Article – Scientists used computer to predict exactly when society will collapse in 21st century

Scientists during the 1970s used a computer and observations on changing trends to predict exactly when society would collapse.

The scientific observation was carried out by a group of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) more than five decades ago.

According to their findings, the prediction made was that society would crumble near the midpoint of the 21st century in 2040.

…….

In 2009, a different team of researchers did a similar study which American Scientist published.

They issued that the model’s results were “almost exactly on course some 35 years later” – with a few appropriate assumptions.

The predictions have not been invalidated and appear to be quite on target.

As I’ve said, more than once, unless you’re the guy who actually has his finger on the Big Red Button no one can say with any real authority when the end of the world is going to happen. It can happen over a length of time that is measured in years, or it can happen in a literal instant/ No one knows. Of course, you can observe events and come to your own conclusions about the likelihood of things happening and when, but normally … no, no one knows.

While I recognize that at any moment the Yellowstone volcano can go off, an asteroid may hit, or Wuhan Flu may evolve into a species-killer….the horse I’ve got money on is ‘Economic turbulence’ to win.

Fortunately, many perperations cover multiple forms of apocalypse….whether its the return of Xenu, a comet strike, or invasion by China you’ll still need the basics like food, water, ammo, meds, etc. So, while one size does not fit all, there is a lot of cross-apocalypse preps to be tucked away.

I’ve been hearing about the end of the world my entire adult life…it was the Soviets, Y2k, Bird flu, SARS, terrorism, peak oil, etc, etc….and yet I’m still here. But even a broken calendar is right once a year so…I keep living that quiet-yet-tactical life. haven’t really had much reason to regret it yet.

Article – Black LA residents lack access to guns as wealthy rush to buy firearms amid crime wave: Activists

To other Second Amendment activists, gun control restrictions marginalize Black Americans and have historically been racist.

“Gun control in this place called America was created to stop melanated beings from having the means to exercise their human right,” political activist Maj Toure told Fox News Digital.

….

Geneva Solomon, the co-owner of Black-owned Redstone Firearms in Los Angeles County’s Burbank, agreed with Toure’s comments. She said, “the gun control laws here are set up and intended to disproportionately affect those within the minority communities.”

She pointed to California’s complicated process of getting a concealed carry permit, saying single, Black parents in the state, for example, may have difficulty proving they have “good cause” for gun ownership.

“If the single parent is walking home and can’t prove that they’re ‘important’ by having money or high-value items taken from them, it may be really hard,” Solomon told Fox News Digital. “Which goes back to the ‘just cause’ requirement of the insurance of the CCW. Having ‘just cause’ is too big of a gray area. That means it’s up for interpretation of the person interviewing you and can lead to underlying bias.”

I suppose the more cynical and less-Woke might opine that according to crime statistics, “melanated beings” seem to have plenty of access to guns, thank you very much.

In this current atmosphere of culture war, there is very little in the political world that cant be recast as an identity-political issue. Why should guns be any different? In the past, some municipalities passed ‘gun control’ that would prohibit guns made out of ‘pot metal’ (aka Zamac and similar) in order to prohibit ‘cheap’ guns (aka ‘Saturday Night Specials’). If you’re a person-of-melanation then, according to the woke, youre a victim of ‘entrenched racism’ and ‘white supremacy’ and therefore don’t have the ‘privilege’ of being able to afford a Glock or Sig. So, all thats left to you is the cheap stuff like Rohm, RG, HiPoint, Lorcin, Bryco, Jennings, and the usual suspects you see in evidence lockers across America.

The reality is, any schmuck who can hold down a minimum wage job can afford a HiPoint within a month. Give up the cigarettes and beer and you can pick up a used Ruger or Taurus within six weeks.

But the article wasnt really about the affordability of guns, but rather the difficulty the melanated have in accessing them. But isn’t that what those same Democrat supporters (and, yes, I’m making an assumption that in that particular state most melanated beings are going to vote for the Democrats) wanted all along? A Byzantine government permission system for ‘controlling’ guns? Careful what you ask for.

 

California’s mag ban upheld

In case you missed it, the courts upheld California’s ban on normal-capacity magazines.

I can’t say I’m surprised but I can say I’m disappointed. I was hoping that from a legislative and judicial standpoint we had turned a corner in regards to such things. Apparently not….although the Ninth Circus is the one most likely to go and do something completely wonky out of all the courts.

What’s it mean to me and you? Well, unless you live in California, not very much except as an indicator of how the political winds may be blowing.

However, it’s a good example of why you need to buy your Uncertain Goods when you can and in the quantities that you want. Unless I buy some previously not stockpiled thunderoty, I have plenty of mags for everything I shoot that needs a magazine.

If Biden can get his marbles together long enough to comprehend what his advisors and handlers are telling him, he’d start pushing for Assault Weapons Ban 1994: The Next Generation. Fortunately he’s just busy mispronouncing ‘omicron’ and sniffing women’s hair.

The nice thing about putting my magazine needs to rest years ago is that I no longer have to funnel resources in that direction. I can take my rapidly devaluing dollars and put them into other tangible goods….like food, fuel, fuel cans, radios, armour, gold, silver, medicines, clothes, shoes, and all the other little things that go to make up a prepared life.

Article – JPMorgan Removed from Louisiana Muni Deal After Gun Scrutiny

Some good news from the southern front in the culture wars:

 

(Bloomberg) — JPMorgan Chase & Co. was removed on Thursday from a $700 million Louisiana municipal-bond deal after the bank’s stance on guns drew criticism from state Republican officials.

After a fiery meeting, the state bond commission voted to have Wells Fargo & Co. replace JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank, as senior manager on the deal.

As it turns our, that whole “We won’t invest in funds or companies that deal with guns” thing cuts both ways. I rather like the turnabout being fair play.
I suppose you could argue, from a concerned taxpayer standpoint, that the removal of Chase means that the state will not be getting as good a deal as it might have otherwise. May be. But even I, a staunch opposer of government spending, would support this move.
I wish other municipalities had the cajones to knock some sense into some of the companies when they start getting all ‘woke’. Political posturing has consequences. This is the reason a smart business keeps its politics to itself. As Chase just learned.

Article – California law bans small off-road gas engines, including lawnmowers and chainsaws

Ah, California….every time I think you’ve woke yourself into a new depth of stupidity, you one-down me.

The new law will ban the sale of all off-road, gas-powered engines, including generators, lawn equipment, pressure washers, chainsaws, weed trimmers, and even golf carts.

California, a state with a history of disaster due to being situated on the terrestrial equivalent of Jell-O, has decided that any new generator you buy can’t run on a gas engine. So, when ‘the big one’ finally hits you’re supposed to haul out your Newsom-approved generator that runs on unicorn flatus and .gov overreach.

As the article says, it bans the sale of new gas powered non-vehicles. Two things to note…’sale’ and ‘new’. So, expect Nevada to add generators to the big box of Pmags they keep by the door at the border gas stations. And, I’d expect that propane-powered generators will find a new market as well.

There’s gonna be a lot of Honda EU2000’s getting UPS’d into California from ‘private parties’ over the next few years, I’d imagine. Can’t wait to read about how the ‘reasonable’ and ‘common sense’ legislation to ban these terrible weapons of war climate change won’t aooly to ‘only ones’ like municipalities and their various agencies.

If I had the money, I’d buy a chunk of dirt right on the border with California and run a general store full of Pmags, generators, gender-specific toys, fireworks, and everything else California bans, and I’d probably make enough to retire in three years.

I wanna go hug my EU2000 right now.

Article – One man’s shopping trip turned scavenger hunt shows how the supply-chain crisis has created an ‘everything shortage’

During an everyday errand run, The Atlantic’s staff writer Derek Thompson said he found that snarls in the global supply chain had created an “everything shortage.” Thompson said what should have been a quick errand run for an at-home COVID-19 test, some paper towels, and prescription drugs turned into a sort of multistore scavenger hunt.

The shopper went to a CVS, whose at-home COVID-19 tests and paper towels had sold out. Then, he went to a Walgreens that had run out of everyday prescription medications, as well as a Target, whose ransacked shelves were “alarmingly barren, like the canned-food section of a grocery store one hour before a hurricane makes landfall,” he said.

Pretty much everyone, at being told we were facing a pandemic, figured “Ok..pandemic…so load up on canned goods and avoid other people”. But very few folks seem to have sat down and thought out the downstream consequences…schools close so parents stay home with kids instead of going to their truck driving job, without a driver the materials don’t get to the factories on schedule, production schedules are wrecked, whatever does get manufactured can’t get distributed on schedule, etc, etc.

I guess it’s no surprise that this sort of thing is going on. And, by and large, I’m about as prepared for it as can be, but it’s rather annoying to see the US slide into the sort of stereotpyes we used to have about the Soviets standing in line for toilet paper.

What’s worse is that some idiot somewhere is braying “Government should do something…” about these ‘shortages’ and, Crom help us, .gov might actually do just that. And if you think that having .gov manage a sector of industry is a good idea, you clearly don’t mail a lot of packages or get your paycheck by mail.

‘Tis interesting times we live in. We will all get through it, of course, but they are interesting nonetheless.

 

Also: Why the Supply Chain Is Tangled Up in Knots

 

News – Idaho hunter finds remains of man missing for 53 years

A bow hunter looking for a shortcut on Sept. 17 stumbled upon the remains of a man missing for 53 years.

Raymond Jones, a 39-year-old from Salmon, had been missing since 1968. He was bow hunting for mountain goats in the east fork of Hayden Creek in Lemhi County when he was last seen on Sept. 7, 1968.

A lot of people don’t understand just how big and, in many places, remote it can be out here. There are more than a few planes that took off and never were seen again, cars that left the garage and disappeared, and whole lot of people that walked into the woods and no one ever saw again.

But…it’s the fact that things like that can happen out here that is part of the attraction. Sometimes, you want to disappear.

Article -A deputy mayor in New York faces charges after federal authorities found him with dozens of unregistered guns and bogus FBI badges

Remember, kids..some animals are more equal than others:

A deputy mayor of a city in New York state faces federal charges after authorities discovered unregistered firearms and bogus badges for federal agencies, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday.

Last week, Brian Downey, a Republican who serves as deputy mayor of Airmont, New York, was taken into custody for “purchasing a rifle suppression device over the internet,” according to a statement from the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office.

Authorities later executed a search warrant on his home and found at least 13 illegal suppressors and 16 unregistered assault weapons, including a short-barrel rifle and sawed-off shotgun.

First, you have to admit, the guy has some good taste in thundertoys. Secondly, as far as I can tell in the documents, the ‘short barreled rifle’ is an arm-braced PSA AR. Im betting the supressors are dummies, but the sawed down side by side looks legit. Regardless, this guy is out a metric buttload of money in addition to all the other problems he’s about to encounter. As for the badges..well… play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I bet if you canvas the local Gyno-Americans they’ll tell about some fed in an unmarked car pulling them over for various reasons that usually are defused by them agreeing to go on a date with him.

But…it’s NY. where guns like that are supposed to be verboten for the regular volks.But, there’s always that cog in the .gov machine who thinks maybe he has just a little extra juice and the rules don’t apply to him as much as the other guy.

Moral of the story: ordering questionably legal gun accessories off the interweb under your real name is a bad idea.

Afghanistan – Get To Da Choppa! Edition

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.

 

 

Shortages

I was going to say that I apologize for the slow posting but then I realized, I actually don’t owe you guys anything so..why apologize?

Just had some distractions lately and then this amazingly absurd heat isn’t helping.

Anyone else notice that it seems like nowadays there’s (supposedly) a shortage of everything? I mean, it seems like overnight we went from a nation that has 98 different types of breakfast cereal on the shelves to a nation where newsmedia keeps telling us that there are shortages of…well..everything.

Global infrastructure logistics failures or some such technobabble being the words du jour. Objectively, I can see a few hiccups.. The Kung Flu reduced manpower (or person-power if you think along those lines) at ports, terminals, and other transport hubs. Ok, makes sense. Some  nations closed their borders, thereby making trade more difficult. Okay, still with ya on that. And there was, naturally, unprecedented demand as people suddenly realized that toilet paper and rice might suddenly vanish. Ok, still seems legit.

So where is all this sky-is-falling media blitz coming from and, more interestingly, why? Are we being groomed to become used to ‘getting by with less’ in some sort of sneak attack on ‘consumerism’? Is it jockeying by our larger trading ‘partners’ (cough*China*cough) to flex a little and see how much the markets cringe when they raise their hand? Or is it just the delayed effect of all the other stuff I mentioned finally catching up?

Personally, I’ve not seen shortages of anything that I use except for, of course, ammo and related materiel. My neighbor has been building a garage and has had a helluva time finding lumber, trusses, etc. But in my world? No…no shortages I’ve noticed. But then again, I tend to live a fairly simple lifestyle at the moment. I buy my groceries, I get new clothes every other year, I fill my vehicle twice a month, and thats about the extent of my shopping.

Still, I’m quite curious about these supposed shortages and if there is something more sinister going on here.