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Thursday links

  • This has always been my experience, too. Stored even reasonably well, canned foods are good for years (and years) past their best-by dates. Even high-acid items like mandarin oranges and tomatoes.
  • The five most important guns in American history. Somebody will argue; but it’s not a bad list.
  • Yep, this is how Dems protect women. Oh, Heidi Heitkamp, you’re in big trouble now.
  • Bear Bussjaeger invites the alleged 9X-percenters to put up or shut up on guns.
  • “This is getting kids killed all over the country,” sez a police officer. Um, no. If kids are being killed over toy guns, the fault is not theirs. Millions of kids played with toy guns for generations (with no orange tips in sight) and nobody felt the need to murder them for it.
  • Defending against doxing.
  • A rather disturbing report about the state of our home life and relationships, brought to us by … IKEA.
  • When Joel’s website went kerflotchy in its recent move, my Feedly started tossing up 2009 posts as “new.” One of them was this introduction to the new dog at the gulch, Beauty. Beauty was actually my Ava, still with me more than nine years later, though the other two in my pack are long gone. Ava is still beautiful. But I’d forgotten she ever took happily to another dog. My gorgeous, high-maintenance pup is getting easier, but old.
  • You can now buy the home of one of Salem’s executed “witches.”

19 Comments

  1. larryarnold
    larryarnold October 18, 2018 9:16 am

    I got the part about Heidi’s furious; I missed the part about who provided the information and how they were fired. I’ve been a victim advocate. You never, ever release names. You contact the client and let them contact the person asking. (As happened when my wife recently profiled a cancer patient.)

    Cognitive disconnect: It is simply ridiculous to believe that:
    1. “95% of voters” want a law; and
    2. It takes “courage” for an elected representative to vote for it;
    At the same time.

  2. Comrade X
    Comrade X October 18, 2018 10:19 am

    Honorable mention should go to an air gun;

    The Girandoni air rifle; https://www.lewis-clark.org/article/1827

    Something today the gun grabbers would term as an assault weapon!

  3. Paul Joat
    Paul Joat October 18, 2018 12:05 pm

    The 2009 link is from before I started reading Joel’s blog, the next post has a picture that looks like it might be a younger Gun Jesus http://joelsgulch.com/new-water-source/

  4. Mike
    Mike October 18, 2018 1:32 pm

    That story on canned goods is so true. If the outside shows no dents/rust or other abuse I’d give it a try. Now my wife on the other hand is a best-before-date fanatic who tends to toss stuff.

    That list of firearms is pretty good. I would swap out the AR-15/M-16 for the M-1 Garand, but that’s just me.

    As for the kids getting shot for brandishing top pistols, things today are not anywhere near the same as when I was a kid playing with cap guns back in the sixties. And, all those differences do add up…

    I actually remember that old post from Joel’s blog. That was right around the time when I started following it. Thank you for posting the link, it was a nice walk down memory lane.

  5. Claire
    Claire October 18, 2018 1:43 pm

    Yep, younger Gun Jesus. Standing on the walk outside the old fifth-wheel I’d just moved into. Younger Jeep in the background. Surrounded by so many posts about the very beginnings of the Secret Lair that’s now so complete and cozy. Nine+ years!

  6. coloradohermit
    coloradohermit October 18, 2018 3:01 pm

    At the emergency food pantry where I volunteered for many years we had USDA guidelines about what we could give out past their dates. Intact canned goods; Low acid 5 years past the date – high acid 1 year past the date. Boxed goods with no internal bagging; 1 year past it’s date. Mayo and baby food not one minute past it’s date, although the mayo I’m currently using had it’s best by date back in February.

    I think even those leeway times are still conservative. I just fixed some Betty Crocker instant mashed potatoes with a best by date of 2007 and they were perfectly fine. I’m pretty easy though. If it looks ok and smells ok I’ll likely eat it.

  7. Erik
    Erik October 18, 2018 3:32 pm

    For the Ikia thing, I must be missing something with the below math and will clearly need to read the actual report/data. But, doesn’t the following add up to more than 100%? Shouldn’t the answers add up to 100%? Where do you go to have a private moment, A, B, C, D total = 100%?

    “Almost half of Americans (45%) go to their car, outside of the home, to have a private moment to themselves, surpassed only by the bedroom (72%) and bathroom (55%)

    I am sure I am about to be schooled on elementary math….but…..what?

  8. Claire
    Claire October 18, 2018 3:36 pm

    I think it means people were allowed to make multiple choices of places they go to take a break. Bedroom AND car. Yard AND bathroom.

  9. Erik
    Erik October 18, 2018 5:10 pm

    Multiple choices….argh….the last resort of weak minds. 🙂

    That may be true but then I think that proves that people can’t make up their minds even about things they want….let alone what they SHOULD want.

    What a sad article regardless. So lost people are.

    Not sure about the math still though…being a guy, it is easy for me to go to the bathroom IN the yard, and have made something like vroom vroom car noises while IN my bedroom…..LOL.

    Ok, I’ll be quiet in time out now.

  10. Jim B.
    Jim B. October 18, 2018 7:44 pm

    That part about the canned food may not hold. Lately I’ve been seeing cans with those pop up tabs where all you need to do is pop the tab and pull the top off. No can opener needed. Now let me ask you this, would you trust a can that was that easy to open? I don’t think those cans would be that secured. Maybe by design.

  11. larryarnold
    larryarnold October 18, 2018 9:12 pm

    It’s sad that they have to “go somewhere” for a private moment. Give me a book, and I’m wherever the plot is set. If my grandson is in the middle of an iPhone game, the world could end without him noticing.

  12. Joel
    Joel October 19, 2018 7:34 am

    I have lots of pop-tab cans in my pantry, quite a few past their best-by date, and so far I have noticed no problem with the quality of the contents. One caveat: They are much more likely to lose their seals when dropped and dented, and it doesn’t always show. For that reason – coupled with my butter-fingered tendencies – I prefer the ones that need a can opener.

  13. ellendra
    ellendra October 19, 2018 7:57 am

    “Multiple choices….argh….the last resort of weak minds. 🙂

    That may be true but then I think that proves that people can’t make up their minds even about things they want….let alone what they SHOULD want.”

    Or, their choice varies based on factors that weren’t in the question. Bathroom for short breaks, but take the car for longer ones, for example.

  14. Paul Joat
    Paul Joat October 19, 2018 10:58 am

    Younger Jeep, and younger trailer with the tires that just got retired this month.

  15. Wally
    Wally October 26, 2018 9:37 am

    Canned goods: I have had tuna in water turn into mushy tuna water past expiration date, other tuna good years past expiration. Apricots can turn into a fibrous mush, too. If you buy a six or eight pack from a big box store, keep an eye on them. If one can leaks, expect the others will leak soon too, but if still sealed is good to eat. All this is for US nationally known brands kept 66-80° F. Off brands more likely to leak earlier.

  16. Claire
    Claire October 26, 2018 10:08 am

    Good points, Wally. Thank you.

    For tuna, albacore is a good bet. It’s a lot more expensive than some other tuna, true. But it’s got good body and I’ve never seen it turn to mush.

    I didn’t know that about apricots, specifically. But I know some fruits are vulnerable — and I’d definitely be careful about off-brands.

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