Conspiracy Theory For The Day:
The missile warning wasnt a hoax. The NorKs launched one and it was shot down by US interceptor systems. But, they let the missile warning be broadcast so that if the system didn‘t catch it, they wouldn’t come out looking like fools. And if the missile did get intercepted, they could just shrug and say ‘false alarm’. Meanwhile, unplanned movements by naval and air forces in the Pacific were dismissed as part of an annual joint operational exercise. increased radio chatter from NorK and Japan prior to, and during, the launch has, of course, been unverified.

I hate that every time I find a product I like, it gets discontinued. Such is the case with one Mountain House’s recently introduced goodies. A while back , the sales department sent me some of their newer offerings. One of them was Italian Style Pepper Steak with Rice and Tomatoes. Darn good, I tell ya. So, I figured I’d get around to ordering a case or two of the #10 cans of the stuff. Sold out. Truth be told, the pouches are rated for seven years but, in the real world, they last a lot longer if you store ’em in a safe place. I may have to order a couple cases to round things out.

It occurs to me that I have quite a few samples of MH’s stuff laying around so I may as well do some reviews of it. Have to get on that this weekend. BUT…the pepper steak? Good eats,  man.

Food is that one consumable that, other than water and oxygen, you pretty much have to have on hand if youre going to survive whatever apocalypse you’re expecting. I mean, lotsa people make it though hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and economic crises without firing a shot … but no one goes through them without eating.

MH has added a buncha new foods since I last stocked up. (A quick perusal shows that the last group buy was around….2008?) I wonder if it’s time to try and coordinate another one? They are tremendous pains in the ass to put together, but the discounts are usually worth it. I’ll have to give it some thought. Usually it takes a commitment of about $3500 to get the free freight…which is a big deal because getting a couple pallets trucked over from Oregon is about $350 all by itself. But..getting enough people to commit to buying enough food to reach that minimum, collecting money, repackaging and reshipping…man, thats some work.

In a perfect world I’d simply order $3500 worth of food for myself, tuck it away, and cross ‘food’ off my list. But…it’s going to be a while before I have that kinda disposable income.

I really don’t see what the big deal is…those countries like Haiti really are..well…you know.
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Someone sent me this link and I figured I’d share:

On Monday, Sept. 25, five days after Hurricane Maria pounded Puerto Rico, Aaron Jackson got a LinkedIn notification on his phone from Michael Lee, supply chain and inventory manager for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Contact me right away,” it read, followed by a number. Jackson was at Blue Lemon, a fast-casual restaurant in Sandy, Utah, outside Salt Lake City, eating dinner with his family. He stepped outside and dialed.

Lee needed help, fast: FEMA was running low on food rations. In the previous four weeks, the agency had supplied millions of meals to the Texans and South Floridians displaced by hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Maria had created a third disaster zone with more complex logistics, having knocked out Puerto Rico’s electricity, gutted its roads, and destroyed its markets and ports. Restoring food security on the island could take months. Lee had to procure millions of servings of just-add-water meals to sustain the victims. Could Jackson provide at least 2 million and begin deliveries immediately?

Article is behind a free registration wall. I’d repost it in its entirety but I’ve no doubt someone would then go tell the Bloomberg people and I already disdain Bloomberg enough.

I swear, it doesn’t matter what time of day it is, what time of month, or what season of the year – shopping at WalMart is always a trip to a human zoo. Fat people on scooters, moms with toddlers in several different shades, Gabby Hayes lookalikes, pierced and tattooed freak shows, etc, etc. I swear, if I ever have the misfortune of being accosted by lawless ne’er-do-wells it’s going to happen in a WalMart parking lot.

WalMart is the central point of a Venn diagram with all the different subspecies of humans (and pseudo-humans). It is like some sort of Supermarket of Dr Moreau…a paean to the untermensch.

And yet, I’ll travel among those people like British explorers through New Guinea in order to save $0.75 per pound on chicken, and get Coke a nickel cheaper per can than at Albertsons.

After my appendix exploded a few months back, the incisions were right along my beltline, which made carrying a pistol kinda painful. As I healed up (no mutant healing factor, sadly) I wound up, more often than not, going sans boomtoy in my daily life. And…I wound up not going back to it.

Driving is second nature when you’ve done it for a while, but a near-accident, or witnessing one, will suddenly make you more self-conscious about how you drive. I don’t need a near-death experience at the hands of some useless waste of skin with a HiPoint to remind me that carrying a gun is a good habit to maintain. WalMart is an exceptionally good reminder that “nothing good happens away from home after 11pm”. (Unless, of course, youre Harvey Weinstein at a post-Oscar party watching Jennifer Lawrence get hammered on boilermakers.)

So..back into the habit that I never should have fallen out of. What’s the gun of choice for the Zero, you might ask? Same as 90% of everyone reading this – comabt tupperware..drastic plastic…a Glock 19. It’s cheap, it works, and it’s what I have.

Nothing like the Parade of Failed DNA at WalMart to get you back into the habit of carrying a gun when you leave the house.

Every couple weeks I get an email from one of my vendors with a special on Barretts. Now, they aren’t the most accurate of the .50’s…. the long recoil operation doesn’t lend itself to precision, but then again the 82A1 is designed for busting up objects, not people. And it’s a lot easier to hit a parked helicopter at 1300 yards than it is to hit the pilot. The 82A1 is an an anti-things rifle.

But…the notion of ten rounds of .50 BMG on tap has a lot of gee-whiz appeal, and the damn thing just looks cool. So when this dropped in my mailbox…

It is tough to not order one up. I mean, I could sell the four bonus ARs for $500 each at a gun show and my cost on the Barrett then drops to $7000. But..gotta be practical. $9,000 would get me a superb .338 Lapua with an amazing scope and a high end rangefinder, ammo, accessories, dies, etc. And still leave me a couple grand left over.

It would also cover a not insignificant portion of my mortgage.

Being an adult sucks.

Ah, what would the world be without humour?

Well, actually, it’d be a lot like it is now. Nonetheless, here’s some amusement for those of us in our rarefied interest.

Man does not live by “Ala Baylon” alone. Comics Graphic novels are actually quite good reads. Some of these titles I was aware of, some I was not. Regardless, a quick trip to Amazon should take care of most of this list.

Yes I find the apocalyptic era entertaining. So what is it about the post apocalyptic era that makes it so popular? Well it’s the thought that living in a apocalyptic world is a reality considering the world that we live in now. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the world could have a nuclear war, or virus outbreak. It’s the way of how humans cope and survive in a harsh environment, like the Walking Dead shows – humans can become a hero or a sadistic villain. And that is what I find so good about shows like TWD, Contagion because it deals with the essence of actual possibilities.

So I have put together of my personal top 12 Post-Apocalyptic comics that you should definitely check out.

And, as many of you may know, The Walking Dead started out as a comic.

Anyway, when you get tired of reading the classics over and over, these might open up some new avenues.

PINE, AZ – Officials are looking for information about a discovery of explosives in Pine, Arizona last year. 

A construction crew was clearing land in a rural area of Pine on Wednesday, Oct. 25, when they unearthed a collection of military explosives.

Eighty blocks of military C4 explosives, nine Claymore antipersonnel mines with firing devices, and one roll of military detonating cord were found inside plastic cylinders buried underground. 

The interesting part? It seems, according to the article, they figure this stuff had been quietly hiding underground for the last 20 years. Hmmm. Arizona has two large names that might have been interested in things like that…McVeigh spent time in Arizona but he was in prison by late 1995 which is right around the 20 year mark. Then there were the ‘Four Corners Survivalists’ who had their moment in 1998..I recall reading somewhere that they spent time in AZ as well…so, again, thats close to twenty years. But, more likely, it’s someone who got ballsy and walked off base with a truckload of goodies and then had a hell of a time figuring “Well, now what?”

I guarantee you, though, there’s probably a lot more stashes like that one out there.

H/T to the fella that tipped me off to the article in email.

The Ruger 9mm carbine is starting to show up in the websites of some of my vendors. Dealer pricing is hovering aorund $425, which means the carbine is cheaper than the Glock that the magazine comes outta.

Ruger is notorious for a) using the public to beta test and recalling virtually every new product at least once, and b) allocating new stuff to keep the demand high. I expect to be able to maybe order one of these around…hmmm.. April. But…order I will, mmm, yes.

Year end wrapups are kinda the low-hanging fruit of the blogging world, but I’m not proud.

2017 didn’t result in any global disasters that would send good folks scurrying to their bomb shelters. And while there may have been regional, or even national, disasters elsewhere, my little chunk of the planet seems to have made it okay.

It was, though, not without some weirdness. For one thing, I walked around for a few days with a ruptured appendix before thinking “Hmm, maybe I should see a doctor about that.” (And came *this* close to earning a trip to Stovokor.) Then, while flat on my back with three different hoses and tubes running outta my abdomen, Montana decides to shimmy with the most powerful earthquake we’ve had in a long while. I was not amused.

Picked up a couple P95s over the year and that was about it for gun purchases, I think.

Didnt have to use any stored fuel, emergency food, or war reserve ammo….so, all in all, a nice neutral year. And I didn’t have to use my AK.

From a preparedness standpoint, it’d be nice if 2018 was gun-heavy. I would really like that new Ruger carbine, a tricked out Savage .338 Lapua, and a Glock 10mm. Be nice to get a vehicle upgrade this year too. But…gotta be a grownup. There’s some loose ends I’d like to get tied up financially and it really makes more sense to do that then to spend money on what is at this point a quinary level of firearms redundancy.