Saddle Up

Posted on by hollyfrostgoldportpress

by Holly the Assistant

Picture credit to Caitlin Walsh

All right. We had our various pity parties–or not–time to find our boots and lace them up again and get back to work.

Now, there is no easy route. There is no Great Leader who will wave his magic wand and make everything right. There’s no Chosen One who will assemble his followers and fix the world. It’s a lovely trope in fiction. In reality, that isn’t how it works. Never has been. Fixing anything is messy and it’s a group project, and we all hate group projects. (And I’d wager that every one of us has ended up doing everyone else’s work at least once.)

On the bright side, though, it’s a project that breaks up in to small bits really well, and your bit can succeed without relying on everyone else’s bit being done correctly. You can make real progress.

On the down side, you will get attacked. For those still raising children, or not financially independent, you need to be more cautious. (I’ve watched the attacks happen to a local friend of mine running for local office. Relentless, and at least one went viral nationwide, which didn’t actually fix the slander.)

Snelson had some great suggestions in the comments yesterday. If what he’s doing is something you can do, go forth and do. If you can show up to local party meetings–and I don’t care which party–and get involved, annoy people, keep them on track, get them off track, go do that. If you can run for a down ballot office, my hat’s off to you, and please be braced for impact.

If you can copy HSLDA’s tactics for your local city council, or your state legislature, or your school board, and run a news list, and tell everyone who really cares about issue XYZ when they should show up, call, email, write, about that issue, do that. I mean, if you can find a passion for . . . deregulating food from home kitchens, get a group of people together who care about that issue. Or for allowing hens in city limits–you can definitely get a list for that. Or for improving county election security. Or, there’s a nascent movement I spotted for, how was that phrased, “The other twenty-nine kids’ right to learn” about de-mainstreaming disruptive children. That’d be a good issue to be involved with.

If you have the pocket books to hire the lawyers and sue, and you find standing, go you forth and do just that. I suspect that certain big figures from the MAGA movement have attorneys combing everything today.

If all of that’s too public, I want you to think of whisper campaigns. Not actually whispering–that would defeat the purpose. Not shouting either, that’s rude. But comments that seed doubt. “Funny how everything that passed and everyone who won in our state is something China cares about, isn’t it?” “I don’t know anyone who voted for X, do you? Do you know why they did?” “Why hasn’t that guy resigned from his megachurch position? Is he a Christian Nationalist?” You’re just asking questions. Totally reasonable questions. Look at the person, or the issue, find what the other side would just ask questions about if they weren’t in favor of, and ask those questions. That’s how that game works. I’ve had good luck with persuading perfectly normal Democrats against mail-in ballots before by asking why abusive spouses should get to vote their victims’ ballots. “I mean, if he’ll hit her for cooking his steak wrong, then he’ll definitely force her to vote the way he wants.”

Now for your own family, I want you to start thinking practically. We’re all (almost) preppers here anyway, right? I think this is the biggest conglomeration of “Actually this is how to survive a week long power outage” people that isn’t a dedicated prepper website. So make sure that’s in order. Make sure you have what you need if your bank account gets hung up for a couple days-we had an internet outage here a couple years ago that shut down all the banking in town, my credit union stayed open on the honor system but most simply closed doors, only stores that could deal in cash and checks and had cashiers who could do math stayed open. Make sure you have what you need if your power goes out–we know corrupt government is associated with lack of basic services–see South Africa for details. Make sure if the garbage trucks don’t come for a month you have a plan so you don’t get rats. Not apocalypse, just . . . lack of services on schedule. My in-laws get city water only occasionally, so they and all their neighbors yell to each other when the water comes on and fill all their storage containers. Basic big city third world stuff. Charge your phone battery and your backup battery when there is power. Not Mad Max, Kinshasa on a Tuesday or Johannesburg on a Wednesday. If you normally rely on a big freezer, be prepared to cook and can without power if you don’t have backup power for it.

Make yourself a network of people. Who can come over with a chainsaw if there’s a tree down in your yard? Who can you go over to with a chainsaw if there’s a tree down in his yard? Networks are vitally important when you’re in a low-trust situation. You have to know who will help and who will steal. You need to know who will give you a reference to a real roofing company. You need to give references to your mechanic, your roofer, your driveway paver, and you need to give business to your network’s references. Don’t hire based on “I did an online search and got quotes.” Hire on “I know a guy.” Not least because the fall-out of failing as a “known guy” is no more jobs, not dissolving the company and starting a new one. This is not the American norm, but it is the way most of the world gets people who do things. And our unassimilated immigrants are doing just that–giving work exclusively to people in their trust network, while we’re . . . not.

Yes, this means you-YOU!-have to talk to actual human beings.

We didn’t pick this, but we’re here.

There’s no man coming on a white horse to save you. But you don’t need one of those, anyway. Get your saddle on your own horse and ride.

102 thoughts on “Saddle Up”

  1. Excellent!

    “There is no Great Leader who will wave his magic wand and make everything right. There’s no Chosen One who will assemble his followers and fix the world.”

    I live by (among other passages) Psalm 146:3. “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help.”

    It’s up to us. It was always going to be up to us.

    Let’s ride.

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    1. Agree 💯. Some will disagree with this, but mental and spiritual fortitude is something I’m working on at least as hard as I’m trying to stock up on beans and rice and canned chicken. Emotions are powerful, but they’re not reality. I was not given a spirit of fear, but if sound mind and sober judgment. It’s up to me to remember that and act accordingly.

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  3. My furnace went out last March. After months of calling and getting references, bring ghosted and ignored, when it was supposed to freeze I did the repair myself.

    The only company that was referred came with the repeated warning that he was unreliable. Boy, that was sure accurate.

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    1. We had a propane “wood stove look” heater go out on us a couple years ago. I contacted the (reliable, but limited) HVAC company, but they had no clue as to how to get the replacement controller. (I was able to get to that point; the pilot light lit, but the main burner wouldn’t–autopsy showed the relevant wire shorted to the housing over the years.)

      I hit the web (more than just the ‘zon, but DDG is helpful) and got a replacement. The guy came out to install it, but another issue cropped up and I needed to get pilot light hose line. That was Amazon.

      Had another failure on our electric furnace. Searched around and found the part. Since Murphy had a vote, the one I ordered with express shipping went walkabout, and the extra one I bought (standard shipping) showed up a week before the “express”.
      The actual module replacement took about an hour. I think I used the multimeter, but was careful to take pictures and to read the frickin’ manual carefully. The prodigal unit is in a baggie in the furnace in case it’s needed.

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    2. I’m not going to disagree, but after the past year I am concluding the people in a position to do something in the near term, legislation and so on, either don’t care (best case) or are benefiting from it (think of GOP primaries they should have ditched incumbents…and fraud is easier to hide in primaries).

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    1. I remember those graphs from the 2020 election from multiple swing states that showed a Trump win before the counting “stopped,” and then suddenly showed a Biden win a few minutes later. This time, the votes could have been front-loaded to prevent such suspicious graphs from being disseminated once again.

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  6. I couldn’t even look at the news until this morning. Here in CA, it’s an unmitigated disaster. I think I scored a perfect 0% on everyone/everything I voted for or against.

    Best I can do is quote John Carter, “I still live!”

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    1. You haven’t caught the news about Prop 40 failing, and Prop 42 passing?

      I’ve seen quite a few posts on X freaking out about the stupid Californians who were so stupid that they wouldn’t even vote for the billionaire tax that would have (supposedly) solved all of the state’s problems.

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        3. Not really surprising.

          In spite of the off-the-res union folks who got it on the ballot to “get Elon,” there are lots and lots of donk Silicon Valley billionaires, plus still a few H’wood donk billionaires as well as those who are fairly close if that next tentpole is a big hit, and they all have Gavin’s phone number as well as the numbers of the One True Party backroom power brokers in their phones.

          In the Formerly Golden State, rich donors are a goose laying golden eggs solely for the donks, so killing that would only hurt those in power.

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    2. Same here in Oregon; x3 (pretty sure we all voted straight ticket republican …) OTOH did not expect any difference. I would have been please if Drazen had won, but was not expecting her to win, despite the polls stating race was dead heat. Oh, over 90% of the counties, including which ever county Salem is in, did not vote democrat. Koteck won because of Portland/Ashland/Hwy-30-county-corridor metro, Lane (Eugene/UofO), Benton (Corvallis/OSU), and Deschutes, counties.

      About the only thing we have a chance with on our ballots, and iffy at best, is any measures we vote on. We scored 100% there. Only because there were no measures to vote on this election.

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  7. Country boy here, I agree that you should always be prepared (at least as much as you can) for disruptions in power, food supplies and anything else you might need. Lucky to have been living in a generally quiet, conservative area for all these years and know a lot of the people around me. Small town (don’t blink, you’ll go through the 4-way stop) and people here still go to help their neighbors when there is need.

    I know many are not so well placed but a network of friends you can count on or help when they need it is something to have if you can. Can’t do much about the political situation in this state except stay on these people as much as possible. This is a solid red county like so many others, it’s the massive metropolitan areas that skewed the election (only 14 counties in the entire state managed to burden us with that corrupt Acton)

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  8. “There is no Great Leader who will wave his magic wand and make everything right.”

    And anybody who says he’s that guy… is not that guy. Important safety tip.

    I’m going to say here that politics is downstream from culture, so the trim-tab on the rudder of the Great Ship of State is… wait for it… writing.

    Right now as I type, every major film studio, gaming studio, streamer, newspaper and publisher in the West is BLEEDING red ink. They are dying. It’s a fricking mass-extinction event. Because they can’t (or won’t) write.

    Who’s coming up behind them to gather up all the goodies?

    WE ARE. Us. The fricking hated Sad Puppies Adjacent freaks who can’t understand that The Left is all that is good and wholesome in society. The ones who dared to call bullsh1t on the Bigs.

    We’ve already been laboring in the wilderness all these years, getting nowhere, reviled when we’re not being ignored. Which is fine with me, I don’t write for money or approval. There isn’t any. I write because I write, at this point. I’ll keep on writing, because that’s what I do. I write.

    And -what- am I going to write? ANYTHING I WANT. Karen is not my editor. (Apologies to any ladies named Karen out there who are not demanding to see my manager. I don’t invent the memes, I just say them. ~:)

    For the most part what I love to write is deep philosophy dressed up in science fiction with some humor. What I don’t write is scolding. There are enough scolds already. So Our Hero is going to choose the do the right thing, and the Bad Guy is the one doing the wrong thing on purpose.

    I think that’s not the worst or most pointless thing I could be doing. Maybe/could be a reader will be moved to do the right thing by Our Hero doing it. You can’t really ask for more than that.

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    1. “Right now as I type, every major film studio, gaming studio, streamer, newspaper and publisher in the West is BLEEDING red ink. They are dying. It’s a fricking mass-extinction event. Because they can’t (or won’t) write.”

      Tangential, and on the culture side more than politics, but I’m astounded at how many big Hollywood projects (and video games) fail because they skimped on the writing. Writing is the easy part! There are tons of talented writers out there, they’re hungry for work, and they are cheaper than the craft services budget (or so I gather).

      I get that it’s easy to judge bad scripts in hindsight, and that the director, the actors, and the producers are all pulling in different directions, some good and some bad. But when you run Star Wars into the ground because you decided to wing it instead of writing the trilogy in advance, or when the DCEU ends with a whimper because you couldn’t even settle on a proper reboot plan, something is seriously wrong.

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          1. “All they had to do was read Dosadi Experiment.”

            The problem with that is they think they’re smarter than Frank Herbert. But they’re not.

            So what you get is a room full of no-talents with big egos, all trying to “leave their mark” on the project. And you end up with Star Wars. Which is unwatchable crap that cost a billion dollars.

            Or VisionQuest, a bargain at only $100++ million.

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            1. Imitation Tatooine, where Rey is first found, is also paradise compared to Dosadi. My idea is that giving her a hellworld upbringing would have explained Rey’s improbable omnicompetence, given her a more interesting personality, and the villain’s body stealing plan that emerges in the third act of rise of Skywalker ties in nicely with the Dosadi Experiment.

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      3. “I’m astounded at how many big Hollywood projects (and video games) fail because they skimped on the writing.”

        This week’s example, VisonQuest.

        Oh, my ghod. The writing! The ‘are you kidding me?!’ moments of abject failure to consider the script. One small example, second episode, the Son of Vision wants to talk about his feeeeelings during a CHASE SCENE when they’re being pursued by The Bad Guy.

        If it was one blooper it would be bad enough. Major own-goal. But it’s all like that. Complete failure to write a coherent script that follows logically and is true to the characters. I think they broke the characters three or four times in the first four episodes. Stopped watching at 4 even though it’s free, because I can’t even.

        And let us not forget, VisionQuest cost as much as a blockbuster movie or a Triple A game. Well over $100 million.

        Show me a Big Hollywood property that isn’t going like that. I can’t think of one, offhand.

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        1. There are still great movies and shows coming out, depending on your taste and expectations, but the number of unforced errors has climbed astronomically. The woke stuff is the most glaring (e.g., She-Hulk was apparently some sort of woke blackmail project, and that carried through to every facet of its execution), but the pivot to streaming is not going gracefully either.

          The direct-to-streaming movies are flawed in hard-to-pinpoint ways, the prestige shows are usually overpriced trainwrecks, and the regular streaming shows have long production delays and short seasons that get in the way of actual storytelling. And almost all of this is stuff Hollywood used to know how to do.

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          1. Well, series TV production knew how to do more than eight ep seasons every four years. But streaming is generally movie people these days, and a movie release every four or five years is fairly common there.

            Sort of rhymes with an old story: The first Star Trek: The Motion Picture production was bloated and expensive and crazy and a mess during the shoot and another mess in post, and ultimately a poor performer in the theaters on first run, but when they gave Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan to the TV production side of Paramount, they finished it on time, on budget, and produced a solid hit.

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        3. I’m embarrassed to admit when I heard the title I though the YA book from the 80s that was also a very fun 80s movie had been turned into a Netflix series.

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          2. “How on God’s green earth did Vision reproduce?”

            TL/DR, Wanda. It’s magic, right?

            Sadly, that is not the dumb part of the writing.

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      4. A couple of the Bollywood actors like to recite a factoid about the bottled water budget for one of the Andrew Garfield Spidermans being higher than the entire production budget of whatever Mumbai-made movie the Bollywood guys were promoting. Now, last time I checked, the currency rate was like three cents to the rupee or something like that, but it puts into perspective just how much money Hollywood pointlessly throws around.

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        1. the bottled water budget

          I wonder what the Federal / state / county regulations require in terms of bottled water per possible site occupant. No one ever remembers the Regulatory Tax. People are about to get pointed (wrapped in barb wire) reminder when the bureaucrats realize which side of the “two tier justice system” they’re on.

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      5. In H’wood the writers union negotiated requirements that dictate the size of the mandatory “writers room” on any project according to arcane rules, with diversity requirements for that room for awards eligibility, and then there are the HR Ladies dictating who is eligible to be considered to be hired.

        So basically a movie can’t just be one writer anymore and still be an Oscar-eligible union movie.

        Union Writers Rooms rules are worse for series.

        It is mostly past the days of a solo writer pitching a story, getting paid to finish a script, so the old “script circulating for comments” thing that used to bring in varied inputs from a wide range of studio types is gone as well. Christopher Nolan might be able to get away with stepping around that, but lesser lights are stuck, and so scripts are group project dreck, and productions follow along that dreck path as well.

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        1. And re games: The little game studios mostly got bought by megacorps who have lots of HR Ladies ready and waiting to correct thought and police actions. Over time game devs demographic shifts as per the arrow of history, dev managers come up from those ranks when the old pre-acquisition holdovers leave, and in the end games all have rainbow flags and lecturing girlbosses and nothing at all appealing to gamers, that last being the fatal flaw – a lot of eye rolling stuff can be forgiven if the games are good. But crap games fail, no matter how much tiny-minority-non-gamer service is pasted in.

          It is no coincidence that the tiny startup game studios are still delivering hits, just like the shoestring movie productions.

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          1. “It is no coincidence that the tiny startup game studios are still delivering hits,”

            They’re the only people delivering hits these days except for the Chinese. Which is kind of annoying really, the Chicoms can deliver a AAA game and the USA can’t?

            The Chicoms are delivering some really impressive audio stuff too these days, and it is CHEAP. So amazingly inexpensive. Example, Fossi Audio MC351. DAC plus amplifier, 150W per channel stereo plus a subwoofer channel for anything that has RCA, USB, optical or Bluetooth. Under $300. Slap a pair of speakers on it and you’ve got a kick@ss stereo for peanuts.

            Sitting next to The Phantom Writing Desk is an SMSL DO100 Pro DAC/preamp, it has XLR outputs and RCA as well. It takes HDMI, USB, optical, coax, or Bluetooth inputs. Under $300, currently driving my absurdly over-spec A.R.T. amp (which was also absurdly cheap), sounds like a $2000 unit.

            So why aren’t established American and British and German companies doing that? Probably the same reason, honestly. Bloat. Too many chefs.

            But I did find something fun and not absurdly expensive the other day, made in Scandinavia: the Teenage Engineering EP-35 guitar amp. Under $600. Worth a google.

            So it CAN be done, most of them just aren’t doing it. Same as Hollywood.

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            1. For hardware production, that was a conscious decision by the short-term-profit-centered MBA-heavy executives. Everything manufactured here could be manufactured offshore for less, even factoring in shipping. But those decisions hit the wuflu transpac shipping disruptions hard, which resulted in a 9-month delay getting a big-name US brand fridge delivered. So onshoring is now a c-suite thing.

              But the middle kingdom factories, and their product designers, now know what the world market wants and how to make it, so any US manufacturer is starting in a hole.

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  9. “We’re all (almost) preppers here anyway, right?”

    I’m a little more toward the hoarder end of things, if I am honest. Possibly some dragon ancestry… ~:)

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    1. I was thinking the other day that I might like to live in a tinyhouse–and then reality kicked in and said I would need storage for all my stuff. Food, mostly. Medical supplies. No way even a hint of that would fit in a tinyhouse. I would need a root cellar half the size of my current house, at the very least. It rather negates the idea.

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  10. If one does not have faith in the Bible, perhaps one can have faith in the America that can be, the America that should be.

    Joshua 1:6 (ESV) states: “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.“

    Psalm 118:6 (ESV) states: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?“

    1 Corinthians 16:13 (ESV) states “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.“

    And so we must. Each according to his or her faith.

    May God bless us all with what we need.

    Maybe this old poster will help:
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Four-Freedoms-OWI-composite-poster-1943.jpg

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  11. I suppose from my perspective, I’m pretty siren there was serious cheating in the election. Now, it’s completely opaque and un auditable so we’re stuck with them. But the question becomes, what are things one can do to prevent the next election being fraudulent, without access to the courts or the executive?

    That’s a real question. I’m sure there’s something, but I’m not sure exactly what, yet.

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    1. Well, let me provide my actual experience at Saigling Elementary school, Plano TX.

      (Yes, I’m sure I’m unmasking. So?)

      The official schedule was that the polls would open for voting by 0700, and that equipment unsealing and setup would start at 0530. This is documented in the law, and that the poll watchers are required to document certain info, status of equipment seals, startup settings, etc.

      At 0515, I showed up at the front door and was met by the Alternate Judge. However, he wouldn’t go in until the Election Judge for that site arrived. He called the phone number for that judge, said he had one of the poll watchers here and would the EJ be there on time. The EJ was at Dunkin Donuts. EJ asks which poll watcher, is told Republican, and went off, hollering that that poll watcher wasn’t getting in until the voters could, then demanded I be handed the phone, so he could tell me to shut up and fscking listen while he told me the same thing.

      I pulled out my printout from AG Paxton’s office with chapter and verse of the law and pointed out that that wasn’t legal, he had to let me in, I had to report it if he didn’t, and I would press charges if I wasn’t allowed in.

      Went back to my car, got my phone (no phones in the polling place), and called the GOP Poll Watch coordinator and reported in, she called the Collin County Election Judge, and within 10 minutes I was being allowed in.

      In 2028, I may be allowed to volunteer, and the law may still be on the books, but the local DA, the State AG, and several judges will be leftist Democrats. Without that implicit backing from the executive and judicial I had thi9s year, I would have been thrown out without a second thought and arrested if I protested. That’s assuming there wasn’t a group of mostly peaceful protesters outside.

      So you tell me what will be left?

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      1. I’m looking for solutions that do not involve dying or killing the country.

        Because if I really wanted to kick the bucket, I could just get a jug of cherry cider from Trader Joe’s, a wheel of brie and some cracked pepper water crackers and have a more enjoyable run-up to nature taking its course.

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      2. “So you tell me what will be left?”

        Video. Lots and lots and lots of video. Video EVERYTHING and let it find it’s way to the Interwebz.

        The huge, multi-billion dollar “Quality Learing Center!” fraud of Minnesota fell because of one kid with a cell phone and a youtube channel.

        Going to jail is bad. Don’t do that. ~:D

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          1. “…people quoting election law…”

            There’s always a way to do it. O’Keefe did it with video this year in Minnesota. They’re charging him, but that’s the business he’s in and they don’t have a hope of conviction. The proof is already out, anything they do now is just fuel on the fire.

            O’Keefe seems to do very well taking certain people out on dates and getting them talking. Taking video of that is quite legal.

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  13. You know, if I wanted to really screw up the USA, I’d rig vote counting machines to switch GOP votes to DSM votes BUT leave the ballot initiatives alone. Then. few weeks after the election, or maybe in January, I would leak the cheat with irrefutable evidence in all States. What ensues is pure chaos. Bwa-Ha-Ha.

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  14. Here in NJ the county scool board elections went to two candidates who appear to be anti-woke. The others practically screamed WWOOKKEEE, so we may have avoided the worst.

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  16. The closet commie has conceded to the open commie here in the LA Mayoral race. Frankly, I think Bass comes out ahead in this one as she won’t be holding the bag during the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in 2028.

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    1. It was clear to the Reader at the shenanigans during the primary that TPTB had decided that Bass was going to be sacrificed. What he doesn’t understand is why. Did she do something we don’t know about that angered them or did they decide a fresh face was needed to continue the destruction of Los Angeles to completion? The Reader’s guess is the later.

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      1. It might have been that Bass was made to look like an idiot on too many occasions. There was the Palisades fire. There was the time she bragged about money spent on street maintenance, and someone calculated that was a single street. Etc…

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        1. I had thought that Ms. Raman was originally a stalking horse to eliminate Pratt in the jungle primary. Having done that she realized she had as much support (or More) than Bass due to Bass’ incompetence. Instead of quietly taking some crap job in the mayor’s office as a consolation prize she went for the brass ring and got it. This leaves Bass saying “Et tu Nithaya?” Honestly, in either case LA is screwed. Just what the problem is differs.

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          1. It might be.

            On the other hand, there are groups within the left that would like LA to go even further left. Jackie Lacey was a Democrat DA for the county, but the Democrats undercut her by running a Soros DA, Gascogne, against her. The party apparatus even turned on her and endorsed the challenger. She lost.

            And then Gascogne lost the subsequent election to a nominal Republican (he might have officially left the party, but I don’t recall), Hochman, who is our current DA.

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  17. They tried to manipulate the gas prices and stock market to look good after the Midterms but nkw the market is plunging.

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    1. Paywalled, but the momentary glimpse I got was not surprising. Blue urban enclaves in a sea of red.

      Still think that color scheme needs to be reversed.

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      2. Oregon and Washington are just as bad. Two *spots of blue in a sea of red.

        (*) Can not call the swaths of blue, because while the blue covers coast into mountains (Lane, Benton, and Dechutes, counties) and along western portion of Columbia river basin (Astoria to Portland metro), the blue is still a small percentage of Oregon landmass and counties. Not even Salem, the state capital, went blue!

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    2. That was my experience of living in Minnesota. Everywhere was very conservative except the city and St. Cloud.

      Which honestly screams of an arrangement, if you ask me. One side of the road, +13%R, the other side of the road, +30%D. That’s a hell of a road.

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  21. There is an explanation consistent with an honest election in 2026, the Terminators came back in time to vote Skynet in.

    If the Terminators were manufactured in America, birthright citizenship, amirite?

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  22. Now I’m wondering if we need a “Citizen of This Timeline” requirement to vote.

    If we can’t get people to realize it’s a problem to have non-citizens voting….

    No way we ever get that passed.

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  23. If the transfer station goes down for a month, not a problem. I’ll just restart any of the 3 old can dumps on my property. Biggest thing is remembering to not throw toxics like fluorescent bulbs or lithium batteries in them. I compost anything and everything organic, so it’s just cans, bottles, plastics, and plasticized containers that I usually take to the town. It’s the plastics that are the problem. You don’t want them fragmenting in nature, and you don’t really want to burn them because of dioxin production; so long-term storage is about all you can do.

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      1. I’m assuming you mean reduce it to the smallest possible solid block for disposal, storage or burial. I’m assuming low heat will soften or liquify most plastics and they’ll just flow to the bottom of whatever container they are in; although if we take nylon rope as an example, it doesn’t seem to me to be much difference between melt point and ignition points, and burning/oxidation at higher temps are supposed to be when the dioxins form. I went the physics route in college, not the chemistry one and I’m 50 years removed from HS chemistry. Most of our plastics come from petroleum products, so I kind of wonder how hard it would be to reprocess them back into usable fuels.

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        1. No, I’m talking melt to the liquid it went into the injection molder as, and then use a manual mold to reshape it without injection, followed by drilling and filing to fit.

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          2. Beats me. I have about a half a cubic yard of hard plastic political signs to dispose of. Damn things are type 3 plastic and the recycling center can’t or won’t recycle them (not economically reuseable – which a lot of ecofreaks can’t seem to understand, but that’s a different issue) so they’ll probably end up in the general waste stream to be burned, buried, or dumped at sea. I’m not sure how closely I want to look at Waste Management’s policies.

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            1. Yeah, what type of plastic is a factor. Lots of them you would probably have to refine to feedstock and recompound. Which you won’t manage in the farmyard.

              Wonder how many of the things people “off the grid” depend on have that issue. Refineries shut down because green, and that part you never knew you needed is suddenly unobtanium. That goes on the “cost of no move” side of the “move/no move” balance sheet, BTW.

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  25. It’s not as bad as we think it is.

    Mind you, it wasn’t good, but quite frankly I would have been surprised by a contested race.

    The goals now?

    Survive. Build around, over, through, and under.

    Understand that the mainstream media isn’t Moloch. It isn’t the Devil. It’s one of the various forms of eldritch abominations that even in its dying has great power. And we need to keep stabbing it as hard as possible.

    There’s going to be two to four years of chaos. Time to get into your local Republican groups and make it clear that RINOs are an endangered species.

    If you live in an area that is facing a California/Oregon/Washington/Utah invasion of people that don’t know how to live outside of the Blue bubble…reach out and teach them. Don’t insult them, don’t attack them. If they want to learn, help them to learn. Many of them have never been outside of that bubble and if left alone, will drag it along with them because it’s intially comfortable.

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      1. If they tried to pass it, lawyers will be busy for years arguing it. So it’s both a serious political issue and lawyer welfare. Two reasons why it should not be allowed.
        Personally, the idea should die in a fire, along with the people suggesting it. I’ll even cut the lumber for the pyre.
        This round was bad, not going to lie. Not terrible, but we definitely made some mistakes we shouldn’t have. Either we give up now and auto-Darwinate or we accept that we lost, learn from it, and get ready for the next round. And auto-Darwination has no appeal to me.
        Make a note somewhere-first chance we can stick language in the Constitution itself to prevent this? Needs be done.

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        1. There’s already language there on states making compacts. Democrats ignored it and there was no real occasion to call them on it because the only election it might have impacted was 2024. We MAY be able to stave it off for 2028, depending on how many squishes they peel off for veto override.

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        2. “If they tried to pass it, lawyers will be busy for years arguing it.”

          No, they won’t. No one has standing to object. No standing, the lawsuit gets thrown out in five minutes.

          It’s over.

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