Monthly Archives: August 2021

Self-looting and restocking

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One of the most true things in survivalism is that ‘you are your own worst looter’. You, your kids, your spouse, whoever, will ‘borrow’ from your stash and not replace/return it long before any panic-driven locust horde breaks down your basement door and helps themselves.

Case in point: I keep some Advil and Tylenol in my Bag O’ Tricks(tm), which is good because I had a bangaroo headache the other day. Popped open the tube, took two Advil, went on with my life. Did the same thing the next day. Sooooo…my stash is down four pills. Now, this isn’t a big deal. There’s another twenty or so in there. But the way things are supposed to work is that a) you use it, 2) you replace it, III) you replace the replacements.

But, no, I sat onmy hands and waited until this weekend to go to the Big Bottle Of Advil, shake out a half dozen tablets, and replace them into my bag.

Bad survivalist.

Yeah, yeah, its only a few tablets…whats the big deal, right? The big deal is that nits become lice, acorns become mighty oaks, and little minor oversights become Three Mile Island…want of a nail,. buddy.

Its so bloody easy to get complacent about doing what we’re supposed to, in terms of preparedness, when the sense of urgency isn’t as great as it could be… we take a jar of spaghetti sauce from the food storage stash and forget to update the list, we use one of the emergency flashlights and figure we’ll just pick up a new one ‘next time’ to replace it, etc, etc.

You’re your own worst looter. I am too, and I’ve been doing this crap for decades. But the day you get stuck in your office because of a power outage is no time to discover that you ‘forgot’ to replace the flashlight you ‘borrowed’ from your EDC and never put back.

That little stuff adds up fast, and although something simple and basic like aspirin, batteries, a razor blade, or a bottle of water may seem like not a big deal today…when you’re in a situation and one of those items is exactly what you need and it’s not there, you’ll sing a different tune.

Moral of the story: yeah, its a pain the butt…but suck it up, go to the store, and replace that item that you pulled from storage that you really shouldnt have used. Future You will thank you.

Scenes from a coin & gun shop

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Me: Still have that Wolf 7.62×39 ammo you wanna sell?
Him: You want it? You’re not gonna like the price.
Me: How much?
Him: Twentyfive cents per round.
Me: I’ll take it all.
Him: :::Suspicious::: Why are you buying all my ammo?
Me: Maybe I know something you don’t…
Him: Like?

And, yeah, he had no idea about the import ban.

Yeah, I had plenty (for my needs) of 7.62AK ammo but I can always resell this for a profit but, lets e real, it’s just gonna get bunkered.

Tula and Wolf…. gone the way of Chinese ammo?

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In case you missed the news, the Biden-figurehead administration has put the kibosh on the importation of Russian guns and ammo. On its face, it seems like a repeat of the Clinton-era Chinese gun/ammo ban.

Life Goal #267

I would imagine the smart money is creating new packaging an trucking all that Tula ammo over into some border country where it will be relabelled and imported in a grey-market fashion.

I have very few guns in 7.62×39, a pair of AK’s and a pair of SKS, and I bought my ammo a long time ago. Plus, the 7.62AK guns were never more than a tertiary level of backup for me. When the wheels fly off of civilization, it’s gonna be .223 and 9mm topping the charts.

But, it’s further evidence that things like imported ammo are ‘uncertain goods‘. Can a US manufacturer make 7.62×39 ammo? Of course they can. Can they do it cheaply to the point that it’s worth competing with the literally billions of rounds the Russians and Chinese have produced and already recovered their capital outlays on? Heck no. Thats why no US manufacturer has ever really gone heavy into 7.62AK production. As a result, American shooters became dependent on cheap imported ammo. Which is now neither cheap and nor imported.

This is not to say that having an AK or SKS or Ruger American in 7.62 is a bad idea logistically, it just means that, going forward, it’s less of a good idea.  As I said, I’ve stocked a goodly amount of 7.62, and I know people with tens of thousands of rounds of the stuff sitting in their basement, so in those cases there’s no real reason to ditch your AK. But, if you didnt have an AK, and were thinking about getting one today, you might want to rethink the ammo situation and perhaps get a .223 AK or just skip the AK and grab an AR.

Lesson to be learned: a consumable product, like ammo of a particular caliber, that is not supported domestically and is available almost only though imported channels is not something that can be considered as ‘reliably sourced’.

Duty towards others

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Does a person have a ‘duty’ or ‘obligation’ to another person? Or, put from another perspective, do you have a ‘right’ to someone else’s labors?

I was reading about doctors who refuse to treat people who are unvaccinated, and how those people are outraged that they are being denied care.  I understand that from a licensing standpoint, perhaps picking and choosing who you’ll help will result in you getting some sort of state sanction against. But do you, as a professional of any type (doctor, lawyer, dentist, etc.) have a right to refuse to assist someone for a reason as simple as ‘I don’t like you”?

I wonder about this because as the balkanization continues, we’re going to see more and more of what I call ‘bumper sticker apartheid’. Thats when someone comes to you for assistance, or commerce, or simply asking for directions and, when you see the bumper sticker on their vehicle describing their politcal beliefs that are fundamentally contrary to yours, you decide that you’re simply not going to engage them. At all.  Or vice versa…once they see your Trump sticker or NRA decal, you suddenly become some sort of untouchable troglodyte who is now beneath their contempt.

For better or worse, I’m starting to adopt that attitude. It used to be that I didn’t care what youre political, religious, sexual, racial, economic stripe was. You may be of a demographic I don’t like but I’d be willing to make a case-by-case determination if I wanted to deal with you. Sure, maybe you had a BERNIE 2020 sticker on the back of your Subaru, but you seem nice enough so I’ll help you change your tire. No more.

I used to feel that you and I could still get along even if we differed on political issues. Nowadays, though, politics has become a full-contact sport and when someone proclaims that people like me are the problem and that we need to be forced to conform/shut up/embrace the cause du jour/disavow a belief/support something we disagree with, it makes me want to simply not engage with that person. Like they don’t exist.

“But..people are, beneath it all, still people and those fellow humans deserve your help/sympathy/respect”, I hear the more moderate say.

Hey, you think Anne Frank’s dad would have pulled over to help the local SS guys when their car broke down by the side of the road? Because, you know, politics aren’t important when another person needs a helping hand….

So, if some doctor doesn’t want to treat me because I’m unvaccinated, do I have the right to be outraged and demand that he treat me? To my way of thinking, no. He’s a sovereign individual and doesn’t have any responsibility towards me at all. As an individual, he is free to refuse me treatment for any reason, as far as I’m concerned. And I’m free to take my business elsewhere. And, as an individual, when I see him getting curbstomped in his emergency room because a couple thugs didn’t think he was respectful enough when  their buddy was brought in from a drive-by, I’m free to step to the side and ignore his pleas for me to intervene.

I have no desire or intention to be the least bit supportive, assistive, or cooperative to anyone who, in my opinion, is actively working towards trying to discount me from society. Why would I interact in any beneficial way with people who want to censor, marginalize, deplatform, or ‘cancel’ me?

Thats the direction the world seems to be going, I’m afraid. First it was politics, then it was race, now its vaccination status. We never seem to find a shortage of things to fight amongst ourselves about, do we? Which is probably for the best since a cohesive nation would present a bit of a challenge to….

We’ve been calling it the Culture War for the last few years and it only shows signs of worsening. I have no desire to be on the front lines of it, but it appears that like many wars it’s going to be one I’m going to be forced to pick a side on. Perhaps sanity will be restored and we can all be civil while disagreeing, but I don’t see that coming for a while.

In the meantime, I’ll be happy to support those of my tribe, and I’ll, unfortunately, continue to shun those who work against it.

Article – Costco shoppers say some stores are out of toilet paper and water

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More than one person sent me a link to this, but I actually caught it myself this morning while perusing the news:

Costco shoppers say some stores are out of toilet paper and water, as research indicates that US consumers are considering stocking up on essentials as the Delta variant spreads.

Dozens of Costco shoppers recently complained on Twitter about product shortages and restrictions on the number of products they can buy. Grocery stores imposed restrictions early in the pandemic to stop people from panic buying and depleting stock.

Who the heck is buying this stuff? Either you bought it all at the last panic and still have plenty, or you didnt stockup last time and, unsurprisingly, found out that there wasn’t really a need to stock up after all…and therefore have no interest in doing so this time around.

I suppose we should look to what has become the barometer of panic buying – TP, rice, and ammo. Ammo is still out where the buses don’t run, but TP and rice bounced back pretty quickly.

I didn’t really buy at the last panic, and I’m definitely not buying at this one. Why? Because for the last 25 years I’ve lived a lifestyle that assumes stuff like this is going to happen next weekend. I had my supply of TP, ammo, rice, batteries, and bleach long before some of you reading this were even born.

Honestly, Im less worried about Wuhan Flu (which has a , what?, 96% survival rate for the unvaccinated among the otherwise-healthy?) and far, far more worried about the economy, inflation, and our current foreign ‘policy’.

Speaking of Wuhan Flu, some ‘woke’ person gave me a hard time about using that term. “Don’t you know Asians are being beat up on streets because people use that term and it makes Asians a target?” Because, apparently, this virtue-signalling self-appointed guardian of language and outrage-by-proxy didn’t know that, historically, flus and viruses are named after where they originate. Ebola? Hantavirus? Legionnaires disease? Named after the initial outbreaks, thank you very much. Learn some history before you step up on that soapbox.

Sometime in the future, maybe soon, the source of the Wuhan Flu is going to become known and the Chinese are gonna have some major damage control. Just a harmless ol’ bioweapons lab that was playing with weaponizing a flu virus…nothing to see here.

In the meantime, though….I’m fairly pleased with how, so far, I’ve managed to deal with it. I see these idiots on television going on about how they haven’t been able to visit with their friends in a year, they haven’t been able to visit dad and mom since 2020, and they can’t go out to restaurants like they used to….and now need extensive mental health interventions to avoid depression and loneliness. Seriously? If not being able to see your friends for a year throws you into a mental state that renders you dysfunctinal, then the problem isn’t Wuhan Flu..the problem is that you’re life was empty, your sense of individuality was wonky, and, in general…well… you’re a pussy.

So..delta variant, lambda variant, omega variant, tau variant, whatever variant….bring it on.

Afghanistan – Get To Da Choppa! Edition

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I was originally gonna subtitle this “You’ll believe a man can fly” because..well….

I’ve never been in the military, I’ve never been to Afghanistan, and I’ve never tried to ‘secure’ an airport in the middle of what is in effect the Worlds Worst Neighborhood.

But, I’ve seen ‘Blackhawk Down’ a buncha times and that makes me an armchair quarterback.

The news is full of footage that has a very last-days-of-Vietnam feel to it. And there is a really, really ugly truth in it: when you’re extracting American lives and assets, and the locals are slowing you down, whose life is more valuable? Being the ‘good guys’, we stop our airlift so no one gets run over by the planes on the runway and we fire rounds over their heads or nudge them along with helicopters. How do you suppose the Russians or Chinese would handle things? Yeah, that’s what I figured too.

Im not sure why anyone who was capable of leaving on their own would have stayed to the last minute like that (unless they were crazy enough to believe President Dementia when he said it wouldn’t be exactly what it turned out to be) when the smart money was hitting the road a good while ago. Who is left? Those poor SOB’s who bought the line that the US would stand by them for their efforts (ask the Hmong how that worked out), and anyone too poor to steal a Toyota pickup and drive in virtually any other direction out of the country.

And now the US is in the unenviable position of either a) having an airlift turn into a fizzled operation that leaves planes, people, and materiel at the mercy of the Taliban, or b) go old school and drop in troops who have been tacitly told it’s okay to kill literally anything that moves onto the runway that doesn’t have wings. Antipersonnel mines, WP grenades, whatever…gloves off as long as the planes can keep taking off. And the resultant media optics will be…bad.

Prediction? C) None of the above – drop in troops, hamstring their ROE, and watch it become BlackHawk Down II: Electric Fubaroo. And blame Trump.

Oh, and there’s now a metric boatload of veterans out there clamoring “What the hell was I over there for in the first place if we’re just gonna roll over like that?”.

Interesting times.

 

 

Scenes from CostCo

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Hmmm…solar panels and LifeStraws. What do the folks at CostCo know that the rst of us don’t?

In actuality, this is probably just related to summer-outdoor-time rather than descent-into-chaos-time….but, they do sell Mountain House freeze drieds and bulk bags of rice, so perhaps….

Actually, for someone who wants to experiment with an itty bitty solar power setup to practice their skills, that $99 deal might not be a bad buncha cheap materials to practice on.

Tangibles

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Silver is down a bit, but the premiums are still obscene. But… a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do:

And then, since apparently it was my birthday last week, someone very generously gifted me this:

Cool, hm?

By the by, as I’ve mentioned before, I am a fan of setting goals. I actually set a goal each year for how much silver and gold I want to acquire. The goal each year is to increase the stash from the previous year by 50%. This goes a ways towards giving me a headstart on 2022. And it gives me an even greater headstart on hedging against whatever whipping up a few trillion dollars out of thin air will bring. But, being a cautious dude, I put money elsewhere as well…..cash, the markets, metals, and ….and…..land. Soon.

The world we live in

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I simply don’t have the words:

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown privately signed a bill last month ending the requirement for high school students to prove proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic before graduation.
……
Backers argued the existing proficiency levels for math and reading presented an unfair challenge for students who do not test well, and Boyle said the new standards for graduation would aid Oregon’s “Black, Latino, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.”

This, more than anything else, is how a great society or great nation descends into mediocrity and, ultimately, collapse.

Because a particular demographic ‘tests poorly’, we should eliminate the requirement that they pass those tests. That way, when they go out to get jobs they’ll be qualified to….do what exactly? When you hire someone to do work and they can’t do math or read instructions, you know what you get? Unemployed. If they’re really concerned about these ‘marginalized’ groups, they’d raise the standards so that those folks can get thebest jobs they can.

This isn’t something that should surprise anyone. What’s surprising is that people think this is a good idea. And those people vote. And their vote counts as much as yours. (Unless, of course, they’re an Oregon ‘graduate’ and have trouble reading the ballot).

A long time ago I stopped thinking that society, mine or anyone elses, was capable of being saved from it’s inevitable decline. Remember the scene in one of the Terminator movies where the guy says that his destiny wasn’t to prevent Judgement Day, but rather to survive it? Same thing. I don’t have to prevent or decelerate the descent into whatever it is we’re heading into…I only have to survive it to come out on the other side of it. Thus, I’ve stopped worrying about the gaping hole in the hull and am simply working on making sure I have a clear path to the lifeboats.

But let’s recap: trillions of dollars for ‘infrastructure’ which we are told won’t lead to inflation, supply chain ‘disruptions’, a global pandemic, opportunistic nations jockeying for a better position as the main players deal with the Wuhan Flu, and an American populace that thinks its more important to use the ‘correct’ pronoun than it is to be able to be able to calculate your paycheck or read a job application. If that isn’t a recipe for a bright, new future…well!

And in this way, I feel vindicated for my growing misanthropy. Your mileage may vary, of course, but as for me I wash my hands of the rest of humanity and, frankly, they get what they deserve. If you don’t like what you see, be patient and let natural selection run it’s course. If you think this sort of virtue-siignalling-at-all-costs is a good thing, and it appeals to your ‘wokeness’, well….you’re an idiot but at least you have others to keep you company.

Gifts and gun show

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It’s my birthday this week (you did send a gift, right?) and, to my surprise, I got a gift in the mail yesterday:

Its a Randall Made boot knife sort of blade. I have no idea what it cost (ok, thats not true..I looked it up) but in addition to being expensive, they are usually accompanied with a pretty lengthy waiting list to get one. So…cool birthday gift.

Today is the Missoula Gun Show, I am looking for exactly two items: a great scope for my .338 Lapua Ruger precision rifle, and a .50 BMG of some flavor…first choice is a Serbue semi-auto, second choice is a Barrett of some flavor. I’m not holding out high hopes for either.

I have noticed that gun prices are starting to drop like Kamala Harris’ poll numbers. PSA is selling Magpul’d complete lowers for $150, which is a hundred bucks less than this time last year. In fact, PSA had some blems on sale that let  my assemble complete carbines for about $450. And, one of my vendors had a sale on Ruger MPR Ar’s, so I grabbed two of those as well.  I have hit Peak AR. Really, the only way I’m buying more AR’s at this point is if they are at post-2016 election giveaway prices.

Off to the gun show! See you there!