But only if you act in the next 15 minutes!

Yet another in the series of posts that were comments elsewhere, this time at Mr. Z's site where he had an MJ post but I couldn't help but think of someone else.

What follows is, as always, as I wrote it with spelling and syntax errors intact for the amusement of the audience:

Two men died very close to each other. Near the same age, both famous in their way. One spurred on an industry to a new venue, but that industry was already huge and would get much larger... the other would take an industry that was a laughing stock, that no one gave any credance to and build it to a powerful force to help Americans. Both would lift us up through words, one to song and the other plainly and with passion.

One was an idol and superstar.

The other adored by those who loved his straightforward way of life and his passion for what he did.

One didn't do much of anything for a decade.

The other worked his ass off right up to the day he died.

One was Michael Jackson.

The other was Billy Mays.

I enjoyed a few songs from the former.

I admired the deep passion and commitment of the other to create a good life and share his belief that we deserve better for less... two for the price of one! With an extra-special, limited time offer if you act now!

I find the concentration on Michael Jackson to be obscene.

I find us ignoring Billy Mays to be a tragedy as he helped so many and was always what he presented himself to be, and was loved by many because he did work hard for what he got and loved it. All of it.

One was a nova of pop culture.

The other an enduring star of how we should bring passion to what we do each and every day of our lives.

I will only miss one of them.

Time to order an Awesome Auger before the supplies run out...

I did, too!

The boxes smelled of mothballs, but I'm not complaining.

Nor am I complaining about the hard sell for 'extras': that is part and parcel of the pitchman shtick.

I sincerely will miss Billy Mays who probably showed up ten times as often on TV with more entertainment value than Michael Jackson did over that same time span.  And I don't watch much TV, which tells you how much Billy Mays was on.

More often, more entertaining, far more sincere and living life to the max.

My condolences go to his family and those who worked with him, and thank you for showing us the behind the scenes of just how much he really did put into his life to help others.

Nice and sincere.

Two for the price of one.

You can't go wrong!

Act today before time runs out on your life.

Sphere: Related Content

Survival - Phase 2 - Your Vehicle

You may not get a choice of when you need to survive.

If you are going out on a hiking trip, camping, or other sporting endeavors not involving vehicles, then you are stuck with what is provided and what you can carry.  When you go out with professionals, do what they tell you to do as they are being paid to keep you alive: you paid them, that is your investment, don't squander it as your life is on the line.

From the recent season of Deadliest Catch we saw what happens when the Katmai went down: the survivors were Captain, Deck Boss, and two greenhorns.  Another experienced crewman and another greenhorn also made it to the one craft that would allow people to survive, but the greenhorn was injured and the other crewman was trying to secure the life raft and both were taken when a huge wave swamped the inflatable raft and they were swept into the ice cold waters of the Bering Sea.  They could be heard in the distance, but leaving the one, sole, means of safety to get them during a storm with hurricane force winds and 40' waves is a non-starter.  That was a ship and crew that was PREPARED for the worst arctic storms of the Bering Sea.  Four men of eleven survived.

Those two greenhorns survived because they followed orders.  The two lost from the life raft were taken by the force of nature, herself, and she is not a loving mother.

With any luck YOU will not decide to become a crew member on a ship in the Bering Sea during winter.

I do admire the men who go fishing in all waters, as the seas and Great Lakes are neither kind nor unkind, but always fierce no matter how placid the snorkeling in the Bahamas or the quick dip at Crystal Beach.  If it isn't the wind then its the sun.  If its not the doldrums without wind then its the waves.  The safest body of water is a cup of lukecold coffee that can't scald you... just don't swallow it into your lungs and you will be fine.

Unfortunately when you need to survive usually is not when you would expected: that is why it is called 'surviving' and not 'camping', although the latter can quickly turn to the former if you forget just where you are at in the wilds.  It is interesting that one of the problem cited by Les Stroud, going off into the most desolate regions of the planet during some of its nastiest times of year, is that he has problems getting AWAY from people.  Still the circumstances can happen to you any time you are out doing something else.  And that point is beyond your reckoning, although it usually happens when you would least want it to.

Getting out of a sinking car requires that you actually keep your cool.  Panic will kill you.

Your air time is limited, and in a sinking car with cold water coming up around your legs, you have little time left and yet must be calm at all times, no matter who else is with you, or else they will be dead with you, too.  Mythbusters did an episode on what actually happens when a car sinks, and the very basics of water pressure, air pressure and the force exerted by each is what you would expect: you can only open a car door when there is little inward pressure from the outside or equal pressure on both sides of the door.  If you wait until your head is submerged you can open the car door, unbuckle your belt and calmly float to the surface.  Now if the surface is frozen over you need to find the hole where your car went through and get out. 

If you cannot wait due to the water depth, say if your car fell out of a ferry crossing a deep body of water or something equal, like getting put into the Hudson River, then you need a hard, pointed metal object to break the safety glass of the car.  If you have unbuckled before that and got the straps out of the way, there is a good chance you will get pushed out with the air pocket.  If not then you must keep your head about you and wait for the buckle to be submerged to open it... or use the safety sawing end of something  like the Life Hammer, to get yourself out.  Then no matter what you had in your vehicle, it is what you carry ON YOU that you MUST rely upon.  And you are wet and cold.  And so is your stuff.

That is probably the worst that will happen to you and survival is then a matter of season, getting out of the water, taking your clothes off to dry and keeping warm.  That is all on your person or easily with you at all times, right?

In the James Burke scenario of 'what if the power goes off for good?' idea your vehicle is not only something that can get you into danger, but get you out of it, unless the circumstances are very dire, indeed.  And yet what you need in the vehicle is going to depend on what you think the most likely thing to happen will be.  If a flat tire skidding you off the road and out of sight and keeping the vehicle more or less intact is the situation you think most likely, then you plan for that.  If getting stuck in a 10' snow drift with 60 mph winds and driving snow is what you expect, then you need a different set of essentials.  If you are purposefully leaving the collapse of civilization, then you have a third and very different objective, and yet it overlaps the 'survival with your car disabled' concept.

Still some essentials or equivalents are necessary and must be readily available from the main compartment of your vehicle.  It really doesn't help to have stuff in your trunk if that is the part that is stuck in a snow drift... or the main part of your car stuck in a snow drift and you can't get to your emergency equipment.  If its in the bed of your truck, having stuff secured in it is second nature, and the rear window might help you get to the material there.  In some hatchbacks you have limited space and will need to look at a container accessible in the main compartment of the vehicle.  'Handy items' are not 'handy' if you can't get to them easily.

In Buffalo a sleeping bag, an old Coleman's or milsurp (military surplus), is good enough along with a second blanket, usually wool.  In more moderate climate you can get away with space age 'survival' blankets, although I suggest two per person so there is some ground cover along with a blanket, or the new emergency sleeping bags purpose made for this of the same material.  Casualty blankets are similar, just tougher in construction.  Along with that was a first aid kit, which my Buffalo one was a few band-aids, a roll of gauze and a few prep swabs.  I would improve on that and there are a number of better solutions from 'first aid kit in a can' to 'SAS first aid kit' to 'first aid kit in a water bottle' to the military personal and squad first aid kits.  Any kit should handle the usual scrapes and cuts of outdoor survival for all in the vehicle.

So we now have some basics forming up.

A Life Hammer or equivalent and there are many objects that do this, this is not a recommendation to part but category.

First aid kit from minimal to maximal, but must be good enough for a few days for all expected passengers of a vehicle.  If you are going to take a family, it MUST meet the needs of an expected, survivable accident for all aboard.  Keep any pets in mind, too.  Very flexible, but I would base it on terrain and climate, as well as expected passenger load.

Next I would add either one large quick clot bandage pack or the assorted small pack: if you need to stop a large wound, this is the stuff you want and is near magical at what it does.  That you should be able to scrimp on at one-half the passenger load, so the multi-pack is better for families.  In any event at least ONE of these.

Emergency rain gear.  Never fails that your time for survival happens in the rain and you just went out blithely ignoring it.  Your choices range from minimal (emergency rain poncho, blaze orange) to maximal (milsurp from various countries).  Note that an emergency set of ponchos isn't so good at forming a temporary shelter while two milsurp ones ARE.  Amazing, no?  Its like they planned on that or something.  One per passenger.

Cold weather gear.  If you have milsurp ponchos, get the inserts for them for cold weather.  Otherwise you are looking at real blankets/jackets/leggings/socks/etc.  If you expect cold weather and wear for it, then you are just down to some extras to your regular coat/parka/outdoor arrangement.  If you normally favor thin to no legging arrangements, then supplement that in your vehicle with what you really need to hike out in the cold.  Pretty is not necessary, functional is.  Better to look funny and alive, rather than good looking and frozen stiff.  One per passenger.

Emergency tent.  Cheap and blaze orange runs about $5.  Two milsurp rain ponchos and nylon cord, about $15.  The first is your glove compartment, the latter a larger container.  With one emergency tent, two milsurp ponchos and emergency blanket you now have an emergency camping arrangement, with ground cloth.  One emergency tent per two expected passengers.

Emergency food.  USCG/SOLAS 3600 calorie brick, that breaks down into 9 x 400 calorie cubes, and there are 2400 calorie ones in the same arrangement of 9 sub-squares.  Shelf life, 5 years.  A bit much for the glove compartment and figure on the maximal survival needs for that brick when sizing numbering what you will buy.  MREs are also a good option if you have the space for them.  The main idea is to pack in objects that can either fit in existing space or a small storage container (say a half-sized foot locker or something that can relatively anonymous and not an invitation to having the vehicle broken into.  Minimal human survival is 1200 cals/person/day doing nothing much at human average.  Normal hard working day is two to three times that.  Survival can burn over 7,000 calories per day per person.  You can do without much food for a week or so, but never expect that you will have an emergency where a week is the minimal time to survive... and that week is without doing much of anything.  Suddenly a 3600 calorie brick doesn't look to be that much.

Emergency water.  First are water packets USCG/SOLAS approved.  Next are water treatment tablets.  After that a water treatment system that will kill all bacteria and viruses.  Price goes up from pennies to dollars to tens of dollars.  A water bottle is REALLY handy if you go beyond packets.  Canteens are even better.  How much?  In normal conditions you might go through a quart a day, doing nothing.  In my desert excursions I carried a 5 quart canteen and another quart in water bottles and often found myself out of water after 6 hours.  Hiking during the day in the desert has a high bodily cost.  Hiking alone in temperate climates that 5 quart canteen lasted from dawn to dusk hiking.  One quart is minimal per person per day.

Emergency heating.  An Esbit stove, also known as the German Army personal field stove, uses any solid fuel but prefers the hexamine tablets.  Alcohol stoves as part of mess kits (usually Swedish or Swiss if memory serves) are also a good idea, and they require an alcohol bottle to be with you but is part of a complete mess kit, and the military ones from Sweden or Switzerland make them to fit in very little space.  Also waterproof, burn underwater matches are small, give a few seconds of flame even in a hurricane, and easy to pack away.  Strike anywhere matches are also fine: keep them dry via a container.  Striking devices will get you more sparks, last longer and you don't have to worry about them getting wet, either. At least one of these per group should be minimal and one per person much safer for all concerned, and don't forget things like butane cigarette lighters, either.

Mess kit.  Ever so handy if you think you will need it, and a great place to store little items in case you think you don't.  Really, a lot of small items (water purification tablets, extra stove fuel, even parts of MREs) can go into a mess kit.  At the very least they make a great sound signaling device by banging on them!  Ersatz mirror if you rub them up a bit.  As mentioned above in heating, you can get good milsurp that are a complete small stove and heating cup arrangement, along with fuel.  Esbit or Commando Stove with flatter, more traditional US messkits works fine, too.  One per person.  Don't forget utensils.

Cord.  Nylon, cheap, 100'. Keep in original packing.

Multi-tool.  Many choices from Leatherman to Swiss Army to Gerber to the little credit card one.  If you already carry one, then no need to have one in your vehicle save as back-up.  One per group is minimal, and one per person is best.

Signaling devices.  Reflectors for relatively even surface roads, put down and make sure they stay put.  Flares, USCG/SOLAS are good as are the Cyalume chemical ones used in so many parties.  Cheap, too.  On the serious side beyond the hand helds/stick on the road flares, are wind-up flashlights/strobes some with batteries, some without, all must take hand cranking as a capability so you can power it up if everything else fails.  Really you need some hand signaling devices if you are by the side of the road.  After that you are in serious attention getting areas where a hand flare may not get you seen.  In daylight that also means a mirror, any size, any type, bigger is better but keep in mind the size constraints of the vehicle.  After all of that comes the flare gun, and there are many decent milsurp ones with expensive (but very nice) flares that go very high and you can even get the parachute flare which is a big help in keeping a signal in the air for a longer period of time.  A step below that are the USCG/SOLAS ones which are good enough for ship emergencies and signaling.  One per group, minimal, and one per person is best.

One large pack to hold all this, or smaller ones to divvy out per person.  Things like haversacks, buttpacks, musette bags, bread bags, gas mask bags... all of these have storage for an individual to carry comfortably.  If you have few people to pack for, still get smaller satchels/bags even if you invest in a large pack for everything.  You can either share the load, or have handy-dandy sub-packs to put stuff into and throw in the larger pack.

 

For the pure emergency concept all of the high-tech, blaze orange gear, plus food brick, mess kit, first aid kit with quick clot bandage, reflectors, hand-held Cyalumes, multi-tool and a few packets of emergency water or purification tablets/pills, Life Hammer... all of that is glove compartment compatible with some parts suitable for under seat stowage (mess kit, first aid kit), or for mounting next to your seat or in other handy places (Life Hammer, water bottles/canteens with carabiners).  Tools can either be kept in purpose made holsters, or lightly oiled, wrapped in cloth, and tossed into a plastic bag for safe keeping.  Don't forget that oil part for iron and steel that will just be sitting in your car.  Your engine does that naturally as part of what it does.

Moving up to milsurp ponchos, MREs, wind-up signaling device (or similar solar one), flare gun, emergency weather gear (cold weather normally, but your environment may have other requirements), that all goes WITH the true emergency gear as these are extended time necessities for rough terrain.... all of that needs dedicated storage where it is 'handy'.  Folks already doing off-roading have most of this, and if you don't off-road and expect that your climate/terrain/circumstances can put you out of touch with the rest of humanity for a few days and your vehicle end up a no-go then you need the extended kit. 

That being said if you are waiting FOR rescue and your vehicle CAN be spotted from the air, then stay with the vehicle.  Really, it is larger than you are, has a compartment that can be sealed from the elements and your body is a lovely heat source!  And that heat is FREE for the effort involved of keeping you alive.  Trekking out should be a last resort in an emergency...just keep your ration use low because if your circumstances change and you realize you DO need to hike out, you will need to eat some food and have some water to survive the trek.  The rations are necessary to keep your body interested in surviving, stave off the worst of hunger pangs and allow you to remain calm and parcel out your needs.  Trekking out puts you into Les Stroud/Bear Grylls territory and you can watch their programs to learn the basics of trekking out.  Getting stuck in a ditch off of a main highway is one thing.  Your car swept away by a flash flood another.  Going off-road by accident and your car and you not visible to anyone, a third.  In some place you can go from the first to the second to the third in under five minutes.

Then there is the 'everything has failed and isn't coming back' packing in your car.  What you have packed away in the extended emergency concept is very close to this and your vehicle, properly parked out of sight, serves as your first and primary safety device.  If you can get it and you to a relatively safe place where you can forage and even scout a bit, you then have some time to see how events play out.  There are lots of things you will wish that you had with you that you don't have.  But with what you do have, you have the very basics to wait out a few weeks recognizing that you need to recognize how to catch/dress small game and find edible plants/nuts/roots in your area.  That requires you to prepare if you are serious about that endeavor, and there is a whole section of books that have been written about this, including Les Stroud's one on living off the grid.  Notice that the 'grid' is civilization in the way of electricity, potable water, sewage and trade areas for manufactured goods.  If you are that serious then your home is probably off grid already.

Mind you if you are expecting an EMP attack, then your vehicle (unless it was made without ANY computerized components) will be a lovely hunk of metal, rubber, and volatile fluids.  If you took the enhanced emergency concept, then you are now in the 'trek out' option by default.  And you are 'living off the grid' with no preparation for it, which could be an urban area in the middle of the day.  If you are serious (dead serious) about this 'survival after EMP attack' thing, then a nice pre-computerized, pre-mid-1970's vehicle is for you.  In Buffalo those used to be known as 'rust buckets' and not expected to do much save be drivable during the winter.  Your want or ability to keep one up is up to you.  If your legs can last hiking from urban to suburban to rural to wilderness then you only need your stamina and calories to feed it.

For most everyday people this living in non-contact with the grid of technic civilization is a hard one, yet it is but one EMP burst away.  Or one very, very nasty solar storm aimed at Rock 3.  In the former the Nation has been attacked and been brought low and we might have an ally or two willing to help us.  If we don't screw that up, that is.  In the latter there is no 'outside rescue' anyone will ever see and the planet is on DIY principles and rebuilding from the ground up as we no longer have the tools to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools to make modern equipment: we have stepped back into the 1950's as the best, most useful, 'high tech' outside hardened electronics in the armed forces. 

If you can't Do It Yourself or prove an asset to those who CAN during those times, then you have a survival problem.  Getting the skills to be an asset to yourself then makes you an asset to others and is the basis for all civilization.  Being civilized is up to you.  And, no, the skills for the 'hood in the way of gangsta-anything are NOT survival skills.  They are suited to a degraded society that remains technic, by and large, and when the power goes off the drugs dry up, the electricity doesn't make anything work, the music stops, the clean water stops, the sewage stops, and without the necessary skills you will soon be stopped, too.  Being a barbarian only goes so far, and with the knowledge and resources held by those who do not place great faith in the nature of man to survive such events, they are prepared to use their Liberty and natural right of self-defense to recreate civilization.

Knowing how to make a spreadsheet is nice, but not a handy survival skill.  Flint knapping is a handy survival skill.

Knowing how to operate an MP3 player is nice, but not a handy survival skill.  Fishing is a handy survival skill.

The use of indirect tools that have multiple layers of technology between you and the tool usually means the skills to use those things is of relatively little use in a survival situation where there is no 'grid' to attach to.

Thus the things you pack for an emergency will have to stand you in good stead until you get those necessary skills and can find time to hone them while keeping alive.

Would most of our technology succumb to an EMP burst or long solar storm directed at the planet?

A lot would be fried, yes.  Even the bursts of nuclear devices in the '40s and '50s saw some equipment problems with lovely vacuum tube technology that is pre-hardened by being vacuum tube technology.  The major joke of the 1960's and 1970's was that the USSR, by being backwards on technology, actually had a more survivable infrastructure than the high-tech US for EMP attack.  Outside of the early tests and induced ground current events from solar flares, no one really knows what would happen with a properly devised and situated attack or a few days long solar event.  This makes your grandparent's household items from the 1920's to 1950's far more useful than your parent's items from the 1960's onwards.  Simple mechanical tools not depending on high tech will do well, by and large, while electronics is a spotty gamble.  What would the death toll to these sorts of events be?

For the US only a few tens of millions dead for the EMP attack, at worse.

For the rest of the world to have the 'grid' taken off-line on at least a 5 year basis, if not for good?

The planet could sustain 2 billion people quite well before modern high tech, and would continue to do so.  Those in the poorest reaches would both have the highest death toll at start and the fastest recovery rate in the long term.  A more technic area would have problems that would grow worse as learning that what we knew isn't coming back would only sink in once initial supplies ran out.  Then you are in the James Burke area of things.

Mind you, this is not the worst I can think up... this is just the worst survivable event I can see that has a high probability of happening in the extremely short range timeframe.  Neither of these are true extinction events.  Our species can survive one of those massive events, but that depends on getting off of Rock 3 from the star Sol.  There are other things actually as bad or worse than this in store for North America and other parts of the globe.  The sort of preparedness I am outlining will serve you well in some of those, too.

If you take the precaution to prepare ahead of time and don't put off to tomorrow what can be done today.

Your vehicle is but a contrivance to ensure that you have extended mobility.  When it is no longer mobile, you are down to YOU.  Any first object of such mobility should be to get to your next and greatest haven of supplies: your home.  With precautions you can get along for awhile with what you have on you and in your vehicle.  It is unlikely that any medications you need will survive temperatures inside your vehicle, so you will end up doing without until you reach the next place where you KNOW they are secured, and quickly.

No one will do this for you if things go horribly wrong.

Being out of touch with civilization and waiting for rescue is one thing.

Rescuing civilization requires you to be civilized and survive.

And it does mean thinking about the worst so that you don't worry about it.  Some events are out of the hands of any government to protect you from, and are, yet, well known and will happen.  No one is looking out for you when they do happen.  Stranded by bad luck is one thing.  Surviving the forces of nature quite another and skills play a large role in survival.  Those that survived the Katmai and knew NOTHING of survival on the Bering Sea followed experience and lucked out.  For you this means preparing and not fetishizing over such things. 

If they happen you are prepared. 

And if they don't you are prepared for less worse things to happen.

If your family is with you, then you lead by example no matter your age.

Keep calm.

Think of your destination.

Take what you have that will help you survive to it.

No one can do this for you.

Ever.

And you will end your worries about it because you have prepared and are confident in yourself.

Even if thrown to chance, you CAN and SHOULD load the dice in your favor.

Sphere: Related Content

The unimportant Vices

Arthur Sewall

Thomas Edward Watson

Adlai E. Stevenson

Henry G. Davis

John Worth Kern

Hiram Johnson

Nicholas Murray Butler

Charles W. Fairbanks

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Charles W. Bryan

Burton K. Wheeler

Joseph Taylor Robinson

Charles Curtis

Frank Knox

Charles L. McNary

John W. Bricker

Earl Warren

Fielding L. Wright

John Sparkman

Estes Kefauver

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

William E. Miller

Edmund Muskie

Curtis LeMay

Sargent Shriver

Bob Dole

Walter Mondale

Geraldine Ferraro

Lloyd Bentsen

Dan Quayle

James Stockdale

Jack Kemp

Joe Lieberman

John Edwards

Sarah Palin

 

That is the list of 20th to 21st century losing Vice Presidential candidates.

Of those only FDR went on to become President on his own.

One would go on to the Supreme Court, that being Earl Warren.

Which one of these had their family attacked in the media on a constant basis after LOSING their bid for office?

Outside of the two mentioned as attaining President or a position on the Supreme Court would go on to change the course of the Nation via good legislation?  None of them, actually.  And you can even include the two exceptions in that.

For anyone who says that Sarah Palin deserves extra and especial notice because she was a VP candidate: you actually need to look at the history of the LOSING VP candidates and ask yourself which one in that list received such attention as a LOSING candidate?

None of them.  Not a single one.

Losing the Presidential spare tire position is not a disgrace, not an indictment of character, not of any real note save for the rare times that someone actually achieves high office on their OWN merits or via connections, in the case of Earl Warren.

Going back to the Founding you will have a hard time finding a VP candidate who LOST in the party-based system who has gotten anything like the microscope of Sarah Palin.  Yes some do receive LATER review when they try for high office again on their OWN MERITS.  Between their loss and that time they generally drop out of the National spotlight.  Some disappear from general public view completely while still serving time as Governor or Senator or Representative.

Given that history and that it goes far back in US political history, just why is it that Sarah Palin deserves or merits any additional attention by ANYONE in the media, be it news or comedy venue, when she received the failing mark in the lower half of a ticket that is almost always a judgment on the TOP of the ticket?  Where is the scrutiny on John McCain?  Or Al Gore?  Richard Nixon gave his 'Checkers Speech' to get the media to drop the spotlight on him, but it never, ever went to his wife and daughters.

The history of US politics demonstrates that we, as a people, really don't give much of a damn about VP candidates on the losing ticket... and not much more than that to the ones on the winning ticket, come to that.

That no one in politics will come to the defense of her FAMILY shows extreme and absolute cowardice by the politicians of Incumbistan.  THEY are uncomfortable that Sarah Palin got ANY notice on a ticket that was moribund before she got to it.  What these politicians forget is that by not speaking up for simple, basic civil decency, they then allow that to erode in the public sphere and the next targets will be THEM.  Because this 'barrier was broken' in a negative sense, because no one stands to shame the media in ANY venue in the public attention, we are losing the last few shreds of civil discourse in our Republic.

And do note most of the heads of the ticket that lost also had similar disappearing from the spotlight acts... like John McCain who vows for so much decency and civility, and then does not stand up for those attacking the woman HE CHOSE to be on his ticket.  That is the act of a politician, not a Gentleman.  Apparently we have no Gentlemen or Gentlewomen in politics who can stand up for common, basic civil decency in political campaigns.  That means we are becoming a base culture in the public venue and that must translate to the private venue as the public is but a reflection of our own character as a People.  Getting elected to high office in the public venue makes YOU the reflective surface of our society, and when those surfaces go dark then it is our society and culture that is going dark to cause that.

Will no one in the public venue stand up for civility and for letting a woman who LOST her bid in the Presidential spare-tire position go about her life without continued attacks?  Going to speak at a CHARITY event her teenage daughter who was NOT the one who had a child out of wedlock is the one who has rape jokes made about her.   Rape is a crime.  Statutory rape a heinous crime.  That should not be a fit subject for ANY joke about ANY one.  And yet which politicians stood up to denounce this?  These the great reflection of our society by being our representatives, who had the moral courage and ethical will to stand up and say: 'Enough is enough, let this woman and her family BE'?

That crosses political lines as raising and protecting a family goes across our culture.  Gays and Lesbians who lobby for marriage rights should be as appalled... no MORE appalled when the very product of the institution they desire is now being ripped to shreds in the public spotlight.  If you want the decency of respect for an institution and get into the public spotlight, then you had better damned well stand UP for that institution when it is attacked by anyone.  Cherishing our children is not a matter of 'gender politics' but a duty to ALL OF US.  Anyone who sponsored any legislation 'for the children' has to stand up against this because they made it a source of their guiding light for making legislation they had better damned well stand UP when children are basely attacked in the public venue.  That no one would stand up for that IN the public spotlight is horrific.  That is not a matter of 'Left' or 'Right' but of simple decency.

Take a look at that list.

One became President on his own rights.

One was placed in the Supreme Court.

And only one had their family attacked as 'legitimate targets' in public discourse.

That is why I do support Gov. Palin.

Someone has to stand up for civil discourse in the public venue and I will if no one else DARES to.  We will not have a society, a country, a Nation if that line is not held by someone.  And all such fights starts with YOU being civil.  I can do that.  Each of us can do that.  It is barbaric not to do that: I am a civilized barbarian and know true barbarism when I see it.  I see it and call it for what it is.

Gov. Palin and her family can now do as they like.  If they don't ever want to show up on the political venue again, that is fine by me.  If they want to run hunting and fishing lodges or join in with the Bering Sea fishing fleets, that is also fine by me... and the latter would be going a bit back on their careers, which makes you think a bit when you see what the Bering Sea can do to men and ships.

They have my support in that, as paltry as one man's support can be when fallen on hard times.  I make no especial plea for myself and I am glad to see she does not do that for herself.

I do, indeed, like her as a woman.  I like her as a politician which, given my relatively low rate of agreement on topics, demonstrates just how little I like politicians.  And I especially like her because she does, indeed, 'walk the walk' and when she says her family is important to HER she ACTS on that.

Damn I wish we had more politicians who would do that for civil society.

One will do, however.

One woman, with courage, makes a majority.

Sphere: Related Content

Survival - Phase 1 - You

I am not a professional survivalist.

Nor have I been through any military training for same.

I have previously been a research scientist for DoD, with training in geology.  Thus I have been through a pretty long and hard field camp of 6 weeks in desert terrain in the summer.  I have also been out in forested area camps where they were staffed for semi-wilderness survival in areas that had been logged 50 years previously and other unlogged areas of virgin hemlock woods which are true wilderness areas in north central Ontario, Canada.  I have also been with my cousin who lived just south of Hudson's Bay out in areas where logging roads were the major roads and electricity was either a 'bring it yourself' or 'the ten families who live here pitched in for a central generator' sort of deal. Or you did without.  I've had various excursions into the wild with family members and as part of my geology training.  Also I worked a winter at Yellowstone, NP in Wyoming to Montana.

Other than that I grew up in Buffalo, NY.  I got through winter storms that left my family without electricity or heat for weeks on end in the middle of some of the worst storms that area ever sees.  I got through '77 and multiple ice storms in the years following.

Thus I can't give you ins and outs that you can see on Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls.

Or on Survivorman with Les Stroud.

Or Deadliest Catch, although they probably all do get along with Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs.

Photography by: Justin Stephens

Nor is this likely to be the vehicle you own:

It isn't mine, thats for damned sure.

You want to do better than me, then that is why we invented Google.  You get what you pay for.

For you to survive you must be prepared to survive.  If you really ARE a vegetarian, then you know exactly what is edible in the region you are in, what their starch and vitamin contents are and how to get a complete protein out of that.

Right?

If not, a field manual on wild plants for your area is a good idea as that will be how you survive.  A lot less stuff to carry around at start, more to worry about depending on the season so you have a different set of costs and benefits to the omnivores around you.  Unless you don't consider bugs to be part of the protected scheme of things, in which case you have one of the best protein sources on the planet.  In season, that is.  That's life.  Pine trees are your friend: rip them off for all they are worth.

For the rest of us there is a bit of jackleg knowledge on just what is and isn't edible, what to stay away from and why.  You can, indeed, take a picture of plant on your cell phone and do a look up on it... if you are in cell phone range.  If you are thinking that you will need to survive after something happens to your car or civilization, and don't expect anyone to come and rescue you, then the idea is that you need to survive with less than you have, in many ways, and more than you have in ways you don't know.

What have I gotten by on in this realm?  Well growing up in Buffalo, NY, with the winds howling at 50 mph, the snow driving down in wet, fluffy flakes and piling up waist deep to me, I could either sit at school and wait for a school bus to come (far, far later that day, I knew what the schedules were like) OR put on what I had and trek home the mile and half through absolutely frozen suburbia.  I already had on a double layer of clothing (available in my locker), my parka, gloves, boots (nice, thick hiking boots), triple layer of socks, about 20 lbs of books in a backpack... yes, indeed, I lived in the suburbs of Buffalo, that was my NORMAL wear during winter weather or the threat of real winter storms.  I hiked home in about an hour, just a bit slower than I normally did.  The ploughs had not been through, there were no cars moving until I got to a main thoroughfare, and I could only pick out some automatic lights being on in a parking lot at 1pm.  Lights on in the afternoon, barely visible.  That was 1977.

Later years with a car would see some worse storms, white outs, and the wonders of driving by looking out your passenger side window to see if there was still a curb there... someplace.  Getting stuck in Buffalo, in the winter, is not a question of 'if' but of 'when'.  My car stuff consisted of a tarp, sleeping bag, a few packages of nuts and M&Ms (or whatever was available), bottle of some liquid (water, iced tea, or whatever was available), tool kit, pocket knife.  I did not take the advice of keeping a case of beer in the car, but then I don't like stale beer.  As I was diagnosed as a diabetic I kept my supplies on ME so I could go anywhere I needed to and not worry.

The #1 thing I learned while hiking, camping, driving and so on is that you keep necessities with you so you don't waste time and energy on worrying.  The moment you sit to worry, or sit to think, or sit to do anything but rest for a few minutes, then you are no longer thinking about surviving what life is handing you.  The act of worrying when you need to be surviving is to not be surviving and that ends up in a very bad place for you... and whoever has to come and get your carcass out from where you worried yourself to death.

Nor can you think your way to surviving.  You can only DO your way to surviving and when you do something wrong you admit it and then change what you are doing to account for it.  If you aren't doing, you aren't actually thinking about what you need to do to survive.  Plenty of time for self-recrimination when you get back out of your situation to whatever passes for civilization.

What is your normal, daily, walk out of the house survival load?

Cell phone? (it is charged, right?)

Laptop computer? (it had better have a charged battery!)

Pens? (do you use those?  do they still write?)

Note pad? (say, that's where your critical items shopping list got to last year...)

A purse is actually a very handy thing to have for small items that are lightweight, can slip into compartments to be kept safe and are at hand... if you can find them.  Really nail files, clippers, mirror, chap stick, handkerchiefs, lighter or matches, all of these are positive survival elements.  The purse is the modern over-the-shoulder, venerable carrying pouch that women have been most wise not to divest themselves of.  Using it as a survival system... that is another matter, entirely.

The reason men build things like small knives into money  clips, belt buckles and such is that we want to take a load out of our pockets.  Men carry flat objects that slip into a wallet: a fresnel lens, a credit card sized multi-tool, a credit card sized flashlight, watch fob devices, key ring devices.  Thus men go for smaller and multi-purpose devices while women go for small but full sized devices (which isn't to say you can't do a lot with a large belt buckle).  What is very nice is that all the essentials can be hidden away or given a nice chrome or alloy plating and look high-class while being functional.

You don't have to be Bruce Wayne to look good, nor carry an equipment belt to be Batman.

To know where to start with this, the beginnings was given by James Burke in the first episode of his Connections series.  It starts off very simply with you riding in an elevator and the power goes off.  So does the phone on board.  The elevator, an ever so handy device to move you from floor to floor in a building is, when the power goes off, a metal box with buttons on the inside.  Do you stay and hope for rescue?  How long?  When you decide not to, can you locate the door to get out?  Can you climb to an accessway and get out of the elevator shaft and then the building?  Do you go to your car or walk out when you find that the power isn't coming back on any time soon?  If by car, what is your destination?  How many millions of others have that same idea?  Does your car even work?  If, by some miracle, you can get ahead of everyone else what is it you are looking for as a destination?  If the power isn't coming back on (say due to an EMP attack) what is the best place for you to go?  Is your family with you?  If you decide on a farm, is it occupied?  If you find an unoccupied one and can somehow find a way to keep animals alive there, you are now stuck growing food for yourself and your family.  And without power you are now 4,000 years in the past trying to figure out how to use an animal drawn plough.  Or make one.

Your survival, when the power goes out for good, rests in your hands.  A modern government is no better, and actually much worse at this than you are.  The ability of society to remain civil is in your hands, also, and expect that the 'government will provide' concept engendered in so much of society will make people who aren't used to fending for themselves seek to TAKE for themselves.  Self-reliance is the backbone of a republic or any civilized state as it creates civil society with those willing to take on the honest hard work of surviving and keeping a family together and feeding them as its backbone.

That is at its worse.

Spinning off a road onto a frozen lake, going through the ice... that is actually better as you can plan for it, keep your cool, and survive.  That is what Les Stroud and Bear Grylls are about.  Doing something fun and having it go horribly wrong and stranding you where no one can find you, that is what they are about: you need to get back TO civilization.

When civilization recedes it is up to YOU to KEEP civilization going.

Thus it starts with what is in your pockets and your vehicle.

For you to survive you need minimal tools and your medications to keep you going until you can get to your next survival point.  That is normally your car and then your home.

The basics are simple.

Comfortable clothing.

Good footwear that will allow you to walk all day and all night in them, in the worst weather for your season.

Comfortable socks.

Outer wear that is season appropriate.

Your medicines, enough to get you through the rest of the day.

A snack, of small size, portable, not so tasty that you will want to eat it being bored during normal times.

A source of hydration, even if it is just a bottle of water or that portable coffee mug.

Any of the small tools that you are comfortable with and know how to use, or can fashion something else into something useful quickly.

A signaling device that isn't your cell phone, although that is handy, too.

Be prepared to walk 6 to 10 hours to get to your vehicle or home or wherever your next cache of stuff is.

I am pretty sure that in the secret life of super-heroes, that is what they do: store spare equipment in odd places where they can get to it.  Just like the man who found a Thompson SMG in between the walls of his barn, probably put there by a criminal back in the 1920's.  You don't need to be fancy: your desk or locker, a few things with a friend, or the willingness to slog to your next further place to get more to survive.

Your ability to survive depends on you, no matter what the situation is.

You can be pro-active in preparing and reactive to the happening having already prepared for the worse.

Then you will stop worrying.

Everyone who didn't do this will be worrying and not surviving.

You will be surviving, not worrying.

That doesn't mean you will survive, but your odds just got much better because you stopped worrying.

No one can do this for you.

Mother Nature is only your friend when she isn't looking at you hard.

Survive and limit what Mother Nature can do to you, use your tools that you have with you and get a destination and head for it.

Simple.  Basic. Easy to prepare for.

You don't have to be in the Marine Corps to always be prepared.

This isn't about fanaticism, but prudence.  If you are evangelizing, you aren't leading by demonstrating, thus not leading at all but being a fanatic.  Eschew fanaticism as all such are tough and stringy and have no life giving substance to them.  Prudence will guide you through the worst of things and ever be your helpmate to fend for yourself and those you love.  Those that survive walk with prudence.

Sphere: Related Content

Some time to ponder

I do, of course, support Gov. Palin.

I make no bones about it: I voted for her in the last Presidential election, not her running mate.

Her political skill to actually carry out what she promised to do in the way of reform against her own party and to ensure that the people of Alaska are not over-run with well meaning, wrong headed bureaucrats and mandates so they can survive the harsh climate and region are things the MSM and her attackers have not bothered to look at.  If she had done this on the Left she would be applauded for weeding out bad apples and making sure government does things 'smart' and 'right', and they would approve the gusto of a woman to attack corruption in her own party so that her State may get better politics in the future.  Needless to say the Left and some sclerotic parts of the Right don't hold up standards like that any more.

Those standards are now on the ground, trampled with mud by those who clamor for ever more government, ever more shackles from it, ever more taxation... and ever less liberty for the common man.

There are many such standards now on the ground, their defenders shot out from under them because winning has truly become 'the only thing' to the point where America can experience 'one man, one vote, once'.

Gov. Palin walks off with those standards to herself and if she wants to hang them on a wall to show that they are remembered while she takes leave of politics, then that is fine with me.  Other standards just like those ones sit on the field to be picked up by others.  And others are seeing that they can be picked up.

 

With that said I have said that there are two States necessary for the United States to come through to the end of hard times and win out to a better future: Texas and Alaska.

Why are these vital?

Energy concerns top the list, and both of these States have resources, skill and knowledge on how to find and get to necessary and vital resources so that our economy can thrive while we seek different ways forward on energy.  That cannot be done with a sagging economy.  What is the reward for inventiveness in a sagging economy when the current 'alternative' energy sources are not efficient enough nor economically made in such quantities so as to support the growth of an economy.  The best of the best is roll-to-roll printing of solar cells, yet people will not buy those if they are out of work.  Nor will they buy them if we get hyper-inflation.  Even worse is that they are derived from printing technology, and need very few people to manufacture them, thus giving the economy of scale necessary for mass production.  In the last major downturn in the Great Depression, people could not afford much in the way of printed materials then for the good reason of it taking food off their tables.

Nor can we roll out a huge infrastructure upgrade without first figuring out where the energy will come from to distribute it in the first place.  You can't run office buildings, homes, schools, etc. on even the cheapest solar collection platforms.  The problem is the amount of energy coming into an area means that any loss due to physics of absorption, reflection, and simple dust on the collectors reduces just how much energy you can get... before seeing how much you lose in creating useful energy at the end of it.  Biomass systems are notorious for not converting energy well, reducing viability of soil for future crops without intense agriculture, and, generally, serving as a better source of human and animal food than human energy to run our technology.

Algal biomass is very effective, cheap and requires a commitment from heavy industry to retrofit on a mass scale.  Even getting high production units in place and pumping up the number of facilities making them by a factor of 20 still leaves you with decades to begin to erode oil and natural gas in our economy.  The scale of the US economy dwarfs what seems to be the scale of the output of such systems... plus they still need to get energy from someplace and can only be considered a partial capture of existing waste energy for such production facilities that utilize them.  They may bump up the efficiency of overall use of energy by as much as 10%, but for much of the industry utilizing carbon based fuels to make such algal systems work, that is only moving from 35% to 45% efficiency.  These systems do not produce without source energy and raw materials and thus are not 'creators' of energy but 're-capture' systems that only boost energy use efficiency by a fraction of original energy input.

Luckily algal biomass can create light crude to feed into the existing system.

Too bad we aren't building refineries to meet the energy needs of the Nation, which means that captured crude may just have to be shipped overseas to get refined... so we will pay shipping costs going and coming, along with middle-man refinery costs, with all the overhead instead of just doing it at home cheaply and efficiently and removing the transfer time and additional costs.  I kid you not  on this.  Direct production to refined fuels still needs to meet all quality standards and just which grade of fuel you want must be decided up-front, otherwise you need to replace the biomass... thus light crude, an admixture of many long chain hydrocarbons easily broken down into many fuel types is preferable to single fuel output.

Any other fuel, ethanol, methanol, hydrogen, etc. requires a major change in the distribution system of energy as they cannot use the current systems due to the chemical nature of them.  Making cheap hydrogen requires cheap energy or a very cheap system to get, capture and store hydrogen either locally or via central production.  And vehicles to run on it, which also need storage systems for same.  If you invest in 'flex fuel' vehicles now, and the next fuel isn't on the flex list, then you have put a gambling chip down on the economy that then does not help it.  No matter what you want to adapt to, if something different and better is found that is more economical, then you have a sunk cost with zero returns.  Mandating that is like any other mandate: you expect others to pay for your 'good idea'.  If it truly is a good idea, then you don't need to mandate it as people will demand it and get it in the marketplace.  To date the people of the United States have made better decisions than their government has in this arena.

The best of the terrestrial alternatives is the interesting work done on the Bussard fusion system (the electrostatic containment, not electromagnetic ones we spent decades trying to make efficient).  As a device that can yield energy at the atomic scale and get a lot more from that than from chemical energy sources, or that is used in diffracting hydrogen from water, it has the great promise of fusion: cheap, reliable, plentiful, safe nuclear energy.  The first test system is being stood up and tested on a public/private basis as no one wants to take a jump into this on their own.  Neither the government nor private sector wants to put the modest cost in, about what it would take to make a 'flex fuel' add-on for vehicles in plant space and cost, not materials just the plant itself without equipment.  The equations that Mr. Bussard worked on in the early 1960's were re-worked by him in the years before his death and demonstration, table-top systems can be made in high school science classes, so this has the promise of good demonstration at the small scale and efficiencies at the large scale.  Because our hydrogen needs are small when using fusion, we won't lose much water, we will gain some oxygen and have zero 'carbon footprint' while slowly shifting out older coal and natural gas plants for electrical production, if this works.  Thus the upgrade cycle for older fossil fuel plants now would be a gutting of the plant, itself, and replacement with fusion systems... at probably a lot less space.  Conversion of plants is a cyclical outlay to be budgeted and the energy produced is constant, so by the time you get to the main power plants you can have converted the emergency ones to have already taken the load.  Net result is more energy in less space with less cost. You want clean electricity?  Nuclear via fusion or 3rd or 4th generation fission systems is the way to go.  Time to do it?  About 20 years for a thorough conversion if low cost, and 30 years+ with higher cost (modern fission systems).

Why are Texas and Alaska important?  Any conversion to any new source of energy is a multi-decade project that needs to be spread out over time so as not to cripple the economy.  When the economy is already flagging, adding costs to it so as to convert to a new energy system in a short period of time will just gut the economy as this cannot be done on a private basis without a thriving economy.  Government trying to do it will ensure cost over-runs, abuse, higher taxes, lower efficiencies and leave you at the mercy of government for the energy to run your life and livelihood.  The moment government wants to do something 'good' that only 'discomforts a few', and that 'few' is in the tens of millions of individuals, then you don't have any 'good' able to justify that save war.  And the next war is a 'come as you are' sort of affair, so buy your stuff up front, which we are no longer doing.

To get to the other end of the fiscal insanity in DC the US needs to rely on a few, key States to show us the way OUT of this mess.  Texas is primary as it has not just the energy wherewithal, but also has the 'defend yourself at the border' problem  The Nation isn't doing that, either, and so Texas may be one of the first to call up the Citizen Militia... not the National Guard but the unregulated militia (from the federal side, not the State side).  Texas looks to be key in the 'put up or shut up' deal of the Nation having borders, and if the federal government can't or won't defend them, then the States can and must do so for their own safety.  That is Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution.  All border States should seriously consider this issue as the greatest power in the Nation is not its companies, not its government, not its retail goods outlets, but the source that makes all that possible: the American people.

Alaska is next not only as a resource center, but with critical skills for a new frontier:  common sense.

You don't go to hug trees in Alaska unless you need kindling for the fire you have to start because your car went off the road into a ravine during a snow storm and no one has missed you yet.  Or can get to you.  But the cold and wolves can.  You stop worrying about your 'carbon footprint' so that you can still remain a functioning carbon based life form.  The reason that Alaska (plus Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Maine... to name a few) are critical is that they hold some of the last Do-It-Yourself spirit of frontiersmanship in the US.  Alaska is paramount as the citizens there are coming to understand energy concerns and apply frontier principles to it.  Those frontiersman States hold a vital key to the last energy resource of America and we will not get it without that frontier opening.

If all our climate, indeed most everything on the surface of the planet, has a motive factor it comes from one source of energy.  That source cheaply, cleanly, efficiently shifts tons of matter into energy every second of every day.  We get a tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction diffuse percent of it.  The sunk cost to put up new production facilities to capture that energy at low cost is an investment to all our future energy needs and to change the economics of energy entirely.  Terrestrial solar energy has the problem of getting only a fraction of that tiny fraction that gets to our space in orbit.  Just a few hundred miles above your head, the source energy doesn't get degraded by our atmosphere.  The systems to capture such energy, even very inefficiently, is low if you make the capture devices from our greatest resource we shall ever have within easy reach: the Moon.  For the cost of the Apollo mission this could be done.  For the cost of incentives over two decades to encourage businesses to produce the means to get to these areas and start building the essentials we will gain the benefit of slowly shifting carbon producing and other pollutant producing industry off of the planet.

You don't get to there with bureaucrats, governments, regulations, and all the lovely things we create protected by an atmosphere, living in a biosphere, and thinking we know enough to say we are altering it.  No, to get to it requires energy knowledge, wherewithal and frontiersmanship for a place where there is no climate, no air, no water, no life... save that which you bring to it and make yourself. 

America is stuck on planet Earth, navel gazing.

We now pick at lint in the navel and think ourselves ever so grand.

As a people and a Nation to survive with liberty, we cannot do so for much longer as our ever loving protector, the one with the goad, the jail, the lash... this thing we invest our negative liberties to so as to protect us... now it seeks to strap us down and call that 'good'.  Feed us pap until we shrivel from lack of nutrients.  Then fit us with chains of benign softness and ask us to beg for its lash and tell government that it feels ever so good to work for it... as a slave.

Some welcome those fur-laced straps, and the goad of the baton to us, as a people.  They think they will guide this necessary evil once they make it into a pure evil.  Yet they, too, are being fitted for those things they beg to have done to others and debase themselves ever faster to reach such moral decrepitude as to depend upon the punisher for sweet cakes... and the lash... so that they can do as they are told.

I do, indeed, support Gov. Palin no matter where she goes, and if it is away from the spotlight, then none can say that she did not do good in her time in office as Governor.

America, however, needs to stand up and look away from its navel and pull the choke chain leash on this beast we call government and remind it that it serves to protect.  It needs some meals taken from it so that it can drop weight and get about its job as it is now too fat to actually protect anything... and far too hungry to be safe to us.

Otherwise we will have to fight it in the streets, and that will not be good, at all.

We do need a few States to show good economic sense, frontier spirit and the ability to demonstrate that liberty, given its head, is a great boon to us all.

That goes far beyond one State.  But it is a necessary State.

May the good people of Alaska choose a worthy representative as Governor.

They will need it.

And so will we.

Sphere: Related Content