Book Review: The Modern Survival Retreat by Ragnar Benson

First of all I would like to thank the VP of Awesomeness for giving me the opportunity to read and review The Modern Survival Retreat by Ragnar Benson now, instead of at some future date when I got around to buying it.

I am going to start with the bottom line up front. I would not suggest paying full price for this book. Not that I think it is a waste of time to read it. Just that for the money you could get a more useful book or some gear or scrape around your couch cushions until you find about three more bucks in change and get a pint of Crown Royal. If you can borrow a friends or swap for one or something then it could be worthwhile but you could do better for the $12 or so it costs to get this book delivered. It had some interesting ideas but also some redundant fluff and utterly ludicrous advice. It is worth pointing out that this book was written in 1998. It is almost entirely focused on preparing to be attacked by some sort of an alphabet agency. I suppose given its time frame and audience that was good marketing.

Might as well use the good, bad and ugly format for the rest.

The Good: I really like that this book emphasized planning for whatever situation you are concerned about in your retreat plans. An ideal location for someone who is concerned about a nuclear strike is different from that of one who really wants a low tax profile which is probably different from someone who wants to home school their kids in peace. Also I like that it doesn't entirely ignore the possibilities of living in a city. A lot of goals that people 'retreat' to can be accomplished by moving to a city in the right part of the right state.

Also I liked that it was (for a Paladin Press book focused on retreating and defending yourself from the government) relatively non tin foil hat oriented. Ragnar Benson astutely points out that you probably need to worry far more about (my example not his) what is going on at say, the county planning commission than about some obscure UN resolutions. Worry about people and agencies that can really effect your life, not obscure stuff that can't. Figuring out what agencies or groups you feel impede on something important to you then take steps to create the best situation possible is mentioned as a big point of the book.

It was somewhat unique and cool that this book went through the fairly standard advice (have multiple sources of food, water, fuel, etc) in a way that wasn't just, buy all this stuff (from companies the author works with) and you will be prepared for anything. If anything it was surprisingly light in this subject and I didn't really feel like I got Ragnar's take on it. No worries though.

The Bad:

I am coming to see that in addition to the rule that you can't publish a Paladin Press book that is more than about 150 pages long; their books must at some point mention the author doing obscure, vaguely covert/ paramilitary work on at least two continents other than North America. Not sure what is up with that but it seems sort of Soldier of Fortune style ploy to armchair commandos.

Also (and maybe this is just me writing 12 years later) the book talks a lot about how to hide your retreat from various groups including the government. My limited observation is that it is basically impossible to own and develop real property anonymously without insane resources. However since Mel Gibson could not pull off having a secret island  I question if it is possible at all. One guy living like a hybrid mountain man/ hobo in a cave deep inside a remote inaccessible region could likely be unnoticed for a long time. However the idea that you could build anything approaching a modern home that is accessible by vehicle with a well, propane heating, etc and keep it totally secret is almost laughable to me.

I would furthermore wager that a lot of the standard and illegal (so this is for academic study only blah, blah, blah) stuff about getting a new identity to be totally hidden and thus live secretly in plain sight stuff is probably dated and dangerously inaccurate. There are too many computers and too much inner connectivity these days for that to work. If modern computers didn't do it then 9/11 probably did. Maybe getting ones hands on a a drivers license that would pass the most basic scrutiny (traffic stops, buying a bus ticket, etc) could be possible but I have doubts about banking, buying real property, paying taxes, etc. Anyway.....

Also the book had a bit too much fluff for my tastes. Maybe the intent was for it to be reinforcing key points but they just didn't quite pull it off.Then again maybe they were stuck at 112 pages and wanted to get to 120.

The Ugly:

It is suggested that a person could use a bulldozer to take out a tank by flipping it over. It may be possible that some bulldozers could move something of the size of a modern main battle tank. That however misses the incredibly obvious point that tanks have lots of guns. Even using the very convenient train of thought that said guy in bulldozer could get so close the main gun is useless (a dangerous assumption as research says that the M1 Abrams can engage targets with the main gun at under 50 meters, close to point blank range) the M2 .50cal and pair of M240 7.62x51 machine guns would cut a bulldozer to shreds. Even a guy on top with a rifle would be able to stop that by shooting dozer guy in the head. 

Guess in conclusion this is the sort of book I would suggest reading if you can get your hands on a copy for little to no cost and have some free time. I am curious about what others who read this book thought.

The End

Power Outage Fun

It has been pretty windy all day. Started out like a normal Sunday. I drank some tea (since I gave up coffee for Lent) and we were fiddling around online. Went to the store at about 11 like normal. After buying our food we started driving home. A bit out of the grocery store we saw a tree down over the road. Easy enough to drive around it and go to our next destination. On the way home from there we noticed a big sign was black and thought that was interesting. About 50 meters down the road we saw why, a power pole was down, like the pole broke and fell on the ground.

We came home and it was obvious the power was out. We sorted through the groceries to get the stuff that had to go in the fridge and freezer then quickly opened them one at a time to put the stuff in. After that we just sorta hung out. Our dinner plan changed slightly to make it easier to cook on a camping stove but that was more about convenience than necessity. We had a radio to listen to if we wanted. Lanterns and flashlights to see when it gets dark. I pulled the chair over towards the window to get better light and read most of The Modern Survival Retreat by Ragnar Benson. Wifey worked on some book or another. Also we talked a lot which was nice.

In short our plans for the day changed very little. We were not worried about putting together a decent dinner and cleaning it up afterwords or how to get around once it got dark.

The nice thing about being prepared for reasonable situations is that you can continue life in a more or less normal fashion when things happen. We could continue this way for a long time.

Since the power came on I was able to post today which was nice. After I wrap this up I am going to finish the book and then cook a nice simple dinner of hot dogs, beans and chips which was the power outage plan. 

quote of the day

"In the eurozone's most indebted countries, collectively known by the trader acronym PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) the young are struggling to find work, the middle-aged are having their earnings squeezed and the old will see pension and benefit cuts."
-Chief Instructor

Got Questions For Our Mommy Readers

We are planning to use cloth diapers. Our experience with them is just about nonexistent. Wifey thought we should ask you folks since almost surely some of you have experience with them.

So now I am going to make with the questions:
1. What kind do you have (fabric types, styles, brands)?
2. What is your system for washing them?
3. How many do you have?
4. Did you figure out how much you saved?
5. Would you do it again?

Thanks a lot

Blog Advertising and The Joys of Capitalism

As you probably noted awhile back my blog started having paid advertising. I have been involved in some form of capitalism for a long time but this has been interesting all the same. Mainly because it is removed enough from my overall financial situation that it can be looked at more theoretically than in a 'we need to pay the bills' sort of way. In any case here we go.

The biggest thing that drives capitalism is mutual agreements. Nobody is forced to do anything. I don't have to work with people and they don't have to work with me. When someone thinks I can offer them a thing that is in their best interest (site traffic and ultimately sales) they look into advertising here. If we can agree on a deal usually $$$ amount but I have bartered in the past and would in the future, we work together. The only limitations are what someone else and I are able to agree on.

Going along that theme I am free to reject any deal I want to, even if it looks good on paper. There are certain types of sites/ groups I would not work with because of personal objections or the likelihood that it would disenfranchise readers. Though I am not going to lie if they would pay me enough (it would be a lot) I would have some pretty crazy ads on here.

For example I have gotten a couple emails from people who do affiliate advertising, one of which was a big name dealer. Basically affiliate adverting is where you advertise for them and they give you a set % of the total sales you bring. The format doesn't appeal to me. It shifts the risk entirely to me and well I don't want to play that way, so I don't. A legitimate argument could be made that it would be in my best interest to have a few affiliate advertisers in space not taken up by normal paying advertisers. Maybe if I put up that affiliate ad someone would go there from my site and buy a years worth of freeze fried food for a family of 6 and 4 Berkey Water Filters and I would have gotten a fat check. However since I just don't want to that is all that matters.

Also having paid advertising has changed some of my practices. I used to be pretty willing to put up a link to almost anyone that sent me an email. I no longer do this for businesses. (Though I will continue to gladly do it for bloggers.) Also I do not allow gratuitous product/ site placement by businesses in the comments section/ guest posts/ etc. I offer paid advertising at low rates and am always open to bargaining but I won't give away a service for free. This gets a bit dicey sometimes because many other bloggers are trying to make a buck. I try to look at the primary purpose of what they do. Are they a blogger who has a few ads and tries to sell some stuff or solely a commercial venture. I give bloggers the benefit of the doubt.

Where will this go?

I don't know. I have minimal expectations but the sky is the limit. About 9 months back I started with Adsense. For about 4 months I have had ads on the blog from preparedness based businesses. Slowly but surely things are building. Right now the money we make is a nice addition to the prep fund, maybe at some point it will turn into more of a small stream of income.

In any case I will likely just keep on writing and see what happens.

This Was Interesting

Anti-Gold Conservatives by Gary North

quote of the day

"Mises argued that the gold standard had arisen as a market phenomenon because gold is the most marketable commodity."
-Lew Rockwell

A Concept You Should Think About

I was recently introduced to a new term. That term is single point of failure. Simply put a single point of failure is a part of a system or piece of a plan that if it fails will stop the entire system or plan from working. Ideally a plan will have no single points of failure. Some have more than one.

More than one single point of failure is really bad. Operation Market Garden had to seize 7 bridges in tact to be a success. That meant it had 7 single points of failure. (I could go on about this for a long time but won't) When you look at that fact alone it is not surprising the operation was a failure.

In all of your plans you need to look for single points of failure and do everything possible to avoid them. Sometimes it is impossible or impractical and you are stuck with a single point of failure. If stuck with a single point of failure I would do everything possible to make sure it didn't fail.

Home Ownership, Random Thoughts

I got to thinking about home ownership today. Not really sure why but it doesn't matter. The home building industry is not doing well and lots of people are still getting foreclosed on. Without digging too deep into our recent economic/ political past or political ideologies and playing the blame game I have thoughts.

Owning your own residence is a good thing for many different reasons. However it is a sad fact that many people are not in a place where they can be a home owner. Some of them don't make enough money to buy in the market they live in and others are not financially stable enough to pay a mortgage every month. Of these people many will be able to later in life as their earning potential increases. Others either can not or will not earn enough or just can't manage to get their financial house in order.

All that generic commentary doesn't matter much for an individual. What can we do to set the conditions to own are own home (hopefully on a bit of land)? First before anything else I think being realistic is essential. To paraphrase Lila (or maybe Gracie I can't remember) over at our sister blog  "you need to ignore what they say you can afford and get what you know YOU can afford." 

People with the same incomes, credit scores, etc can have radically different situations. The first is obviously debt. If you have various consumer debts that money isn't in the pot for other stuff. Also I think more nebulously is lifestyle and financial habits. If you go on 2 very nice vacations a year and buy a new car every 3 years and have a serious penchant for super fancy dining your budget is a lot tighter than say; a couple who go camping at a national park once a summer, think Applebee's is fine dining and buy gently used cars that they drive till the wheels fall off. It is fine to talk about changing your spending patterns but if you can't do it now you are unlikely to be able to do it later.

Not making dumb choices to take on unnecessary debt and working diligently to pay off any debt you have is always good advice. This is about where we are. In 3-5 years baring any unforeseen major life changes we will purchase a home. Probably a fairly modest one with a wood stove on a decent sized lot. 

Also with being realistic many folks will find they need to manage their expectations. The generic advice is that a house payment should not be more than 25-33% of ones TAKE HOME PAY. I expect that for many of the people who are in dire foreclosure straits failed to pay attention to that advice. For some folks that % of their income is not going to pay for a conventional residence. I suppose it would be up to anyone to decide if they want to wait a few years with the expectation (or maybe just hope) that their circumstances will change. For whatever reason others are going to be more or less where they are for the foreseeable future. These folks might be well advised to think about a travel trailer or a mobile home or a cabin/ shack and a little bit of land. Assuming the building codes are reasonable you can always improve down the road. Save some money or do some bartering and build a pole barn then put an apartment in it or such. For those in urban areas the picture is bleak. Also unlike rural areas your area matters a lot more, both in terms of crime/ safety, potential for quality of life and also for raising the value of the place.

I am not saying that everyone can or should seek out alternate housing but that you should at least consider if it fits your abilities and needs. We did this for awhile and if circumstances necessitate it we will do so again.

Epic Beard Guy

 Alternate title:  Old man with beard beats up young man on bus 

FYI do be warned there is harsh language.  Worst case watching on mute will get the majority of it across.


Enjoy

Question of the Day

If you could receive one rifle and one pistol with their ancillary equipment (plenty of ammo, mags, etc all) for free today what would they be? The only condition would be that you can't sell them. Would they be practical or collector type items or a bit of both?

To answer my own question. I guess the uuber practical option would be an AR and a Glock 9mm but that would not be any fun.

The rifle would be a Springfield M1A (though an SR-25 would be tempting). An M1A is a very nice albeit expensive rifle and I want one because they are very nice. All the wonderful ergonomics of the M1 Garand but with detachable box magazines. Of course I would like some redundancy in rifle platforms I have and if a Steyre- Aug followed me home that would be cool. However an M1A is the only rifle I REALLY WANT. Assuming no draconian gun laws or the world ending I will get one in the next few years.

The pistol would be a Walther P-38/ P-1. While the rifle was practical (if not logistically for me) this one is pretty collectorish. Of course as Clint Smith noted a thug would not know the difference between a Walther P-38 and a Glock in a hallway, but they are an old design and don't hold a lot of bullets. In any case they are cool and I would like to have one. Since I don't care about collector value (pristine condition, rare model, etc) it will not be that expensive but we will just see. Hopefully I will get one at some point.

Lastly are they guns you plan to actually buy?

quote of the day

"In general, work hard and be nice."
-Gretchen in Northern Illinois

Great Deals

Wifey watches the local cheap stuff boards like a hawk. A few minutes ago we bought five medium sized electric house fans for $20. Unlike down in the South homes here do not come standard with AC. We got a great deal at 4 bucks a piece. Today it is 40ish and rainy. The winter snowfall and ice is just starting to melt and will likely reappear before it vanishes for the year. I doubt we will use a fan for 3 months.

The point is that to get really good deals you need to have a long vision. This long vision means you have the time to wait until a good deal comes. If it was summer in the South we would not be willing to wait around to find a bargain. Also you need the financial ability to buy something today (the fans aren't a great example of this but you get what I mean) that you might not need for awhile.  Having a little bit of money sitting around can let you take advantage of real deals.

It is worth noting that for it to be a deal the item has to be something you might reasonably use. If I had gotten a $20 set of books written in Swedish it would not have been a deal because I do not read that language and am unlikely to learn.

In any case I got a great deal on fans,

The End.

These Stupid Little Cars

Right now Neil Cavuto is on Fox News. There was just a segment where Pat Boone was talking about "air cars" and I just have to say something. It is an interesting concept, like electric cars but again just like them entirely misses the point.

Basically this car is based around a very strong tank filled with very compressed air. You are not going to be able to get an adapter and just blow real hard into this thing, I would wager a bicycle pump would not work either. You are going to need some sort of a real heavy compressor to fill this thing up. Just like the 'pollution free' electric cars this compressor will run on electricity. Guess where most electricity comes from, coal (yeah I know there is 'clean coal' but lets not get too complicated) and huge diesel generators.

This is like saying that a hot casserole a neighbor brings over is 'cooking free' because it was in the neighbors oven, not yours. I am not saying that we shouldn't seek more efficient vehicles. Between sheer cost, our national security and peak oil sooner or later (likely sooner) the day of people driving their fossil fuel jobs from a small farm or the suburbs are going to end. In order to avoid anything but a massive and probably negative shift in our life patterns we need to keep independent transportation affordable. However lets be honest about it. If we produce power from a combination of wind and nuclear power it would be very close to 'pollution free' but a cord going into a wall that leads to a coal plant or even better a diesel generator it is not pollution free.

Belated Lent Sacrifice #2

So far giving up coffee hasn't killed me or anyone else which is good. I haven't even sucker punched anybody to then grab their cup of coffee and run off. Today I decided to make another sacrifice. Going to give up my favorite food group, deep fried.

No coffee or deep fried stuff until Easter.

Sharing Some Great News

Wifey is pregnant! Come mid-late September there is going to be a 9 pound .357 ounce Walker Texas Ranger at our place.

Prepping In Relationships, Something That Works For US

As you have almost surely noted I am married to Wifey who is well, pretty awesome. In a lot of ways we are like minded though I am decisively crazy while she is cautious. We get things figured out pretty good so this isn't an issue for us so much but I know a lot of folks have real trouble dragging the spouse along with their plans and goals. In any case I just want to share something that has really helped us when it comes to meeting preparedness goals and such inside of a relationship. So here is my suggestion.

When it comes to getting any sort of agreement (if you aren't looking at this as an agreement that is the first problem) necessary for you to meet what to you are significant goals there are two parts. The first is getting an agreement in principle that accomplishing whatever this goal is for both parties to see this goal as worthwhile. The second part is figuring out the logistics (getting 20k for a piece of land by saving X a month for Y amount of time or selling the timeshare or whatever) of how you are going to accomplish this goal.

Far too often we (me included) have already thought out an idea for how we want to accomplish the second part (nitty gritty logistics) that instead of talking with our spouse about why we thing the goal is important and coming to a consensus we say "I think we should do this by saving X a month for Y or whatever". The way this comes off is as us shoving our plan down their throat. If they do anything but agree we get all huffy and whine that they don't support our goal to, whatever.

We need to slow down and get an agreement in principle on the broad strokes first. Once you agree about the broad strokes then it is time to look at how to really accomplish the goal, the nitty gritty if you will. After the two of you AGREE on the goal (if you can't agree then find a mutually agreeable goal but that is another post) ask them to think about how they would like to implement it. Consider this planting the seed if you will.

Wait a day or a few days or a week or maybe even longer depending on your spouse or how big of a goal this is. You probably already have an idea about how to meet this goal but that doesn't matter. Ask your spouse what they have thought about how to meet this goal you two have established. LISTEN. I would suggest that you either go with the spouses idea entirely or use it as the starting point for the eventual idea.

This method seems promising to me for two reasons. First before worrying about the small points you are coming to an agreement on the significance of the big picture goal. This makes it (at least to some degree) a group goal instead of one persons goal. Secondly a spouse is a lot less likely to gripe or fail to stick to the plan to get to the goal if they came up with it in the first place.

I recently stumbled onto this when thinking about how to implement New Years Resolution #4. We had talked about the importance of the goal in the past. I asked her to think about how she would like to meet that goal. We talked about it about a week later and she had an idea. It will our intent to stash  E400 this year so we are good to go. Not that we wouldn't have came to an agreement on how to meet this goal or met it but this way was smooth and just worked real nice.

Hope this helps you or at least gives some ideas.

quote of the day

"You don't have to be a rich guy to be prepared"
-Riverwalker

Listening To My Buddy

Mayberry did a podcast a little bit ago. Very interesting and enjoyable to listen to. At a bit over 20 minutes it is right for drinking a cup of coffee (or tea if you gave joe up for lent) or getting started on a beer. Hopefully more podcasts will follow.

New Years Resolutions: IPR

 Lined through are completed.

My goals for this year.

Personal:
1. Pay more attention to my wife.
2. Travel a lot.

Personal Stuff:
3. We can use a few smaller things like a new TV and another laptop. The main push however is to get a reliable second car which we pay cash for. The first car is still plugging along but I think when we get a better second one and it is relegated exclusively taking me to work and back its life would be greatly extended.

Financial:
4. Stash some more Euro's. Say E400 or so.
5. Contribute 10% of our total take home to retirement.
6. Stash at least a half an ounce of gold  and 40 ounces of silver. If things go well 1.5 times that could be possible but this is a minimum.
7. Continue to not make stupid choices.
+I do not have any direct goals when it comes to saving money aside from those above. Depending on how Wifey's job goes (how many hours she gets) saving for the much needed reliable car might take 2-3 months or as much as 8 months. If the car gets purchased earlier we will be able to save more, in part because it means we would be making more.

Skills:
8. Take an automotive class.  They offer them on base and I need to know more about car repair. 
This one got replaced by brewing some beer.
9. Be able to setup and trouble shoot a small solar setup.    Sorta mute since I went with a solar charger and a bunch of eneloop batteries.

Preparedness Stuff :
10. A good radio that can pick up everything. Probably a Grundig.
11. Maybe a Berkey water filter and maybe some spare elements for it and the portable filter.
12. A basic solar setup. 

Gun Stuff:
12. Buy a full case of .223
13. Half cases each of 7.62x39, 9mm and just maybe .38. Full ones if I am feeling rich.
14. Glock 9mm mags. At least 10 and ideally closer to 20.
15. Some M1a mags. At least 10 and ideally closer to 20.
16. A few more spare parts and at least one AR15 full bolt carrier group.


Food Rotation:
17. Get a pressure canning setup and can something. In reality we will almost certainly can more than one thing but it is a very clear is you is or is you ain't goal all the same.

18. Get a dehydrator and dehydrate something. Jerky is good and so are banana slices.

And Just To Get To An Even 20......
19. Get a subscription to Backwoods Home Magazine and otherwise work on my self sufficiency/ preparedness library.
20. Join a gun rights organization.

I would say my goals start at the top in terms of priority and work more or less downward from there. I put more small stuff on here than last time. I tried to outline everything I would like to purchase which costs over a couple hundred bucks. That is mostly because I am trying to purchase stuff in a more dispassionate manner and plan ahead.

Thoughts?

TOR adds: Wifey pointed out I started with more than 20 resolutions because I doubled up on number 12. 

Don't Walk, Don't Jog, RUN Away From Adjustable Interest Debts

It is difficult to buy a conventional home (let alone one on land) or get an education without taking on debt. For some folks using a loan to get a modest 3-5 year old gently used car with low-reasonable mileage makes more sense than getting $500'ed to ruin by an unreliable vehicle. No debt is ideal. However not all debt is created equally.

Right now I would be seriously concerned if I had adjustable rate debt, doubly so for credit card debt. The rates are going to go up, and up and up. This article is out of the UK but the same stuff is happening here. I do hesitate to suggest specific priorities for people without knowing their situation; however if I had adjustable rate debt I would do everything realistically possible to get it paid off or at least paid down as soon as possible.

This Post Mirrors Something I Have Been Meaning To Write

Incremental Preparedness: The Good, Better, Best Approach, by Jeff B. Courtesy of Survival Blog.

Greece Loses Sovereignty to EU

Greece loses EU voting power in current EU move. This could get interesting.

Open Carry Deturs Criminals

Open carry deturs armed robbery in Kennesaw, GA.

I'm Back

Well I returned home safe and sound today. Had a wicked bout with a stomach bug yesterday but as I am mostly recovered today it seems to have been a 24 hour thing. Holland/ The Netherlands/ Dutchland was nice. Nice people, lots of bikes, dikes, windmills and great beer to boot. Been hanging out with Wifey and catching up on some of the blogs.

Talk to you all tomorrow.

quote of the day

"Not only are you wrong, you are sticking to your guns and insulting me in the process, you Robin Jibowski are an American."
-Barney

I Will Support The Little Guy, For 10%

Lots of folks talk about how evil Walmart has ruined it for the little guy. The little guy is a small family owned businessman. The money he makes typically stays in or near a community. He lives near his shop and often has a long relationship with the local bank or credit union as well as many other businesses. People talk about how you should support the little guy instead of evil corporate big box type stores.

In some ways I agree but in others I do not. People often forget that before Walmart there was Kmart and before that there was Sears Roebuck, both the physical stores and their catalog. It is true that the money you spend at a little guys shop is more likely to stay in or near the community. However it is also true that some little guys had a corner on the market in their area and were sticking it to people for years.

Personally I a willing to pay a bit more to work with a little guy. Little guys are more likely to be knowledgeable about what they sell than minimum wage guys at some big box. Also they are folks you can build long term relationships with and since they know you better they can help you out with meaningful advice.

I used to have car insurance though a local place. When I switched to USAA (notoriously and awesomely cheap) the cost dropped almost 50%. Clearly the local guy was making a killing on me.

During college I made a relationship with a local gun shop in the area. They had a pretty good stock of new stuff both tactical/ defensive and sporting. Also they had consistently had a good stock of used stuff. I bought a new gun from them and swapped a couple others. Enough so that when I came in they would often tell me about something new they had which fit my interests.

At one point I really wanted a snub nosed .38. They had a particular model for something like $329. I was saving my money up a few bucks at a time and was about 2/3rds of the way there. Over a weekend I ended up going home. The mid sized town near home had just gotten a big box type sporting goods store. I went there just to check it out and idle curiosity made me see what the same exact gun for $239. Needless to say I got it on the spot. I do not know if the folks at the local store just didn't have the same buying power or they were looking for more profit per gun but the end result was that their price for the same thing was far higher.

I would have paid a few bucks more but not almost 30%. To me paying 10% for the convenience and benefits of shopping locally is worth it.

Freezing Tomato Paste

We use a decent amount of tomato paste here at Casa De TOR. It is a key ingredient in Spanish rice which is one of our favorites and also in chili and many soups or sauces. The problem is that while we need it we never need very much of it, most recipes we make use a tablespoon or two of the stuff. We get it in little 6 ounce cans but since it is an ingredient in large recipes we can never use a whole can of the stuff inside of its shelf life once opened and put into the fridge. They cost about 50 cents each but it has just been driving me nuts.

I hate wasting food to the point where I am willing to go to dis proportionate lengths to be able to use it before it goes bad or preserve it. Wifey got to looking online and read about how some folks freeze tomato paste. The preferred method is to put it into ice cube trays. I made Spanish rice the night before last and today I took what was left and put it into an ice cube tray in the freezer. Once thoroughly frozen I intend to take the tomato paste cubes out of the tray, wrap them in wax paper and put them into a plastic bag. We should be able to get 4-6 recipes out of one of those small cans. Next time we cook something with it I will post on how it works out.

quote of the day

"Take a look at what is going on in the economy. It's a ship without a rudder and no one at the helm."
-Natog

The Euro, Europe and Common Currencies

It turns out that my prediction of the dollar going up and the Euro zone feeling some pain is developing live on the BBC. Greece is in a bad spot. They have massive debt and high expenses coupled with a low income. They spend too much, earn too little and have maxed their HELIC, the Visa and the Mastercard. This is of course bad. It is in some ways worse for them because they are part of the EU and thus have a currency they do not control. They can not inflate their way out of this mess (if that every works anyway) or play with interest rates. Their political and welfare classes are unwilling to make the changes necessary to address their massive deficit. The risk of them facing hyperinflation is very small but they might well default.

Interestingly enough Portugal, Spain and Ireland might not be that far behind. This might make the stronger countries like France and Germany think twice about the cart their have their horses tied to. The concept of a broader currency being more stable only works if the countries are stable themselves.

I would not be surprised if the dollar bounces back a decent amount over the coming months. I doubt it will get back to a 1 to 1 exchange but moving into the .80 range would not surprise me. That would be pretty cool for me as our travel and entertainment dollars would stretch further.

As I mentioned before, I do not think the dollar is going to get stronger because its fundamentals are improving. I think it is going to get stronger because it is becoming more and more clear that the fundamentals of other currencies aren't so awesome either.

The Good Things In Life

I have been thinking about the good things in life recently. Not talking about friends and family and meaningful relationships but dirty evil stuff. For example I recently got a Berkey Water Filter. It was not cheap and at least one person mentioned that two 5 gallon buckets and some handy work plus Berkey Filter Elements can make essentially the same thing. I like my Berkey. It is nice and shiny and looks pretty decent in the kitchen.

I like Crown Royal Whiskey. In fact I am sipping on some as I write this. It is smooth and delightful. Very hard to beat an ounce or two of it in a rocks glass with 2-3 ice cubes. Of course it is not cheap, about $25 or so a bottle. Recently I decided to stop buying cheaper stuff, to just buy and drink Crown Royal. One of my better recent decisions.

I do not drink much Crown Royal. If I slugged back a big bottle a week it would get expensive;  though the economic cost would pale in comparison to the life problems it would likely cause.  A pint of the wonderful stuff usually lasts around 3 weeks  and a quart lasts a month and a half or so. $15ish a month is a pretty minor expense for us. Also we are generally frugal and earn modest though not horrible wages so cost on any single item isn't a major concern.

Splurging a little bit on something you really like is just fine. In fact I honestly encourage you to. Often the enjoyment and quality of life you will get is far out of proportion to the economic cost. It is just that you can not choose everything. Figuring out how to enjoy some nice things you care a lot about within an overall reasonable financial lifestyle is certainly a balance but far from impossible.

It is nice to live a frugal lifestyle. However I do not thing we need to entirely deprive ourselves of everything we like. Just pick the ones that are really important to you and make overall reasonable choices and things will be fine. Heck, you might even get to drink some Crown Royal now and then.

quote of the day

"The futures uncertain and the end is always near."
-Jim Morison 
Roadhouse Blues

Check Ya Later

Come tomorrow morning I will be off for a few days. If things works out at all like I think they will it's going to be one of the few truly fun trips I have ever gone on for work. I have posts scheduled so you will not see a disruption. Wifey is going to approve comments to keep the conversation going.

A Note From Our Advertisers

Just wanted to let u know that we are having the Royal Berkey special at 262.50 for just 2 more days or the price will change to 275 on Thursday.


-Thanks

Lent

Lent is coming up pretty darn quickly. Though not particularly religious (3.5 out of a possible 10) I do practice Lent. Interestingly I started it in college after being inspired by a friend who is a total atheist. It is kind of a good way to practice some self sacrifice and control. Also helps put things in perspective.

This year I have decided to give up coffee. It is not going to be fun.

Ryan and Maggy have a 'Lent Off' every year. I believe it is % based weight loss with cash for the winner. Not sure where the big guy is on turning Lent into a form of gambling by making wagers but in any case.

So yeah I am going to give up coffee.

Thinking Basic and Realistic

Sometimes we get too carried away with extreme and unlikely scenarios. Not saying it is bad to have redundant supplies of alternate power or cases of items you think would sell well at Ye Olde Barter Faire. Ammo lasts pretty much forever if properly stored and who wouldn't like a spring fed pond. These are all great things. I just feel like occasionally we need to get more grounded.

I am thinking about two scenarios. The first is job loss/ income reduction and the second is violent crime.

Few of us are honestly financially independent. Some are retired and secure but the rest of us need to earn something. A few folks choose to live a lifestyle with very very minimal expenses which is great, that means they need to earn less income, but still some. Most of us need continual income. Personally I think multiple streams of income are a nice idea if difficult to turn into reality. Pursue them whenever possible. Regardless in hard times small businesses often fail. At a minimum do everything you can to get as much job security as possible.  Minimizing your financial obligations by avoiding debt is smart. Keeping a few months worth of cash safely in the form of an emergency fund stored away will help give time to replace income or cushion the blow as you adjust to a new reality.
Think about this and make plans.

As our economy stays bad or even gets worse many people take a step down the economic ladder. This pushes the young uneducated and unskilled males who take up a lot of that bottom rung of our economic ladder off entirely. Guess who commits a ridiculously high  percentage of all crimes, especially violent ones? Two extra special bonus points if you said young uneducated and unskilled males. I am not making any excuses for this group but preparing for crime to get worse is probably smart.

Mostly I am inclined to worry about violent crime. I mean it sucks if somebody steals your car or something but those sort of things ruin a month or two, not your entire life.

How to do this? Living in a safe place is a good start but certainly not a cure all. Criminals and crime exist in rural areas too. Minimizing exposure is a good call. Don't own flashy cars or walk around with lots of expensive jewelry. Don't go for sight seeing walks in gang neighborhoods. Get cash from ATM's in safe well trafficked areas during the daytime. Never heard of a strong arm robbery at the ATM in Barnes and Noble at 3PM on a Saturday. Lock your car doors. Being continually aware and having plans for self defense is smart.

Preparing for home invasions is trickier. First focus on the things you can do which cost nothing. Lock the door all the time. Have a plan to rapidly access defensive weapons. Be very aware of who you open the door for. Going to the door armed is probably not a bad idea. Being especially aware of yourself and your surroundings when entering and leaving the residence.

At a minimum a door bar and one of those cheapo electronic alarms are advisable. If you can put a heavy door into a reinforced frame that would be nice. Shatter proof film or maybe even bars on first story windows can be good ideas. Fences slow people down and motion sensors/ lights are good also. A dog can be a heck of an alarm and big ones are a deterrent in and of themselves.

Just think about these two for awhile. It is a lot more likely that you will find yourself trying to pay bills after losing some or all of your income than you will need to dicker .22 shells for smoked fish. The odds that your home will get  invaded are far higher than that you will need to fight the Russian troops being secretly sent into the US to forcibly confiscate your guns.

quote of the day

“Marriage plays an important role in civilizing men. They work harder, longer, more strategically. They spend less time in bars and more time in church, less with friends and more with kin. And they’re happier and healthier.”
-W. Bradford Wilcox

About Time

I am amazed it took a Judge to tell the city of Seattle that it can not make up rules which obviously go against Washington state law. Then again not that much as I have been to Seattle before. Unless I was going out drinking (actually got drunk with my Grandma there once) I had a gun every time I was there.

quote of the day

"At the very least, though, we should make the return to a more normal jobs environment an unflagging national priority."
-Don Peck

I Can Haz Urban Legend Demotivator

Hat Tip to Bonifaces Treatise.

Edited to include. Could well be an urban legend. Personally I wasn't tromping around the Philippines with the guy in the very early 20th Century so I don't know. Either way its sort of a fun demotivator so I will keep it up. 

Multiple Streams Of Income

Yesterday this got stuck into my head. I couldn't get to sleep so I laid in bed thinking about it for awhile. No amazing answers but I do have some thoughts. Maybe together we can come up with some real ideas.

I have read all the same stuff you have. Multiple streams of income from small depression proof home businesses that can be started for little to no money. (Ragnar Benson talked about this in his book on the underground economy.) That is a mouthful to say and has a lot of qualifiers. The various options typically given for these businesses ignores the skills you may already have. Some skills and career fields simply do not translate into a low start up cost small business. The 'depression proof' idea fails to acknowledge that if you can do it for little to no start up cash without specialized skills then somebody who is short on money can and will likely do it for their own self.

Most of us do not have a variety of good practical small business skills. Even highly skilled people may not have skills that translate to the one person or family sized business with little to no setup costs venue. However I don't think this means we would not be wise to pursue multiple streams of income. So lets take a step back from "small depression proof home businesses that can be started for little to no money" and just focus on multiple streams of income.

What does multiple streams of income mean? Simply put it means getting income from more than one place, hence the word multiple. The reason this is desirable is that our income is (or should be) more secure because while one stream of income might slow or run dry you have the others to keep things going. Think of the old "never put all your eggs in one basket" saying.

How can one get multiple streams of income? The first thing that comes into my mind is having a two income household. We have talked about the practicality, desirability and benefits to children of one and two income households at length in the past. While there are certainly benefits to having a spouse at home in the context of multiple streams of income it is desirable to have both partners working. By definition two incomes is 'multiple streams'.

Interesting discussions have been had where people try to say that a dual income (by definition 'multiple streams') households are actually in a worse place than their single income peers. The thinking is that since a dual income household generally relies on making more money they are more vulnerable. With one provision I disagree. That one provision is the assumption that households are living with the same difference between what they bring in and what they need to 'make it' as well as savings, etc. Obviously comparing a two income household with no savings, significant debt and a huge adjustable rate mortgage that is about to adjust with a one income household that has a solid emergency fund, little or no consumer debt and a reasonable fixed rate mortgage is apples and oranges.

The question is fundamentally one of how much money you make compared to what you need.

Lets say that the Smiths take home 85K a year from his job as a Mechanical Engineer. The Smiths live a reasonable lifestyle below their means and need about 50k to just get by at a circle the wagons  (not contributing to retirement or paying extra on the mortgage or prepping or eating out much, etc but bills are still getting paid) sort of financial level. He gets downsized and suddenly makes $400 a week unemployment. The serious drop in income from 85k to 20k is going to become an issue at some point. They have an emergency fund and a stocked pantry and could dip into other savings/ investments so they are OK, for awhile.

Their neighbors the Anderson family take home about the same amount of money as the Smiths. Mr. Anderson is an insurance broker and takes home about 50k a year. Mrs. Anderson works at the county court house and earns 35k a year. Conveniently they also need about 50k a year when in circle the wagons mode.  The company reorganizes and Tom's office gets closed so he is out of a job. He gets unemployment at about $400 a week also. Between his unemployment and Mrs. Smiths paycheck they can get still make ends meet. [Admittedly the math worked out a bit too conveniently, it was not intentional. However even if there was a gap between their new take home and the 'circle the wagons' income needed the Smiths are still in a far better position as they would be using up their emergency fund and savings at a much slower rate.]

If all other factors are equal a family with multiple streams of income will fair job loss or pay cuts better than a family with just one income.

Even for those whose inclinations and skills do not make them well suited for living solely on income from small home businesses I think multiple streams of income are a good thing to pursue. How can you do this?

My first thought is to do more or less what you do for a primary income now part time as a side job. A teacher could do some after school tutoring either for them self or one of the various agencies like Sylvan. A CPA for Johnson and McMillan could do a few tax returns on the side for individuals or small businesses. I know a man who made extra income doing that for a long time. A plumber or dry waller could do a small side job himself now and then. I have even known of some contractors who would pass small jobs not worth their time and energy off to employees to do on the side during off time. One could potentially have part time occasional working relationships with a few different individuals/ companies/ small businesses that are within your field but entirely dependent of your primary income.

One of the things my Grandfather taught me is that it makes economic sense to spend time working in the area that makes the most money. A guy who makes $35 an hour (unless he has a real do it yourself penchant) would be better off spending a few more hours at work and paying the laid off jack of all trades carpenter type from down the block $10 an hour to repaint the spare bedroom or whatever. That same logic extends to side jobs. The CPA I mentioned above should not be pursuing $10 an hour gigs doing farm labor but finding a few more people who need their taxes done.

Being diversified to the point where you have some income from an entirely different area is a nice idea. You might not have skills which lend themselves to this sort of thing but do not give up. Remember we are talking about streams, not rivers. A few hundred bucks here and a grand there start to add up and may be the difference between making it or not if one of the bigger streams (a primary job or business) dies out and isn't quickly replaced.

Could you put in a motor home hookup at your place?  Yeah it could be an imposition and might not work for everyone but getting 2 or 3 people paying you $300 a month adds up fast. If not the same plot as you what about keeping an eye out for  a few acres, maybe where they someone put in a septic before their plans fell apart. Where we lived a fellow had a piece of land out in the country set up for 6 RV's in such a fashion.

Maybe you have a big empty barn and could rent out some covered storage? Chopping one of those side parts of your barn which are a relic of the dairy the place was in the '40's could easily bring in a few hundred bucks a month.

What about selling a bit of your garden/ farm surplus? Up by where my Uncles lives there is a couple who sells corn and green beans during late summer and early fall. He is disabled (at least as far as the state is concerned) and they have a couple acre garden. Selling vegetables at a little stand on the side of the road and leaving a small trailer with a few baskets of vegetables, a board with prices and a jar to drop cash into pulls in a bit less than $2,000 a year for them.

Ideas are endless and only limited by reality, creativity and your economic situation. A modest duplex with fenced yards in a nice neighborhood is a great option if you have the cash. My Grandparents did very well with apartment complexes. Or course real estate is its own beast and not somewhere one should go unless they are sure they can really afford it.

It is also worth noting that maybe the stay at home spouse could pursue various alternate streams of income. Maybe if the Mrs. is already taking care of your one or two kids she could take care of a  3rd and 4th to make extra cash.

Some hobbies such as sewing, weaving, knitting or wood working could make you a few bucks also.

Back to small home businesses real quick. Not everybody is suited in terms of skills or inclination to "small depression proof home businesses that can be started for little to no money."

Working for yourself has a lot of benefits but also some definite drawbacks. It is true that when you are your own boss you will never get downsized or laid off because the boss's cousin needs a job. At the same time small businesses fail at an alarmingly high rate. Also having a 'business' where you don't make any money is really not too different from getting laid off anyway.

Some folks love hustling (not in the 70's pimp sense) up new work and making deals and buying and selling stuff. I have a friend who is like this. He will get someone to pay him well to cut down a problematic tree near their house then make more money selling the wood. He chases down deals and resells tools and equipment at a profit.

While he might be thinking about the next deal or job on the horizon as he waits to fall asleep I would probably be thinking about how to keep the roof over our head if all of them fell through. Personally I like that I know within about 10 bucks (somehow or another they are always a little bit different) what I am going to get paid on the last business day of this month as well as say, in mid June. Don't think either of us are wrong or right, just different.

Both of us work so we have two streams of income and a trickle (the blog brings in a few bucks but not a meaningful factor in our overall financial situation). Got to think about ways we might be able to get a couple more trickles........

Wifey says to "stop writing and go make some money" so I have got to go.

THE END

Read This

FerFal wrote about the key reasons his family weathered the 2000-2001 Argentine economic crisis better than most of his countrymen.

Definitely worth reading.

What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?

It was a good week for preparedness here. I was finally able to make time to go to the bank here and get my card fixed (for the secondary account).That let me clear up a log jam of stuff. Ordered a 4 tray Excalibur dehydrator. Excalibur seems like the company to go with and this one cost about $100 so wasn't too much more expensive than most of the competition. Also got a bunch of those eneloop batteries, a normal charger and a solar charger. A few books also.

Read a pretty long and interesting article. Got some good stuff out of it.

Went through the primary first aid kit. Replaced everything that was expired and added a few more items like neosporin, crazy glue and an Israeli bandage. I mentally added going through the medicine cabinet (actually its a closet) to my list of stuff to get around to. I need to organize what we have, tossing long expired stuff and filling any gaps that become apparent. 

Next week I am going to be away for a few days. Posts are scheduled so there will be no interruptions for you folks. I don't think much is going to happen in terms of preps but that is just fine. Some weeks you do a ton and some little to nothing.

What did you do to prepare this week?

What Should Be And What Actually Is

I got into a discussion in the comments section of a blog I read. Where it was and exactly what it was about doesn't really matter and I do not want to bring trouble there. Another reader was pretty offended at what I said. They thought I had a rather low and demeaning view on humanity and even called me something not very nice.

Though the two of us did have fundamentally different views on the matter that was not the main problem. The main problem is that we were looking at different worlds entirely. My low and demeaning view of humanity was based on observations of how people actually behave that are supported by empirical facts. They had a very different view based on how they thought people should act and how they could theoretically behave.

I have in the past been called a rather practical person, even to the point of being somewhat boring. I would consider myself pragmatic but maybe at the end of the day I actually have a grim view of things. However I will take my grim view that is based on reality than some sort of fantasy.

THE END

Deborah Medina Fail

I got an email about this one before I even heard about it and it is sort of moving through the blogosphere. I have been banking a lot of posts recently for times when I will not be around so I kinda take what I can get in terms of ideas.

Just a couple minutes ago I listened to the part of the interview in question. It was definitely not good. Lets even skip the whole '9/11 truther' thing. The real issue to me was that she seemed to try answering a yes or no question with a bunch of mmmming and maybe's. It is dodging the point and being evasive which are not things I like in a candidate. Also that what she said does not seem to mesh with her later press statement on the matter concerns me greatly. I know lots of folks here like Debora Medina and she does certainly have some beliefs that I share. This interview is probably to Deborah Medina what the Katy Couric interview was to Sarah Palin. It might not be the last we see of her as a candidate but it is certainly not good.

Thoughts?

Ole Buddy Joe

Better Luck Next Year

Increasing Small Arms Lethality In Afghanistan-Taking Back The Infantry Half Kilometer

 

First of all hat tip to Western Rifle Shooters Blog for finding this very interesting article.  I saw it last night and did some reading then plus a bit more at lunch and finished up when we got home tonight. Between calamity (we are off tomorrow and the last day of the week is always nuts) and actual work most of my time was spent thinking about this article. It is a touch redundant and I did not get much if anything out of the last 10-15 pages. 

It is 76 pages long but only 60 or so are the article, the rest is pics and stuff at the end. It talks a lot about the modern (pre-WWI to present) development of modern US military (particularly Army) weapons and training and also that of the world at large. Very interesting stuff. There is also great detail spent on the history and development of the M16 series of rifles right up through the contemporary M4 configuration. Some time was spent discussing rounds and optics for the M16/M4 family which was interesting to me. The discussion of other cartridges and to a lesser degree rifle platforms is interesting too.

I got some useful stuff out of it both for work and personal consideration. 

Here are my work thoughts. 

1. We need to seriously look at either changing rifle calibers (new rifle or upper) or moving to a more effective bullet. If we stick with .223 the Black Hills MK 262 Mod 1 has proven to be quite effective. Of course some people will always believe that anything less than 7.62x51 is useless but lets not go there. 

2. Widely issuing some kind of magnified optic (ACOG's rock my socks off) for service members in wide open spaces.

3. Most important is that it seems we need to regularly shoot past 300 meters and at moving targets. Training matters most. Even with the exact same weapons, optics and ammunition they currently carry if people were used to shooting at 400-500 meters it would be a whole different fight. Maybe current ammunition is wanting at these ranges but if Ahmed the Terrorist takes a few rounds to the torso eventually he will die. Of course with magnified optics and heavier, more accurate rounds it might take 1-2 bullets instead of a few and that would be a good thing.

Here are my personal thoughts on the matter.

As for how much this really matters. Admittedly the odds of defending your self or home with a rifle at all, let alone from distance are low.  However if I lived on a wide open cattle ranch I might pay more attention that one in the deep primordial woods of Georgia would need to. In any case it is what it is and I read this whole thing (got a lot out of it and enjoyed it too) so I a surely going to write about it.

I need to explore different .223 bullets and purchase different types for different potential needs. One huge advantage civilians have is that they can use ammunition that is not fully metal jacketed like soft point, ballistic tip and hollow points. These open up a range of different opportunities. Planned to get some SS109 this year and still do. It does some stuff I rather like. I do need to look into getting some 75-80 grain match ammunition, probably made by Black Hills. That sort of load has proven to be very effective out to 600 meters. Not cheap but having a couple hundred rounds of it could be very useful if I need to fight off invading Canadians.

The benefits of having a rifle that can really reach out and touch someone are pretty obvious. Not necessarily the first thing one might look for in a rifle but a useful tool to have in any well rounded collection. Hermit talked about this recently. Without mucking about in talk of different cartridges (wait a few lines) to me the biggest thing except of course skill when it comes to long distance shooting is probably an optic. I have never met a person who does not shoot significantly better at distance when doing so through a decent optic. Spending at least as much if not more money on an optic is the norm for equipping a decent distance and is definitely not the place to go cheap.

Now comes the talk about cartridges. As noted above with the proper bullet .223 can be very effective both in terms of hitting Ahmed the Terrorist and killing them at great distances. If you just plain like the AR platform shell out some cash for an optic and some good heavier match grade ammunition, do some training and call it good. However if you have been hankering for an M1A anyway then one of them could fill this nitche. Maybe if you are in the market for a deer rifle anyway so picking up a .308 bolt action Remington or 30.06 Savage or maybe even a .270 Winchester would be a solidly reasonable choice. Assuming a rifle has relatively decent inherent mechanical accuracy and the cartridge has ballistics capable of going for distance (with the right round) then choice of cartridge and rifle is far less important than putting a decent optic on it and, finally learning to shoot the darn thing at stuff that is far away.

THE END

quote of the day

"You Have the Watches, We Have the Time."
-The Taliban.

A Great Website

One cool thing about the internet is that all sorts of stuff is available free for the downloading. Today I want to share one of my favorite sites with you. Folks talk now and then about various sources of military manuals and the like. To be honest I know most of the useful ones cold so I tend not to bother. Not that I am super awesome or anything, it is just what I do for a living. Also I have stumbled into copies of most of the more practical Army manuals. I do however occasionally have to look something up. When I need to find anything military or tactical related I go strait to GlobalSecurity.org. Honestly even if I do not just go there I end up there anyway because they have everything and the site searches pretty well.

The site rocks!

I Just Don't Know

So I was reading Galts Gulch earlier today. There was a post about some political stuff, sorta looking at different philosophies. There were some great points about the Neo- Conservative movement and also Libertarianism. I wrote this as a comment: I just don't know. Voting libertarian gets nothing done because they don't win anything and all voting Republican does is keep those darn Democrats out of office. While better than nothing it sort of makes my skin crawl to have such limited goals.

My lack of any good answers has lead me to putting time and energy into other areas. Caring less about what they do and more about what I do is my personal answer.

I thought about this on and off through the day. I just don't see a great answer. That has made my thoughts and energy's turn more inward. Instead of being politically active or whatever I worry about and focus on how to make our place in life better.

The blogosphere has a combination of predominantly preparedness/ survivalist and liberty/ libertarian/ political folks.  Not an unnatural combination as the two do blend but it is distinct all the same. Many folks who are hanging around here and are on the facebook and such are really political. Some of them are very involved in grass roots efforts for candidates that share their beliefs and they have faith in.

I applaud these folks and really with them the best. Personally I have a hard time putting energy or effort into ventures where the likelihood of success is minimal. I occasionally think and talk about politics but that is about it. As someone who is pretty dispassionate about things I have a hard time 'just believing'. Even if thousands of liberty loving people managed to each genuinely convert one other person every week it would be YEARS before anything close to a significant voting block. My desire to spend time and energy on something that seems futile just is not there.

This is amplified by my current somewhat nomadic existence making city, county and even to a certain degree state elections largely meaningless. I live someplace for awhile and don't get to really pick where then after awhile we move somewhere else. When I move to a place and grow some roots then who is elected to the city council or county commission or even to state office. If a place decides to royally suck I will just not move there.

Thoughts?

1 OUT OF 8!

According to a segment I just heard on the BBC 1 out of 8 Americans is on food stamps (I doubt they made it up). Seriously I do not even know what to say about this one. The argument could be made (not sure if I agree) that giving some people a helping hand now and then is a good thing for the government to do. However 1 out of 8 people seems pretty ridiculous to me. Then again since 1 out of 10 (either a slightly fat one at 10.2 or missing a part of a limb at 9.7) workers is unemployed maybe it is just that our economy is doing horribly.

Green Shoots! How do you prepare green shoots in order to eat them? Because in addition to being unemployed apparently lots of folks are hungry.

Breakin The Law, Breakin The Law

One of the interesting and thought provoking parts of the book I am reading is that it discussed breaking the law. It is too tempting and easy to think that in any situation worse than a weekend power outage you will just saw the barrel of your Remington 870 flush with the tube and carry it around all the time shooting people who do things you do not like or otherwise doing whatever you want. Matter of fact almost every serious worst case scenario worth considering will have law and order and LEO's in some form or another. Making difficult choices in an environment which is probably more harsh and restrictive isn't a pleasant idea but it is a realistic one. Both Matthew Bracken's "Enemies" series and the recent and enjoyable "John Galt" blovel show that things can get really bad AND you will still have cops and laws to worry about.

This book discussed breaking the law in an interesting and dispassionate manner. Look at what you can lose or gain from breaking a law. Look at the cost to benefit of both sides. For example I firmly believe anybody who does not keep a valid drivers license, have a vehicle that is properly registered and maintain the necessary auto insurance is seriously asking for a ton of trouble. You can get pulled over and provided you have the previously mentioned basic stuff you can go on your way without a hassle. If you want to argue about the legality of drivers licenses or whatever you could well end up like the brothers in Patriots. A drivers license costs a few bucks and they are good for several years. Vehicle registration sucks but if you drive an older and modest vehicle it isn't that bad. Assuming your driving record is halfway decent and you drive an older vehicle the bare minimum liability insurance should not hurt your pocket that nuch. For the cost of being able to drive wherever you want carrying whatever you feel like and getting out of a police stop with just a modest fine to me this is well worth it. Often the alternative means real problems when getting pulled over, even for what would surely be a warning like a dead tail light. Getting pulled over and not having these simple documents (Papers Please!) will almost surely mean your vehicle is going to get towed. In order to be towed it needs to be 'inventoried' and depending on what you have in it that day things could degenerate significantly from there. At a minimum it will cost money, take time and inconvenience you significantly.

What law would it be an easy decision to break? Well ones that are not actively enforced and do not carry significant penalties come to mind.

To me this isn't about saying "I am a free American and I can do whatever I want". For instance breaking federal firearm laws will almost surely bring a serious penalty. Mr. "The Constitution gives me the right to saw off this shotgun barrel" could well find himself in prison. One who was a bit more pragmatic might note that the difference between an 18 1/4 inch barrel and a 17 3/4 inch barrel is a half inch OR a few years in the pen. It is about taking an objective look at how breaking certain laws could make you more free as well as the risk of legal consequences and the severity of those consequences.

Just think about it.

Ryan

Germany's Restrictive Gun Laws Drove Ownership Underground

Having an unusually lazy Tuesday morning. Was hanging out at The War On Guns reading about various Only One calamities when I saw a couple of gem's. First Arizona is looking at Alaska/ Vermont style carry which is cool. Second and more interesting it looks like Germans own almost 3 times as many illegal guns as they own legal ones. Ownership, possession and sale of firearms did not go away, just underground. I imagine there are still a lot of WWII era weapons of all types floating around. Plenty of German WWII veterans probably took home a K98 or a Walther or maybe even something really cool  like an MP-40. As firearm laws in neighboring countries and border security have ebbed and flowed I imagine some more guns have trickled in. Switzerland has a vibrant gun culture and I imagine a gun or two has immigrated to Germany from there.

In particular since the fall of the wall, reunification of Germany and collapse of the USSR I imagine unregistered guns have become more common and easy to acquire. I have heard that it is easy to purchase an AK-47 in the Czech Republic. Any time an item is cheaper or available in a neighboring area and a porous or open border is present said item will come through regardless of the legality. The same way booze and cheap smokes will flow across county or state lines guns will also.  

quote of the day

(732):

everyday i am more and more thankful i can still check the no box for "have you ever been convicted of a felony?" on applications
-TFLN

My lifestyle is such that it isn't a concern but the quote is still amusing to me.

Invisible Resistance to Tyranny In Progress Review

Thanks to the VP of Awesomeness I have a nice stack of books to read. The one I am reading right now is Invisible Resistance To Tyranny: How to Lead a Secret Lift of Insurgency in an Increasingly Unfree World by Jefferson Mack.

First of all I have a suspicion that Paladin Press got a discount on some printing presses that can only publish books with less than 160 pages. In any case that doesn't really matter. Onto the book.

This book is different than most Paladin Press books I have read. Most of them are pretty concrete and split between some guys advice on something and interesting little anecdotes that reinforce the aforementioned advice. This one is much more conceptual and at least to me much more valuable. Hearing some supposed expert who eludes to a vague and mysterious background give his slightly different take on some old advice is cool and all. For the usual price of $10-15 it only takes a few new hints or ideas and a couple entertaining anecdotes to make a book worthwhile. This book has been more valuable than that because it has changed the way I think by exposing me to new ideas.

First of all it starts by talking about the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter. Basically the idea was that someone who is pursuing legitimate military type targets and trying to minimize collateral and civilian damage is a freedom fighter regardless of if you like their ideas. Conversely someone who is willing to target civilians and non military type targets is a terrorist. The extreme sides of this sliding scale are easy to identify. A person or group who kill a chief of police who has been running a death squad or an occupying force being identified as a freedom fighter is easy. A person or group that firebomb a preschool are obviously terrorists. There is a lot of gray in between black and white in this situation.

In the gray area we are likely to give benefit of doubt to people whose causes or beliefs we support. A 10 person cell can not expect success in attacking a fortified location where hundreds of armed personnel reside but they can get a good effect by attacking a place those people frequent. Lets say a bomb was placed in a 'soft target' like a restaurant or bar frequented by the targeted group. That bomb explodes at a peak time (say 10PM on a Friday night for a bar or lunchtime at a popular restaurant. It kills several of the targeted group and wounds 20 more. Also the bomb kills the establishments owner, a couple employees, a few random unlucky people and wounds another dozen of the same. If you hate the targeted group this was a legitimate target and the actions were just. If your brother who just needed to earn a living was unlucky enough to be working the kitchen that day the outlook will be different. The middle is very murky indeed.

The most valuable idea I have gotten from this book is that being a good person or a bad person is entirely different from being a good citizen or a bad citizen. We can divide good people and bad people however we want, it isn't that difficult. Good people do not rob, rape or murder. They are fairly hardworking and industrious in whatever they choose to do. They act in a generally honorable manner and are respectful of others. They tend to make good neighbors.

Obviously bad people tend to have characteristics that are opposite those of good people. They are generally difficult and unpleasant to be around. They may be randomly violent or predatory or dishonest. They are often not hardworking or able to harness their natural talents in a way that is useful for themselves or anybody else. They recreate and generally act in ways that are inconsiderate or outright dangerous to others. Probably not somebody you would want as a neighbor.

Good citizens obey laws without questioning them and follow the vast majority of 'the rules'. They pay their taxes in full. If told to do something by a government official or LEO they do it without question or complaint. Bad citizens ignore laws that do not make sense to them. They seek to get around what they feel are needless or restrictive rules. They do not report some or all of their income for tax purposes. They might buy and sell whatever they like without regards to the law. They recreate how they want to and figure as long as they don't bother others it is nobody's business but their own.

The idea that you can be a good person and a bad citizen is very intriguing to me. A person can be a great neighbor or a pillar of the community and never harm another person but just be a horrible citizen. They might keep a nice neat yard and pay their bills and work hard. At the same time that person might recreate (discretely and without harming anyone) however they please. They also may fail to report some of their income which is earned through various under the table transactions. They could barter to avoid taxation. They might even own a weapon that is not legal or grow a little bit of pot for personal use. (Of course I pay my taxes in full and only own legal weapons and would never get near illegal substances and suggest you do the same.)

Interesting real life story which illustrates this. As I have mentioned in the past we have a family friend who is a Doctor. When I was 19 I did some work for him off and on. One time we had to load up, deliver and unload a truck and trailer full of stuff to a town a half days drive away. On the way back we grabbed a late lunch and he got a 6 pack of Bud Light. We got back on the road and I was working on my sandwich when he passed me a beer. After we got back to their house we had dinner where I had another beer before heading home.

This fellow is certainly not a bad person. He is involved in community affairs and donates money and time to causes and charities he believes in. He is a great neighbor and always willing to help out or loan a tool or piece of equipment. In the event in question or any other similar one nobody drove drunk or did anything reckless. However in some ways he is not a particularly good citizen. He thinks open container laws are stupid so he ignores them. He also figures that a responsible adult can have a drink regardless of if they have reached some magic legal age so he serves alcohol to whomever he pleases.

I can not speak for anyone else but when it comes to people I choose to deal with I care if they are a fundamentally good person and are generally enjoyable to be around. I nice person who you can trust and have some fun around is usually a good friend/ acquaintance/ neighbor. I do not care if they fail to report some cash income or turned their garage into an office without the necessary permits or occasionally recreate in a manner that is legally frowned upon.

Very interesting stuff. It has been making me think a lot about many different things. Great book!

Got Dehydrator?

I am looking to order a food dehydrator in the near future. Do you have one that you like? Any general features you think are important?

The Action News Team

Check out the American Citizen Knife also. Hat tip to Something Wicked Comes for finding these.

quote of the day

"No. I quit drinking weeks ago! No one noticed, but I guess that's a pretty good indicator that I conducted myself quite well when I was drunk. But this isn't about me right now."

-The Grandma on Spanglish.

This movie is pretty weird but we are enjoying it. Enough so that we pushed back our afternoon plans once the first 5 minutes sucked us in.

What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?

This was a busy week at work but some stuff got done all the same. Thankfully now that EIB is done I can resume a more normal schedule which will be very nice. Waking up a bit before 6 is a lot better than 4:30.

We got our usual $ amount of extra food this week. Rice, pancake mix, syrup, pasta with sauce, cans of baked and re fried beans, canned green beans and peaches as well as some treats like chocolate chips to make cookies and cake mix with frosting.

Our Royal Berkey water filter arrived this week but I will talk about that more later.

Also made an order I have been meaning to for awhile: Got a copy of Atlas Shrugged, a Kaito AN-03L antenna for the Grundig, a 2008 copy of Passport to World Band Radio, Farnam's Freehold which sounded entertaining when JWR quoted it not too long ago.

I had wanted to get a Cold Steel Latin Machete just because as Haiti reminded me recently you can never have too many good machetes. Also as Haiti reminded me you need a sheath for your machete lest you have to carry it around in your hand all the time. Unfortunately the machete selling folks didn't want to play with an APO so I will get that on the next order. Finding another amazon vendor isn't a big deal but if you have to do it a lot as we do it gets to be a pain.

Lastly I am reading Invisible Resistance To Tyranny: How To Lead A Secret Life Of Insurgency In An Increasingly Unfree World by Jefferson Mack. This is another book I got from the VP of Awesomeness. Very good and thought provoking book.

The Family and Gender Roles: The Past, The 1950's and What It All Means Now

 

I think the idea of a world where men work to 'bring home the bacon' and women stay home to care for the children and clean up and make dinner is largely fabricated. Without digging too far into history I think women were far more involved in supporting the family than many 50's idealists would like to think. Excluding those in the profession of arms or working for good wages or in certain small businesses that do not lend themselves to family help (maybe a blacksmith) women were probably pretty darn involved in supporting the family. 

Well up to the industrial revolution and arguably the WWI era for many families were involved in agriculture and on a small partially self supporting family farm the lines between 'work' and 'household' seem thin and somewhat artificial. Ditto for small family businesses where you might see the father, mother or an older child working, most likely all of them.

There were cities and people lived in them during this period. Interestingly enough women tended to work and so did children at least in the lower economic strata and recent immigrants. This period of the early 20th century marked the beginning of child labor laws which were probably made at least as much to cut children out of the workforce to ensure jobs for heads of household as to protect the poor innocent children. Really once we narrow it down we are talking about a far smaller period of time that one may have previously thought. Or maybe all this stuff floating in my head is entirely wrong.

Lets say for the sake of discussion that in at least a significant amount of families there was a period of roughly between WWI and somewhere in the 1970's where the man tended to go to work to support the family and the woman was a stereotypical housewife. The Great Depression making things hard all over and most everybody scraping to make a few bucks probably pushed the beginning of this period back for many people. Now to the important part. What all of this means to us in the modern world.

It is worth noting that America had a pretty darn good run of things for awhile. After WWII pretty much all of the modern industrial world was demolished and had lost a significant amount of its prime labor force or it was demolished and had lost a significant amount of its prime labor force then turned inward and communist. It is no small wonder that a hardworking but minimally skilled veteran could show up and get a good job at the plant. If he worked hard and was reliable he could likely become a manager or something and make a pretty decent living. Even as late as 1970 the countries biggest employer was General Motors and wages (for non skilled manufacturing jobs) started at the equivalent of $17.50 an hour.

What far too many people choose to ignore in this discussion is that the average house in the 40's was like 1200 square feet. Now it is over 2,000. Also instead of having one car most families have 2 or even 3 and more often than not these days it is 2-3 fairly new cars. Instead of one TV folks have several. An average man with an average job would not have been able to afford a 2,000 square foot home and two car payments then any more than he can now. 

Maybe it is consumerism or whatever you want to call it. Many people are choosing to live more expensive lifestyles is a factor. Also for a multitude of different reasons America's low skilled union manufacturing industry is going the way of the Dodo bird. It is also worth noting that cost of living has increased and so have tax rates. 

Unless one partner can earn pretty good wages, whatever that means to you, if it is important to have a spouse at home with the little ones a very modest and frugal lifestyle is going to be necessary. Nobody wants to hear that. They want to be able to have it all and like to blame others for the fact that they can't. I am not a big fan of our current tax structure either and believe we should try to change it. Also I am sorry if you do not make as much as you think you should. If I were able I would give all readers a 300% raise but alas I can't. Instead of griping about reality lets look at what we on an individual level can do.

To me like anything else it is choices. A couple can make choices that will allow them to keep a partner (generally the woman) at home. However as usual the theme of unlimited desires and limited resources applies. Having two newish cars (or course not paid off) and a fairly large house on hubby's 30k a year salary is not going to happen. That being said if that same family CHOSE to live in a smaller fixer upper house and then his little commuter car and the family rig it might be more realistic. 

Just to bring this little part to a close I want to make something clear. I am not trying to belittle people or make light of their economic struggles or judge them for whatever kind of lifestyle they choose. I just want to try and open peoples eyes to the available options if they are willing to adjust their lifestyle. I do not think that parents who choose to work are bad or anything. There are many good reasons to keep a parent at home or have  both parents working or anything in between.

Interestingly enough to this discussion Wifey has been working for a couple of months now. We live pretty frugally and I earn fairly average wages so money wasn't a factor. Somewhat unusually she started working because she was bored. Being a stay at home wife left her with a lot of time just sitting around with bad TV and the time difference from home and wasn't so fun. She volunteered for awhile and then got a job. 

Since she has started working the division of labor between the two of us has changed significantly. I am cooking more often and doing more of the household stuff. It is taking some getting used to but otherwise isn't a big deal. We still eat mostly staple and home made foods. Bread and most of the english muffins and rolls we eat are still home made. That being said our typical dinner menu is decisively shifting to meals which are reasonably quick to cook. Lots more pasta and soup with bread or quickly cooking meat (chicken, steak, etc) or rice meals are getting cooked. Dinner is typically a bit later because it starts when we get home at about 6. Stuff that takes much more than an hour just isn't getting cooked because it would mean dinner at like 8:00. Easy shelf stable and fairly cheap side dishes like a can of baked beans are pretty common for us nowadays.

We are not really factoring Wifeys income into our budgeting. First as a military family I think depending on any income from the non military spouse is a recipe for disaster. Not saying that the spouse shouldn't work but that it is entirely possible that at the next duty station that sort of job (or any job at all) may not be available. Also secondly we want the option to leave her job to be there. Maybe our family situation will change or she will want to go home if I deploy or we will get reassigned or whatever. Of course money never hurts and it will allow us to get further ahead faster than we otherwise would be able to. 

We would like to have the option for her to stay home when we have little kids, at least until they are in school full time. This means we need to be able to live on what I make. When we purchase a home it will be one that we can afford with her working part time or not at all. We will continue to live frugally and not take on debt. Then again these plans might well change. 

The main point in our plans is that we will make intentional choices and keep their impact on our future options in mind. It is fine to say that you want a nice new car or a beautiful piece of land. It is also fine and dandy to have a spouse at home. The point is that you need to make choices and balance material desires with the lifestyle you want to live. 

Thoughts?

Random Life Stuff

As you may or may not have noticed I have been using foul language a lot less lately. Not like I have had some huge moral revelations or anything. I just sort of realized that instead of using foul language intentionally just like I would use any other words it has slipped into my everyday thoughts with too much frequency. Having a job where foul language is fairly acceptable doesn't help.

I sort of realized a month or so ago that I was using foul language the way some folks use like or hmmm. If I bang my foot on something in the darn or slip and fall on the darn ice the first word out of my mouth will probably start with an F which is just fine. However I do not need to wake up and tell myself that I F ing need to get an F ing cup of F ing coffee going right F ing now.

Anyway this self improvement seems to be going well. Not sure what my next one will be. I don't drink much any more (1-3 drinks a few times a week) so no real need to mess with that. Probably making the jump to really stick in a supplementary (to morning PT) exercise program. I am pretty happy with my weight these days. I could bust my butt and have a diet that is restrictive in terms of what I eat and how much then maybe I would weight 4-6 pounds less. Then again if I can eat (within reason) basically what I want and weigh a little bit more that is probably just fine. I would however like to do 10-15 more pushups and situps on the next PT test and be able to do a few more pullups and throw around a bit more weight at the gym. Running faster is never a bad thing either. Yeah I think I will try and work on that now.