- Are there informants in your group?
- Gary Johnson on foreign policy.
- Nooz you can use: 41 camping hacks. Mostly for conventional tent-and-picnic-table camping, but very clever and a few may be useful for bug-out bags or winter emergencies.
- OMG. Now that’s one perfect response to Ms. Self-Righteous Hillary.
- Believe it or not the bees are doing just fine (sez the WaPost, unaware that they’re advocating private, for-profit management of endangered wildlife).
- The inimitable Fred Reed on pack instinct, territoriality, and other aspects of political human beings.
- These guys think v*ters will want a presidential do-over. Or at the very least a total revamp of party nominating procedures before the next national election. The thought that Trump could be winning the national battle for legitimacy (scary thought, eh?) says the first guys may be right. Won’t help, though. Rigged systems is rigged systems. They don’t unrig themselves.
- At TZP I write about “Catastrophes and Second Chances” and how, despite my natural pessimism and cynicism, there’s hope in the worst darkness.
Much as I would like to believe otherwise, and with all due respect (which in most cases is quite a lot) for those who do and act accordingly, I cannot see any prospect of defeating the statist Leviathan by either political persuasion or force of arms. The only hope I have is that Orwell was wrong and Rand was right; the collectivist endgame is not 1984 but Atlas Shrugged. That is, between: tyranny can maintain enough of the (previously cultivated) fruits of liberty to sustain itself indefinitely even having eradicated liberty vs. without liberty, the fruits will wither and die, and the tyrannical order along with them, I go with the latter. Not because I think it is indisputably true (I don’t – it is very much an open question, IMO), but because if not true, humanity is screwed and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it, whereas if it IS true, there will, eventually, exist an opportunity to rebuild liberty. So we might as well assume the best and do what we can to preserve the Remnant necessary to do the rebuilding. In practical terms: hunker down, lie low and save yourself and yours, if at all possible, to be part of that Remnant, while being prepared physically and mentally (mentally, of course, being harder by far) to go down fighting, taking as many of the totalitarian vermin with you as you can, if survival is not possible.
Very well said, trying2b! I’d add that mental preparation is not just about fighting. But about other ways of resisting, ignoring, monkeywrenching, going around, creating alternatives, and living outside of Leviathan. In the long run, I think all of that will actually be much more important than actual fighting.
Camping hacks: I love getting new ideas, even if I don’t see the “need” for a lot of the solutions. They are still fun, and occasionally I see something I want to try.
Presidential do-over: I couldn’t read beyond this part- “That’s what got us Lincoln and FDR.”
The ignorant buffoon doesn’t actually think those were decent presidents, does he?!? Ack. The stupid! It burns!
The problem is the existence of the office, not the specific bully who occupies it.
Thank you, Claire. Coming from you, that means a lot to me. And you’re absolutely correct about both the mental preparation and the fighting. I certainly don’t think fighting will be – or even can be, in other than the most desperate circumstances – the primary means to advance the cause of liberty. But I do believe, if a fight is inevitable, that it’s necessary to be ready, willing and able to impose a high price upon the adversary.
The 41 camping hack is pretty good. I have been using many of them since I was a kid. Learned some from my parents, some while in Scouts, many from friends. Several I use in every day life.
Honeybees are not “doing just fine.” In addition to the regular bee diseases and parasites, modern commercial practices burden them with frequent hive moves, herbicides and pesticides, and who knows what else. There is evidence that smaller “family” hives that live in the midst of poison-free farms and are not moved around do better than the large commercial operations. However, most bees today have to deal with the harsh realities of modern commercial farming practices – including the native wild species.
So I have somehow gotten on the GOP email list, and today I got an email purportedly from the putrescent piece of filth that heads that party, asking me to take a survey, Well, being the civic minded citizen I am, I did, and I added this comment to it-
So, reince wanted my response, and here it is:
“Trump is a bad choice.
The only thing one can say of the other GOP candidates is that ALL of
the other Republocrat candidates were much worse than he.
I’m a Libertarian, and the only reason that I’m not planning to vote
Libertarian for President is that there are no Libertarians running for
President or vice President. Johnson and Weld are a couple of RINOs who
saw a chance for personal aggrandizment and took it.
Clinton is so much worse than everything else out there that I cannot,
in good conscience not do everything I can to prevent her election, no
matter how nauseating the action. It literally sickens me that filth
like you, Reince Priebus, and your rotten looting party are the least
bad option I see, but there it is. So, don’t mistake this for support
for the GOP. That you do not have. What I am doing is more akin to
jumping into a cesspool to avoid a wildfire.
——– Forwarded Message ——–
Subject: Attention required:
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2016 13:15:59 -0400
From: Reince Priebus
Reply-To: email@gop.com
we must focus on winning in November right now. |
Historian, with Election Day quickly approaching I need you to verify our
voter-targeting models by completing the *Voter Target Survey *right away.
*BEGIN SURVEY
*
The future of our great country — and our Party — is at stake in this
election. The party that wins the White House, and controls the Senate
and the House will determine the course of soour nation…
…from our National Security, to the balance of the Supreme Court, to
the future our kids and grandkids will live – it is all on the line just
28 days from now.
A record number of Republicans voted in the primaries and it is vitally
important we turn each and every one of them out in November. With your
help today on the *Voter Target Survey* you will ensure we’re targeting
the right people.
/Those who will vote for Donald J. Trump for President and for our
qualified Senate and House candidates./
Historian, we need every bit of your support from now until Election Day
to ensure a win. Please let me hear from you today.
Thank you,
Reince Priebus
Chairman
Well done, Historian. Superb reply, and I can’t think of a better reason to v*te for Trump. Wouldn’t it be amusing if Ole Reince actually got to read it?
A few camping tips that actually work without you packing a whole lot of extra weight in with you:
1. replace your boot laces with 550 paracord. A pair of laces each 6 feet long will give you 84 feet of string wherever you go.
2. dryer lint mixed with vaseline is a good firestarter. pack it in one of those little round waterproof match cases with the flint bar on the bottom or a pill jar.
3. matches are worth their weight in damp twigs. use a lighter or a flint bar. I use a cheapo disposable lighter with about 20 feet of duct tape wrapped around it if I want a fast fire, flint if I have time and light to play around with it.
4. the flavor packets from ramen noodles can make your freshly boiled drinking water taste less like dirt.
5. Give your poncho a good waterproof coating on both sides. It is impossible to be unhappy while wearing a poncho.