I restocked on some household staples the other day and, as often happens, the guy hauling the cases of food from the ‘special order’ repository asks what I’m buying all this stuff for. And, as of late, I’m deadly honest with them…”I’m one of those crazy survivalist types. Stocking up against price increases and supply issues.” No lie, thats what I say.

And every single time, the other person has come back with something along the lines of “Yeah, I do that too. I just bought a couple cases of….”

Every. Single. Time.

So,  mi amigos, don’t feel that you’re alone in this world as you push your shopping cart with 48 cans of tomatoes and 50-pound sacks of rice through the Kroeger. It is a virtual certainty that you are amongst your own kind and you don’t even recognize it.

As I pointed out to someone the other day, for the last thirty years I’ve been viewed as some sort of right-wing, anti-government, Montana survivalist….but lately I’m viewed more as a prophet.

As the world gets weirder and weirder, with dystopian tropes becoming tomorrow’s headlines, absolve yourself from any self-doubt or self-consciousness about what you’re doing in the name of resilience and being prepared. When your neighbor is selling his jet ski to pay the light bill, pulling his kids out of private school to afford to eat, and brown bagging his lunch to his new-job-at-a-lower-wage-because-thats-all-that-was-available, you can pat yourself on the back and take some pride in what you’ve done, and are still doing, to secure the safety of yourself and your loved ones.

Rock on with your bad self, fellow survivalist.

No good deed goes unpunished.

In the case of some magnet fishers who cleared 86 rockets, a tank tracer round, and .50 caliber ammo belts from a river on Fort Stewart, the toll was a number of fines from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

If you hit YouTube, and search for ‘magnet fishing’, you can come up with some fascinating videos. And, not surprisingly, there’s a lot of firearms at the bottom of some of these bodies of water. The Europeans, especially, seem to have quite a few bodies of water that are 90% guns. (The original quote was that the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn was the only body of water in the world that was 90% guns.)

I’m not sure if I’d have kept ‘fishing’ after the first couple of rockets turned up. I’ve no experience with those sorts of things and who knows if they were just inert projectiles or actually had some juice behind them. But, if someone knew what they were doing, and had some grande cajones, they could probably do pretty good for themselves salvaging explosive components.

I actually have a couple of magnets like those used in the video. Sadly, I havent found anything nearly as interesting with them. But, maybe someday I’ll dredge up an old ’73 WInchester from under an old bridge or something. More likely just lots of lost car keys.

Still, armies have to practice somewhere…and not every piece of ordnance goes boom like its supposed to. Never know what you might stumble across.

Unfortunately, the environment I work in is full of ‘woke’ types who believe that the answer to every problem is solved by .gov spending money it takes from its citizens. As such, I was subjected to listening to two coworkers in the break room discussing why no one needs an assault rifle to hunt deer and how reasonable compromises need to be made.

Funny thing about those compromises…theyre kind of a one-way street, and not in my favor. In a compromise, no one gets everything they want but everyone gets something, right? So in ‘compromise gun legislation’ what do I get that I don’t already have? Let me give you an example – the lefties will say that they want to ban all assault weapons, nut they will compromise by allowing grandfathered weapons to remain. Okay, so they want a full ban but will compromise on a grandfathered ban. Thats them getting something they didnt have before even though its not exactly what they wanted at the start…thats the compromise. So, where’s the part of the compromise that benefits me? They’ll say the part where I get what I want is where I get to keep my old AR15 instead of having to run it in. But…I already had that benefit before the compromise.

To give a better example: I want to cut off your hand. You, naturally, are opposed to this idea. I say that you should be reasonable …I’ll just cut off three of your fingers and that’ll be the compromise. See the point? You are giving up something without getting anything back that you didnt already have.

To the left, a compromise is great…they get something they didn’t already have…all they have to do is lower the expectations. They want a total ban, they’ll settle for a grandfathered ban. They want a total magazine ban, they’ll settle for grandfathering magazines. They get something they didn’t already have before. But…what do I get? Why, you get to keep your old rifles and your old magazines, they’ll say. Well…I already had those, so what do I get out of this compromise? Nothing, it appears.

Sidestepping the whole of issue of not compromising on the restriction or elimination of a fundamental right, a compromise is supposed to be about both sides getting something they want. If they’re going to take my ability to buy a Glock happystick away from me, they should offer me something I want in order to facilitate my cooperation. Thats how compromise works.

So when some lefty starts saying the ‘gun nuts’ need to compromise, be sure to ask them what they’re willing to give up on their end.

In a case of wanting it both ways, the Biden admin says to ignore inflation numbers because that date is from June and outdated..BUT…embrace the employment figures which are..uhm…also from June and equally outdated.

Can’t make this stuff up.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, inflation continues its march. What is interesting is that precious metals prices are down. Gold and silver are down to some pretty attractive prices if you can get past the premiums. Why so down? Dunno. The cynic in me says ‘market manipulation’ but it could be other things…cash strapped entities may be dumping their metals to raise cash. Who knows? I just know that this might be a good time to sink some of your devaluing dollars in bargain-priced metals.

Food prices are definitely on the upswing and you can’t convince me otherwise. Fortunately I have the pickiness of a stray dog, so I don’t mind eating the same thing over and over (if I like it) and i don’t need the top-of-the-line brand for most things (really, any pasta is just like any other brand…and rice is pretty hard to distinguish between brands unless you have epicanthic folds.)

I’m usually pretty cautious with my spending because I’ve been in some ugly situations, but as of late. In this economy (or any economy, really) you can’t take anything for granted. You have to be very aware that every day  is possibly your last day at your job and handle your finances accordingly…because one day that is exactly what is going to happen. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Reagan ran on the slogan of “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Someone should bring that back. A  couple years ago under the Other Guy gas was two bucks, I didn’t have to worry about ‘supply chain issues’, the market was doing well, and I didn’t feel like Ragnarok was right around the corner.

But…thats what being a survivalist is about, I guess. Stock it away during the good times so it’s there for the bad. I used the Trump years to clean up finances, buy guns and ammo, and improve my position. As a result, I’m probably well situated to ride out Bidenflation and the other lunacy him and his fellow travelers bring…but that doesn’t mean I’m okay with it.

2024 can’t get here fast enough.