CUBA in Deep Trouble – WTF is Going on? Blackouts, Food & Fuel Shortages & Gasoline Prices Rise 500%
Reply
Category Archives: Preparedness
The Problem With Most Demographic Doomers
In 1930 there were a lot of people who would have predicted that communism would be a major threat to the western way of life (including the communist themselves who had this as an openly avowed goal). The first “red scares” date to shortly after World War I and never went away as a concern for the religious, the small farmers, and the business elite. This fear of the communists would lead many to embrace or at least tolerate fascism on the grounds that it was a useful counterweight to the communists. No one up to the time that World War II started would have thought that next world war would have been fought against the fascists by both communists and the Anglo-Saxon world. Such an alliance would have been inconceivable to those who knew the level of hate and distrust between the ruling classes in the Anglo-Saxon World and the Soviet Union.
The people who predicted that communism would be a major threat to the Anglo-Saxon world were right. But those who sole matrix for looking at the world was communism and the huge threat it presented were often the most blind to dangers posed by the Nazis. Churchill was a famous exception this rule, but even he did not start warning about the rise of Germany until 1933. And his supposed fellow conservative Neville Chamberlain would write “The real danger to this country is Winston. He is the warmonger, not Hitler.” What is often forgotten is that Chamberlain way of looking at the world was the rule on the right and Churchill was exception. Conservatives by and large were blind to the threat posed by the Nazis because they feared communism so much.
Fast forward to today and many are obsessed with demographics and with good reason. There is no more sure guide to the future available to mankind then the study of demographics. We might not know how many people will die in the next 20 years, but we can say with a high degree of confidence what the maximum number of 20 year old can exist in 20 years time because those people will have been born today. And those numbers are so horrific for many countries that those who are aware of the numbers can’t stop thinking about them or interpreting everything they see in the light of those numbers. But there are more things that can profoundly change our world then just a free fall in the numbers of babies being born as bad as that can be over the long term.
Backpacker Fact-Checker, #1: Shoe Weight
Fire in the Rain without Matches
About 20 minutes and he is better then you or I are likely to ever be. Although part of that is because he did not have any really easy resources in range of his house (like birch).
Lessons learned….
1. This is why you carry tinder if you can. Saves a lot of time.
2. Tie something high vise orange 550 cord or something like that to your ferro rod. You can’t rely on not being an idiot when you are under pressure.
3. If you can have a fixed blade knife on you it will work a lot better when you really need a knife then a folder.
4. All that said, you don’t need much to get a fire going if you have time. When you are short on time that is what makes skill and gear so much more important.
Deep Well Hand Water Pump Installation Bison Pumps Bison Pumps
Basic Overview.
Goes into more detail….
Why you should panic about the US Deficit
*Note: This is an informal note that is not directly related to my last essay. The second part of that is still to come.*
Notwithstanding the headline, I don’t really think that panic accomplishes anything useful. But I am amazed that we are looking at a catastrophe and hardly anyone is talking about it. The current situation is the opposite of the “food crisis” that I addressed last year. At the time I talked about how even though there were a lot of bad headlines when you looked into the actual numbers there was no crisis in the immediate near term (it might be different now at least in terms of rice, but I have not really dug into the numbers yet for this year). But in terms of the US deficit, very few people seem to be panicking and yet when you dig into the numbers they are really bad.
So I thought I would write a short informal piece to break down the headlines that I have been linking to and explain why they represent a catastrophe in the making that will directly impact your life. Let us start with a recent CNN story titled “Federal budget deficit expected to nearly double to around $2 trillion.”
Now, if you are a typical American redneck, you will see a head line like that and sagely tell whoever is next to you “the politicians are going to bankrupt this country” and then go on with your business without giving the headline another thought. And who can really blame the typical redneck for reacting like that? In 2020 the Federal Government ran 3.1 trillion dollar deficit and in 2021 the feds ran a 2.8 trillion dollar deficit. It is true that in 2022 the deficit was just over a trillion dollars but if the world did not come to end back in 2020 or 2021 then, why should a mere 2 trillion dollar deficit be a cause of panic today?
Chaotic Maui Evacuation:
I put them out of order but if your short of time, watch the one below even though it is second in series.
This is another escape story….
Generic context….
Predator vs Honda & GENMAX—Let’s Settle This!
The Honda came out on top pretty convincingly. Worth watching so you know what you are getting for the Honda premium.
RESCUED hiking the Grand Canyon
Interesting part is what took him out (Rabdo) which he explains at the end.
End of the Fire Logs: Fire Logs #12, #13, and #14 plus closing thoughts
When I first started doing these fire logs in the beginning of the year, I said….
“I intend to do one fire a week from the start of January through the end of March. I am not trying to teach myself anything exotic but rather to see how well what I “know” and what I have carries over to fire starting in winter weather. The goal is to try something new either in terms of conditions or in terms of equipment used every week.”
I was reasonably successful in this goal. Once we got into March, I had a harder and harder time finding time to write up the results of what I did, but technically that was not part of the goal. For almost all of the fires, I was able to spin them as some kind of success even if some of them were pretty lame. Only Fire Log #13 was a complete failure.
I had planned for this to end with March in part because I knew I would be getting busier around then. As that is indeed the case (in fact, most of this was written in the first week of April but I am only now finding the time to put it up) I am going to try to do a briefer then normal overview of the fires that I have not already covered to close out this series of experiments.