Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Recipes for the Collapse – part 3: Food Supply

By freeacre

Just in the news this evening: 410,000 people are out of power in the mid-west due to ice storms. I wonder how many of them are going hungry tonight. Short term power outages due to unforeseen circumstances such as storms or floods, fires, and accidents can jam you up real quickly if you don’t have backups for cooking and some food on hand. At the very least you should be able to haul out a camp stove or a BBQ grill to cook on. That means you need to have charcoal or propane ready to fuel the stoves as well. Even simpler would be a cast iron pot with a wood stove or camp fire. However, cooking over a camp fire during an ice storm sounds pretty miserable to me. You may have to forego cooking and just break out the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and share a bag of M&M’s or something for dessert. Just about everybody has enough in the cupboard to tide them over for a couple of days. Heck, when I was working in a newspaper office, we probably could have fed us all for about three days just with the snacks stashed in the drawers of our desks.

Short-term emergencies require quick alternatives for food, heat, and water. Keep peanut butter, trail mix, jerky, tuna, crackers, nuts, cereal, dried fruits, etc. on hand that are easy to prepare with little or no cooking. Save your energy for keeping warm, a roof over your head and your water pipes from freezing. Highways may be washed away, and trucks may not be running for awhile. The average town has about 3 days worth of food on hand in the stores. But you might not even be able to get to a store. So, have lamps, batteries, candles, flashlights, a battery or crank powered radio, and an emergency first aid kit handy. This is just what everyone should do from the minute they first live on their own. If you don’t have most of this stuff already collected for a 3 day emergency, you better reduce your medication and start dealing with reality.

Forgive me, that wasn’t very charitable. I am just being churlish for no good reason. Probably every person looking in on this site is exceptionally well prepared and not only thinking about providing for themselves, but their neighbors as well. I just get cranky contemplating those who are completely clueless.

The longer emergency is the one that I mostly worry about. The one that could happen as a result of the investment class panicking when they snap out of their coma and notice that the stock market is a big fat ponzi scheme. Or, the one that could happen if the value of the dollar drops by forty (or ninety) percent all of a sudden. Or, maybe a virus disrupts whole regional areas for months at a time. Or, a war breaks out and there is devastation and death on our own soil like the kind we have been exporting for so long to other countries. Those situations would be known collectively as the Hard Crash. For that type of scenario, it would probably be a good idea to have some hard-core survivalist supplies. LATOC has good links, as does Survival Acres, SurvivalBlog, After Armageddon, and other survivalist, military surplus, and camping sites for supplies that are light, portable, and durable for the long term. These are bomb shelter type of supplies. You might not need them for years. But, when you do need them, they will be there. And, if you have to run, you can take them with you. They are light, dehydrated, or nitrogen-packed. Pricey, though.

The Soft Crash would be the foreseeable future increasingly squeezed by inflation and scarcity: higher and higher gasoline, food and utility prices, more and more people losing their homes and jobs, crumbling infra-structure. Resources like crude oil, top-soil, fresh water, fish and meat become acutely scarce or prohibitively expensive. Climate change leads to famine, natural disasters, and cookbooks with ingredients like rabbit and squirrel. Governments become unable to keep up with services, more wars break out over natural resources, and things just continue to get more and more grim…

But, wait a minute! “This might all be good,” the New Age part of my brain informs me. Let’s look on the bright side! When the policies of the global corporate death culture prove themselves to be the most hideous invention that our flawed species has yet come up with, we may just invent a new way to live that will be reasonable and harmonious with the planet. There might be a substantial number of other species that will thrive after the human die-off culls the majority of us from the planet. Creative minds might come up with excellent inventions that will enable us to live comfortably without ruining what is left. Warehouses full of reversed engineered alien technology might be waiting to be deployed. We might be on the cusp of a great transformation that will have us evolving into something better than we have ever imagined. Butterflies might start blooming in our footsteps…

… Or not. The bad guys might win. Our children and most of the rest of the living beings on this planet might suffer under a one world totalitarian state that leaves most of us dead or starving and the rest serving the overlords and speaking Chinese. Who the hell knows? Not me, for sure.

Whatever. So, we’ve just been stocking up on food and supplies with the rationale that inflation is happening now and doesn’t look as if it’s going to get better anytime soon. In our experience, things never have gotten either as good or as bad as we have imagined they would. So how much do we need? Well, ideally, it would be good to have enough to get you through until you could cultivate or produce food to either eat, sell, or barter for more. Bread flour, corn meal, rice, dried beans, flax seeds, wheat germ, oat bran, sugar, oil, yeast, baking soda, baking powder, and salt are all staples that can be combined to make meals that are diverse, filling, and nutritious. Figure out how many loaves of bread you need per week. Two pounds of flour per loaf, say, two loaves per week. That’s four pounds per week. Add another pound for making pasta, pizza, or whatever. So, say five pounds of flour per week. Fifty-two weeks times five pounds is 260 pounds of flour to feed two people for a year. Probably at least a hundred pounds of sugar. Figure generously, because you know that you are going to have friends or relatives at your table as well.

Of course, you can’t live on bread, but it’s a start. You are going to want to round things out with canned vegetables (until you can grow and put up your own), mushrooms, canned tomatoes and soups for sauces, spices, maybe cake mixes, pasta, soup bases, evaporated milk for cooking, and protein such as tuna, canned beef, chicken, salmon or sardines. Legumes and grains provide protein as well. So do nuts. Dried or canned fruits are important too, and lend themselves to making comfort foods, like pie. Who wants a transformation without pie? Gotta have pie.

Keep in mind that scarcity and lack are normal for many of the beings on this planet right now and for most of our collective history. So what’s been keeping them coming home all this time?

Peasant food is comfort food – always has been. Warm bread right out of the oven. Corn bread, spaghetti, tortillas and beans, chicken soup, pancakes, chicken and dumplings, stir-fried noodles, BBQ ribs and sweet potato pie. Good old homemade food made from scratch from every conceivable country and ethnic group or tribe there is. Stock up for now, but begin to learn to grow vegetables in gardens, maybe raise chickens, rabbits, goats, or sheep. Learn permaculture so that the land will provide edible fruits, nuts, grasses, roots, etc. that will thrive with little human intervention for you and for your animals to feed on.

It’s going to take teamwork and time to learn how to cook and bake and preserve the old fashioned way. Our kids will need to put down the soccer ball and the iPod for awhile and learn how to make jam or plant peas. It’s going to require a sense of purpose. It is a challenge. As you get it done, you will begin to feel more secure and confident. Now that Murph and I are in the stage of having a pretty productive greenhouse and garden, we found we had to purchase a freezer for storing veggies. The chickens provide a steady supply of eggs that we gift to people and they gift back when they have extra wild game or rhubarb, or whatever. We dug a hole and mostly buried a garbage can to store squash and garlic and onions in a make shift root cellar. Little by little it builds to a comforting level of cushion against the tide of lack and fear. Now we get to learn what real abundance is about. One thing that is clear to me: abundance should be centered in the home, not in the mall.

55 comments:

Anonymous said...

Butterflies might start blooming in our footsteps…

what a GREAT line!!

Anonymous said...

Talk about survival skills. I watched a red squirrel in Missoula climb effortlessly up the side of a brick building, turn, come back down a ways and chatter excitedly at me and Colleen, the cute, little red-headed Border Collie. They move so fast, it almost seems that they release their grips on all four paws simultaneously.
He looked fat and healthy, and I can only assume he's probably got plenty of food cached for the upcoming winter.

Three fairly good shakes in Chile this a.m.

Anonymous said...

Did anybody else catch George Ure's comment on Urban Survival that due to some mixup in figuring, December 2007 may actually be the famous end to the Mayan long count calendar rather than 2012? Stay tuned, I guess.

Not a lot of comments so far. I'm wondering if there just isn't much interest in this preparedness topic, people are busy with the holidays, or I've annoyed some folks or what? What do you think?

Lots of controversy on the political fronts: Ron Paul, Huckabee, Clinton, Edwards and Obama all jockeying for position. The banks are locked in a death spiral move to keep from tanking, at least until after Christmas. Lots going on. I got a feeling this will be an especially intense solstice and New Year.
What's going on with the Trout Clan?

Anonymous said...

What do you think?

i think your words are just so damn good you leave us speachless!

i'm deep into house project so not much time beyond time to read lately... p

Anonymous said...

Freeacre,

Yes, I read that comment about the Mayan calendar also. There was no attribution as to where he pulled that report.
I first heard about the Mayan calendar from videos on the internet posted by Ian Lungold. He was explaining the research done by Johann Calleman. Calleman's timeline differs from the majority timeline you most often hear quoted. Calleman, and subsequently, Lungold, claimed that October of 2011 would see the end of the calendar, not, as claimed by most, late Dec. 2012. This new date is a recent development, as far as I know.
Can anybody corroborate this?

I feel your post is important and I'm glad you're willing to think and read and concentrate your literary skills so cogently on our behalf. BTW, congrats on getting published on Carolyn Baker's site.

We noticed last night how many onions we've gone through just since harvest, and it's not even official winter yet. Must grow more of those next year.

Anonymous said...

Fa, your post gets right to the heart of the matter in this little corner of paradise,.... i believe that folks that are hep to this council are of a like mind and if that is so they are becoming more and more aware of just how serious preparation for the oncoming onslaught is.
personally it occupies pretty much most of this ones time and hence my own communicant.
we have received all that needs to be said about the fact that more then likely the ones that heed the information displayed here will more then likely be the ones that survive if the information is put to practice.
there is much to be done and its high fucking time to get it done, there is way more then meets the eye in the preparation game then just stocking up on a few ne-ccets.
the organizing of the locals around us is paramount as to the dangers that are coming,...
forming a central core of the ones that are aware and formulate and delegate the various activates such as a means to communicate with everyone around you, citizen band radios comes to mind for one , they are cheap and can be enhanced for further distance or at least they use to be, an fm radio station of which are in the plans and being arranged as i speak, plans for the eventual intrusion of military rule, plans for the intrusion of city dwellers in search of substance, arms and ammo for Everyone and how to use them, and if the mind is lodged upon the self without taking into consideration the safety of thoes in the immediate area it will be found lacking,
Now this is something that i don't think has been mentioned and that is this,

in the event that if any member of this council reaches a point where they are unable to to survive where they live they are love welcomed to come to this native american reservation and more then that to this place of residence in hot springs, this will also be part of the message to the village that there will be family and friends that will have no place of safety and will be arriving here and this must be taken into consideration also,this is a total mindset folks and i would seriously suggest that the catch and release idea inherently invoked in The Arc, what to leave in what to throw the fuck out get on with it. we will be swimming for our very lives and many people are going to just not get it and that also must be taken into consideration, and will be dealt with on and individual basis, predators will be shot,simple as that and not everyone will be able to do this at first,maybe never but when your children are threatened it will come and that is also a fact.
this is all out war and there is no other way to think about it that i am aware of and if anyone has another idea other then a giant meteor landing on our birthday cake i for one would love to hear it,

this is for p, a dear friend of mine was just here and is an advocate of the emotional healing and inspection of the denial game and i asked her how that might be intertwined with this note and she replied that if the emotional healing was dealt with there would be no need for this note ... i asked assistance from my spirit guide and got squat. would you care to comment with a little something that might clear up for me what the fuck she is talking about?
it is really important to her and she talks about right use of will and other stuff and at that point my three remaining brain cells ( see dna rebooted lsd ) started getting fuzzy around the edges.
she asked me what i felt and i told her that the feelings i had in my chest were of the nature of the human race diving off the cliffs of insanity and that there must be islands of safety created for the evolution of humanity to take place and a return to the distant past when we lived in harmony with mother earth and all the creatures upon it.
fuck living on the moon its there to balance and nurture not to clutter with all the manmade bullshit that clutters this planet.
langosta at this point waves her antenna in agreement and smiles, (don't think a bug can smile?) thats sad to hear,
so the morning is upon the day and a visit to eagles nest is in order for one of my sons and i of whom is also trying to escape the ravages of alcohol and cigarette addiction and a reconciliation to the fact that he has only come to know fairly recently that he is native american and what that actually might mean,
i learned yesterday and this might be bullshit that after the europeans capture and preforming prefrontal lobotomies as christian schools on a ton of my ancesters that in order (after complete conquest)to salve their conscience they made it a death sentence to kidnap a native child on the reservation.
yeaaaaa!
to late but a nice gesture anyway.
too rather crisp and shiny young soul savers came to my door yesterday and asked me if i knew jusus and i told them to stick jesus up their ass and slammed the door,
probably scarred them for life but what the fuck, its payback time for the primitive in this one, they will never erase the scars that they heaped upon my people .

Stoney my brother thank you so much for your assistance in the pursuit of modifying my old bus to run on alcohol, those kits are damn expensive,($400+ for some) anyone got something cheaper then that?

Murph will you post some info for reloading kits , this is something that needs to go into the Arc for sure, replacement ammo might be hard to come by at some point.

also,anyone got ideas for cottage industries that can be put together as survival orientated, it feels like the basic stuff that sustains body and soul might be needed for the ordeal? itself will fix a lot of interpersonal problems that seem to be great value now will be tossed off the Arc as of no fucking consequence all by itself,right? your lawn looks like shit compared to my lawn type of stuff, it is i think time for at least some of us to grow the fuck up and i just hate that, its so much easier to just lay around in my comfortable hammock of illusion , hah!! i have heard the phrase " why don't you just grow up!" so many times in my life and in the white schools " you have so much potential,whats wrong with you?"
god is it any wander???
don't mean to rag on this,guys, most of you are white and you would not understand the humiliation and dispare probably unless you visited some of the reservations.
look close and you would see seething hatred of your skin color.... fuck yes that really sucks..much healing needed there..
in the evolution of our species i envision clan formations like this one where the importance of life interests starts with first self awareness and then allowing that new found love of self to spread to those around you. i think that those that have somehow managed to fine themselfs led to this sacred council is proof of this.
i know this is rather a shallow bit of words but thats what i got.


this don't have much to do with real food but nevertheless hopefully some of this note will make some sense to someone

again thank you fa, you are hands down my favorite cook.
peace to all of you sisters and brothers
are we not one in spirit?
aho
mf

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

Just at the time that the blog got into gear and became really interesting was the time I gave a deep sigh and decided to take a mental break. I am here to give living testimony that denial can feel really good (for a while). But then reality sets in again, well it never really went away, and the little sojourn has to be paid for with interest.

My, Freeacre, I stand in awe of this literature. When I think back a year, I reckon you must have had a ghost writer who did all that Bush invective stuff. Haven’t we come a long way as a group?

Anyway back to the point, I wanted to tell you that in Belgium this weekend the unions took to the streets to protest the price hikes in central heating oil. Over here there are only three unions, the Socialists and the Christians and a very much smaller Liberal one. The names are a throwback to ancient divisions of Church and State. Usually they get on very well with each other and protest together locally at a plant which has announced layoffs for example. Occasionally they will organise joint rallies in the major cities and this was one such. It is good that they bring problems like this to national attention but IMO they have missed the point on two issues. Firstly they recognise that price rises are an inevitable part of modern life but they want the government to ensure that wages and benefits are such that nobody is deprived of their supply, completely forgetting that in times of dwindling supply (real or manufactured) the purpose of the price increase is to force the least well off elements out of the market. The huge profits made by the oil companies are just a by product of this unfortunately necessary policy. The other thing I am sure they did realise but couldn’t do anything about is that Belgium is now heading up for nearly 250 days without a government. In order to break this deadlock the King had ordained a council of wise men but all of the parties involved are politely not working with them. I have heard of stateless people before but who ever heard of a stateless nation? Well there was the Jews; do you think Belgium could finish up like them?

What I wanted to tell you is that the Newspaper De Morgen, one of the more heavyweights, has produced a table of price rises it expects to hit in the near future.
I do not know the source of this info since I only saw a rehash of the article somewhere else.

FOOD

Vegetables in tins +35%
Canned beer +2.5%
Spaghetti +30%
Eggs +13%
Dairy products +25%
Baby food +10%
Pork (pig meat) +10%
Chicken +5%
Bread +5%
Chocolate +30%
Kookies +15%

NON FOOD

Water
(ready for this one) +20 to 65%
Domestic gas +6 to 20%
Heating oil +22%
Diesel +9%
Gasoline +6%

I guess these figures bring Freeacre’s post into perspective.
I reckon it is time for me to breathe a bit of new life into the abandoned solar oven project again. This is no more than an abandoned pie warming oven laying on its back with an angled three mirror bathroom cabinet mounted above it and a dense brick in the bottom. Such daft things have been known to work. I should have done it in the summer though.

Anonymous said...

she replied that if the emotional healing was dealt with there would be no need for this note.

wise woman! (did you ask her to marry you?)

would you care to comment with a little something that might clear up for me what the fuck she is talking about?


she is saying that with a recovered and healed will, a much more evolved form of communication comes with the program and would be the norm should you choose to communicate that way. how did those elephants know to run to higher ground?

and she's also talking about the same thing you're talking about.... the importance of life interests starts with first self awareness and then allowing that new found love of self to spread to those around you.

she talks about right use of will and other stuff

i know of what she speaks... p

stoney13 said...

p and Montana Freeman,

Emotional healing will never, NEVER be complete! Why? simple! We will ALWAYS be damaged emotionally by our continued existence! Ju8st l8ike we will stub our toes, burn our fingers, and hit them with hammers! To say "I will be emotionally unfazed forever", is to be in complete denial, concerning emotions!

The BEST we can hope for is to build up our immunity to emotional stress. No! I'm not talking about walking unfazed past all the injustice in the world! I'm talking about picking your battles, and not letting what seems to be failure break you.

Build up your emotional anti-bodies, by saying to yourself "Damn it I'm doing all I can do! GET OFF ME!! Then smoke yourself a nice joint, and go be somewhere quiet. Turn your mind in on itself, and get in touch with YOU!!!

Go right down to the center of your own being, and look in ALL the dusty corners! Drag all the refuse and bad vibes out, and mentally delete them!

Those that won't delete? Some of those are part of who and what you are. You will always be there, and so will they! Learn to use what is there. It's like any other tool, it can serve you, or it can hurt you. The difference is in how you use it!

Some of them (like phobias, and such things that keep you from growing as a person), are just hard to delete! It takes a couple more keys to get them off the hard drive once and for all!

Now comes the tough part! Bring all your phobias up! First! Find out what scares you, then find ALL the information on the subject that you can find! This a BIG test and you've got to bone up for it!

A strange thing happens when you study something that scares you! The more you learn about it, the less it scares you!

This even works for criminal acts and germs! When you find out how many germs our bodies need just to survive, you won't be quite as afraid of them!

When you find out the anatomy of the crime you fear to be a victim of, then you can take steps to secure yourself against them! FACE YOUR FEAR! Keep what will serve you, and delete the rest!

After you get done with that, go do what relaxes, and refreshes you.

Take some time for yourself for a change! Stress is mostly physical, and when you're stressed phisically, you're stressed emotionally!

Take a little "Me Time" when problems start getting insurmountable. Usually the answer will pop right into your mind if you just give it the chance!

Last but not least: QUIT FUCKING WORRYING!!!!!!!!! It's the wost useless thing that the human body is capable of! It swerves NO purpose under heavan, but to aflict the sensative!

If you have a problem that you can solve, THEN SOLVE IT!!!! DON"T WORRY ABOUT IT!! SOLVE IT!!!!

If you have a problem that you can't solve THEN FIND SOMEONE TO HELP YOU SOLVE IT!!! DON"T WORRY ABOUT IT!!! FIND SOMEONE THAT CAN HELP!!!

This isn't a sure way to mental stability, and emotional peace, but it works well enough for me.

Every thing will work out if you only give it the chance! It might not work out the way you expect, but it will work out!



Freeacre,

Great post!

I just found a 150-year-old hand-lain cistern on our property!

I think it will make a GREAT root cellar after I get it cleaned out! It looks like its about fifteen feet deep, and right now it's full of trash and junk!*sigh*!

Anonymous said...

I just ran into this in an AlterNet comment and had to share it.

Fight Back

1. Don't have children yourself.
They're serious resource burdens on anyone trying to do anything besides childrearing. They effectively neutralize you.

2. Become a godfather or godmother to a left-wing family.
Yes, that's right. Put someone else's kids through college. You may be best off doing this as a bequest. Maybe be the "gay uncle" to some relative's children without necessarily being gay or male. You don't actually need to even talk to the people apart from maybe verifying that the next generation you're bankrolling is actually left-wing. Maybe in some cases the generation of interest won't even be born yet. Just make sure money is flowing from right to left.

3. Slow work
Old-school labor tactic #1. Be less productive at work.

4. Work-to-rule
Old school labor tactic #2. Don't do anything for work you're not specifically required to. No freebie extra hours, walk off the instant the clock says your time is up, etc., tailored specifically to your job.

5. Conserve
Don't make a fuss. Don't start a campaign. Just do it. If you make noise about it something will be done to stop it. Don't buy frills or nonessential services. Even go so far as to eat less.

6. Boycott
You can't entirely avoid spending money and you can't entirely avoid right-wing businesses. In a number of instances it's difficult to even find out the political orientation of where you're buying from in terms of campaign donations. But when you do find that you're accidentally sending money the right wing's way, stop and send it elsewhere.

7. Spend!
Savings in the bank get loaned back out at 10% margins to fund the war machine, and it gets worse if you try to play with stocks. Keep your balance near zero.

8. Buycott
Anything big enough to show up on NASDAQ or the NYSE is right-wing. Find some local left-wing businesses to spend all of your money at. If truly pressed give away stuff bought from hippie granola organic farms to homeless bums or something on that order. I found cosmetic procedures are good here because they don't require very many right wing -controlled resources and the people involved are very socially left.

9. Move
Invade red states in order to turn them blue. Quietly propagate your ideas, don't flaunt them. Probably not a popular recommendation; however, formally, one's electoral votes count for more in population-sparse states like Wyoming. Granted, you need enough compatriots to actually win an intra-state electoral contest.

10. Keep your head down
You won't do anyone any good dead or imprisoned. Avoid ostensible activism; the FBI will carbomb you or blow your head off or put you away on false charges or similar if you get tagged as such. You are being watched, and in particular, your purchases monitored. Don't hang onto books by noted left-wing authors. If you buy such, buy in cash or otherwise avoid the data mining dissident dragnet. Don't buy "politically charged" things at all if you can't do it with anonymity. Which websites you read and post to is also an issue there.

11. Cohabitate
True to form, there's an eleventh commandment, and it might even involve sex. Pooling resources is very helpful to conserve them. It also creates a sort of miniature social support network. It might help if whoever's involved agrees to go along with this sort of program.

Anonymous said...

Wow! Good inputs. I think this is the sites real strength. You can get sophisticated and informed information in a lot of places, but not so many actually making changes and sharing experiences and giving each other support. Maybe that's why we get picked up sometimes on Carolyn's site or Matt's. I hope so. Montana's gracious extension of hospitality is a great example of how we can help each other in times of extreme need. Naturally, the Murphinator and I feel the same way about our place. We don't know which areas will be affected the worst, or what areas may be better. But, it's nice to have some options if or when the shits the fan.
It is nice to have you back, Spirit Across the Sea. I can hardly imagine a country going so long without a government. Maybe it demonstrates how little they really are in charge. Don't know whether that makes you guys anarchists, corporatists or just extremely civilized. At least they are attempting to cushion the blow of much higher prices so that the poorer people don't just get written off. I wonder why prices in Belgium are expected to rise so dramatically. I can understand the US dollar tanking and inflation bringing up prices dramatically, but in Europe? Is it due to the increase in oil affecting everything else? If so, then it will probably be even worse here.
OK, Stoney, I'm not worrying about it. I'm just making plans to deal with it. That helps a lot for me. That cistern sounds way cool. What if it fills up with water and drowns all your food?
Rockpicker, it is surprising that a pretty radical piece like that got published on Alternet. I almost said the same thing to my son and his girlfriend about not having kids of their own. I think I am already up for the Bad Grandmother of the Year Award, and that would have cinched the deal. Boy, that's a tough one. I think at the most, couples should have only one and then be open to taking on those children who are going to need looking after.'Cuz if only the clueless reproduce, we're gonna end up with something like "Idiocracy."
All this "left" and "right" divisions, though, are not going to hold up. Children growing up post collapse will probably despise both sides as being hopeless dumbasses. The Right for being stupid corporate war-mongers and the left for being ineffectual jerk-offs. Both sides corrupted by money and corporatism.
I think the ideals that the new ones are looking for is freedom and honoring the planet, localization, and peace. Both the Left and the Right have failed miserably to further those ends.
And, Montana, you know I am not a Christian, either, and I understand your anger when those missionary types invade your space and attempt to perpetuate the crimes already committed. But, especially at Christmas, I like to imagine that I am lying in the manger surrounded by the animals...and I look around through eyes that see with the consciousness of Christ. I know that you and Langosta do it a lot anyway.
TPTB seem to be trying hard to hold things together until after Christmas to get the last dollars put on the credit cards, and the x-mas bonuses paid to the financial fatasserie. But, after that, hold onto your hats. A lot of us might be trying warm up ovens with mirrors if the grid goes down. Maybe some winter solstice bon fires are in order...

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

Hey Freeacre, don’t be so quick to mock the mirrors. Check out the Solar Death Ray at this site:
http://www.solardeathray.com/index.html

and for an explanation, look up ‘How Does It Work’ on the FAQ page.
I have been aware of this site for some time now but just not got around to doing anything about it. Rather than calculating the angles to set hundreds of mirrors, my idea was much simpler. It was simply to set 9 or 16 shaving mirrors on a board (we have an outside door on the balcony which would be ideal that can be opened as the sun moves around) set to focus on a single point. Either a black pot hanging cauldron style or one of those mesh gripper thingies that hold steak or fish on a barby could be sat at the focus.
The guy with the SDR site claims that it can achieve temperatures of 900 to 1100°F and that he can regularly set fire to paper which ignites at about 450 °F. What is not clear is if there is enough heat transference associated with this temperature to boil water and do cooking. On an earlier version of this site he claimed that he used to cart his SDR off as a novelty when he was invited to barbies and it worked very well.

Happy moddeling.

Anonymous said...

Belgium;
Thanks for that link. Just spent an hour on a linked site, detailing the transformation of a discarded satellite dish into a solar furnace. Pretty cool results.

Here's a follow-up on my comment last night. Below are two more comments posted on an Alternet article that is still up if you want to read it. The discussion revolves around refusing to pay taxes to support immoral wars.

(I wondered how long it would take before serious resistors began discussing this issue.)

"
Withholding taxes
[Report this comment]
Posted by: smadaj on Dec 15, 2007 8:29 AM
Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
While I do not want my tax dollars used to fund illegal and immoral military actions, I believe that the incredibly destructive laws that have been passed over the last seven years - in the name of national security - would make this form of rebellion a higher risk action than in previous years. The administration can now declare that anyone is an "enemy combatant" without having to show any evidence whatsoever to anyone. Any citizen of this country can now legally be removed from their home without a warrant or any explanation, can be stripped of the their citizenship, can be taken to any location on the planet (including NSA-run secret prisons within the U.S.), can be tortured and then killed. They can be denied a lawyer, a trial, and any information about why they are being held. All of the laws to allow the government to take these actions are in place now. Friends of the Administration in the House and Senate are continually working toward taking away our right to free speech and the right to organize and demonstrate. I think the safest way to protest is by being visible, but the risks are going to become greater. Possibly quite suddenly. I hope I'm wrong but things look awfully grim to me...

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]
» You have identified a very real risk that requires a change in tactics--that can be very effective. Posted by: Rune
Income tax!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Frenchie! on Dec 15, 2007 9:40 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Regarding the income tax I suggest viewing the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Of8M1MZJQ
"

I recommend this link also.

Anonymous said...

Seen this one?

http://www.popularmechanics.com
/technology/industry/4224763.html

I want to build this!

Anonymous said...

Some new stuff to check out on Project Camelot. Henry Deacon's resurfaced. Says we should prepare for a big solar-initiated EM event.
More updates promised soon.

http://www.projectcamelot.org/

Anonymous said...

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
by Randall Jarrell

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Anonymous said...

Gotta be one of the greatest opening lines ever written in English verse.

Anonymous said...

Seen this one?

impressive! let us know how it turns out. inquiring minds want to know... p

Anonymous said...

Public Health officials in Australia are advising Australians to have 10 weeks supply of food and water on hand in anticipation of a pandemic. They are saying it's not a case of "if," just "when."
Man, if we had an electromagnet pulse event or some other thing that knocked out our internet, TV's, and electronics - wow! No news, no bank accounts, no credit cards, phones,no anything. Even newspapers rely on getting information on line. With most people unprepared with hardly anything stockpiled, it would take about a day or two before there would be total pandemonium. Yikes!
Rockpicker, for those of us who are somewhat challenged (like me) what does
"from my mother's sleep, I fell into the State" mean to you? It is a heavy poem,and I'd like to "get it" better.

Anonymous said...

Freeacre,

In my mother's sleep I rolled,
I kicked and stretched and lolled
about on elbows in what might pass
for soft grass, (another time
and venue,) and was I free! Despite
that nourishing tether didn't
I sail a special sea?

Cruel awakening! Pushed out
into air and cast, tenuous,
on this wobbling orb, I found
my self cobwebbed in debt
to all who came before, all present
(yet not accounted for,)
and those to come, ignoring admonitions. How dumb!

Anonymous said...

Freeacre;

Good point. A big EM event will shut down the banks, meaning cash will soon be in short supply. Not the same as "cash being worthless."

Maybe look into taking your money out of the bank and stashing what you've got so that , in the event some electrocatastrophe happens, at least you can buy eggs while the banks reboot.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, RP. Randell Jarrell's got nothing on you!

Anonymous said...

...buying stuff will be problematic. Cash registers are all digital, as are the machines you slide the credit card thru. Inventories and prices are set by computer. Hospital electronics kaput, gas pumps to fill the delivery trucks and cars won't run, printing presses won't print the paper, no ATM machines, no accounts available to check status of business accounts, most offices won't be able to function, even water, sewerage, subways, trains, airlines, buses, traffic signals - the whole shitterie goes down. It would be worse than "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Will have to function on money and food already at home with no advance warning. Gulp.

Anonymous said...

fa:

my best teachers
were wise
tiny creatures...

Anonymous said...

I love this. You're absolutely right! I never thought of any of that stuff! You're correct! None of that shit will work , since it's ALL electronic!

DUH!

No Fucking Shit!

Immediately, and for some time after, none of the normal functions are going to function normally. Be advised.

Have candles, lamp oil, lamps, batteries, flashlights, extra toilet paper, etc. It could happen before X-mas, but definitely after the Big Card Snatch look for your world, as you knew it, to implode.
Big time!

I just got off the phone with a lovely black woman from Tulsa trying to sell me Delta Miles or some shit and I had to interrupt her, finally, and say, baby, save your breath. I haven't flown on an aeroplane since before the towers came down, an' I sure don't have any intention of flying anytime soon.
I asked what she thought things would be like a year from now.
Suddenly, the schpiel was gone. I heard her voice relax. She told me how Tulsa has just lived through a week and a day of no electricity.
I asked her if it was like going back to the middle ages, and she concurred.
The dollar is tanking. The banks are being cajoled into lending each other money by the central banks dumping huge amounts of cash onto markets, which will ultimately devalue our currency further by prompting price inflation.
Remember that loaf of bread you thought was outrageously expensive at $3.56? Well, that was a bargain. A bushel of wheat is now selling for $9.35. And it only will get worse.
If you do not have friends, or a community, get in touch with someone you can talk about this stuff with. Lots of people are seeing the light. Don't waste your consciousness. Teach as many as you can.
And stay in touch. We need each other. Our words are strength. They are the vitamins our resolute selves will crave in the coming darkness.
'Til this site goes down shall we each approach this sacred circle with sage in one hand and a spear in the other.

aho

Anonymous said...

it is growing so fast that one gets caught in the wind of change and gripped smartly,the amazing thing though is that the faster it goes the easier it is to deal with the things that need to be dealt with it seems.
loading the arc
catch and release
and love every thing in sight as if this was your last hour

langosta taught me about interruption and how to avoid it,she said it is the evil ones playground and to never go there,stay with the flow she said,it is a river of life she said,and the bank holds no mercy for you,the attachments blind you and your addictions will kill you and your children too she said,make this day the breath of your very life she said, and let the remembered things fall away in this sacred minute, see the snow flakes as presents under your childhood christmas dream and know that the universe is our home as it has always been she said,and allow the laughter of small children to fill the lonely spaces of your war torn heart,know also that your companions are going through the agony of birth also and that the ending and the beginning hold each others hands as we prepare to soar in the light, this is ancient and new she said and you would be wise to listen to the words of which you speak.

SATS, its good to see you words at the council fire again old friend,your presence is indeed an honor and adds brightness to this fire.

p and stoney, thank you for your comments about something that has been somewhat of a puzzle to me for a good long while.

fa is murph ostracized to the bunkhouse for snoring or just busy fine tuning the digs?

rockpicker your stuff is just a wellspring of hope and beauty for this one and i am so glad that you are a neighbor within short driving distance,o by the way would you give odensoul a nudge to paste a couple of words for us,?

Til this site goes down shall we each approach this sacred circle with sage in one hand and a spear in the other.

amen my brother
aho
mf

Anonymous said...

Montana and All,

Nope, not relegated to the bunkhouse, just fine tuning and inventing new processes and items that substitute for what is becoming scarce, expensive or gone.

You know, the experience I had in Arkansas is serving a good cause, too bad I'm so much older now, harder to take advantage. Learning to jury rig almost anything to work back then is coming around again and what to substitute for commercially available items.

I suspect that very few people really realize just how hard it is to live without all the civilized stuff we take for granted. It then becomes a full time job 7 days a week to provide, especially in the winter.

I look at my current job as what and how to load the ark.

Got a Sioux friend in this area, he is long in the tooth too. But, he is able to shoulder a 75 lb pack and live in the wilderness. I would have problems carrying the 75 pound pack a half mile and Pam can't even start. sigh. We make our stand here.

The more we investigate and read, the more sure we are becoming that next year is the year of crisis. Have crash helmets and lifeboats and arks on standby. Make sure bug out packs are up to date and complete. Those bastards in power are about to unleash the fury of bad decisions upon us, at least bad decisions concerning the rest of us.

Still I run into people that have no idea what I am talking about. Ran into a guy some time ago that stated the opinion that my measly $700 SS check was hardly worth cashing. Got new SS notification of the "adjusted for inflation" payments for next year. A 2% increase. lol. Hell food has gone up nearly 30% in the last year. I guess we have to finance world domination somehow.

In process of figuring out how to get water if no electricity. This could be a real problem. I have been looking at our situation very critically. Electricity is the key, and to produce our own is either very expensive or will become impossible, depending on other energy sources. I cannot see us going to solar power, way too expensive with present technology and too short lived and way dependent on oil to produce components. Wind in this area not an alternative. Way too many calm days. sigh.

Keeping chugging along.

Anonymous said...

The Collapse has already happened in much of the world, and it's getting more severe by the day. This from cryptogon.com;

"... In an “unforeseen and unprecedented” shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.

The changes created “a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food,” particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The agency’s food price index rose by more than 40 percent this year, compared with 9 percent the year before - a rate that was already unacceptable, he said. New figures show that the total cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25 percent, to $107 million, in the last year.

At the same time, reserves of cereals are severely depleted, FAO records show. World wheat stores declined 11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds to 12 weeks of the world’s total consumption - much less than the average of 18 weeks consumption in storage during the period 2000-2005. There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the earlier period.

Prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs, Diouf said Monday. Wheat prices have risen by $130 per ton, or 52 percent, since a year ago. U.S. wheat futures broke $10 a bushel for the first time Monday, the agricultural equivalent of $100 a barrel oil.

Diouf blamed a confluence of recent supply and demand factors for the crisis, and he predicted that those factors were here to stay. On the supply side, these include the early effects of global warming, which has decreased crop yields in some crucial places, and a shift away from farming for human consumption toward crops for biofuels and cattle feed. Demand for grain is increasing with the world population, and more is diverted to feed cattle as the population of upwardly mobile meat-eaters grows.

“We’re concerned that we are facing the perfect storm for the world’s hungry,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program, in a telephone interview. She said that her agency’s food procurement costs had gone up 50 percent in the past 5 years and that some poor people are being “priced out of the food market.”

To make matters worse, high oil prices have doubled shipping costs in the past year, putting enormous stress on poor nations that need to import food as well as the humanitarian agencies that provide it."

The canary in the mineshaft has just hit the dirt and landed toes up.

Anonymous said...

murph... whats your water source?

Anonymous said...

from sg: The chinese govt has issued major cities in china must have 10 days food prepared for chinese new year, here in sg I was alarmed when newspaper reported the minister of finance says the poor will not go hungry recently, the biggest supermarket chain in sg today announce 5% discount on 500 essential goods until after chinese new year, the biggest problem I have now is that I converted almost all cash to hard assets such as solar panels and gold and mechanical watches etc as I was convinced of Dec 20/28th boom of iran... and now I owe VISA 1 month salary at 24%, which i calculated my gold and mechanical watches can cover it if sold under distress situation should worst case scenario of stock market crash occur on Jan 10th 2008 when the us banks must pay back subprime loans $. Originally I owed VISA 2 month salary but saved enough cash to pay back 1 month now. My VISA bill next month is Jan month end, salary is credited end of Jan next month and I save 80% of my salary, this spending is a bit too foolish of me as I convinced of World War 3 in Dec 20/28th 2007. I replaced main door lock recently at $160 for top notch lock, I think I need to save 6 months more before replacement of main door and all windows with latest security locks etc... which do not come cheap . I was quoted $10,000 for replacement of main door and all windows. I will never take such a high risk finance gamble again. My home fully paid for, the solar panels will generate 50% of electricity and actually I have enough antiques to not use electricity, electricity only used to power laptop if power cut off as I discovered that I have not managed to overcome my additiction to internet especially bloomberg news 321gold.com 321energy.com whatreallyhappened.com lifeafter the oil crash, I overcome addition to computer games coca cola junk food tv watching dvds etc.... but the only addiction is still addicted to internet.

Anonymous said...

From sg: I have 100 laser discs and have tested, they sure can generate a lot of heat when the sun is shining. I also have solar panels to charge batteries. The only problem is Nov-Jan/Feb the sun is not strong enough to shine and there is where all my antiques come into play. As for how to get water without electricity, try a commercial lab glass maker and make liebig condenser, I have made more sets but may be too late as the average time to make is now 9 months for my supplier. Bush will be in isreal and middle east from Jan 8 to 16th 2008, Iran will receive its supply of uranium from ussr by Feb 16th 2008 and I have enough dates and deadlines of financial political etc... to scare every one to death in the next 3 months. The strike window for iran appears to be between Jan 16th and Feb 18th 2008 but I need no strike at least until end Jan when I pay off all my VISA debt, not to mention changing all doors and windows. The "experts" predict by March 2008 oil prices will be at US$150 per barrel which in my case is 50% fuel increase. Recently I got 1 of my 3 tricycles stolen by a professional who has a master key and unlocked all the 5 locks on the stolen tricycle, tried to get replacement but 1 replacement and was told the price is now $700 for new tricycle and $400 for terribly rusted second hand whereas 3 months ago it is barely $250 for new tricycle.

Anonymous said...

From sg: I only managed to stockpile 23 days of food for 4-5 people only. Senior mentor Lee Kuan Yew once give interview where he says singapore has 25 days stockpile of food. I was told by my collegues I was nuts for storing 1000 litres of water at home in case of emergency. Singapore govt statistics show only 150,000 watt per second of solar panel in whole of singapore, daily usage is 540(0?) million watts per second of electricity in singapore as singapore is major finance centre. The world is overdue for SARS 2/biochemical weapon/bird flu to occur as last occurred Nov 2002 to June 2003. 1997 bank crisis took 3 months to spread everywhere, SARS took 3 months to spread everywhere and I hope nothing including finance crash occurs before I pay off my VISA in end Jan 2008.

Anonymous said...

List of banks temporarily safe:
Citibank as white knight is Middle East Abu Dhabi
UBS as white knight is Singapore government investment fund
Morgan Stanley as white knight is China government investment fund.

List of banks with very high level of exposure to SIV risk and still no white knight
Bank of america is no 1 or no 2 in siv
J P Morgans is the other no 1 or no 2.
FYI, the 3rd is citibank which has a white knight.

SIV current market rate for BBB- that has gone thru chapter 7/11 is 0.3 cents for every $1 i.e. a $30,000 BBB- if gone thru chapter 7/11 is only worth $90, which is what I expect of 32" to 100" LCD plasma tvs when cost of electricity is so high that no lcd plasma tv can be sold for more than 50 cents.

Anonymous said...

So good to hear from you, Singapore Guy!! Thank you for sharing the VISA debacle with us. Very good cautionary tale. We must be careful to not put ourselves in debt to cover anticipated crisis that may not happen when we think it will. So hard to live in the projected future and deal with the present at the same time.
It is looking to me at though there is major resistance to the Chaney plan to bomb Iran by the military and the intelligence that stated that Iran has no nuke program. The fact that they are dropping the dollar as currency to purchase oil is still a factor, though. But, Saudi Arabia is doing it as well, so we may just have to live with it.
We have to keep in mind that things change. What looks like immanent disaster may be mitigated by unforeseen responses from people or forces that we did not anticipate. The biggest most certain enemy is really the credit card companies. Ruthless and unrelenting, programmed to loot you at every opportunity, they can and will ruin you in an automated process almost untouched by human hands. That's one threat you really can count on. I'm glad you have a plan to deal with it.
lol... addiction to internet. We have the same problem. I am worse than Murph. But, I take hope in the idea that we are developing a radical new collective consciousness that is a culmination of millions of folks trading information and expressing themselves and perhaps creating alternative memes that will counter the bogus forces that have led us to the brink of planetary disaster.
It feels as though our little cyber tribe has transcended former constraints to time and place and formed a heretofore impossible community that gives real emotional support as well as food for thought and commitment to each other. Love in the air for each other is just as important as the ozone layer, I think. We are some sort of vanguard pushing its way into a future different from the one that the Old Greedy Bastards have set up for us.

Anonymous said...

Oh, for anyone planning on planting a garden, the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Catalog is a MUST! We just received our copy yesterday, and it is a delight to read. Committed to natural, un-genetically altered seeds and localized growers, the catalog is full of rare and wonderful varieties of plants as well as great quotes supporting freedom and rebellion against the factory farms and big corpgov. Go to rareseeds.com and enjoy.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, Dec 19 9:49

Water, well, we just happen to be in the area where there is, I think, the largest U.S. supply of unpolluted ground water. It is a very large 3 layer acquafer. Personally, on this property, we have a 8" well, ground water is at 15 feet average, depending on the time of year. Our well is down to 35 feet. Shallow enough to be able to use a hand pump.

Is this what you wanted to know?

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

Hi SG, Long time no hear. Pleased you are back. My answer to the Visa problem is not to have one of their cards. It is a bit of an ass when Amazon won’t accept anything I have got but what the hell, there are worse things in life. Hey isn’t Citi Bank owned by the Rockefellers. If that went down it would be a planned outing. Would it not be good if the third world countries could do that with the IMF; “We have decided to go bust so we are not going to pay you back”. “Thank you very much but no, we don’t want to restructure the debt, but you can take the highway to the airport back if you feel inclined”. I wonder what would happen, something not very pleasant I would bet.

I have made an attempt to cut my internet time down. Unless it ceases to exist I will never be able to do without it but gening up on the latest round of bad news, as interesting as it is, is not so productive so I am getting on with a few little projects to keep myself busy. I am not doing anything with free energy though, people who have had a modicum of success with that have tended to die rather quickly.

BTW SG, I hope you live on a tenth floor apartment because if the bad guys get wind that you have anything worth stealing then they will come straight through the brickwork with a fork lift truck and no amount of fancy doors are going to help you. The ONLY secure way is to steel plate the inside the inside of the walls. It may seem excessive but I knew a guy who actually did this with a warehouse full of VHS tape machines when they were new on the market. Any work you do decide to have done, make sure the workmen turn up in a plain white van. there is no point in drawing attention to yourself.

I hope you stick around and let us know how things work out for you. As Freeacre has said, this blog has taken an upturn in recent times.

Anonymous said...

Murph;

Seen any of these Tesla turbine videos? Maybe one of those could be made to charge batteries or pump water.

http://www.freeenergynews.com/
Directory/Devices/TeslaTurbine/

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/
10/29/hosepowered-magnetic.html

Anonymous said...

From sg: I live in a high floor but next unit is an abandoned unit due to foreclosure. That's why I change the main door lock when I heard of house break in thru next door unit, climb thru window spiderman style. I read yesterday from www.whatreallyhappened.com that saudi arabia issued fatwa against US$, actually in practise the US$ is rejected in cn tw india europe almost every where and every one is dumping us$ like crazy. I tried to get rid of US$ by buying usa winter blankets and was told as foreigner must pay 200% market rate to offset the large number of poor americans who he sold winter blankets at 50% discount as they are tapped out. This is reverse protectism.

Anonymous said...

sg:

Wow!

Anonymous said...

Now HERE's an idea!
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/071220/8/
3db9.html
Form our own country!

Anonymous said...

Is this what you wanted to know?

yup. i figured a well. just didn't know how deep. the hand pump is a solution as shallow as you are. i grew up strokin those babies and they have obvious disadvantages... like gettin yer tongue stuck to the handle in the middle of winter. ha ha!

hard to fill gravity feed effluent stg tanks w/a hand pump. you've likely considered various stg options like hang some tanks to collect roof run-off for non-potable use? that way you only need to hand pump the potable supply.

is the pump 220 or 110? can it be inverted to 12 volt? if you can do that you can hook a battery to it and charge that with a solar panel. or you might find some useful ideas here murph... http://www.backwoodssolar.com/catalog/pumps.htm.

if you're fprtunate enough to have a running stream source available you can ram pump uphill without electricity within limits. see this... http://afterarmageddon.blogspot.com/2007/12/ram-pumps.html... p

Anonymous said...

P,
Pump is 110. I would have put in 220 but didn't have a 220 line to the well house and it would be a real big pain in the ass to put one in, although I want to run 220 out to the garage and have available for the well pump. Probably by the time I get to it, we will be in free fall and won't be able to utilize it. sigh.

Using roof run off is good, but, we have little roof area to collect water from, and it also demands some kind of guttering arrangement, none of which both buildings have. Expensive to put in and easily damaged by ice in the winter. sigh. No easy solutions.

I haven't checked it out but I suspect a 12 volt battery will not supply enough amps through an inverter, unless of course I go with a big equipment type, again, big bucks. These motors peak at around 12-15 amps and steady run at around 8-10 amps. With the losses through the inverter, I don't think a single battery would handle it.

What I am looking at making is a lift tube with a hole and ball bearing in the bottom, holding maybe 4-5 gal at a time. Very low tech and virtually unbreakable.

Yup, familiar with a ram pump. Investigated them back in the 80's. Takes a pretty good flow and a reasonable drop for velocity to operate. We had a spring I wanted to put one on but it wasn't fast enough to do us any good, simply not enough fall.

I am having some real problems with the big push for solar panels. Takes lots of oil to make them, and they break easy and repair is not a homeowners option as far as I know, and the suckers are way over our budget from the start.

I have about come to the opinion that any attempt to make up for oil depletion is doomed with the technology we have and even what we can suspect is available. Just too much dependence on the stuff, all the way around. I am looking at pre industrial age technology for what has to be done and what I figure is where we will primarily be in terms of life style. Without plentiful oil, there is NO plastics except for cellulose based stuff with very limited applications. Big equipment would have to be run on other than oil based products, including lubrication. An electric motor to run the huge strip mining operations is not technological possible at this time, plus making stuff like that takes huge amounts of oil. That is another reason I am cynical about the wind farms. Those babies are massive, expensive to make in terms of resources, and they have to be fixed when they break and they certainly are not going to supply the power to fly. Another problem is that to make big enough wind farms, they are being very careful about any information about them causing weather changes. You take energy away from a one place, it is not going to automatically reproduce itself by magic.

Lots of problems coming at us.

RAS said...

Good article freeacre. For seeds also consider Bountiful Gardens, http://www.bountifulgardens.org/default.asp, and for anyone in the Southern half of the country Southern Exposure, http://www.southernexposure.com/index.html.

I'm trying to decide if I should stay where I am or move in the coming months/years. There are a lot of pluses and minuses. Some of the CC projections for this area show it shifting to a more Mediterranen or tropical climate, and some show it shifting to a desert. Italy I can deal with, but not the Sahara!

Anonymous said...

From sg: here are the important dates for next few months

Dec 18 2008: Russia starts delivery of nuclear fuel to Iran, and will complete in 2 months time.
Dec 18 to 19th 2007: George Bush received his funding from congress, including the US$88 million he needed to pay

for the upgrade of stealth bomber to bomb iran. The bombing test was conducted previously in nov 2007 and the

contract to upgrade stealth bomber will end by end Dec 2007. This is just in time money just in time to pay vendor
Jan 3rd 2008: IOWA caucusus us president
Jan 8th 2008: New hamshire caucusus us president
Jan 8th to Jan 16th 2008: Bush visits isreal and middle east. I estimate that the earliest date of iran boom is Jan

24th 2008 Thursday which is equivalent of Saturday or Jan 25th 2008 Friday which is equilavent of Sunday.
Jan 10th 2008: Banks pay back money to cover their temporarily loan for subprime SIV losses. Possible stock market

crash. This is unusual trade as normally 28 days loan but this one is 6 weeks loan. J P Morgans and Bank of America

still have not found their white knight yet as of time of writing.
Jan 17th 2008: Banks pay back money to FED to cover their temporarily loan US$20 billion for subprime SIV losses.

Possible stock market crash. This US$20 billion was released around Dec 20th 2008 and is 28 days loan.
JAN 19: South carolina caucusus
Jan 24th Thursday 2008 2.15pm New York Time: FED announce interest rate cut
Jan 24th Thursday/Jan 25th Friday to Feb 18th 2008: Possible earliest date iran boom attack. I estimate that it

takes at least a week to coordinate attack on iran, after George Bush left middle east on Jan 16th 2008.
Jan 28th 2008: Banks pay back money to cover their temporarily loan US$20 billion for subprime SIV losses. Possible

stock market crash. This money is suppose to be another US$20 billion and is not released yet.
Feb 7-9th 2008: Chinese new year
Jan 29 2008: Florida caucusus
Feb 14th 2008: Banks pay back money to FED to cover their temporarily loan for subprime SIV losses. This is the 3rd loan and not loan out yet.

Possible stock market crash. 28 days loan.
Feb 18th 2008: Russia should have completed delivery of nuclear fuel to iran.
Feb 21st 2008: Banks pay back money to FED to cover their temporarily loan for subprime SIV losses. This is 4th loan and not loan out yet

Possible stock market crash. 28 days loan.
Dec to March 2008: Possible bird flu/SARS danger period. FYI, SARS was most likely a bioweapon and its fatal rate is

20% in 2003.

Received 2nd set (Sets 5 to 8) of liebig water distill kit but I am 100% sure that it is not what I ordered. The vendor rushed it out for me as I give him christmas deadline. At least I still have Sets 1 to 4 which are correct goods, so I can do 4 water/wine distillation at any one time.

Anonymous said...

re: solar cooking

There was a group in Sacramento that had plans and recipes for solar cooking. I just Googled "solar ovens", tho, and they didn't come up. BUT I did find a lot of plans for making them, from the very simple to much too complicated for me. You can also buy them at various prices. See: http://www.solarovens.org/ and http://solarcooking.org/plans/default.htm

I think we do need to be thinking seriously about how to survive without electricity. For some time I've thought of that as our Achilles Heel. Even our canned goods will need a hand-operated opener.

I find it rather depressing to see how dependent my own children, whom I thought had some sense, are dependent on electricity and their cars for everything.

My mother knew how to operate a kerosene stove. I have no idea. And I doubt I could find one if I wanted to. I can't get a fire going with anything, so it's a good thing I won't be around much longer -- I wouldn't know how to survive. So much has been lost just in one generation -- it's good to see your serious attempts to redevelop the necessary info.

May you never need to use it to survive.

Anonymous said...

Jeez, SG, I had to order a calendar from Despair, Inc. on which to mark those dates. The wizards over at halfpasthuman are giving the big crash until Oct. '08. That gives us another growing season to get ready. The prudent thing is to prepare for difficulty, but to not jeopardize the present for a future that might be better than you expect. If the free energy thing jumps off, the future might be a lot better than we could have hoped. These challenging times might just elicit the best in us. At least when TSHTF, it will become obvious to many that there is a serious flaw in the ointment.

Anonymous said...

From sg: Additonal dates: March 14 2008 Iran has an election

Also studied my tricycles today to found how how the thief bypass my 5 locks, discover it is very easily to dismental. Need to remove 5 screws and bicycle chain. Have bought 5 additional locks to secure the weak spots. If I want to dismental I can do it about 30 minutes max, including releasing all the locks. If meet the professional thief again, either he has master key, or he padlock cut all the locks, then dismental the tricycle into 2 parts. But if economic crisis, and assume elevator still working, I can diemental tricycle into 2 pieces and fit into elevator, the problem is every day must dismental and assembly tricycle so easier way is ask first floor unit for help in exchange for AC supply. I notice first floor unit got 2 families aircon on 24 hours a day, their electric bill meter reading is 400% of normal people reading and 600% of my reading

Anonymous said...

Try www.leap2020.eu. this company is the first private company to predict collapse of berlin wall and the dissolve of russia. Its reputation is top notch. If is expensive of course.

Anonymous said...

http://www.lakotafreedom.com

the first look,is staggering,the second look is hope, the third look is as i am reminded by my multi legged spirit guide is what the world is going through now is effecting all connected to the web of life and the collective conscience is screaming for justice,even for the walking dead.
those that sleep have a place in the scheme of things of which i know not and bug will not give it up.
this event should trigger something lost in the human spirit and is as near as i can tell,after reading one thread in which comment after comment were cheer leading the freedom impulse emanating from the sioux nation, i in all honesty was surprised that people on the other side of the world are watching this stand once again brought about by these brave brothers and sisters to tell the government of this wretched country to go fuck themselfs.

one smart ass though smirked that what would the ingens do without their maggot infested welfare checks?...and one reply was give um back their land and their buffalo and they won't need your vampire blood money.

anyway if this is news and probably isn't it goes without saying it has made my day, thanks to fa who first startled my sleepy morning with this info,and thank all of you for your indulgence in an old warrior whom has grown way to cynical over the evil that has grown since this one was a young boy fishing with his dog,horse and pig in crystal creek oklahoma.

murph, how to get that water out of the ground,?
when i was a lad and it still is seen though rare is a windmill which is simple and if maintained will last for years and years.
even though the wind does not blow all the time when it does it will pump water into a receiver tank and also with something not more complicated then an automotive generator attached should supply some electricity to a battery array,right? i don't know,when i was a kid we had no electricity,no phone,and running water was brought up with a hand pump,by me mostly.

gardening with little water by windmill would be tricky i expect but within a greenhouse it could be recycled by some sort of condensing effect maybe to reclaim the water lost to evaporation and would mean a mostly completely enclosed system,just a thought and have not researched it but maybe?
duplicate the earth?
silly probably,
i think it might have been tried some place where a bunch of people were in a large dome shaped greenhouse and tried to live for a few years? and could not overcome complete enclosed needs.

SG, i am amazed at your dwelling place and the intricacies of large building living, glad to see you back here with your good updates in regard to world events,wish we could post pictures on this site, how about it fa? in color of course.little ones that if clicked on would be enlarged.
i know it could be done.if enough folks wished for it.

p. o yeah, you asked did i ask her to marry me, the answer of course is no i didn't, would not wish that kind of challenge on such a nice person and even though she is a great healer and helper of humankind i still have a son in the nest and being a single parent it is an honor i prefer to do alone.
i am fifty years older then this son and learn much from him. the children are wise without much help from anyone other then i think just of be available to experience the pitfalls and joys with them as they develop into adulthood and stand by them if they need it.and if not stay the fuck out with useless advice about how it use to be when i was a kid unless asked for it, and surprisingly it is occasionally asked for.
so thats that. but thanks for the question.

ras , montana can certainly use more good people,so if you are in a quandary about adventurous translocation give it a thought, its still pretty much free of a lot of the more denser peopled places and the bullshit that goes with that scene, besides the gun laws are mostly non existent so you can pack a 45 on your hip if you wish to. does create a certain amount of respect, just kidding but its still a wonderful place to live, just ask rockpicker or oldensoul whom live just down the road a piece.
biggest problem i have is keeping the deer out of the garden and a mountain lion was sited yesterday strolling through the village and a warning went out to the parents to pick up there young ones from school in order to avoid dick and jane from becoming lunch.

you know stoney, i have discovered that if you don't act fucked up some of the time people will take it you are on meds or some other internal disorder on the natch and that it is just inconceivable that a person could evolve to the point where happiness is only a side place of finding out who you are somewhat,and thats that.
and you are right, worry is a motherfucker and a religious disease as near as i can tell,it is drilled into us from the git go and the difficulty of letting it go is because thats pretty much what is staring us in the face 24/7!!,what me worry? is suspicious and you really need to be examined by a doctor. religion is the lamest idea ever hatched by the mind of humans,unless your the tithe recipient and or the child molester of the day.
ok thats enough,
peace all
the clan is strong
aho
mf

Anonymous said...

solar cooking anonymous,
Just take it a day at a time. We are all learning. Glad that you found us.
8:00 pm anonymous,
Wow! Great site. Wish I had more money. I guess the consensus is that 2008 is going to be quite a ride. For some reason, it sounds even more chilling to hear it from there.
sg,
Be careful with those tricycles. You maybe have one thief after them now. But, when things get really tight, items like that will be even more tempting - either to use or to sell. In America, thugs would watch you unlock all the locks, then come up and take it from you, and maybe damage you in the process. I think it's a good idea to get them off the street.
Belgium,
I wasn't mocking the mirrors. Honest.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

This latest news from GEAB / LEAP is certainly depressing, especially since it is written with such authority. It looks like there are not many places left to run and hide.

Mf
This thing about the injuns turning their back on the treaties I see like a stone in the road that flies up and hits your windshield, It can make a crack which grows to about two inches and never gets bigger throughout the life of the car, which you live with and eventually ignore or it can craze the whole glass panel in a week. Has anyone heard any further of the attempts from the leaders of I think it was Vermont to cede from the union?

Would it not be good to live a Huck Fin existence and forget all about the bankers but you know at the back of your mind that eventually Robocop will appear by the side of the river and take your fishing line off you. On your last paragraph, I saw a video a while ago where psychiatrists produced a checklist to categorize certain types of disorders. This list somehow got publicized and most Americans filled it out like a Christmas quiz; failed the test and then turned up on the psychiatrist’s door demanding to be made normal. Then you ask yourself if these impressionable people are the ones who are destined to save America.

Ras

If you want a Mediterranean type climate, you can always scuttle over here. Ours is more North Sea than Mediterranean but the water never freezes so extreme cold is rare. If it were not for relationships, I would be off to an island in the middle of the ocean doing a bit of part time farming and part time fishing and generally being left alone for a while longer than other folks.

Murph,

You have mentioned before about the effect on climate change caused by wind generators but do you foresee the disadvantages outweighing the advantages?

Anonymous said...

you can reach me at langosta, box 212,can not find your phone number,was good to hear your voice and will use it to fill in the empty spaces, (:
the dance of solstice came on like a cross of changes and the boys turned warrior with each other and played on into the night,it was a sight to behold amid the night moon and the fire that warmed the earth lighted sky.the spirit gives as much as it receives,hummmm ever danced in the snow naked? yet?

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

This site gives lots of info on many types of solar water heaters including how to conduct a solar survey to tell if your chosen site receives enough sunlight.

I am not recommending this site since I have not studied it enough but from first glance it seems to have a lot of info.

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/water_heating.htm

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

No mf, I have never tried the naked snow dancing thing yet, we just don’t get enough of the stuff around here. But if you want to catch someone who has you could see if Netflix has “When the Light Comes” with our local actress Francesca Vanthielen and Joachim Krol.