Administrivia

Sometime last month, the hit-meter rolled past 7,000,000.

We are frankly astonished each time it rolls over another million views, and more so at the increasing frequency each time that happens. And somewhat humbled.

We thank ALL of our readers, every one of our fellow bloggers who link us, and the 99.8% of our commentariat who bring something useful to the table.

You folks are the main reason we do this, since this blog brings us a steady $0/yr since ever, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Sincere thanks, and best wishes to you all.

Your Hopeium Broker Called: Sell Short

Read my last comments to the previous post.
There ain't nothin' to be cheerful about, unless you' re where the Kung Flu isn't.
And even if a merciful Deity or blind chance in a random universe hasn't got COVID kicking your @$$ personally, the fact that it's beating the big cities like a rented mule is going to have consequences for you too, unless you're totally self-sufficient, grow everything you eat, and wipe your bottom with tree bark.

The other 99.9% of you should fasten your seatbelts tighter: it's going to be a bumpy rest of the YEAR. Perhaps longer.

Just Wondering...

So, you let your Gilligans drive the bus on dealing with Kung Flu.
How's that working out for ya?

FL ICUs are at 98% capacity statewide.
TX has exploded. So has AZ, and 17 other states.
CA gov. Gabbin' Nuisance re-closed 30+ counties yesterday, all because of the morons that think wearing a mask is the Mark Of The Beast, and washing your hands is communism.

So, just wondering, how is everyone enjoying that footlong $#!^ sandwich all y'all are eating, just like we dun tole ya would happen?

We're now going to be dealing with this until New Years' at minimum, and probably more like next Easter.
Or, you could try wearing a mask, and washing your hands.
Dealer's choice.

Suture selves.

Fixin' To Hope To Start To Commence...

One more day chained to my oar, after which I should be able to begin blasting and shoveling the debris, in order to get down to installing the NIB Whizbang Blogmaster 2020 v3.0, accompanied by the obligatory large blue cloud of £@#$×÷+₩£!?×& symbology floating out to sea somewhere between Pt. Concepcion and the Channel Islands.*

If Bill Gates et al wanted to make an even bigger pile of money, they'd invent a desktop computer which worked better whenever the owner cracked it sharply with a stout Louisville Slugger right on top of the tower, and provide suitable sound effects and blinking lights for the effort.

Just saying.




*(My father, like Jean Shepherd's, worked in profanity the way some artists work in oils or watercolors. I have surpassed the old SOB, given proper motivation. Dealing with a new computer system is motivation above and beyond that bar.)

Ol' Remus

We note via comments here that Ol' Remus, of The Woodpile Report, may have passed away from a recently diagnosed cancer.

We have no way to confirm this news, hope it isn't so, and if that be the case, regret the error.
Whether it be true or no, we remain saddened at the ongoing silence of his blog.

He seemed to us - and, we suspect, to many others - a delightful and well-informed gentleman, sophisticated yet down-home sensible, who kindly took notice of this blog in its relative infancy, and found our offerings notable enough to link to and/or feature there, on many occasions.

Words cannot express our thanks for his attentions, but we hold back nothing in stating that anytime our own brain droppings online merited inclusion on his weekly page, we felt like a kid who had hit a home run or brought home a report card of As.

Whatever the cause of his absence online, we feel ourselves, and the rest of the world, to be much the poorer for the silence left in its stead, and are second to none in our regard for the wisdom formerly free by the week at his site.

And our only solace, if he has indeed left this earth, is the hope of an afterlife, where an online acquaintance might be continued someday, face to face, and where he and his recently departed wife are even now reunited.

Working On It...Sorta

Read my comment at the end of the previous post. I'd have cut and pasted it, but the pride of 2013 technology that is this back-from-the-grave zombie tablet doesn't do that.

I've got the week off, so among the eleventy things I have to do this week, getting this pig back up on skates is rising to the middle of my list.

Take care of yourselves, and be well.

Technical Difficulties

Ye Olde Hard Drive has chosen today to commit irretrievably seppuku. Expect light posting while we catch up on our reading, shop for a replacement, and learn (at gunpoint ) a new gorram operating system and browser. Like we needed this nonsense in our life (or bank account) just now. We apologize for the lack of free ice cream.

Oh, and lest we forget: $#!^!!

RIP Carl Reiner

Gone: Carl Reiner, aged 98, of natural causes. Comedy genius, and comedy legend, terms strewn around anything but lightly where he is concerned. From before most of you were born, right up until the end. Besides spawning his son, the Meathead, he was not only Mel Brooks' long-time partner, but a comedy pioneer in his own right, and as funny at slapstick or deadpan as any vaudevillian or silent movie comic you could think of.

Most people now will know him from his part in the Ocean's ensembles, but he was also the brains behind the Dick Van Dyke Show, and as his friend Mel Brooks' straight man and co-creator for multiple versions of The 2000 Year Old Man, which started out as a bit he and Brooks started doing at local parties, and turned into a full-blown series of comedy masterpieces.

The world is far less funny at his passing, after a long and full life, and having done nothing substantial other than enriching the human experience. Which isn't a bad gig to have, nor too shabby a legacy to leave behind.

Sunday Music: Mr. Bojangles

Sammy Davis Jr. closed his act with this number. Having premiered at age 3, wandering onstage where his parents were performing, and delivering the immortal debut line, "Momma, I've gotta make a wee-wee!", he said he did the number because he feared becoming the washed up hoofer in the song. As if, with his monumental talent, that was even possible. If this one isn't enough for you, check him out taking the stage for his 60th anniversary, and performing with dancing legend Gregory Hines, the last man who ever got Mr. Bojangles to dance for us one last time, just days before he died of cancer. And showing up Hines, even at the end of his life. You'll never see the like of that amount of talent in one person again for a long, long time.

Yeah, About That "Hoax" Pandemic...

Apparently some people are still trying to sell the line that COVID isn't real.
Probably with a barn shovel, but still...

It's not like it would be hard to, y'know, call around to boards of health, or hospitals, and ask them how it's going, but apparently it's too hard for The People That Know Everything Without Checking Sources.

Drop by the shop, and I’ll be happy to show you the bodies.

Our SoCal hospital has been full all week for two weeks running.

Main hospital: full.
COVID cohort isolation beds: full.
ICU: full.
100% occupancy, all week-plus, and running.

We only get beds when someone gets better, or dies.
See if you can guess how that impacts treating regular emergencies, heart attacks, strokes, traumas when there’s no place to go, and the ER is full too.
Or how morale goes when every shift you’re just taking a beating.

Just like we told you would happen, back when this was just a storm front on the distant horizon.

Anybody thought you were out of this, or that it was over, or that it never was…?
Good luck with that mythos.

I’ve got a bridge to sell you too, cheap.

And in L.A. County just north of here, it’s twice as bad: all COVID, all the time.
Houston is at 100% ICU-full now.
Texas-wide, they’re running 97% occupancy.
So much for that “this only happens in blue states” crapola.

The same story in 10-15 other states. Few if any run by Democommunists.

So once again, hopeium futures are taking a beating in the market of Actual Reality.

“You can ignore Reality. But you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring Reality.”

I figure when we’re stacking bodies in freezer vans in 10 states just like they did in NYFC, maybe it’ll start to dawn on the brighter retards that maybe throwing the baby out with the bathwater was a bit premature, and that masks, hand-washing, and keeping your distance aren’t such a bad idea.
Depends on how much Gilligan DNA they have mixed in with Neanderthal.

And that’s with the caveat that deaths from this rather minor disease are still about #99 on the list of Top 100 Things To Worry About in this pandemic.

You’ve all still got your food and cash preps ready though, right?
Right…?
I hate being the I Told You So guy.
But most of society, and the beefiest part of the bell curve, is filled with slow learners.
The No Learners over on the left little end will take care of themselves; Darwin will always have his due.

This Is Your Urban Defense Briefing

For those enough salty enough to remember the '60s live, it goes by the period reference:

Do unto others. 

Then split.

Hanging around to answer stupid questions is a sucker move, and only liable to fill the D.A.'s dance card - with your name.

Don't be That Guy.

You should have a brass catcher mounted already.
Eff Off. At a slow but determined walking pace.

Everyone remembers the guy running.
No one looks twice at the Grey Man walking away.

Word to Claire Wolfe*:

It's getting pretty damned close to that "Time to shoot the bastards".

 

Just saying.








*(Misremembered. Fixed. Mea culpa.)

The Days Are Just Packed

They really are.
BTW, If you never saw this strip firsthand, catch up on it. Totally worth it.

When my knees hurt like this, it's because I've been running around too much.

Spring cleaning, just in time for summer, but COVID-delayed, and long overdue.
But opening boxes and bags that have sat unattended is like Christmas everyday.

For the "Just The Flu, Bro" lunatards, COVID is exploding again, both where I am, and in any 10-15 states where up to 1/3rd of all y'all are. Not everywhere, thank a merciful deity, but it didn't go anywhere while you were sheltering at home, because the Gilligan Effect.

Firsthand anecdotal reports have it rampant in L.A., and they're looking good for being the next NYFC by end of next month. It's up 300% in SoCal in general, and I spent the weekend in a hospital that was closed to all ambulances, and full to the gills, with both COVID problems, and non-COVID problems. And burnout is becoming a thing too.
Exactly like we warned you would happen if this thing started to spread, waaaaay back in February.

"You can ignore Reality; but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring Reality."

That stinging sensation for some folks just now is the bear trap jaws of Reality closing on their tender bits.

Multiple projects in various stages of completion. Sleep is good, but more of it would be better.

You're watching the Cold Civil War heat up, as intended.

As the election approaches, it'll get worse.
If OrangeMan wins, it'll get worse.
If OrangeMan loses, it'll get worse.

Nota bene the lack of other options there, according to our Magic Eight Ball.
Plan and prepare accordingly, and hope for better times eventually, but for some reason, the phrase which keeps coming up in most contexts is "Rivers Of Blood". The open question is whether we're talking on a timeline of fruit flies, or geologic strata formation.

But that which cannot continue, economically, politically, socially, or any other which way, won't.

"How did you go broke?
Gradually. And then all at once."

If you would not be a puff of smoke at the bottom of a canyon in the Painted Desert, do your best not to follow Wile E. off the cliff to the point that gravity is about to kick in wickedly.

Safety. Shelter. Water. Food. Medical. Energy. Allies.
This is the Do Re Mi of those who intend to see the other side of where things are headed.

Like my recent transportation purchase, for those of appropriate disposable means, there are and will continue to be deals to be struck, and bargains to be hoovered up in the current crisis. E.g., both car dealers, and car renters have a burgeoning glut of vehicles.
Some people already have, are, or will soon be, sold or selling all sorts of interesting things.
Some run on gas. Some on gunpowder. And so on.
If you can, help friends, allies, and potential ones.
But don't hesitate to take advantage of strangers' misfortune. People selling things below market, at a loss, are nature's way of telling you what your own cash reserves can be used for.

OTOH, the skills to keep old, tired things working are going to be in higher demand.
Anyone who can help folks "Use it up; wear it out. Make it do, or do without." are going to be both in demand, and in a great position to barter and horse-trade for things they lack, which, if done right, also doesn't generate additional tax liability, nor in many cases, paperwork reviewed by BATFE or any other of TPTB. If someone wants to trade plumbing work or a fixed transmission for half a hog or their 4th G17, that would seem to me to be between you and them, when all is said and done. Just don't  swap for their sawed off shotgun, and find yourself in Ruby Ridge II. Remember, times are tough for federal stool-pigeons too, just now. Don't be That Guy. But if you can do something that gets you a full freezer, woodbox, or ammo crate, and leaves your fellow man better off as well, while starving Leviathan a little more, ROWYBS. Let Nancy Alzheimer's buy her own damned ice cream.

For those pathetic Never Trumpers salivating at the prospect of his most recent rally flopping in attendance, they jumped too soon. The overnight Nielsens put the television audience, who opted to watch from their Barca-loungers, and miss the COVID and the BLM/Antifatard riot potentials, while hanging on every word at the rally mere steps from their own bathrooms, literally buried every other TV event for the week, at last report. Remember, the list of people who've run aground on the rocks of "This will finally be the End of Trump" looks like the Manhattan phone book. Literally. People working or hoping for his departure or demise this side of January 2025 are apt to be sorely disappointed.

Beyond that notation, politics neither feeds me, nor fills my wallet, nor likely you either, so while Situational Awareness is always a thing, focus on the things that do and will feed you, pay you, or break your leg and pick your pocket.

You'll be better prepared in general, and loads happier. Both of which pisses off the commie hordes mightily. There will always be butthurt in the world. Resolve to be an asymptomatic carrier who gives it to deserving others, rather than a victim, or volunteer, of such result.

Pardon me now, for I have a date with some ibuprofen, and tub of hot water.

Sunday Music: Wildfire

Michael Martin Murphey's one-hit wonder signature opus from 1975. He had plenty of albums, but nothing charted for him like this song. But lest you think this was a fluke, or it had no legs, check out him performing it 32 years later on Letterman as well as he ever did in the '70s; or belting it out in a duet with Amy Grant over 40 years later. And at the end, he almost tiptoes offstage, with just a shy wave of the hat. That horse has given him one heck of a ride.

The Revolution May Be Interested In Me, But...

Frankly, I couldn't give a wet fart about it.

1) What I care about or not won't change it.
2) It's good to keep tabs on the enemies of civilization. It is not good to become obsessed with them.
3) I have better ways to spend my time.

I spent the last couple of days tying up some loose ends on various projects.

The survival water supply hereabouts is now good for more than a full year.

The social distancing and neighborhood block party shotgun now sports a proper set of QD swivels and a padded sling, which I've been meaning to do for quite some time, but to which I never quite got around.

The back-up Death-Dealing Sniper Rifle (because two is one, and one is none) now has a nice Picatinny rail mounted. And an identical lot of Federal Gold Medal Match to feed it. I would have added the rings too, but I haven't decided on the scope...yet. Next payday, most likely.

Another bunch of Gamma Seals and buckets are in the process of being filled and sealed, extending even farther the number of days the larder (which was never touched during the COVID Games) will suffice.

Contacted the local LDS warehouse. I'm not LDS, but they're generally fine folks in many ways, particularly with regard to making provision (literally) for harsh times. Zero's info about their canning facilities nationwide was a good start, and finding out their local warehouse is conveniently nearby made it an easy way to augment what I've got stored.

A small-scale (mini-fridge, microwave, a couple of lights, PACE comms, and a laptop) solar back-up system is in the planning stages, and should be installed and functional before summer is out.

The former daily driver is now free to be converted into the Urban Assault Vehicle, i.e. an RV that doesn't look like one from the outside, such that I can travel and camp in it, or bug out with it, at my discretion.

A visit to the fine folks at Dillon Precision means that shortly, I will no longer be dealing with the onerous ammunition nonsense hereabouts, and nonetheless will be laying in some canned goods - the olive drab type - week by week, as my newest hobby.

So the local communists can do whateverinhell they've a mind to do, and it won't make no nevermind to me.

But after DDSR II is up and sighted in just like DDSR I is, they'd better do it at least 1000M away from me, or their spaz-fest will have a very short run, off-Broadway, and will close out of town.

Alternatively, if black lives really matter to black people (a few thousand dead in Chicongo - let alone District of Criminals, Detroitistan, NYFC, etc. - argue for the fact that the very idea is nonsensical and ludicrous, if not risible) they could heed some wise words of advice, if they want to cut police shootings among millions of contacts with the police from the current annual number of 9, down to an even 0:

Out And About II

Last road trip I prudently rented a spiffy little car. What I saved on gas paid for the entire rental. Liked the car a lot. Turned out the agency sell-a-car division had one of the same make and model, with literally just a couple thousand miles on it, for sale at $7K under the sticker for the same car, new. Loaded, standard. Being as the agency was nice enough to eat high four figures of the depreciation and sell me a virtually new car, I couldn't pass it up. I'm cheap, but not stupid cheap.

What I save on gas the next few years is going to about half-pay the entire note on the car too. Given that it gets about 4X the MPG of the daily driver pickup I've been in since 2008, and commensurately, has a range about 200 miles greater on a tank of gas, with a gas tank 1/3rd the size, I've got some logistics to take care of from much farther afield.

Long-term logistics. (Not property; that's planned, and just wants the necessary cash to seal the deal.) And some new scenery after the first part of the year won't go amiss for a mental health break either.

The fact that I'll be spending less on gas for long trips than I was spending driving around town for a few days off is just icing on the cake.

And whether you like it or not, Kung Flu isn't a myth, and it's spreading just fine after Lockdown, as expected. About 3% of you are going to find that out firsthand in the worst way if you choose to ignore reality, but it's nominally a free country, so you got what you wanted, (and will continue to do so) like it or not. Or you can wear a mask out in the hoi polloi and wash your hands religiously, and never even notice the whole thing. Dealer's choice. It's still knocking off about 1K/day. Don't find out personally, hear? I can assure you it's not a pretty infection to fight. But given the other mega-whacktardery going on just north of Sanity hereabouts, time out in the world, and some prudent shopping trips, are a wee bit more necessary than continuing to blog the Retard Riots of 2020.

In fact, things are so weird overall I may have to plan a future trip to the periphery of Area 51, just to verify in person whether or not we're all living in a real-life episode of The Twilight Zone, being choreographed by our future alien overlords.

It couldn't possibly be much goofier than the spectacle being provided by the Leftist moron minions (but I repeat myself) currently driving the news cycle.

But at least you finally know what happened to all the kids who ate the paste, ran with scissors, and ended up in continuation school trying to get that GED, because public school was too hard.

A third of them are bong-toting radical Antifa morons, another third are media reporters and journalists, and the dumbest third are in politics, running the blue hives. You could look it up.

Just about like your mom and dad suspected when they told you couldn't hang around those idiot Doofus Family kids back in the day.

Blogging will therefore be light for the next several days, and return to normal towards the end of the week.

Stay safe, stock your larder deep and wide, and stay frosty. Entertain yourselves with those over in the right column, and always remember this important safety tip if the Summer Injustice Games of 2020 get a bit closer than you'd like: you can't get ballistics off of buck shot, and if they never find a body, it's really tough to prove a crime. And if you're not handily provided with multiple acres of contiguous desert like we are hereabouts, there isn't much that feral pigs and swamp gators in most of the rest of the country won't eat, given half a chance.

Be sure and drink your Ovaltine.
The chair is against the wall.

Sunday Music: At Seventeen

Grammy-winning Number 3 hit for Janis Ian, and her signature song. Musical proof in a wise-beyond-her-years way from Ian, for everyone that needed it, that Life Isn't Fair.

Charitable Giving Update

Boxed and shipped all my bags (plural) of yard clippings and raked leaves to C.H.A.Z. as an Emergency Vegan Food Shipment. Labeled "Salad greens".

The neighbor's pooch contributed some crunchy croutons to that mix.

What can I say? I'm a giver.

Bonus: I'll be legally deducting the price of 100 salads from my income tax this year as a Charitable Donation.

No, really.

Win-win.

And the city saves green waste landfill space, plus the USPS gets more parcel revenue, which they've been whiniging about of late.

Grand slam, baby.

I'm so green right now that Vulcans call me Homie.
Nerdgasm Achievement: Unlocked.

Keep Honking, I'm Reloading

Context

The Left uses talk to fight.
The Right does neither, as a rule.

We generally aren't going to talk.
We aren't going to fight.
We're going to do nothing.

But if push comes to shove, we'll annihilate.
Talking and fighting aren't steps on the continuum, they're sideshows.

Predators eat prey, certainly, but Nature documents no intramural wars to the death for existential survival within any species, AFAIK.
Except amongst humans.

The Left keeps fiddling with the safety cover over that switch, and seems bent on getting the other half of society to go ahead and flip it.

Then it looks like Dresden and Hiroshima, and puts even diseases to shame for sheer slaughter, until the point is taken to heart.
The human race's population is careening towards a precipitous dip in absolute numbers, with a complimentary spike in the group average IQ.

It's never good to be at the literal cutting edge of that phenomenon, because the phrase itself is rather more descriptive than metaphorical at that point.

That yakking going on now?
That's the Left, contributing the "O"s in OODA, and helpfully self-identifying.

Black and white stripes are helpful to make all zebras look alike, but it's even more helpful to identify them for the menu construction of the local lion pride.

Tick Tock

Just wondering what the over/under is on some good old boy outside the city limits of New Wakanda deciding to build himself a new Killdozer, and single-handedly re-opening the streets of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, and if so how many days until it happens?

Bonus: What happens if he has a few buddies who get their hands on an old Brinks truck or two, and they decide to ride shotgun on the escapade?

Go long on popcorn futures; this is going to get funnier before it gets absolutely hilarious.

Arts and Crafts

h/t SiG

Seems that, exactly like every other communist state in history, the latest one spontaneously aborted onto the receiving blanket already can't feed itself.

When the morons who took over Malheur asked for something to eat, someone sent them a bag of  dicks to eat.

Which was genius, and also generated a viral video of the rantations in response from one of the involved f**kwits.

Of course, I'd never suggest sending the starving Antifatards in the People's Democratic Republic of CHAZ packages of dried bleached manure, and labeling it as instant oatmeal, or making up a batch of chicken dropping mush and sending it in a commercially-labelled "Hummus" tub.

Because that would be baaaaaaaaaad.
Or something.

Especially if you shrink-wrapped it afterwards to look totally legit.

Don't do it!