STICKIED. Scroll down for newer posts — then come back and do your Christmas shopping. 🙂 It’s that time of year again. Yep, already. If you value the information you get from this blog, please contribute to its (and my) well-being. As I’ve mentioned before, Backwoods Home is kind enough to pay me for this blog, but the pay is based on one post a week. I think we’re doing better than that. As always, please do your online shopping via my Amazon links. I did have an Amazon wish list, but I’ve had to remove it for reasons I…
Month: November 2012
This is another guest blog from Will Kone, aka BusyPoorDad. His first installment is here. —– What are the minimal items to have in a first aid kit? We have all seen the ads, heard the sales pitches, wallowed in the fear-mongering marketing. “You MUST have this special kit! Your life depends on it!” Which is why companies who sell specialized first-aid kits feel they have to charge so much for stuff they sell. After all, it must be great, it costs a whole lot! I have nothing against making money selling stuff. And there is value in having someone…
Can we all get back to normal now, after that amazingly anticlimactic election? But speaking of things not being back to normal, some folks are still reeling after Hurricane Superstorm Sandy. Even one frequent commenter here at the blog still hasn’t been heard from, and while that could be just because he’s not talking to us, he and his family were near “ground zero” New Jersey — where some folks are still reportedly without power, reliable food supplies, or running water, 10 days after the storm hit. So much for the old “three-day” supply recommendations. Maddeningly, many government sources are…
When you look at all the pro-freedom ballot measures that won yesterday — gay marriage in four states, legal recreational cannabis in two — it’s obvious that whatever else happened, this v*ting season is a repudiation of theocratic Republicanism like this guy’s Increasingly, no matter how we personally feel about people’s drug use or their sexual habits, we realize it’s not our business. Jennifer Rubin says it very well. It’s a generational thing. The Republican party of losers McCain and Romney is a party of older, white, rural people. And while I’ve got nothing against older, white, and rural (ahem),…
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. — from “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost —– The first polls are closing on the East coast as I start this. We know that, come January 20, some statist will occupy the White House and believe he’s the lord of us all. He’ll preside over the growth of the welfare state and the warfare state. He’ll claim the right to kill us at will or lock us up without due…
And everybody awaiting “official” release of the anti-snitch book: Thanks to a helpful volunteer, I’ve just uploaded a Nook (epub) version of Rats! to the book’s site. Would you Nook owners kindly download and take a look at it? Once you tell me it looks okay, we’ll be ready to go live! Oh, and with a little help from another volunteer, the site now contains two HTML versions. One is “live” and lets you read the book online in a really nicely laid out web page. The other is a zip file you can download to host on your own…
And why? The comments on my earlier “V for Vendetta Day” post — two Gary Johnson supporters immediately speaking up — got me wondering. So if you don’t mind me asking (or even if you do), here’s a two-parter: * Are you voting or have you already v*ted in tomorrow’s election? * And what value do you realistically expect your v*te to produce? Not trying to dis anybody here. Though I’ve been a non-v*ter for 18 years, v*ting was hugely important to me from the time I was a little kid & I understand the urge to do it and…
On this day before yet another dismal, overhyped, mediocrity-promoting, statist-embracing, distinction-without-a-difference election … Happy V for Vendetta Day. I know what I’m watching tonight, how ’bout you?
This is a guest post from Will Kone, aka BusyPoorDad, whose bio appears at the end of the column. Though he is busy indeed, he has huge expertise in the areas of first aid and emergency management. He has agreed to write a series of articles on those and related topics. These will appear irregularly, as he has time and gets the inspiration to write them. BTW, I will be returning to the topic of water storage; just not sure when. Will’s post on what to have in a first-aid kit will appear later this week. —– Where to learn…
The preacher Obama chose to give the benediction at his 2009 inaugural says that all white people are going to hell. Well, this comes as a relief. I’ve long figured that, if Christians are right, I’m headed for some boiling vat of something unpleasant. But there was always that teeny chance I might get saved if I could only find the right line to toe. But nope. Now I can just go on being my ornery, skeptical self, doomed no matter what I do. Seriously (and I have to say seriously because certain people don’t have a sense of humor…