Category: Society

There was a time not long ago when all of the conspiracy theorists were certain that our government would soon be rounding up folk and placing them in FEMA camps. How silly. Why create camps when they can force you into your own home and have you queue alike a trained seal.

Hundreds of cars wait to receive food from the Greater Community Food Bank in Duquesne. Collection begins at noon. @PghFoodBank @PittsburghPG pic.twitter.com/94YFaO7dqX

— Andrew Rush (@andrewrush) March 30, 2020

Here is where that old sag about ‘those who would trade freedom for security will obtain neither’ proves to be words truly spoken. The stripping of rights is no longer minor and/or incremental.

Yesterday (Friday, 27) Rhode Island began stopping all vehicles with NY plates. Today, they’ve called out the National Guard to go door to door looking for NY natives to take into quarantine.

This shit will not end well.

Here is the story from the AP:

Rhode Island State Police on Friday began pulling over drivers with New York plates so that National Guard officials can collect contact information and inform them of a mandatory, 14-day quarantine.

Gov. Gina Raimondo ratcheted up the measures Friday afternoon, announcing she’ll also order the state National Guard to go door-to-door in coastal communities starting this weekend to find out whether any of the home’s residents have recently arrived from New York and inform them of the quarantine order.

The Democrat had already deployed the guard to bus stations, train stations and the airport to enforce the executive order, which also applies to anyone who has traveled to New York in the last 14 days.

“I know it’s unusual. I know it’s extreme and I know some people disagree with it,” she said Friday, adding that she has consulted with state lawyers.

“If you want to seek refuge in Rhode Island, you must be quarantined.”

Raimondo maintains she’s within her emergency powers to impose the measures, but the American Civil Liberties Union has called it an “ill-advised and unconstitutional plan.”

Governors have the authority to suspend some state laws and regulations in a state of emergency, but they can’t just suspend the Constitution, argued Steven Brown, head of the ACLU’s Rhode Island chapter.

“Under the Fourth Amendment, having a New York state license plate simply does not, and cannot, constitute ‘probable cause’ to allow police to stop a car and interrogate the driver, no matter how laudable the goal of the stop may be,” he said.

The New York Times published an op-ed Friday that blamed evangelical Christians for the coronavirus pandemic.  The argument, by journalist and author Katherine Stewart, is that because religious voters supported Trump, that means he governs without regard for science. In a piece titled: “The Road to Coronavirus Hell Was Paved by Evangelicals,” she writes:

Donald Trump rose to power with the determined assistance of a movement that denies science, bashes government and prioritized loyalty over professional expertise. In the current crisis, we are all reaping what that movement has sown.

At least since the 19th century, when the proslavery theologian Robert Lewis Dabney attacked the physical sciences as “theories of unbelief,” hostility to science has characterized the more extreme forms of religious nationalism in the United States.

Breitbart has a good article titled “New York Times Blames Evangelical Christians for Coronavirus” that rips into the article pretty well. Link here

A story out of the LA Times

The awakening: As the corona virus pandemic tightens its grip on California’s largest cities, some residents are fleeing urban sprawl and seeking shelter in isolated communities in the Mojave Desert or rugged Sierra Nevada. Their hope, they say, is to avoid possible public unrest and limit their exposure to the virus.

These new urban immigrants are not entirely welcome, however. Locals fear their arrival could overwhelm the public health systems of small towns already struggling to cope with the growing crisis, and public health officials worry the movement will lead to greater spread of the highly contagious virus.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Thursday night that residents were forbidden from moving to or from vacation homes outside the city, along with a number of other health and safety restrictions aimed at fighting contagion.

In Mammoth Lakes, a small Eastern Sierra town that survives primarily on skiing at Mammoth Mountain, the tourism board last week told nonresidents to keep out. “I’ve seen this kind of fear and desperation before in Israel during rocket attacks,” one member said. “A friend recently asked if I had a gun he could borrow. I said absolutely not.”

While all of this is pretty much what many of us have expect to be the natural progression of fear turned to panic as those folk who failed to prepare are now faced with the realization that time has run out. We will probably recover from this shortly, but what if we don’t or for that matter what of next year (or next time with a new disease).

For us that have been keeping one eye on the risk meter for years and have planned accordingly, an ‘I told you so’ brings no satisfaction. There are millions upon millions of folk that live in LA scrambling for some semblance of safety only to find one real truth of life: The only safety is that which you secure for yourself.

Things are rockin right now. Stock market is swinging wildly, Trillions are being spent by our pathetic ‘leaders’ to line their pockets and steal the nation. A virus is raging, folk are freaking. Buckle up folks its gonna be a wild week!

Do you really believe this can’t happen again? Happen to you ?

Things may get a little rough in the future, particularly if major systems begin to fail. But no matter how bad it becomes, it’ll never compare to the challenges we faced in the past.

Am making some changes to the site and have caused catastrophic failure after disastrous failure on the site. Electrons have been flying too and fro. I understand complaints have been lodged with the EEOC. I’ve noticed a multiple agency SWAT team forming in the front pasture. Send lawyers, guns and money.

Also, have added a link on the right side of the page that will put you onto useful (and timely) prepping information.

Site will be back to normal soon

I remember America, it was the land of the free and home of…….

I’ve got no idea how it is that a member of the judicial branch can do the shit they are doing in Texas. This from Breitbart:

On Friday afternoon, Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino, Jr. issued a series of emergency orders that will keep residents off public and private roads and streets between midnight and 5 a.m. An exception is made for law enforcement, medical, and emergency personnel. Cameron County includes the border city of Brownsville and the beach hotspot of South Padre Island.

Another provision of the order excuses individuals going to and from work that is permitted at those hours, and those seeking medical attention, prescriptions, fuel or food. Individuals who violate the curfew could be fined up to $1,000 and/or be sent to jail for up to 180 days. Trevino previously ordered the closing of county beaches in an attempt to minimize the spread of the coronavirus.

During a recent news conference, Trevino said that recreational fishermen had become upset over the closing of the beaches. He reiterated it was all done to prevent the spread of the virus. This week Cameron County announced its first confirmed case of the virus involving a 21-year-old man from Rancho Viejo who had recently returned from Europe and subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.

Just wait and see, we are going to end up fighting another revolutionary war to wrangle back our freedom from these despots.

In my quest to find mo-better preservation techniques for things that come from the garden I made my first batch of Kimchi today. I’m 12 hours into the first day of fermentation (preceded by a 12 hour salt water bath). Tomorrow morning I’ll vent the jars and move them into the fridge where they’ll remain for a month (or until I finish them off).

I checked on my lettuce and still only have two varieties growing, so I started several seeds in a growing medium to see if they were still good. I’m thinking no.

I got my little seed starter kit primed up and planted Jalapeno, Habanero, Cayenne, California Wonder (bell) and Banana Peppers. I’m going to wait a least a week before starting my tomatoes as they can quickly get out of hand when your growing 60 or so in the house.

All of the trees are now blooming. The apple trees did not flower, so I suppose that I’ll not get any fruit from them until next year (at the soonest). I did spray all of the trees and think I can get through this year without the wide-world of insects making their home (and having their lunch) in my trees.

This is what ‘self-quarantine’ is like on my little patch of the earth!

https://twitter.com/i/status/1240629571285852164

I’ve had some bad thoughts lately; perhaps I need to voluntarily check into a reeducation camp. These bad thoughts center around a government so powerful that it could snatch all of the rights of its citizens up and force everyone of them off of the streets and into their little cubical homes.

I can see what comes next: the cyber attack that destroys all communications channels except (of course) the official government broadcasts.

Nice country you have there America, be a shame if something happened to it.

From Zero Hedge

First the good news: for the first time in a week, there were no overnight limit up/down trigger halt in the S&P500 future.

Now, the not so good news: the global dollar margin call/short squeeze escalated even more overnight, resulting in total chaos in Asia, as multiple regional indices hit circuit breakers, the Korean Kospi was halted after falling more than 8%, Indonesian stocks triggering limit down at 5% and the Philippines market reopened only to drop 24% on the open triggering a circuit breaker. The panic dollar scramble also led to a flash crash in the Aussie, Kiwi and various other EM currencies as reported overnight.

Worse, this happened even as the Fed stepped in with yet another Lehman-era facility, a Money Market backstop (MMLF), which however did nothing to convince panic-stricken equity markets that a coronavirus-driven global recession could be averted, or to ease the record $12 trillion dollar funding squeeze, as measured by the surge in the FRA/OIS…

Well, I’ve got to get off of my ass and run into Huntsville today; Son-In-Law has sharpened the blades and performed an oil change on the zero-turn mower and has brought my little Honda tiller back to life.

I went in on Monday and on Tuesday they reported that the pharmacy I had gone to had a employee test positive for the virus…….on Wednesday they reported that the employee had self quarantined a week earlier. What a bunch of self serving asses, they should have reported the quarantine a week earlier.

Anyway, will do shopping while I’m out: Fresh goods for two weeks (vs my normal weeks worth) as I would prefer not to have to deal with the crazies once the infection rate begins it’s inevitable climb. All plans subject to change based on the behavior of the marauding idiots that think their world will be excellent-more better if they scoop up anything/everything of nutritional value.

It seems to me that an industrious person could turn a quick buck by producing/selling some of these little jewels.

A real eyeopener for those that think American freedom will prevail regardless of the threat; this from Greenwich Time.

I’ll spare you the statistics and the sermons; both are already abundant. But I do want to make one thing clear: If you think that by stocking up your pantries you have absolved yourself from the responsibility of preparing for this virus, you are mistaken. This is a crisis like none before. Be skeptical of both naysayers and doomsayers; there’s no way of knowing how this will end.

The restrictions came upon us slowly but steadily. Within two weeks, our old lives were gone. First the schools closed, then came social distancing. Then the government locked down the hardest-hit areas: no more going in and out of certain provinces; limited movements within the “red zones.” Then the whole country shut down.

Most stores closed their doors. People who could were asked to telework; those who could not, and did not have a job related to the continuation of essential services, were placed on part-time schedules or on unpaid leave. When we went out, we had to carry a pass explaining our reasons for being outside to show to the law enforcement officers patrolling the streets. The priority became keeping everyone inside, at all times.

For some people, the gradual rollout made these measures hard to accept: Skeptical observers questioned the seriousness of the disease, given that the restrictions were not draconian from the start. And yet without time to adjust to a progressive loss of freedom, we wouldn’t have accepted it. We might have rebelled.

Two decades after President Robert Mugabe wrecked Zimbabwe’s economy by urging blacks to violently force white farmers off their land, Zimbabwe has thrown in the towel.

Back in 2000 they decided that it would be good to steal farm land from whites in order to “redress colonial imbalances”. Almost 4,500 white-owned properties were ripped from their owners and the once vibrant agricultural industry that exported tobacco and roses and grew most of the food the nation could possibly need immediately collapsed. Food shortages ensued, inflation became the world’s highest and the manufacturing industry was decimated.

What was one of Africa’s richest countries became one of its poorest. Now the government is trying to get the farmers back. Good luck with that, once bitten…

Fast forward to 2018 and those ‘quick learners’ in South Africa think it would be a grand idea to rip the land away from it’s white farmers (without compensation) .

Those pesky white people, who make up just 9% of the population, owned 72% of the private land. Given that the “redistribution of land” was a fundamental principle in the struggle against apartheid, its only logical to take whatever whitey has. After all, whats the worst that can happen?

So now, 90 percent of the land that was stolen from the whites is ‘not productive’. ‘Not productive’ in government speak means not involved in the production of goods.

And now we come to 2020 and the Bernie Bro’s. These mental heavyweights believe that the time for socialism is upon us. Everything is gonna be free; education, housing, income, food, medicine, healthcare, etc.

I’ll guarantee you that once these children grab hold of the methods of distribution and then shortly realize that there are never enough resources available to satisfy the demands of the masses equally , they will be clamoring to take control of the means of production. Ask Zimbabwe and South Africa how that works out.

Once the production side of the carefully balance invisible hand (of Mr. Smith fame) falls to the the masses, it’s all over.

I’ve always been a pretty lucky guy, let’s hope that luck holds!

When I mentioned that I went out for more canning lids yesterday, I failed to mention that I was picking those up after having gone to the pharmacy at Redstone for wifey’s prescriptions. Now this:

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) –
Mar 17, 2020 3:00 PM

Redstone Arsenal reports that an employee has tested positive for COVID-19 and is in self-quarantine.

This person is a Department of the Army civilian who works in the Pharmacy at Fox Army Health Center on Redstone Arsenal.

The employee is a resident of Madison County, was tested at a local community medical facility, and is being included in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Alabama Department of Public Health consolidated statewide reporting.

Fox Army Health Center’s Pharmacy will be closed effective immediately until March 24. The pharmacy is currently expected to reopen on March 25. If that timeline changes, Redstone will notify the workforce and beneficiaries immediately.

If my luck is going to hold (assuming I’m not already a dead man walking) I’m going to need to dial back my face time with all of the zombies that are popping up here and there.

It seems as if the Pope may not actually be in charge of the flock. This from Rome:

“May the Lord give them strength and the ability to choose the best means to help,” Francis continued. “Drastic measures are not always good. This is why we pray that the Holy Spirit will give shepherds the capacity for pastoral discernment so that they can enact measures that do not leave the holy faithful people of God alone.”

“May the people of God feel accompanied by their shepherds and comforted by the Word, sacraments, and prayer,” he concluded.

The Catholic Church in Italy first canceled weekday Masses, then all Masses. Next, the Diocese of Rome decided to close all its churches, followed by a decree by the bishops’ conference counseling the closure of all the churches in the country, leaving the faithful without the sacraments or any spiritual attention during the crisis.

The decree by the Diocese of Rome was particularly brutal, noting that the faithful are forbidden from entering any place of worship until Friday, April 3.

Cardinal De Donatis, who signed the decree, insisted that this decision did not stem from a specific government directive, but rather was made in the interests of the “common good.”

The pope’s apparent questioning of the wisdom of these measures has led to much speculation on social media as to who is actually in charge in Rome.

It is the Church’s Abbot and Costello moment.

There is a short, easy to read article over at Smart Prepper that provides a straight forward list of do’s and don’ts if your thinking about going this route. Worth the read.

7 Valuable Lessons I’ve learned as a prepper

1.Preparedness is a lifestyle developed by a shifted mindset
In the preparedness community there is a big misconception or belief that preparedness is all about buying beans, bullets and bullion.  Unfortunately, you can never buy your way to preparedness.  Preppers should focus more on survival first then develop a plan on purchasing gear and supplies to assist in that plan
2. It is more than about bugging out
3 .Goals supported by strategic plans are essential
4. Don’t fall for the “tacticool” fade
5. You’ll never be 100% prepared
6. Prepping never ends
7. Don’t be a victim of fear mongering

Snatched from the Babylon Bee

Parents Worried They’ll Have To Raise Their Own Children As Government Schools Shut Down

U.S.—Parents across the nation have expressed their worry, fear, and shock at having to raise their own children now that government schools have temporarily shut down.

Those who send their children to public schools registered their displeasure at the government for not doing its main job of indoctrinating their children, even temporarily.

“Raise, educate, and parent my children?” said one exasperated mother as her teen sat at home, bored and with nothing to do. “But that’s the government’s job! What am I supposed to do? Teach them things? Instill them with my values? Train them up in the way that they should go?”

“Honestly, if this keeps up, I’m going to move to a different country where I can count on the government to parent my children. This is ridiculous.”

I saw this over at Mike’s place and it struck a chord.

This is how future generations will view this moment. For some, this is how we see the moment now.

I wandered down to the south side of the property a little earlier today to see just how bad the rain/storms had ravaged the area where I used to have my garden planted.

I’m standing on what was a waterfall we had constructed all the rabble and rock in the foreground is what has accreted in what was once a pool that was 2 foot deep or so. You can see how the water has blown out the far side of the fall and ripped away at the hillside in the background. What cannot be seen is the post that existed on the far side and the cattle panels that crossed the ‘dam’ that kept the cows on one side of the fence (or other).

The picture below is where the garden was. I’m standing pretty close to where the picture above was taken from. This area was previously filled with raised beds and dirt filled tires. The blue objects in the background are 50 gallon drums that I used to water the garden. I connected a small 12 DC pump to a battery and pumped water out of the creek into the drums.

I ginned up a manifold system on the barrels so I could water the entire garden by opening and closing valves. Here is what the area looked like before I ripped everything out and moved it to the hilltop near the cabin. It got dark down by the creek.

Just to the right of the drums is the area of the creek that I pumped the water from. Notice how dark it is in the creek.

Had this area not set down in a valley and only received 6 or so hours of sunlight daily, my garden would still be there. With the water fall noises in the background I could piddle here all day every day.

There was no real planned bottom line to this rambling other than noting that things are in a constant state of change. I guess man could properly be called ‘changlings’, as we not only change, but constantly note the change. With all this said, I guess I begin working on changing out of my winter weight!