hear the appeal.

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    2. It doesn’t seem to have worked. In fact, the result of their new offensive on guns, is, at a guess, that credit card reading machines in every gun shop across our great land, are smoking.
      ……………..

      Locally anyway, the gun sellers CC readers would be burning up, if the shops had inventory. Better now, somewhat. But still inventory is way down. Plus takes about an hour per purchase to complete a transaction by staff. Because the staff dealing with the transaction has to have the purchaser fill out the paperwork, check it, get thumb print, write up the sales, then enter the paperwork into the computer, then monitor for the approval/code-it-is-going-into-the-queue. There is one computer to do this at period. This meant, yes, if hubby and I are each purchasing one firearm, each, then it would be 90 minutes, and that isn’t the time picking out the firearm (IF). Plus there is the extra time required, when, after months, approval received, have to go back in, refill out paperwork, with thump print, resubmit for approval, before the already paid for firearm can be released to the purchaser.

      Then there is the ammunition shortage. Brass can be gotten, but powder and primers are extremely difficult for reloaders. Again, getting better, but still a lot of empty shelves.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. Oregon. Not just the Willamette Valley. BIL (who reloads, which is why I know the difficulty) has check in Bend too, and other points outside of the valley. He also reloads online. Powder is easier. Primers, at least what he wants, is more difficult.

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          1. In southern Oregon, powder is pretty available while primers are spotty. It took about a year’s worth of searching to find a local supply of small pistol magnum, and right now, large pistol and large rifle (both standard) primers are unicorns.

            (why in hell isn’t WP responding to a carriage return? I get a space. At least on Pale Moon. Will try Firefox next.

            WPDE!) I haven’t bought a firearm since the latest gun control measure got “voted” in place, but before that, it wasn’t too brutal at Sportsman’s. They had a tiny computer (MS Surface or the like) where you’d answer the questions, and it would go in the queue. Annoying, but not painful.

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            1. OK, it showed in the final, but not the draft. Checking draft with firefox.

              Nope, no CR in the draft.

              Can I do a back-alley design review? Tire irons optional.

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                2. Sounds like a job for what Jerry Pournelle called his “double-sided double-density hackers tool.” Orvan gave Sarah three of them IIRC…

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            2. We (hubby) got the small .380 at Salem Sportsman’s Warehouse, late 2022. Took a couple of hours. The large Glock 9MM hubby won (raffle), took a couple of hours in 2020. The small 9mm hubby bought locally took 3 months early 2023. Son had the same problem, same location. Not related to OR 114, and after the last arbitrary long delay was litigated (now there is a legal pretext for the long delay, but don’t remember what they are pulling). Hubby there is a reason. His driver’s license doesn’t have his full name, just middle initial. But even using his passport with his driver’s license, didn’t work the last time. Yet the same day? My purchase of a S&W EX 9mm was a 2 minute delay once paperwork was in the system. Surprised the heck out the guy helping me. Comment was “Wow! That hasn’t happened in a while.” FYI. They all, on coming home, disappeared into “the boat accident pond”.

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              1. FYI, FWIW. Two Sunday’s ago, the safest place to stand when I’m practicing was in front of the target. At least based on the lack of holes in the target the first 20 or so rounds. Got slightly better. This last Sunday, managed 4 of first 16 rounds. Got progressively better. I think I’m figuring out how I need to hold my S&W and getting better at anticipating the recoil. Need to frequent the range a lot more than once every 4 months. For all that I grew up with firearms, have hunted, I have limited experience with handguns. Know how to safely handle, firing one is a whole another story. (Dad’s in comparison, even compared to my S&W, are huge. My S&W is not considered a small 9mm. Smaller than the Glock 9mm, but at least 1/3 bigger than the “small concealable” 9mm hubby and son have.)

                Technically hubby’s is mine too. But if I have to rack the first round, that is not happening (even with the magazine out, I can’t work the spring). Since no safety, the safety is not having a round chambered. My S&W does have safety (two types), still not keeping it with round chambered, but at least I can rack it.

                FYI, we went through 350 rounds (son and I) two Sundays ago. This last Sunday I went through 250 rounds by myself. Hubby & son went through 150 rounds of 9mm, and 50 .223 (single shot rifle of dad’s), and 40 through one of dad’s big handguns, both purchased and dad’s old self loads. Latter it was easy to tell which was which. Dad loaded hot. Why? He was loading for bear protection while hunting. Seriously. A black bear took exception to uncle bleeding and gutting an elk he’d gotten one season, and uncle used a similar handgun with dad’s loads to stop the bear (cousin said meat was horrible). :-) Guns are back in the boat accident, after being cleaned. :-)

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                1. $SPOUSE cannot work the springs on a pistol, even for a .380 (granted, the springs on the Keltek are stiff). She has a .38 revolver and when time permits (that’s been an issue for years, alas), there’s an equivalent .22 revolver for her to practice with.

                  If I can get the sonar working right, I’ll test out the .22 semi-auto I bought at the same time. The neighbor with a mini-ranch next door has a decent range; we might be able to shoot .22 on our own land, but our least favorite neighbor would get the noise. Nope.

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                  1. “but our least favorite neighbor would get the noise.”

                    Is it worth the hassle of getting licensed for a suppressor?

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                    1. Most of the hassle is wait time. And also you’ll want to list all your heirs and assigns on the form as people who have the right to use your suppresson.

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                    2. Short answer: not really. We only have 13 acres, and the hogback behind the hollow isn’t really high enough to act as a good (ie, legal. OTOH, the coyotes don’t mind and the owner doesn’t live there) backstop. And, that area is in plain sight of said neighbor (who has his own issues with the law, making it A Very Good Idea to leave him alone.)
                      The small ranch to the other side has a decent range. The previous owner put in an electric trap, though I don’t know if it’s still in action. OTOH, $SPOUSE is not fond of shotguns.

                      The .22 semiauto is threaded for a suppressor; if things ever get un-crazy, I’d consider it. Never heard of a suppressor for a revolver. We’re finally(!) getting to the point where we can leave Kat alone for a while without her letting the entire county know of her displeasure.

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                    6. Actually, I’d love to practice with both the revolvers and semiautos on our land, but it ain’t gonna happen. Not unless we bought the other place out, and even I ain’t that crazy.
                      That, and there’s a minimum number of acres to hunt on your own land, and the place is already sketchy for target practice. Practically doable, but legal/liability? Not necessarily.

                      Like

                  2. I could never work the cartridge release on the revolvers, even mom’s smaller .38 (which another sister got when mom distributed the firearms per how she and dad worked it out before he died. Inheritance, if a bit early.) Turns out hubby and son have the same problem with the revolvers we inherited. It is the *reloads dad did VS new purchased loads. But the “I can’t” is ingrained from early decades of trying.

                    Plus the two revolvers I we inherited are huge.

                    (*) Reused multiple times. Packed hot (used for final animal dispatch, loaded for bear JIC, at least the larger caliber revolver dad packed).

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                2. The first time I went to the shooting range, it was as part of a newbie class. I fired my first round… and spotted two fresh holes in my target.

                  ^^;;

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                  1. Last Sunday even managed to put multiple into the center bulls eye. Not sure how managed that. Son and hubby were practicing on putting rounds into the small circles around the main center section. Show offs.

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            3. Primers are still spotty all over, though recently I looked and while some were pricey, one could get pretty much every version from someone. LR, LP, and SP seemed not to often be all in one store/site often until recently. Last I bought, Large Pistol was it, next time I took a look Small Pistol/Rifle was it (with an occasional magnum of either at a premium), though 209s were easier in smaller amounts. Recently I found a few each of LR, LP, SP, and one box of SR available in Cabela’s Green Bay. Didn’t get any, it wasn’t close enough to the low end from Ammoseek, and I wasn’t pressed for any.
              Likely because of area (a lot of ffls about for all the hunting), the lines are not bad and just walking past the counter gets someone asking if they can show you anything in particular. Fleet Farm finally has enough stock to browse, most rifles and Shotguns in reach of the customers, no help required unless you want to actually buy it. I would like a new pistol and a shotgun. I would prefer a double stack 1911, but the only full sizes I find (i.e. Not 9mm) are in 10mm it seems, the .45s seems to be backordered. Depending I guess I could get the 10, hunt up ammo and/or get a .45 barrel. I need a shotgun but not dire need, just “everyone needs at least one” need. (or is that dire?)

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                1. We (well hubby does) and BIL have been looking on the internet. BIL has been able to get primers that he prefers out of Florida if not locally. Could be he is just being picky. IDK. He won’t let us pay him for used supplies even though he gives us reloads (especially when 9mm locally were bare shelves everywhere), so we look for powder and primers to buy if we find them. We save the brass when target shooting at the range.

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                2. The problem with buying powder and primers on the Internet is that unless you buy in bulk (5000 primers or 20 lb of powder minimum, from my experience regarding costs) the fixed hazmat fees will negate any savings. Plus there are a lot of scams with “too good to be true” (they are) deals, especially on primers.

                  [Insert CR here; WPDE :x ] Good deals on ammo, fine; no hazmat fee. Powder/primers, use caution. Just my 20 mills; YMMV.

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                    1. I usually bought primers in 1000 lots, which were about $1.50/100, about half the price of a pound of IMR or Hercules powder, which I usually bought 5 lb (or 8 lb) at a time, especially while I was into trapshooting twice a week. It’s a bit higher today, of course…

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            2. As long as you have some way to pay for them…. that doesn’t make them trackable. And what shipping address will you use?

              “Now, about that canoe accident….”

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                1. Better, they can be rented, for cash, usually with the assurance of… you hand them the ID and stuff you don’t want soaked anyways.

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                2. Depends on the state, I believe. In MD (my former residence) and AZ (my current one) if it doesn’t have a motor it doesn’t need registration. And canoes are so unstable… ;-)

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                1. That’s the concern of the seller; legit operations altready have that worked out. The only way it can’t ship is by SnailMail.

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      2. Wow, Knew from the description that was not a free state. Went in two weeks ago with cash. Nearly at closing time. Had to change my address online as had switched counties. That took five minutes. Did Fed form for background check on gun stores tablet. Cleared NICS in about 30 seconds, paid my cash and walked out with my sweet new CC gun. Total time in store half hour. Including the time for them to stop a shoplifter. Yes in a gun store where all five of the visible employees were open carry. Pretty funny actually.

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        1. I, on, the other hand ..

          Welcome to California’s 10 day cooling off period!

          Also, there will be an excuse tax on guns and ammo that goes into effect next July.

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    3. And with modern CNC milling I wonder how long it will be before people can have desiel engine mills in their barn, and just how willing the local authorities would be to actually shut them down?

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      1. Couple questions about that.

        How does a CNC Milling machine get the design you’re milling? Is it purely physical (as in it copies whatever part is placed in the jig), or is there some form of instruction file?
        How often do you have to replace cutting bits? How about lubricating fluid? Raw materials?

        How many parts of the pencil can you source nearby?

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        1. Don’t know all the answers, but the CNC mills mill off of a CAD model generally. So engines that are fairly common and fallen into the public should be fairly available.

          Raw material really depends on the sophistication of the engine. I’d expect aluminum blocks would be a pain, but there are a lot of perfectly solid iron block engine designs that I’m aware of. That’s easier to source from salvage.

          Other things, I don’t know, but I’m sure there are other people who can figure it out.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. Oh yes, but given that things like Top Fuel run on, basically, modified Hemi V8s, I suspect the body of knowledge around Crystler Hemi’s and Ford Fairlane type engines is going to already be so vast that most shops would build a variant of one of those, or otherwise ridiculously common engine, rather than do clean sheet designs.

              A lot of the really sophisticated tech now is just compliance with EPA regs, not really improving the engines.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. All well and good for the machining. Not terribly complex. The foundry work would be more difficult. High heats, single castings that are then machined to hold pistons etc. Lots of material science is very much lost art for this stuff, at least in America.

                Stirling engines a possibility as the machining can be rougher.
                Agree with overall premise that Americans will adapt and quickly.

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                  1. And for those too young (get off my lawn!) to recall, the previous General Motors proved back in the 80s that pretty much any gasoline engine block can be “converted” into a poor-but-runs diesel engine. Not great longevity, prone to cracking, and crappy power, but diesel is the squeeze-until-it-explodes combustion cycle, after all. For a constant-rpm generator application just about anything would work if you keep the fuel flow and thus power down to avoid all the cracked-block problems GM had.

                    But don’t reinvent the wheel using stone knives and bear skins. A preemptive visit to the local auto salvage to buy an old diesel engine (pre-urea-additive, so before 2008 or so). I’d look for a Cummins Diesel from a dead pre-RAM Dodge pickup, but the truck diesels from Ford and GM were not bad at that point. Some of the foreign smaller diesels were really great but also really not available here. Use your MacGivering skills to make it a stationary generator, and use any cnc skills to make unobtanium replacement parts for same as the screws tighten.

                    If you are rural buy an old diesel tractor.

                    Best yet, buy an old diesel truck or SUV in running condition. Then you can run it to charge batteries or actually go places. On the road it’s just an old beater.

                    Liked by 1 person

                    2. There are time I wonder why using a turbine (like constant speed) to run a generator (likes constant speed) hasn’t been used in a series hybrid. And then I realize that while there are a few actual engineering issues with that, the REAL PROBLEM (for the ratfinks) is that the result is that fuel diversity is automatic – so cutting of X, just means a switch Y, and cutting Y means a switch to Z. And in a pinch, alcohol can be made (with a bit of time..) ANYWHERE from almost anything.

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                    3. A decade and a half ago, I had a love-hate relationship with M35 diesel (mostly) trucks. We had a couple-three on the fire brigade, though only one was running in active service.

                      Somebody on eBay was turning the twin-axle trucks into single axle bobtails and selling them as “specials”. Noisy, but they’d run on diesel or gasoline. Seldom used that one in the winter, though I suspect the cab heating was as good as the sound reduction (wear ear muffs for both conditions :) ).

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                    4. The late, lamented Lindsay Publications had a book in their catalog describing an auto-mounted gasifier that would power an engine. I think it worked on wood, though coal might also have been a possibility. Alas, I never got a copy.

                      There have been steam engines done for various cars. Live Steam magazine did several (I only have some parts of one) articles on a steam conversion for a VW (beetle).

                      At roughly the same time, somebody did a steam conversion for a Citroen car. That was written up in Usenet (PBUI) I think it used bash valves (a finger on the piston hit a valve in the head, allowing steam to enter. Crude, but effective.

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                    5. > There are time I wonder why using a turbine (like constant speed) to run a generator (likes constant speed) hasn’t been used in a series hybrid.

                      Turbines don’t downscale well. The ones used in (large) model aircraft are very inefficient despite decades of development. Ones in aircraft are more efficient, and the ones in ships better still.

                      Rover, Chrysler, and GM all tried OTR turbines back in the 1960s and ran into that. In the sixty years since, it’s still a technological dead end.

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                    6. Chrysler actually built some prototypes in the ’50s or ’60s. Jay Leno has one and featured it on his Youtube channel years back, I think that’s where I saw it. It still runs. Not sure how you’d handle the super-hot turbine exhaust in bumper-to-bumper traffic, or how fuel-efficient it was. Like you said, turbines run best at near-constant speeds instead of stop and go. And turbines back then probably didn’t spool up very fast either (early jet engines certainly didn’t).

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                    7. One of the people at the church I went to had one of the Chrysler turbine units (you’d get it for 6 months; once the program was done, they had to destroy all but a museum sample due to import regulations). He said the exhaust was great at melting the snow off his driveway.

                      Car and Driver got hold of the museum unit some decades ago and tested it. It was fairly miserable to drive; things that make for a good turbine don’t translate well to automotive.

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                    8. That’s the thing – all the characteristics that make gas turbines bad for an automotive prime mover make them potentially fairly good for driving an electric generator. The turbine can be reduced in size since they don’t need to throttle up to get torque for acceleration, can run at one steady rpm so the fuel system does not need to be complex, can be optimized for a narrow(er) range of atmospheric pressure unlike aircraft applications, and can recycle some of that waste heat to increase overall combustion efficiency in a regenerative cycle sort of like the Abrams power pack does. And developments in ceramic matrix spinny bits could increase efficiency by letting a turbine run hotter without spontaneous disassembly issues.

                      For a range extender a small three or four cylinder diesel would probably beat it in efficiency, but mechanically much more complex. A little gas turbine genset could be optimized to run on pretty much anything and with a lot fewer moving parts, generating enough to charge while driving and eliminate a lot of the range anxiety from pure BEVs.

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                2. Stirling engines got some attention during one or another of the OPEC boycotts, but it seems to be analogous to fusion power; not now, but maybe in 10 years, for sure!
                  Pull the other leg, it has bells on.

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            2. CNC = “Computer Numerical Control”. They’ll make anything within the physical capabilities of the machine if given the right electronic “pattern” in correct format.

              Can’t stop the signal, Mal.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Which is why I asked about “sneakernet”. If the machine has to be connected to get new designs in, that adds whole new levels of security complexity.

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                1. MakerSpace re-invents card punches & readers… paper tape, etc.?Hey, immune to magnets. Doesn’t trip metal detectors. And isn’t hiding some evilprog in the recesses of a USB stick.

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                  1. Recalls data density of 1/2″ mag tape. Makes cross with USB sticks and walks away, slowly, walking backwards. :)

                    Sneakernet with sticks or terabyte drives would work really well.

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                    2. Yeah, I’m just thinking of the 25M (or maybe even 100M) storage on tape vs a good sized CAD file. FWIW, a fairly simple CAD file for a small deck (two levels, to make it more useful, but it’s only 70 square foot) runs in at 94k bytes.

                      I’m also pretty sure that the CAD based mill would need either a CAD lathe to keep it company or one of the megabuck machine centers that Boeing likes to use.

                      There’s something to be said about running a used Bridgeport and equivalent lathe and doing it more or less manually. Just operate to MILTFP-41C. (AKA: Make it like the fucking print, for once!)

                      The guy who made the replica Wright Model A (as used on the transcontinental flight on the Vin Fizz) used just that.

                      On the gripping hand, a lot of the fiddly bits might be well suited for CAD/CAM operations. And lord knows, a diesel has a lot of fiddly bits.

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                    3. Another thought. If Stuxnet can infest a USB drive for sneakernet, why can’t mini-Stuxnet infest a tape drive or card deck? All you need is a chunk of malware small enough to fit unnoticed in the media and an infected machine to distribute the malware with the files.

                      It boils down to having data from trusted sources, and those trusted sources having the inclination and tools to keep their data clean.

                      My main thought for stick drives is that they could be smuggled and passed around easy enough. There’s an old joke about the bandwidth of a car full of floppies, but a pocket full of stick drives is likely to trump that…

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                    5. And don’t overestimate it, either. Pulling some data from old memories, HP 1/2″ tape drives were good for 1800 bits per inch of tape. That’s about 50M for a large tape reel. Load a hundred of them in your station wagon and you’ve got the heaviest 5 Gb transport on the road.

                      Remember that that saying was done when a 25Mb hard drive was common and the hot stuff was a 400Mb drive.

                      Getting back to distribution, physical transport is going to be the most secure/safe method, which would leave the nosies at the NSA ignorant of what’s moving.

                      FWIW, I did a back of the envelope calculation for punch cards. I think that Hollerith cards had 10 potential holes per column and 80 columns (of which 8 were used for ID numbers, but we’ll skip that). If a binary code were used, you could get 82k bits worth of data on a card, but they’re maybe 10 mils thick. So an inch thick deck of cards would get you 8 megs worth of data. Not really dense. (And both tape and punch cards need bulky and not-so-easy to reproduce readers.)

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                    6. You could probably replicate punch card readers with a camera if you needed to, for some strange reason.

                      For data density, though, you’d be better off with the same camera and QR codes. Napkin math for 200 characters per square inch printed double sided on 20lb paper gets you 9GB in a dozen bankers boxes – may be comparable to your 1/2 tape density.

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          1. Generating that ‘just a text file’ is a non-trivial exercise. It has to define tool paths, which depend on tool radius and depth of cut. Acceleration, feed rate, and deceleration along each tool path. All dependent on the type of cutting tool and the workpiece material. Plastic, aluminum, steel and titanium all require very different machining parameters.

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                2. Allegedly machines from Mazak will clam up and refuse to work without company support if you move them. (Export control compliance and convenient vendor lock-in). But 99% of machines will run just fine with electricity and files on whatever media they take.
                  G code is human readable text, and vendor agnostic. You might need a manual for M codes for specific machines. Free software exists for turning CAD into toolpaths, unless you need 4+ axis (probably not, for what we’re talking about).
                  You can build a multimachine with scrap engine blocks, or slap drive motor kits on things from the ’40s.

                  Liked by 1 person

      2. A lot of it depends on where you are. If you’re out in the sticks, it depends on the Sheriff’s Deputies being nosy. If you’re in a more settled area, a local Karen neighbor might report you just for the racket you’re making.

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    4. Diesels will also run on alcohol. There was a lot of development on that in the 1970s-1980s.

      Rudolf Diesel’s first working compression-ignition engine didn’t even use liquid fuel; it used pulverized coal dust blown into the cylinder with compressed air.

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  11. “In fact, the result of their new offensive on guns, is, at a guess, that credit card reading machines in every gun shop across our great land, are smoking.”

    Our gun counter and Gun Library (the big beautiful room with the seriously expensive rifles exists) are FULL from open to close. The entire counter and library. Every single day of the week. We can’t keep enough staff on the counter, and we can barely keep enough weapons in the store.

    But we do! Everything is full up, shiny, and ready.

    And people are already talking about how to keep things working while the communists destroy the Republic. People are scared, and coldly angry. And armed.

    God bless America.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. Yep. I’m learning how to do just that working in my section. Laughing at the idiot clowns makes them mad, which is fun. Then they all huddle outside and smoke together so they feel better.

        Tee hee.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. Cabella’s had to setup not only a number system but a line to get to the numbering system, not only includes looking at firearms, but to ask questions about availability of different calibers. 2535 still unobtainable. For some reason they chuckle. It is for a Winchester manufactured 1894 (per serial#).

      Liked by 1 person

      2. True that on the line to get at the counter. You can’t just come up and look for very long before you get someone’s attention.

        Black Friday they go outside at 5 am and start handing out chits for available calibers and ammo, first come first choice.

        Apparently the line circles the building.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Have heard that the lines circle the building on Black Friday at local and other Cabela’s. Haven’t witnessed it. Local news didn’t report that there was a specific line for the firearm counter. Then our local news wouldn’t. Not that we particularly pay attention. We avoid Black Friday shopping.

          Liked by 1 person

  12. Urban to me is buildings sharing common walls for entire blocks, with maybe a narrow alleyway to an inner courtyard/loading area. Suburbs are homes with lawns but close enough to throw a baseball and hit the house across the road, on both sides, and in the back. Exurbs are when you can see the homes all around you, but can’t hit a baseball that far. Rural, there aren’t homes next to you, and the few you can see you need a rifle to hit them with, unless they’re even farther than that, and you have things like cattle, moose, elk, bears, and wolf packs roaming around.

    About those new gun purchases. You can probably bet that half of them are in cash, not credit card. Don’t make it easy for the goons to make a list. Make them steal the various gun and hunting magazine subscribers rolls. Make them physically go to the FFLs and take their 4473 copies.

    Isn’t it interesting that if they starve us for fossil fuels, every alternative we will be driven (pun not originally intended) to use is even more polluting than what we have now? Which tells me that it’s not about saving the planet, it’s about control and taking (not making) money from us.

    IIRC, the latest estimate is that 6 or 7% of the population are veterans. (We’re going through a downswing due to the number of Vietnam war vets being called Home.)

    Liked by 2 people

    1. The intent is that you will have nothing that can be used as a fuel. Animal meat with fats that can be rendered into lard or grease will be replaced by crac… I mean, food cubes made from ground up mealworms. Any vegetable that can easily be rendered into an oil will be too hazardous for the environment to be allowed to grow in quantity.

      And so on, and so forth.

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      2. Oh, you mean the people who can’t eliminate fields of “illegal” (If only because not taxed) weed, are going to eliminate every cornfield in the nation.
        Pull the other one. It plays Yankee Doodle.
        Again, i can’t stop the doom loop. But I don’t know why no one is curious about how it got there.

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        1. I’m merely posting the intent. I never said that it would actually work.

          Though the plan is probably also to turn the bulk of the crop land fallow. No idea how they’d plan to feed all of us in that case (and if they don’t, then they’re even more stupid than one would think), but I wouldn’t be surprised if that isn’t a plan somewhere.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. Ban/death-regulate all the fertilizers and pesticides, and perhaps the fuel for plowing, and we can turn the clock back two hundred years for crop yields.

              They can do that right now with the in-place rules, assuming 1) SCOTUS ignores them or 2) They ignore/defy SCOTUS

              That is the key. When do they go back to an update of Jackson’s defiance of SCOTUS: They have made their decision. Now let them enforce it.

              The Cherokee won their SCOTUS case against relocation. Jackson simply ignored them. The Donks are curranty tip-toeing around that idea with various post-Bruen shennanagans. Next will be to gallic-shrug and say “…so?”.

              Litigation storm against the offending person(s) and their assets are a counter move. Another possibility: abuse of the grand Jury is not just for Donks.

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              1. Now let them enforce it.
                The not-government side has the controlling vote in ‘letting them enforce it’.
                They have not, cannot, and will not be able to get any meaningful rate of compliance with drug criminalization. It gets worse with guns, and utterly ridiculous by the time we get to fuel. Fertilizer has less users than fuel, but is easier to make. I’ll spot you the pesticides, though: a lot of commercially available stuff is targeted by environmentalists, and is not as easy to substitute as fuel. We’d end up with black market, more expensive, less quality control, more toxic stuff.
                There’s an awfully high rate of non-compliance on DEF requirements for diesel engines, for instance.

                Liked by 1 person

              2. They can. And every American will turn his law into a field. Granted, in a lot of places nothing will grow, but–
                I’m going to channel Jerry Pournelle here: TAKE NO COUNSEL OF YOUR FEARS.
                This sh*t isn’t going their way in Europe, and that’s Europe. You’re just not HEARING about it.

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              3. The Cherokee had neither the means, nor the will, to enforce the SCOTUS ruling against Jackson. And by means, I mean manpower, logistics support, communications, and weapons. As for will, that was broken pretty effectively. Had that been 1940 Germany, I suspect that Jackson would have personally signed the gas chamber orders for them.

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      3. I know a guy who can take an amazing variety of plant matter intakes and produce alcohol. Said guy specializes in palatable drinkables at this point, but I bet he could get something out of grass clippings if need be.

        Liked by 1 person

        2. Grass takes too much water and space to be allowed to grow in the neo-arcologiee that the “fifteen minute cities” are intended to be. Lawns – and thus grass – will not be available to the average citizen.

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          1. You don’t need grass when you’re living in your pod, citizen. Not even Astroturf.

            These people need to be reminded that Cyberpunk 2077 is a game, not a manual for future civilization.

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          2. You don’t need grass when you’re living in your pod, citizen. Not even Astroturf.

            These people need to be reminded that Cyberpunk 2077 is a game, not a manual for future civilization.

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      1. I suppose. I’m not exactly sure what a hamlet would qualify as. Since they’re usually a small group of houses within baseball distance of each other, but the cluster is at least a couple miles from anything else, it’s almost rural. Reminds me of the place we rented in Rengniessart on the Belgian-French border in the late 1980s when I was doing the cruise missile assignment.

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        1. Bigger than a compound, smaller than a town?

          Is that bigger or smaller than “has a post office and a store, possibly in the same building”?

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        2. There are hamlets in upstate NY. They are where two roads intersect and you can see homes and businesses and the school and church for all along at least a couple of miles

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        3. I remember an old state atlas we had listed the definitions of hamlet, village, town, city, etc.

          Entirely population based, but since it was a really old atlas, it’s possible that they had lower population threshholds for what counted as what.

          Though if your place’s population drops lower than its current category, I don’t think you have to change the signage from “city” to “town”.

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      2. We’re at the outskirts of $TINY_TOWN. If I tried, I could hit 2-3 neighbor’s houses with a pistol, and 1 or two more with a rifle, but beyond that, nope. More coyotes than cattle (no thanks to water lawfare). $TT has a few dozen houses, maybe fitting the “suburb” class. Still, it’s rural. If you want brand-name gasoline, drive 35 miles, though the tribal casino/hotel/gas station is a little closer.

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          1. hmm. even hometown Gladstone, Mi (pop. 5200 via annexing some folks to tax the f#^k out of) has/had Shell, BP Exxon/Mobil, and the regionals Holiday, and Krist. The Marathon finally closed (deep in the middle of town) and the Sinclair was torn down to change the streets and a BP was built thereabouts (US2/41 goes past)

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            1. :sympathy to them, first:

              Region does matter, too– Iowa has a town every 10 to 20 miles, so if it’s a 20 mile radius we have… well, I think there’s three different Casey’s, actually, but I know there’s a couple of different ones in the nearest town to the north!
              Almost exactly 10 mile increments, actually, although some of the towns ARE long gone. :D The lay out here is a hoot.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Forgot that bout Iowa, it’s usually either generic or Casey’s once one is off the interstates, and too much 15%. On the interstates other than the truck stops, it is Casey’s and someone else, typically just one other if not just the Casey’s until you hit a bigger town or city.

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                  1. and y’all’s 0% is 87 most all the time, ain’t it? No Eth here is 91. Shell, BP and Kwik Trip (reagional out of La Crosse) price it much like 93, just a few pennys more (a few places sell both 93 and 91) Krist is very high on their 91, though the one near me across from the Kwik Trip is less jacked. Krist is out of Chrystal Falls iirc. They had a refinery fire a few years back that jacked prices locally for a few months. More than just them were buying the base stock, so everyone had to bring it in from further out.

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                    1. My usual fuel terminal had both 87 and 91 octane teetotaler fuel, but they’ve now dropped the 87. The other places in town (another fuel terminal and a gas station that gets a lot of boat trailers) only sold 91.

                      My small engines do fine with 87, but other than the considerably higher cost (compared to adulterated 87), should do fine. It’s also backup for the vehicles.

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                2. Casey’s has been spreading eastward for a while now. I used to only see them in Illinois and westward, but now I see them in rural Indiana, and I think I spotted one in Ohio on Google Maps.

                  And Buc-ee’s is headed north, and Wawa and Sheetz west, such that it looks like they’ll be battling it out in Indiana and Ohio – assuming everything doesn’t fall apart before them.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. I like Sheetz. Buc-ee’s is cool but man they get crowded. Casey’s is a bit pricey gas-wise and small.
                    Quick Trip is/was expanding too (OK based iirc), and less so is Kwik Trip but does so as Kwik Star because of QT.

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                    2. You want to see a crowded Buc-ee’s? My wife and I were on our way through Georgia and stopped at one of the ones along I-75 just as the buses transporting the state football champions and their parents and fans were stopping on their way back home. At least they were a happy, cheerful, polite crowd.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    3. That would be crowded af. The one on 20 outside Birmingham was bad enough on a thanksgiving weekend. The North Georgia one looked packed when I went past a few days before T-day. Back in ’21. iirc it was quite new then. of course, being Buc-ee’s they had billboards for it in north Indiana.

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                3. This past weekend at a Casey’s in Sioux City the ethanol was “up to” 15% (when most vehicles can only take 10%, if that) and we had to HUNT for the pump that had the 91 octane, as the rest were all 87/88.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. I was out somewhere BFE Iowa on US20 and the station I could get to only had 15% when I got there. GPS had the next nearest too far to get to on the little I had, so I got a gallon and bike was no vera happy. Next place only had one pump not 15%, and I forget what grade, but I think it was 87. Some of the owners of the later version of my Honda, the ST1300 complain about Iowa as their bikes are 91 and above recommended, and often nothing is available to them that makes the bike happy (those are injected at least, so some compensation happens other than my solution to turn the choke on). Mine will supposedly run fine on 87, but I only ever ran it in Texas when it was the No Ethanol version. UP here it is the marine and offroad crowd that make the 91 the go to for non-ethanol (well additional, the lead replacement is an ethanol derivative but water won’t crack it out of the blend)

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              2. Between towns built along rail lines, the relative fecundity of the area, and settlement patterns predicted by central place theorem, that spacing seems about right.

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              3. Much of Georgia is like that; towns of 50-150, about ten miles apart. Well, nowadays, scattered foundations at crossroads where the towns used to be.

                Liked by 1 person

            2. The last I saw for a population number, $TINY_TOWN has maybe 400 people in it. There’s no city government, and the only town-wide infrastructure (beyond electric and phone) is the town-owned well and water system that services about 30 homes and a couple of businesses. We’re not on that, and getting “city” water is still optional.

              At one time, there were two stores that sold gas, but the second one failed pretty quickly. It had been in business for a while years ago, but was sitting idle for several years before reopening. That lasted maybe a year.

              The larger town 25 miles away used to have a Shell, but that closed 5 years back when the tribal establishment opened up on the main highway. That town (population 1000) has a very strong tribal demographic, and the Shell didn’t stand a chance after the other one started up.

              A couple other 1000 sized towns have stations, one of which has brand names. To get multiple stations/brands, I have to go to Flyover Falls, population 20,000.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. a lot of even the way out nowhere places have a brand, but I think the gas distro here is the reason, the U.P. used to have one (in Gladstone) that did a lot of no-name sales. Now between Esky and Gladstone I know of 2 no-name stations. Though I don’t know what gas the Fast Stop truck stop in Rapid River uses. It used to be a Citgo. Esky has a Fast Stop Express, but it is only open to members of their fleet services, and no store or cashier at all. get out in the boonies and it is usually a BP or a Shell, now, though often only the pump is a clue to the branding, if it has a card using pump, it is rare.

                Like

              2. One station now. the Gladstone one is now just a repair shop.
                Esky has an ECO something or other. Used to be a BP. the Corner Store places here in Menominee/Marinette use BP for gas (the BP franchisee owns them and a liquor/C store that used to sell gas), though not the branding. I don’t know what Esky’s store uses. It used to be Shell tankers before I moved up. now it is Kenan Advantage tankers and I see them with more than just BP. iirc Kwik Trip uses Ken often enough. I’ve also seen them at the Mobil.

                Like

      1. Am I naïve, or did the hard science prizes not do this until recently?
        The peace prize was a joke long before Obama was its punchline.

        Liked by 1 person

        2. It was often iffy but usually just “there were more deserving, but the winner still did valid work” up until about 2016-2017, then it went full 0bama-peaceprize for being 0bama in almost all the other awards.

          Liked by 1 person

    2. And apparently someone made a “study” saying that there were millions of deaths prevented by the Jab, in spite of a lack of a time machine or ability to jump between timelines to compare to what happened. (Don’t have a link handy at the moment.)

      Liked by 2 people

          1. (And for some reason it won’t let me use CR/LF, browsing via Mozilla.)

            As I intended to say before that previous post got cut off, yes, I know it’s mostly crap, but there are some good subforums there where dickheadery is policed in a pretty bipartisan fashion.

            Like

            1. The carriage return thing seems to be a new “feature” of WordPress (Delenda Est). We’ll see how long it takes them to fix it.

              Linux, both Pale Moon and Firefox show the issue. And yes, I checked elsewhere.

              Like

      3. The vaccine worked as well at keeping COVID-19 away as Lisa Simpson’s anti-tiger rock did at keeping tigers away.

        Like

  14. Not that I have anything about our neighbors to the north, but I’d like to see us provide major encouragement to all the Leftists to head for Maritime Canada like we did post War of Independence.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. “If you think they’re going to come door to door, you’re out of your mind, worse than the left. Note the left hasn’t done that. They haven’t done that even in the cities that are nominally wholly under their control. Because if they do that, they — even they — know will light the fuse and they won’t be able to put it off again.”

    They did do that. In NYC in the early 1990s under Mayor Dinkins. After requiring all firearms to be registered starting the the 1960s, they knew exactly who had what. So when a law restricting ownership was passed many years later, NYPD showed up at people’s apartments to confirm they were in compliance.

    Now, you may argue that NYC isn’t really in America, and that’s a defensible position.

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    1. They’re not doing it now.
      Well, NYC is and isn’t. It’s more like an European city in plant, and therefore….
      And I bet you in the early 90s that sweep wasn’t super successful. Because people have guns acquired many ways.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. ATF has been going door-to-door confiscating Forced-Reset Triggers, which they (illegally) rewrote and reinterpreted legislation to classify FRTs as Machine Guns.

        Granted, that’s easier than going after guns in general (because there are probably a few thousand at most and they were able to compel lists of customers), but they are doing it.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Well, it was after several decades of full registration, so any Law Abiding citizens who owned those types of firearms were known to the authorities. Their options were destroy, transfer out of NYC, or turn over to the police.

        I’m happy to say, precious few were reported turned over to the police, and I didn’t hear of many being destroyed. But this was around 1991, the internet was barely even a concept and communications in the pro 2A organizations were slow, sputtering, and full of holes.

        Every attempt by the Marxists and gun-prohibitionists (but I repeat myself) makes the next attempt harder. What happened post Katrina in New Orleans is a good example of that.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. No, they didn’t.

      New York City has twice used its gun registry to confiscate arms. Starting in 1967, the Big Apple required residents to register their rifles and shotguns. Then, in 1991, the city banned certain configurations of semi-automatic firearms. The city used its registry to inform those with offending firearms that their guns needed to be removed from the city, disabled or forfeited to law enforcement. The city employed this tactic again as recently as 2013, following the reclassification of another group of rifles. Understanding this history, when New York state and Connecticut instituted registration schemes for commonly owned semi-automatic firearms in 2013, gun owners proved reluctant to comply.

      https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/content/gun-registration-poses-dangers-old-and-new/

      What they did was quite bad enough, but it was not door to do confiscation of even registered weapons, much less looking for all weapons.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. The quote from Sarah’s post was “If you think they’re going to come door to door, you’re out of your mind…” not specifying confiscation. It may have been implied, but I was responding to the words as written.

        As reported by friends who lived in NYC at the time, the NYPD did show up at people’s homes to ensure compliance with the new laws. Which is also what your reference stated.

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        1. What ‘my’ reference said:

          The city used its registry to inform those with offending firearms that their guns needed to be removed from the city, disabled or forfeited to law enforcement.

          That is very much not going door to door.

          Vs what Sarah said:
          Which is why they’re buzzing on about guns, again/still trying to find a way to convince us to give it all up.

          If you think they’re going to come door to door, you’re out of your mind, worse than the left.

          Which is very clearly going door to door to remove all weapons.

          Like

  16. My MIL was all happy to tell me that the new Vaxx is getting the Nobel prize.

    “Oh, like Ivermectin did?”

    Confused stare

    “Yeah, Ivermectin is a Nobel prize winning drug. Won in 2015 or so. But I hear that it is so dangerous that you can get heart attacks from taking it and they had to stop people during the pandemic. I hope that won’t be true of the Vaxx.”

    Very irritated glare

    Liked by 3 people

  17. Their crazy dictates can’t work here. Truth be told, they can’t work anywhere, which is why Europe — Europe! — is one step from open war, stopped only by the fact that they only have pitchforks to go after the bastages with

    So, who should we run guns to first? The UK? France?

    As for cars, in most of Europe can’t they just walk over a couple of days?

    Like

    1. The UK can go die in a fire: we sent them guns – including personally owned and donated guns – to rapidly re-arm them after Dunkirk, and then after the war they gleefully dumped all of those guns into the sea.

      As far as walking, Europe is going heavily into the 15-Minute City concept; i.e. all major necessities and services are (theoretically) located within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from any point in the city. And they love it so much that they’re talking about fining (or worse) people who depart from their assigned zone. And they’re throwing up (even more) security cameras to enforce it.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. The politicians in the UK are going for the concept. The citizens… not so much. Mayor Khan has implemented his ULEZ zone across all of London, and has vehicle-mounted cameras out on the streets to catch violaters. But the response from the citizenry has been to exercise lots of creativity in finding ways to block the cameras. And in at least one instance in which the cops were called (caught on video), the cops claimed it was free speech and right to protest, and walked away.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Yeah, one of their “armed officers” had to shoot a migrant, so they arrested him and brough him up on charges. The next day, all the other armed officers refused to carry guns.

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          1. Shut down or they never really started in Europe?

            And my question about walking was serious. Even without cars, can’t a group of citizens move across most European nations in a few days on foot? Yes, authorities could stop them but that would at least be forcing their hand.

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            1. it didn’t start like here, but I’m not sure how much of the shut down we didn’t see.
              Because the few blogs that started to get audiences abroad got slammed shut on their “hate speech” rules.

              Liked by 1 person

        3. That is a relief. There’s hope for them yet.

          Actually, I think they took Jay Leno’s advice to heart (relevant bit starts about the 1:30-ish mark)

          That said, I’m still pissed that they threw all of the guns we gave them into the sea.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I suspect problem being that we didn’t “give” them the guns. If it was really Lend-Lease equipment, then the deal was that if they held onto it after the War ended, they would have to pay for it. If they shipped it back, or it was destroyed (didn’t say destroyed by who), then they didn’t need to pay for it.

            So an awful lot of Lend-Lease equipment was destroyed after VJ Day.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. True, but some 20,00 privately-owned firearms were donated through the American Committe for the Defense of British Homes, many with the understanding or promise that they would be returned after the war. Those were also destroyed.

              Liked by 1 person

  18. And we’re armed. They know that. Which is why they’re buzzing on about guns, again/still trying to find a way to convince us to give it all up.

    This Twitter thread did not go where the WaPo intended.

    Like

    1. Ja, und?
      Them: “You just want a gun to compensate for what you lack!”
      Me: “Yes, because I lack a foot in height and reach, and about 80 pounds of muscle, on the last guy in the news for assault and robbery.”

      Liked by 2 people

      2. “That part of my body can’t fire a metal projectile at high speeds using a gunpowder explosion, so it might count as a substitute… except I don’t want that or any other part of my body to be capable of doing that. Sounds… painful.” ;-)

        Liked by 1 person

      4. What’s more fucked up-we who supposedly believes that gun=penis, or they who seems to wholeheartedly believe that gun=penis and wants to forcibly take them away from people?

        Like

      1. I did like “only because the NRA and Fox News brainwashed you into fear.”

        They still don’t get most people have decided Fox is controlled “opposition” and its credibility is heading towards that of CNN and MSNBC quicker every day.

        Liked by 2 people

          1. Anti-gun? Nope. What they are (the “leadership”, anyway) is way too willing to “compromise”; i.e., enable the ratchet one more notch, usually to be seen as “reasonable”. They seem to have forgotten that “reasonable” has no place in discussions of rights. I’ve been a life member for over 50 years, and they’ve been getting worse all that time, although they did fight on the “good guys” side for the few we’ve won.

            Best course now? Join CCRKBA or 2nd Amendment Foundation. And keep a (mental only) note of where that terrible boating accident happened so you can mount a retrieval some dark night. :-)

            Liked by 1 person

  19. Pingback: Not an argument, but a discrepency | Dio's Workshop

  20. If you think they’re going to come door to door, you’re out of your mind, worse than the left. Note the left hasn’t done that.

    Were they to lose one confiscator per every, oh, say, 3 housholds they try to raid for guns, and nobody among their confiscators ever decided “nope, not gonna” they would run out of jackboots before we ran out of armed citizens.

    Solzhenitsen, in “The Gulag Archipelago” speculated about how different things would have been had the state security folk been worried for their lives when they went to collect up “dissidents”they had to face at least some risk, and that’s only with things like kitchen knives and table legs to fight with.

    We might get to see just how that would play out in a nation where folk have actual firearms. Some, a lot, would meekly hand in their weapons but how many does it really take saying “no” before the folk tasked with the job start deciding it’s not worth the risk to their lives?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. 10% casualties in the first hour. Those that are not dead, will have to tend to the wounded, then they will have to be transported to the hospital. They will back up and start again the next day, with even more troops, that’s when the IED’s and suicide bombers start to strike. On the third day they will be hunkered down from snipers and not able to leave their offices, the fourth day, if it gets to that they are under constant siege until they give up.

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      1. Second obligatory: “Unintended Consequences” by John Ross.
        Why yes, it is a training manual. Why do you ask? :twisted:

        Like

  21. It’s not the Roman Empire that I’m thinking about the most. (And due to a current writing project, I would be thinking about Rome quite extensively anyway.) I’m thinking about the Roman Republic.

    I’m thinking about an entrenched ruling class that passed laws on the mass of people, but didn’t deign to follow those laws themselves. I’m thinking about how armed bands roamed the streets, acting as enforcers and bully-boys for one faction or another. I’m thinking about how one particular person threatening the power structure was met with imminent threat of malicious prosecution, expropriation, and personal destruction, and how that threat was met by the inauguration of civil war.

    And before I get too comfortable with my analogy, I recall how that particular person had connived at setting up a triumvirate of potentates, to wield power checked only by the balancing ambitions of his allies. I recall how he waged terrible war unapproved by the capital to gain a power base and a tremendous fortune with which to back it. I recall how his final campaigns brought to Rome not liberty restored, but himself as dictator for life.

    I’m thinking about other things too, but the people chiding me for thinking about Rome would be even less pleased to hear about them. I’m not so pleased with them myself, as they show how the ‘after’ would be at least as important, difficult, and dangerous as the ‘during’.

    Doesn’t mean it doesn’t need doing.

    Republica restituendae.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Don’t think on it too much. Their mob of bully boys was so scant it had to be bused and only to big cities. And even then they got plugged by the Kennosha kid.
      I can’t stop the doom loop in your head, but consider they’re putting it there on purpose.
      The only way they win is we give up.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I do know about the Sturmabteilung distribution system. I heard, from an interesting source it’d take too long to explain, that the rioters that hit us here in Asheville in June 2000 had been the ones who had just gone through Atlanta. (Asheville’s not exactly big, but it is, shall we say, highly receptive to the message they were delivering.) It’s the very precedent of armed political gangs that is so disturbing if I give it any serious thought.

        You can perhaps blame George Orwell for the doom loop. I read 1984 at a formative time.

        I know I’m a bit of a downer, Sarah. Sorry. I do rather better when getting positive feedback, but there seem to be supply-chain issues with that. (That’s my idea of a joke.) I’m mulish enough not to give up, but to quote Mr. Chekov, “Oh yes, I’ll live. But I won’t enjoy it.”

        And I’m just a little infuriated that we need to multiply that by a third of a billion.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. It’s a funny joke.
          And yes, yes. I know. I don’t like our situation. I’m not Mary sunshine. It’s going to hurt badly. BUT it’s not the end.
          It’s just a narrow spot we have to go through.

          Liked by 2 people

        2. Whenever you come up with a “the enemy is going to do X”, come up with a couple of counter moves, (other than “then the radicals start shooting”)

          Very much improves one’s mood and planning.

          Like

      2. “I can’t stop the doom loop in your head, but consider they’re putting it there on purpose. The only way they win is we give up”

        You’ve heard me complain several times recently about the relentless barrage of conservative blog comments insisting that conservatives/normies who live in red regions of blue states MUST move elsewhere ASAP and those who don’t are stupid at best and collaborators with evil at worst. I understand the sentiment behind that, but now I have to wonder how much of that is just enemy propaganda trying to make us give up without a fight, or just others caught in the doom loop.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. By way of encouragement:
          I grew up in Illinois, as did generations of family before me. I can’t move the farm, or the corner out of it that (N)x Great grandpa donated for the cemetery where most of them are buried. I don’t think we voted for this, and I’m not planning to give up on the state, or anywhere else in the US. National divorce? Bah! Commies get out.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I’m living in California, very near where I grew up, and I want to move out eventually. (Kids, you know, and some good groups they’re in.)

            Why? The climate, actually. Too flipping hot for too flipping long, and yes, it’s been that way since I was a kid. I had better heat tolerance then, though. And my husband outright melts.

            Liked by 1 person

          2. grew up in Illinois, as did generations of family before me. I can’t move the farm, or the corner out of it that (N)x Great grandpa donated for the cemetery where most of them are buried.
            …………….

            Oregon for me. Been here since 1843. While no one in extended family owns the land still farmed/ranched of the original homestead, the 0.8 ac cemetery is still used (under 501(c) non-profit). There is another, larger private graveyard back east. Been here since 1600’s sometime. Give up on Oregon or US? Forget that.

            Oh, yea. I hate not seeing the format I’m typing up.

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  22. This appointment by Grues0me typifies the left and their adherence to the law and the constitution. In other words they don’t, the only thing keeping them in check at this point in time is our guns and 2nd amendment rights. What we need to do is show great restraint for the time being and not devolve into a snarling ravenous mob after they go too far. But a reasoned thoughtful response. We don’t need another Bastille Day, we need a second 1776. A return to the constitutional principals that this great nation seems to always fall short of. Its not that the ideals are wrong, its just that we are not worthy of them at this time. We can and shall live up to them some day. As Franklin wisely said when asked ;

    “What have you and your lot given us Mr. Franklin?” the lady asked.
    “A republic, if you can keep it” he replied. It seems we have some work to do to keep it. Network, build with your families and friends, your neighbors. Build Islands of sanity, against the hordes of grasshoppers that will no doubt come.

    Like

  23. I look after grandbabies while son goes elk hunting with sticks. He’s after a big trophy bull, though I would be quite satisfied with a young tender cow. Watching him practice his archery before he leaves for the hunt brings joy (and a fierce pride) to my heart.

    There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of hunters just like him, many of them ex-military, who stalk and hunt big game, small game, bear, moose, pheasant. They hunt with bows. Then there are the millions who hunt with rifles, after game that are the most elusive and difficult animals to stalk on the planet.

    They should not be roused. Don’t rouse these people. Right now, they’re hoping for the ballot box. We are all hoping for that.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. The ballot boxes are going to be stuffed with fake votes. You really think ‘the most extensive, comprehensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in American history’ just dried up and blew away on November 4 2020? Especially after what we saw last year?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Which the REAL mathematical genius (younger son, not husband. He’s almost…. idiot savant level, since it hurts him when things are wrong, and then he has to think to explain) was spitting out the impossibilities in how the numbers moved, most of the night.

        Liked by 2 people

  26. The electric cars, the lack of infrastructure built for them, and the destruction of their preferred fuel, are all part of the plan. The ultimate goal is elimination of the useless eaters. More even than guns, it’s our ability to travel that they want to destroy.

    Once locked into the 15 minute cities, rusting electric cars like statues on the side of the road, what good will guns do if they start a fire?

    Once we lose the ability to travel, we’re reliant on those who bring supplies, and have no more control.

    Like

        1. Yes, that is exactly what the Chinese ones look like. A few highrises and a big wall. And a communal store, and a communal cafeteria.

          Even the most ignorant Chinese are staying away from that crud. They seem to have some familyless old people, and that is about it.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. ” They seem to have some familyless old people, and that is about it.”

            Which are going to become an ever larger percentage of the population everywhere. Think of them as government “retirement communities” and you’ll have a handle on the concept no one is talking about.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. These “walkable” neighborhoods are what TPTB are trying to recommend to retrofit within the existing urban growth boundary locally. But they’ve already screwed that up by removing grade schools. Busing is required. Trying to get around the latter by using the county transit system. But that won’t work for the younger grades (parents are “heck no”), and even older grades where transfers are required (our location for both middle and HS, 8 – 12, grades).

          Like

      3. Force won’t work to get people into these 15 minute concept cities and they just don’t make sense. The idea has been “marketed” for sometime and every time the effort is made to create an all-inclusive neighborhood, reality steps in and they just don’t work.

        A couple of decades ago I got to see such an effort in Burnsville Minnesota started with the “Heart of the City” neighborhood concept. The idea was to have every thing you needed within walking distance. The then mayor was big on the concept and a bunch of studies were produced to show how wonderful it would be economically and socially. I don’t think it can be called a success – turned into just another neighborhood and was nothing special.
        https://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Heart-of-the-City-Burnsville-MN.html

        The history in MN of this sort of effort is interesting and has yet (that I know of) to produce what was promised. In the above example the stats show over 77% drive out of there to work…

        Liked by 1 person

          2. Funny how PTB are pushing the 15 minute communities are also the ones insisting on everyone going back into the office for work. Blink.

            More than a few are angry (pissed off is too tame) about being forced to move. They were hired on the remote work from home because their employers couldn’t find anyone to move to where they were even if employees were allowed to come into an office. These are not the employees who finding they didn’t (couldn’t) have to commute to their offices they moved out of the area.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. Walkability fanatics consider it a radical notion to concede that maybe you don’t need everything within walking distance, if you don’t want everything.

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          1. Might need a bit of a push in not making it more profitable to use empty storefronts as a write-off than to rent them out more cheaply, too.
            (El Paso has a lot more weird little storefronts BECAUSE you can’t write off, or atleast can’t write off as much, of the loss for not renting.)

            Liked by 1 person

    2. Americans are not going to be herded anywhere much. But to suppose that all the catastrophic consequences of their goals are planned for, on this side of the infernal Lowerarchy of which Mr. Lewis writes in Screwtape/i>, anyway, is IMO to grossly overestimate them. They come up with disconnected pipe-dream solutions for each minor problem, and rarely check to see the ways any two of them contradict each other, or how any are to be implemented in the real world.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I agree. However, I was “lucky” enough to find the full text of Agenda 2030 on the UN website many years ago. I read it with a level of amused horror, but when I went back, thinking to download it, it had been replaced by a 1 page feel-good screed.

        They want everyone in easily controllable population blocks, all amenities within a 15 minute walk, no one allowed to leave their assigned city, no personal vehicles, biometrics for every person on the planet, all agriculture done by conglomerates.

        When I see those same things happening on a global scale, when I see city plans being altered to facilitate this stuff, I can’t put it down to incompetence.

        Will it work? No. It can’t work even short term, because most of the innovation that might make their plans possible comes from the US. In attempting it, they would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs and their whole system would rapidly fall apart.

        But unplanned? Most definitely and thoroughly planned

        Liked by 2 people

            1. This is a very much watered down version. The one I read went into a great deal of detail that is missing from this. It obviously has the same spine, but it’s considerably softened for public consumption.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. If you can remember some specific phrases, I can do more hunting.

                It’s possible you found some of the proposed/discussion papers, that sounds a lot like the twits that meet in Switzerland or wherever.

                Liked by 2 people

                1. It’s possible.

                  I specifically remember that they used the word “biometrics” when they said they would have biometrics for every person on earth. “Easily controllable population blocks” was phrased differently, I can’t remember the exact phrase. I think that may have been my own reading because it talked about not being allowed to travel outside the cities. I distinctly remember the section about elimination of private property outside the major population areas and returning non agricultural land to wilderness. I believe that “large conglomerates” was the actual phrase used for agriculture, but it’s been years so I could be mistaken. The 15 minute cities section definitely used the word “amenities,” although I don’t believe it used any numbers. I think the phrase was “all amenities within walking distance.”

                  I think someone realized that the wrong document had been put up and they yanked it. I just happened to get to it in that gap.

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                    1. Everybody who thinks the would-somehow-manage-to-fill-a-boot-with-piss when trying to read the instructions on how to dump it that’s on the heel with anything like verifying identity, please reconsider.

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                    2. Interesting. I could have sworn I found it long before then. I talked to Dad about it, and he was into the first stages of dementia by 2016. It was on either a work or school computer, which puts it prior to 2010.

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                    3. The date on the “ID4D” (isn’t that … cute….) home page is just an annual report, it launched in ’14 so they probably got started at least five-ten years earlier.

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                  2. Incidentally, while I am :cough: really not a fan of much of anything that is “world” and “united”, we use biometrics for identity in the US.
                    Fingerprinting, most commonly.

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          2. No idea. I don’t think it was up more than a couple hours, if that. Maybe half an hour after I finished reading, I decided to download and it was already gone.

            Liked by 2 people

  27. “Once we lose the ability to travel, we’re reliant on those who bring supplies, and have no more control.”

    It will not come to that. The Beautiful, but Evil Space Princess is correct. Too many people have too many serious skilz to be reduced to that level.

    Think moonshine running behind the revenuers backs.

    A way will be found.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. Or the (probably apocraphal) story about a European noble who was visiting the States and asked a farmer “Where is your master?” The farmer spit on the ground and said “That sumbitch ain’t been born yet.”

      Like

      1. Always thought that was wrong. S/b ““That sumbitch ain’t been will never be born yet here.”

        Like

  29. Looks like they got to Clarence Thomas:

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/supreme-court-thomas-recuses-john-eastman-jan-6

    “The recusal note comes as Thomas has faced demands by dozens of Democrats to recuse from a major administrative law case to be heard later this term and calls to do so by watchdog groups from a Tuesday oral argument involving the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism.”

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      1. And here’s what they’re warning about….

        https://twitchy.com/chad-felix-greene/2023/10/04/authoritarian-watch-mollie-hemingway-warns-of-new-biden-admin-targeting-of-conservatives-in-2024-n2388115

        “As reported by Newsweek:

        ‘The federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbances around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers.'”

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        1. Instead of the extremists that have already committed violence and major civil disturbance in their ‘mostly peaceful but slightly fiery protests’.

          Democrat cities barricaded their streets and boarded up their windows out of fear of what their supporters would do if Trump officially won again in 2020.

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  30. “If you think they’re going to come door to door, you’re out of your mind”
    Remember, once they took back power in NY from Giuliani, one of the first things they did was to STOP confiscating illegal guns – the Stop and Frisk program. Why? Because it was THEIR people, the inner city criminals, with all of the illegal guns.

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  31. we’re just like Rome. We’re doomed

    I so do not understand this. I keep seeing it and aside from the propaganda aspect that Sarah’s talking about, if we’re just like Rome, we’ve got another 600 years to go. That’s hardly doomed.

    Liked by 1 person

  32. Two items…
    One, Matt Gaetz is working to oust McCarthy, with the enthusiastic cooperation of the Democrats (when you have Ilhan Omar standing behind you….). Basically all Ds and 11 Rs. For the good of the party. Or whatever.
    Two, the Daily Mail reports British intelligence is reporting the Chinese lost 55 men when one of their nuclear subs hit a chain obstacle put up by the Chinese, to trap British and American subs. They were poisoned by the oxygen system. But this gets me: the dead include 22 officers, including the commanding officer, 7 officer candidates, 9 petty officers and 17 crew. Either a lot of people survived, or there was something really strange about that crew.

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      1. Either that, or it was some kind of training voyage, and they didn’t break it down between “normal crew” and “observers”.

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    2. Soviet Typhoon class ballistic missile subs had crews of almost entirely officers, with just a few EMs to clean toilets and such.

      Think about just how shitty a military that implies.

      Then cube it.

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    3. Officers are first and foremost reliable Party Men. Enlisted are not. They are unknowns, thus presumptively unenlightened and unreliable.

      Thus a ChoCom (or Soviet) nuclear sub with nuclear weapons (even just torpedoes), by nature beyond remote control or coercion, is going to be crewed mostly by officers, and some senior warrant/noncoms of party affiliation, children of the lower trusted ones.

      They really do not reasonably dare put such subs to sea, but have no choice but to do so to compete with us.

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      1. A bit of an aside, but in the European theater in WW2, all air crew were at a minimum sergeants. That was because, if captured, NCOs were reported to be treated a lot better than enlisted men. (Dad was a corporal, but a) he was ground based and never flew on duty, and b) was in the Pacific theater.)

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  33. Pingback: The American Way to Resist – Liberty's Torch

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