Weekend Roll Up

This video is kind of scary

Hat tip to Chief Instructor for the find.

FerFal did an interesting video on big knives. It is pretty long at a bit more than a half hour but if you have the time consider checking it out. His point that large knives are far more useful for fighting is valid but pretty much a given. Really you want the closest thing to a sword you can get if a gun is not an option. Something like a Bowie/ Arkansas Toothpick/ Dirk/ Falcon/ Kukuri/ etc would be the way to go.

I wouldn't say that I agree with the whole thing. He sort of combines the roles of knives and bigger tools like machete's or hatchets. In my mind they are distinctly separate categories for distinctly different tools which may admittedly be arbitrary. A machete is pretty much an essential in the Jungle or dense warm enviornments like the Deep South or the sort of Swamps you find in LA and FL. Conversely a hatchet or small ax is probably more useful in the sort of forests found in the Northern parts of the US. For whatever it is worth my experiences in the PNW tell me that a decent medium sized knife (say 3.5-5inches) and a hatchet or small ax are a darn good combination.

Some folks seem to use a tomahawk for this role. I can't speak to that at all because I have never tried it. The bigger more functional tomohawk's like those made by Cold Steel may be a viable option. The Trail Hawk is a beefy and substantial tool.  I like that it has some heft and a hammer head (though probably better for tent pegs than framing a house). I have handled one of them but never actually used it.

However it sort of depends on what you plan to do. If you are going to clear a little bit of brush to make a campsite, cut some sticks to cook marshmellows and trim up a few small pieces of firewood a machete would work. If you plan to cut enough firewood to warm and cook for a dozen people for a week then you want a hatchet or ax. If you want to go into the woods and pull a Dick Proenneke an ax and a saw would be a decent start. Anyway enough on that topic.

That whole foot in mouth from some random Democrat recently was big fun. Recap “Guess what?” asked Rosen. “His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and why we worry about their future.” Patrice wrote about it here. I definitely wanted to say something but didn't really have a full post worth of content. Obviously that she never had a job has far less to do with her arguably not "dealing with economic reality" than marrying a rich guy who became a lot more rich.

Anyway I think that having a parent stay with the kids and not earn any (or any meaningful) income is sort of a luxury. If the family can't keep a roof over their heads, food in the cupboard and generally meet basic life expenses then both adults need to be doing their best to earn as much money as humanly possible until things get better. If one or both parents insist that (typically) momma stays at home while they go hungry or become homeless there are some serious issues. Having beliefs and ideals is fine but sometimes practical concerns have to trump them, at least in the short term. In fairness also on a comparable level of luxury are beer/ wine/ alcohol, tobacco, soda, coffee and tea, prepared foods, eating out, entertainment other than the library or other free stuff, cable or satelite tv, having the internet at home, eating out, toys like jet ski's/ dirtbikes/ snow mobiles/ travel trailers and if we are really being honest owning personal vehicles. As we can see pretty much all middle class and most supposedly poor people consume or own some of these "luxuries." You certainly don't need Romney money to pull off having the wife at home, coffee in the cupboard, beer in the fridge, a few toys and the internet.

As Patrice noted often if you really look at the income vs necesssary costs (reliable second vehicle, fuel/ insurance/ maintenance for said vehicle, child care, professional clothing, more eating out/ prepared food, the list could go on) women who work often take home a lot less than you would really think. This is especially true with low skill women who will need to pay for childcare. In many cases the income difference if expenses are subtracted is just a few hundred dollars.

Obviously if the potential single wage earner works part time for minimum wage this is probably not viable unless you want to go full on so far out of the box that you can't see it anymore James Dakin, Off The Grid: Life on the Mesa style. However assuming the potential single income is some sort of adult job that is close to full time money isn't the biggest obstacle. I hesitate to say a specific dollar amount because cost of living varies by region. For example 40k is doing pretty decent in Idaho or Alabama but definitely is not in LA or NYC. That being said when people talk about how "they can't afford to have a parent stay home" what they really mean is that they are unwilling to give up some stuff to make it happen and or have a pretty high debt load. I wrote more about this here.

Anyway that is about all the stuff I can think of right now and I am about bored of writing.

Hope you had a good weekend,
Ryan