Bayou Renaissance Man

The phrase "the fog of war" has become a cliché, but it remains as true as it's always been.  It appears to have dominated Israel's initial response to the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks.  Ynet News has published an extended interview with the pilots of some of the attack helicopters who tried to respond effectively on that day.  Here's an excerpt.

Do you even have a battle plan for an attack like this from the south?

Lt. Col. E.: “Yes. Since the 2014 Gaza War, we’ve been training for infiltration incidents in our territory, but we never imagined a reference scenario of this magnitude of a number of communities being infiltrated simultaneously.”

To be clear: There was an infiltration scenario and firing at terrorists in our territory does exist. It exists in our understanding, but it’s very extreme in our understanding. To get there, you must know that this is your only option, because in a battle plan where a soldier encounters a terrorist, it’s better to shoot him than firing mortars with a 100 square meter fall out range. 

What do your pilots see at the Re’im gate?

“They see the battle going on there – people running back and forth between the gate and the trees. They construct a picture and realize that these are definitely neither civilians nor our forces. They shoot and hit a group of terrorists inside the trees next to the parking lot. They kill six or seven. Before finishing the battle, they’re sent to another incident taking priority, and they move south.”

The division doesn’t ask them to say and carry on firing at the terrorists?

“The division tell them to move, that there’s another incident taking higher priority. They transfer them to work with the Southern Brigade.” 

But if the division command falls, response capabilities are damaged

“Everyone’s goal is protecting the communities. I don’t know of a commander in the army who would put the division, brigade or outpost above the community. I just don’t."

This modus operandi, transferring helicopters every few minutes from one place to another, carries on all morning. “Every five or six minutes, we were receiving call-outs to another incident,” says Lt. Col. E. “You can’t construct a picture as to where the more urgent thing is, so you go where they tell you.”

In hindsight, is this system of going from one spot to the next an effective method?

“If we’d have stayed in the same place the whole time with other forces - and there were cases like that - we might have prevented something from happening. But it affects the overall aggregate of what was going on at each separate battle at the same time. You can’t foresee what you’ll prevent at a given point.”

His colleague from the 190th Squadron, Lt. Col. A. says this question is hard to answer before investigations are completed. “There were places that helicopters finished off the incident in an hour, while in other places, helicopters operated for hours without bringing the incident to an end. Why? Perhaps there were fewer terrorists there, or maybe it was harder to get our forces in.”

There's much more at the link.

Those who've been "up the sharp end" will recognize much of what the pilots have to say.  Another way of putting it is the old saying, "Order, counter-order, disorder".  An individual command post has a problem, so it orders forces to deal with it, not realizing that there's a bigger problem a few miles away and the forces it needs have just been ordered (by a different command post) to deal with that one.  The forces concerned can only do their best to deal with a hard-to-understand, fractured situation - and risk being court-martialed if they do it wrong, because most command posts (and individuals) are never going to blame themselves.  They'll use the fighting forces as scapegoats.

It's a problem that's been with any and all armed forces since the first organized command structure was developed.  It'll probably end with the heat death of the universe, but even that can't be guaranteed.

Peter

Back in 1966, speaking to the flower power generation, Timothy Leary popularized the mantra "Turn on, tune in, drop out".  It was goofy, nihilistic, short-sighted, and solved nothing of the problems then facing society.

Over the past few months, as I've had no choice (thanks to kidney issues) but to spend a lot of time sitting or lying down, I've had the opportunity to read, watch and listen to all sorts of discussions about the problems our country, and our world, are currently facing.  We've discussed some of them in these pages on numerous previous occasions, and I'm not going to repeat all that now.  However, the headlines - even in mainstream media - are growing more and more alarmist.  I give you these few examples from the past week.  If you're interested, click the links provided to read them for yourself.

It's way too easy to absorb all the doom-gloom-and-disaster flying around the news and social media.  We can get so tied up in "Look what they're doing now!", "What are we going to do if this, or that, or the other happens?" and "The sky is falling!" that we ignore the reality all around us.  Whatever the big-picture developments, we still need to earn our living;  families need to keep raising and educating their kids;  and life as we know it goes on, and has to go on, despite the foolishness of national and world leaders.  Will the Trump-Biden debate today change a single thing about the way we live?  It's unlikely, I think - so why obsess about it?

I think Timothy Leary's slogan might not be a bad one to adopt in the midst of all these pressures and tensions.  Think about it:

• "Turn on" - to what's happening around you, recognizing danger signs (e.g. inflation, shortages, etc.) for what they are.  Situational awareness is key.  What's my situation?  What's my family's situation?  We need to be "turned on" to those vital necessities far more than we are to hypothetical big-picture nastiness that may, or may not, affect us.  We can do nothing about the big picture.  We're small fry.  However, if each of us "small fry" takes care of what's put in front of us to do, our combined efforts might build up to a surprisingly influential weight in the scales of the big picture.  For example:  the nation is drowning in debt.  So are many families.  What can we, as individuals and families, do to pay down (and hopefully eliminate) our own debt?  It's no good yelling at our politicians for taking on more and more debt for the nation, if we're following their example locally.  Pot, meet kettle.  Kettle, pot.
• "Tune in" - to what's going on in areas where we can make a difference.  Support local food banks, thrift stores, centers for community education, libraries, and so on.  We can't make a difference to or in our local community if we don't know what's going on around us.  Instead of focusing only on national or international news, click on the "Local News" sections of your local news sources and find out what's happening.  I've been pleasantly surprised to find out how many ways there are for people to help people and build our communities.  I'd never have known about most of them if I hadn't looked for them.
• "Drop out" - of anything and everything where we can achieve nothing.  By all means be politically or socially active, but emphasize activities that can make a difference.  Demonstrating in the streets seldom does.  Writing angry letters to politicians achieves little, if anything - besides, our politicians almost never get to read our letters.  They're handled by lower-level functionaries.  Each of our congressional representatives, on average, has to look after more than a million constituents.  They can't possibly give individual attention to each of them - so trying to put individual pressure on them is a loser from the start.  Rather join others working to achieve reform, improvement, etc. in areas you think are important. In the same way, when it comes to preparing for hard times (something all of us will be well advised to do, as the headlines above give evidence), let's focus on things we will need locally.  Food, household products, fuel, a place to store our supplies, security for our family against societal breakdown, etc. - all of these have their place, and they're all important.  If we don't yet have the basics in place, we need to stop spending our money on less important things and get those basics right.  If we don't, the doom-gloom-and-disaster brigade will point and jeer at us and catcall, "We told you so!" - and they'll be right.  Drop out of what won't help us as "small fry".  Drop into practical, realistic, essential preparations for a hard time, whatever it may be.

The late President Theodore Roosevelt put it in a nutshell, as far as I'm concerned.

Truer words were never spoken.  We need to take his advice to heart, stop living in Panic City, and get on with it.  We can't change the world - we're small fry;  but we can change our small piece of it to resist most (sadly, not all) of the problems that threaten it.  Read those last three words again.  They don't read "in Washington, D.C." or "in your State capitol" or "in your city council".  They read "where you are".

Those are our marching orders.  We'll be very unwise indeed to disregard them.

Peter

UnHerd has produced a masterly analysis of the trap into which government spending and subsidies has led much of American life today.  Here's an excerpt.

Democrats and Republicans alike, under the cover of good intentions, have been passing laws that undermine the economic well-being of American families. Even more disturbing, these policies have created a whole new class of robber barons, who rely on government policy to enrich themselves. But these new robber barons aren’t railroad tycoons or rapacious oil companies. Indeed, many of them are non-profits: they include universities and hospitals, drug companies, insurance companies, K-12 school districts, and real estate investors.

. . .

This is how it works: Claiming to be the guardian of “quality”, policymakers put up barriers to entry, making it extremely costly, for example, to launch a new university or hospital. This is the restriction of supply. At the same time, in the name of “helping” consumers, they push billions of dollars into student loans or healthcare payments. This is the subsidisation of demand.

. . .

... all of the universities, including elite colleges in the Ivy League, have reaped billions of dollars in economic rents — excess profits — from student loan programmes, even as the value of many of their degrees has fallen dramatically.

At the same time, the universities operate an accreditation system which makes it extraordinarily difficult and costly to launch a new university that might compete with them. In fact, you usually can’t get your new university accredited until four-to-six years after you open. That means that your first students aren’t eligible for federal student loans — their subsidies — until you get your accreditation. It’s a huge handicap for anyone who wants to disrupt the current oligopoly of higher education.

These dynamics play out in all of the most important sectors of our economy. In healthcare, new hospitals in many states have to apply for a “certificate of need”. Often that certificate has to be signed by the other hospitals in the area — in other words, their potential competitors. Meanwhile, federal and state governments flood the healthcare system with subsidies that increase demand and drive prices up: almost 50% of health care spending comes from governmental entities in the US.

In housing, similarly, we restrict supply by making it harder and harder to build new units, especially in city centres where demand is the highest. Meanwhile, we subsidise demand by providing government-guaranteed mortgages and by offering huge tax breaks for anyone who purchases real estate, especially investors.

And in K-12 education, school districts around the country are trying to stamp out charter schools, which increase supply, while at the same time arguing for higher and higher per-pupil spending. The cost to educate one child for one year has increased 173% (adjusted for inflation) since 1970, and half the kids still can’t read.

The pathologies of these sectors all follow similar patterns. Politicians proclaim their desire to “protect” quality and “help” consumers. Industry lobbyists step up to write bills that restrict supply and subsidise demand. Prices go up. Providers become more and more reliant on the government for their profits. Consumers become more and more reliant on the government to afford homes, healthcare, and schools. Instead of investing in innovation, providers spend their money on political donations and lobbyists. Politicians become dependent on those donations. Consumers demand more and more help because prices are going up, and they’re getting ripped off. And the beat goes on. “It really is a self-reinforcing process,” says Kling. “People don’t understand that the subsidies drive up prices, so they keep demanding more.”

There's more at the link.

To all those negatives, add two more:

1. All those subsidies and other government programs add layer upon layer of bureaucrats to government to administer them.  In other words, government becomes a fulfilment machine rather than an administrator.  More and more of its money is spent on such subsidies and fulfilment programs rather than on the business of government.
2. The level of government involvement in such programs affects how government governs.  Lower-level governments - e.g. town and city councils - don't have enough money to subsidize such programs, so they push it up to state level.  State legislatures don't have enough money either, so they put pressure on their congressional representatives and Senators to get that money from the federal government.  The feds duly provide it, but have to increase taxes and/or borrow more money to pay it;  and they also have to hire more bureaucrats to administer it.  The state governments also need more staff to administer where the money comes from and where it goes, expanding state government.  Finally, at the "coalface" where the money is paid out, more government staff are needed to administer, account for and report back on how it's used.

The only way to stop this perpetual motion machine is, of course, to take away many of the things it currently does that were never envisioned by the Founding Fathers.  They'd be horrified if they saw the myriad things on which the federal government spends its money, things that were never envisioned in or authorized by the constitution, but which now consume the vast majority of government income and effort.

The problem, as always, is this:  how do we break the cycle?  If we cut off the subsidies, those deprived of them will scream blue murder, and vote against the politicians who acted responsibly by terminating them.  That means the politicians dare not tackle the monster they've helped to create.  Argentina is trying to do so by dismantling whole swaths of its national government, but that's because the problem had grown so great there that the state had become a behemoth that was strangling the country as a whole.  President Milei has only just begun the job, and there's no guarantee his opponents - now united against him - will allow him enough space and time to finish the job.  I wish him every success, but the odds are against him.

Do we have a President Milei who can do the same for us?

Peter

Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of the German Empire during the nineteenth century, said many things that have become quotations.  Two of them are:

Politics is the art of the possible

Politics is the art of the next best

The Socratic Method says of the first quotation:  "By recognizing that politics is fundamentally the art of compromise, Bismarck encourages leaders to chart a course that maximizes the achievable progress rather than becoming entangled in unattainable dreams."  That applies to the second quotation as well, of course:  if one can't get the best possible result, try for the next best.  (A modern version might read, "Aim for the stars.  Even if you miss, you might reach the moon on your way up.")

In terms of preparing for emergencies and hard times, I've been getting more and more disturbed by the amount of time and energy some people are spending arguing with each other, denouncing each other's points of view, calling each other names and disputing future forecasts, rather than focusing on what we can actually do, today and every other day, to achieve practical, possible, feasible results.  The latter is essential.  The former is a waste of . . . well, everything, really.  It produces nothing except hard feelings and bad language.

There seems (to me) to be little point in arguing whether we should be joining militias, or stocking up on arms and ammunition, or preparing lists of people who need to be targeted when things go to hell in a hand-basket.  Preparedness means, first and foremost, readiness to deal with the most likely emergencies that may confront us.  That could mean a power outage, a broken water system, an epidemic, severe weather conditions, or any combination of those factors.  We should make sure we're as ready as we can be to ride out those emergencies, along with our families and loved ones.  Only after we've got those preparations in place should we worry about more extended emergencies;  a breakdown in the rule of law, escalating crime, political turmoil leading to national chaos, and so on.  As individuals and families, we can do little if anything to affect those crises.  They're too big for us.  On the other hand, if we all take care of the "little things" - the smaller, local crises mentioned above, that we are in a position to deal with - then we'll be better able, as individuals and as communities, to respond to larger challenges as and when they arise.

I'll give you an example from my own family.  We have certain health issues that would make it very difficult if we were to lose power for an extended period.  We need to be able to filter allergens out of our household air, and keep the temperature at a bearable level.  If we can't, there may be serious consequences.  To help deal with that, we've spent money on sources of backup electrical power, so that even if we have to do without utility electricity for a month or more, we can nevertheless ensure that at least part of our home will be in a livable condition for us.

We're slowly but steadily, as we can afford it, continuing to extend the period that we could live without the electrical grid.  We're never going to be completely independent of it, but we're trying to ensure that if an emergency arises and we lose power, we can deal with it in the short to medium term.  That's possible.  That's practical.  Living completely off the grid is simply not possible for us, so we don't lose sleep worrying about it.  Equally, threats to the national grid - transformers wearing out, terror attacks, whatever - are something we can do absolutely nothing about;  so we don't waste time getting scared by them.  Why be afraid of what you can't control?  Rather concentrate on what you can control.

As the late President Theodore Roosevelt advised us:

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are

I think that dovetails very neatly with Otto von Bismarck's advice.  I think it also puts into perspective the shouting and tumult we sometimes find when individuals or groups attack each other's views and proposals.  Let's not waste time on that.  Let's spend our time on things that will build each other up, rather than break each other down.  There are more than enough people out there ready, willing and able to do the latter.  Why make their job easier?  Why do it for them?

Peter

Watching our country descend into banana republic territory (see the Babylon Bee for more about that), I came across this graphic on MeWe.  I find it eerily disturbing.  Click the image for a larger, readable view.

That may be ten years old, but it also might be a scarily accurate prediction of our present situation . . .

Peter

Solomon is a former Marine and a law enforcement officer (I think he's a sheriff's deputy) in Louisiana.  We've mentioned him before in these pages.  He penned a short post yesterday that I think is spot on.  I hope he'll forgive me if I reprint it here in full, as it's something we should all consider.

We are ONE galvanizing issue away from this nation going pop...

Been drinking in the Trump conviction.  From my chair it seems like a kangaroo court but who knows.  From my chair it seems like a DA that's been letting violent criminals out of jail on the regular but decides to do this is highly questionable.

The timing of this thing is jacked to hell.  This could have waited till the dude got out of office.  Quick question.  Did you know that EVERY president we've ever had in the modern era has engaged in criminal behavior?  At its most base form, warfare is illegal (we put "rules" on it but how do you lawyer yourself out of ordering people to kill?) but take that further.  We've done targeted killing and missed hitting families instead but no one has ever even been grand juried!

But to my main point.

Think back to the civil war.

Slavery was the cause, some say it was state's rights (slavery just a bit friendlier without the ramifications) and others say it was about economics (the bottom line on slavery...its about the money ya ****!), but it took just one galvanizing issue.

One issue.  People had enough.  Society blew up and the nation started killing itself.

Look at the divide between the states today.  How far are we from one major league issue to having things go pop?

What should worry you is that we have more than one issue that has people inflamed.  No need in listing them but I mean seriously!  In another age people would have already been grabbing their mags and heading to hurt someone!

Someone that considers themselves a puppet master better figure out how to turn down the heat.

As things stand now the Chinese are the least of our problems.

Yes, indeed.  The rest of this year is likely to be fraught.  There are a lot of people out there determined to "right the wrong" of the 2020 election.  There are equally many determined that President Trump is an existential threat, and must never be allowed to be re-elected, no matter what it takes.

That's our nation today.  We're sitting on an open gunpowder keg, with people on both sides tossing lighted matches at it.

Peter

Recently Tucker Carlson interviewed Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, in an extended dialog over the Ukraine war and several related issues.  It's almost two hours long, but it's very worthwhile to take the time to listen and think about it.  You'll find the entire podcast here.  Highly recommended.

Real Clear Politics published part of the podcast, Erik Prince's views on the Russia-Ukraine war, that I found very sobering.  I daresay Mr. Prince is far more accurate in his assessment than most of the talking heads we're seeing in the mainstream media.  Here's an excerpt.

TUCKER CARLSON: So, yeah, I mean, he's a child, obviously. And like an angry destructive child. But what happens? Like, where does this go? We send another $60 billion to Ukraine.

ERIK PRINCE: Most of that money goes to five major U.S. defense contractors to replace at five times the cost, what the weapons cost that we already sent the Ukrainians. Meaning, you know, if we send them something that was built 10 years ago, well, now it's gonna cost four and five times as much. So, again, it's a massive grift paid by a Pentagon that doesn't know how to buy stuff cost-effectively. It doesn't change the outcome of the battle.

As the fields dry, it's May now, coming up on tank season. Weather still matters in warfare. If you have a wet, snow-covered farm field, it's very muddy, very gooey. Not great for tanks, mud season, I think the Russians call it the great slush. That's done now.

As June comes, it'll be game on and I think the Russian bear is hungry, and they're gonna have a time. So the war should have been ended. It never should have started. They should have made a deal, and froze the lines six months into it. But the Biden administration believed that all this American weaponry would have saved the day.

It hasn't. And it's ugly. And you know, the Russian commanders are not idiots. They know their history. The Battle of Kursk, which happened just North of where the fighting is now was the largest tank battle in history. It was the last offensive effort of the German army against the Soviets. They tried to push from the north and south on this salient. It was a bulge and the Russians knew they were coming. So they built lots of lines of defenses. It's the same thing they've done now, that they did last summer, which ate up all that equipment.

And now the Ukrainians are very thin. They've had a lot of corruption issues. All the defenses that were supposed to be built by the Ukrainians are much smaller or non-existent. So now it's allowing maneuver and especially as the tanks, as the fields dry and you can maneuver, it's gonna be a very ugly summer.

TUCKER CARLSON: What do you think the Russians want?

ERIK PRINCE: I'd say now they want to absolutely humiliate the West and make sure that they never have a problem with Ukraine again.

TUCKLER CARLSON: And that seems achievable. So, what happens to Ukraine?

ERIK PRINCE:I don't know if it survives as an independent country. If they take Odessa, if they take the ability for Ukraine to export its grain, that really threatens the long-term economic viability.

Maybe it goes back to -- look, Western Ukraine used to be part of Poland, right? Eastern Ukraine used to be part of Russia. Maps move depending on you know, military victories drive diplomatic breakthroughs. And right now the Russians are winning and they're going to have a very good summer.

TUCKER CARLSON: Is there anybody who is knowledgeable on this subject who believes Ukraine can "win," which is to say, push Russian troops all the way back to the old Russian border?

ERIK PRINCE: I didn't really believe it ever. I don't know who's advising the White House at this point or who they're listening to, but they probably need to change out their advisor list.

There's more at the link.  Highly recommended reading, and even more recommended is to listen to the entire podcast.  It's worth your time and attention.

Peter

A few articles caught my eye in recent days.  They illustrate eloquently how unprepared Americans as a whole are for a true disaster-level emergency.

First, Brandon Smith looks at mass starvation.

Because we have lived in relative security and economic affluence for so long the idea of ever having to go without food seems “laughable” to many people. When the notion of economic collapse is brought up they jeer and call it “conspiracy theory.”

Compared to the Great Depression, the US population today is completely removed from agriculture and has no idea what living off the land means. These are not things that can be learned in a few months from books and YouTube videos; they require years of experience to master.

. . .

The greater problem in terms of famine is not that individual Americans are not aware of the threat; many of them are. The problem is that our infrastructure and logistical systems are designed to fail and there’s not much the average citizen can do about it.

. . .

Growing food, hunting food and foraging food are all supplemental measures, especially in the first years of any crisis event. Without a primary emergency supply most people will not make it. Food storage has been a mainstay of civilization for thousands of years for a reason – It works. When larger secure communities are established then agriculture can return and self sustaining production makes food storage less important. Until then, what you have in your basement or your garage is the only thing that’s going to keep you alive.

There's more at the link.

Next, Michael Totten analyzes the very real risk of a catastrophic earthquake in the Pacific Northwest - one that may be many times worse than anything any of us have ever experienced.

Roughly 100 miles off the West Coast, running from Mendocino, California, to Canada’s Vancouver Island, lurks the Cascadia Subduction Zone, where the Juan de Fuca Plate is sliding beneath the North American Plate, creating the conditions for a megathrust quake 30 times stronger than the worst-case scenario along the notorious San Andreas, and 1,000 times stronger than the earthquake that killed 100,000 Haitians in 2010.

. . .

Scientists scrambled for core samples of the ocean floor just off the American coast and found turbidites—layers of tsunami debris—that date back millennia and, most recently, again, to 1700, revealing a cycle that repeats itself every 300 to 600 years. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is not quiet, after all: it triggers catastrophic megathrust quakes, on schedule. “A fault that ruptures with this big of an earthquake every few hundred years is ragingly active,” says Yumei Wang, a geotechnical engineer at the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI).

A 9.0 megathrust quake is too powerful even to be measured on the now-dated Richter scale.

. . .

“No community on the planet is adequately prepared for a major subduction zone earthquake,” observes Dan Douthit, spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM). The Northwest, however, and especially Oregon, is nerve-rackingly further behind than it should be. Nothing built here before 1995—which includes the vast majority of all structures, including skyscrapers, bridges, and hospitals, as well as houses—was engineered to withstand it.

Again, more at the link.

However, the really scary part comes when one puts the warnings from the two articles above into joint perspective:  in other words, how they interact with and affect each other.  A massive natural disaster like a Pacific Northwest earthquake might - probably will - cut almost all transport links from the West Coast to states further inland, and vice versa.  Emergency relief won't be able to reach disaster zones, and refugees won't be able to move away from them.  We won't be able to get at the vast agricultural and processing resources of our Western states, which together supply more than half of our fruit and vegetables;  and we won't be able to help those that produce them, meaning they'll probably be unable to produce more for a significant length of time - years rather than months.

What's more, the sudden need to reallocate transport resources - trains, 18-wheelers, etc. - to disaster relief, plus the loss of transport resources in the disaster zone, will result in a sudden and unavoidable collapse of distribution networks throughout the rest of the country.  We may have plenty of food for everyone:  but if it can't be moved from field to processing facilities to distributors to consumers, how are we going to get our hands on it?

Too many of us are prone to say, "Well, that's just fear-mongering.  There's no guarantee anything like that will happen."  Unfortunately, there is such a guarantee.  Read the article about the Pacific Northwest earthquake potential, and look at what scientists and professionals are saying about its inevitability.  It's scary.

Remember "nine meals from anarchy"?  That well-known saying appears to have been first used by Alfred Henry Lewis in 1896.  In 1932 a New Jersey newspaper noted:

How nicely civilization has become balanced is shown by the easily perceived fact that we are never more than nine meals away from anarchy. Throw an impenetrable wall around this metropolitan zone of ten million persons, prevent the people from receiving a supply of food and water for three days, and our vaunted civilization goes on the scrap heap.

In a more recent article titled with that well-known saying, Jeff Thomas pointed out:

Importantly, it’s the very unpredictability of food delivery that increases fear, creating panic and violence. And, again, none of the above is speculation; it’s a historical pattern – a reaction based upon human nature ... At that point, it would be very likely that the central government would step in and issue controls to the food industry that served political needs rather than business needs, greatly exacerbating the problem.

I said a month ago:

There's also the question of the duration of an emergency.  If it's [a major nation-wide catastrophe], then the effects will be felt for not just years, but decades.  There's no way we can stockpile enough supplies to cater for something like that.  Those who can farm, growing their own food, will have an edge:  but everyone else who survives will be doing their best to raid farms for food, so keeping it is likely to be a very serious problem.  Certainly, if we are not already growing at least some of our own food, we're very unlikely to be able to grow enough from scratch to survive.  We lack the knowledge, tools, seeds, and experience to do so.  Tempting advertisements to buy a certain brand of seed, or a particular tool, or land on which to establish an "emergency farm", are likely to benefit only those selling them.  Realistically, most of us can afford to plan, and stockpile supplies, for an emergency lasting from a few weeks to a year.  Anything beyond that . . . well, it's unlikely we'll live through it.  That's just the way it is.

Nothing in the articles linked above leads me to think differently.  Perhaps all of us should re-evaluate our own emergency preparations with that in mind.

Peter

Remember the collapse of the Surfside condo complex in Miami, Florida, almost three years ago?

On June 24, 2021, at approximately 1:22 a.m. EDT, Champlain Towers South, a 12-story beachfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, United States, partially collapsed, causing the deaths of 98 people. Four people were rescued from the rubble, but one died of injuries shortly after arriving at the hospital. Eleven others were injured. Approximately thirty-five were rescued the same day from the un-collapsed portion of the building, which was demolished ten days later.

A contributing factor under investigation is long-term degradation of reinforced concrete structural support in the basement-level parking garage under the pool deck, due to water penetration and corrosion of the reinforcing steel. The problems had been reported in 2018 and noted as "much worse" in April 2021. A $15 million program of remedial works had been approved before the collapse, but the main structural work had not started.

There's more at the link.

The full impact of that tragedy is only now becoming evident in condo complexes up and down the Florida coast.  The same neglect that led to the Surfside collapse has been found in literally hundreds of other buildings, and the repair bills are colossal - so much so that owners can't afford them.

Have a Florida condo? Can you afford a $100,000 or higher special assessment for new safety standards?

After the collapse of a Surfside Building on June 24, 2021that killed 98 people, the state passed a structural safety law that is now biting owners.

Not only are insurance rates soaring, but owners are hit with huge special assessments topping $100,000.

. . .

Those who cannot sell and don’t have the special assessment, will be evicted and their units seized for whatever the Associations can get for them.

South Florida listings have doubled in the past year to over 18,000. Few of those units will sell, and those that do sell will be at a huge haircut.

Again, more at the link.

The structural safety law is entirely necessary from any rational perspective.  Unfortunately, many of those who bought condos in Florida - some of them decades ago, when prices were far lower - are now on the hook to pay for those repairs.  Some can afford it, but others have had no choice but to try to sell their now almost valueless condos to buyers who aren't prepared to pay for the sins or omissions of the past.  Many of them are now facing bankruptcy and possible homelessness.

What I find most infuriating is that the condo associations should have carried out normal preventive maintenance over the years;  should have had their buildings inspected regularly to detect problems before they got out of control;  and should have set aside adequate financial reserves to pay to repair them.  That's nothing more than basic common sense:  but it seems few did so.  The condo owners didn't want the trouble or expense involved.  To make matters worse, many of them now affected by the problem are trying to weasel their way out of it any way they can - despite the consequences of doing so being so starkly visible to everyone concerned.

State law previously allowed condos to waive reserve funding year after year, leading many buildings ... to keep next to nothing in their coffers.

. . .

Residents still meet ... to celebrate birthdays. But now, those gatherings are often charged with owners pooling documentation in hope of finding evidence that the assessments should be lower.

Some are worried developers may already be purchasing condos in the building for a potential takeover, where a developer tries to gain control of a building to knock it down and build a newer, more luxurious one. These condo terminations are happening up and down the state’s coastline. While the rules can vary by building, if enough people vote to sell their units, the others have to follow along.

More at the link.

One can't blame the developers.  If a unit's value has plummeted thanks to the cost of repairs, of course those with money - and an eye to make more money - are going to take advantage of the situation by buying it at a fire sale price, and buying as many as they can, in order to outvote longer-term residents and make more money out of redeveloping the site and/or building.  I'm afraid that's yet another consequence of owners refusing to invest in their condos during the "golden years", and now having to pay huge sums due to their previous neglect.  What goes around, comes around.

I suppose this is yet another example of why it's foolish to trust one's home and finances to a group of owners who may not have the right priorities.  The few responsible owners who would have been willing to pay for upkeep were undoubtedly outvoted by those who preferred to minimize maintenance in order to maximize their budgets, individual and corporate.  Now that they're all in the same (sinking) boat, they don't want to acknowledge that it's ultimately their own fault.  Human nature is still as self-centered as always . . .

*Sigh*

Peter

An article in the New York Post set me to thinking.

New Yorkers are fortifying their homes with panic rooms and bullet-proof doors like never before over fears about crime, migrants and national turmoil — and it’s not just the city’s elite partaking in the trend.

“Not every [customer] is an ultra-rich stockbroker — a lot of them are just people, middle-class kind of people,” said Steve Humble, founder of the home-defense contractor Creative Home Engineering.

“I’d say the pandemic really kicked off an uptick. Business was really good throughout the pandemic time, and it really hasn’t slowed down,” said Humble, who specializes in top-of-the-line secret doors disguised as bookshelves, fireplaces, mirrors, blank walls and whatever else a client can think of to conceal a safety room behind them.

He is one of numerous home-defense contractors who told The Post that the past four years have been a boon for business, with New Yorkers from all walks of life shelling out thousands of dollars to outfit their homes with hidden rooms, bulletproof doors and a swath of other covert security systems to keep the baddies at bay should they come knocking.

The driving force is a decline in New Yorkers’ sense of safety — assaults in the Big Apple reached 28,000 for the first time on record last year  — and the perceptible shift toward volatile instability that many people feel is ramping up across all of American society, Humble and others say.

There's more at the link.

I suppose a panic room might be a defense against a psycopathic nitwit who can't add two and two together to get four.  Such an assailant might not be able to distinguish between his shoe size and his IQ.  However, for almost all other attackers, a panic room simply gives them an excuse to rob the homeowner blind while he/she/they cower in their illusory "safe place", unable to stop them.  What's more, check the police response times in your neighborhood.  It often takes cops ten to fifteen minutes or more to respond to most 911 calls.  During that time, while you're cowering in your safe room, what are the home invaders doing to you and/or your possessions?

It gets worse.  Panic rooms offer an attacker an opportunity to murder everyone in the building, because they make it almost impossible to escape.  If the attacker simply strikes a match or two and sets fire to the place, how are those in the panic room to get away from the flames?  Panic rooms pin down their occupants, fix them in place.  It's no good saying that they can have hidden exits to escape such a fate;  those exits have to come out somewhere, and if (as it almost always is) those exits are on the same property (much less in the same building), who's to say they won't have caught fire by the time those in the panic room want to use them?  And what if they use them, only to emerge surrounded by frustrated attackers who've been looking for them?

Tying yourself down to a supposedly secure location, but one where you're unable to defend yourself against attackers, is a disaster waiting to happen.  I'd much rather harden the exterior of my home, making it as difficult as possible for someone to break in, and then defend my family and property from inside.  Even more tactically suitable would be to prevent the attackers from approaching in the first place.  This is why one should select a home in as safe a neighborhood as possible (although in today's climate of highly mobile criminals, street riots and other crimes, that safety may be illusory).

One last point.  If you're in an apartment building or condo complex, you've made yourself hostage to the security-mindedness and safety-consciousness (or lack thereof) of everyone else living there.  Trapping yourself above ground level is always a security risk.  You don't need an attacker to strike a match:  a domestic accident can start a fire just as easily as a criminal.  How are you going to get out of your apartment and down to ground level?  Are there multiple exits, and paths to reach those exits?  Is the building constructed of relatively fireproof materials?  What businesses or attractive targets are in the building that might attract criminals to it?  Unless and until those questions are satisfactorily answered (and, if necessary, their answers have persuaded you to move to a safer location), a panic or safe room is a lot lower on the priority list.

I won't worry about a panic room.  After eighteen years living (and frequently fighting) in a war zone, I'd rather arm myself and inflict panic on my attackers!

Peter

I note that the President-elect of Panama has vowed to stop the influx of migrants across his country towards the USA.

President-elect Jose Raul Mulino vowed to shut down a crucial migration gap through Panama that has been used by more than 500,000 migrants over the last year, signaling a shift in the country’s policy as the US continues to battle a crisis at its southern border, according to a report from Voice of America.

“Panama and our Darien [Gap] are not a transit route. It is our border,” Mulino said, according to the report.

Panama had previously helped bus migrants through the critical gap and allowed them to continue their journey north, a policy that has allowed thousands to reach the US border with Mexico.

There's more at the link.

That sounds like good news for us, but it's unlikely to succeed.  For a start, international organizations ranging from the United Nations to NGO's are all trying to facilitate migration from South America through Panama to Mexico, and ultimately to the USA.  To make matters worse, drug cartels in Mexico and countries south are making billions of dollars by transporting such migrants to our borders.  Finally, the Biden administration and the Democratic Party are openly admitting as many migrants as they can, in an attempt to change the future makeup of the US electorate to favor their policies.

With all those interests arrayed against him, how can President-elect Mulino hope to succeed?  I'm willing to bet large sums of money that he'll be "persuaded" through bribery and/or threats (the infamous "plata o plomo" question) to change his tune.  If he doesn't, I'm equally willing to bet that he'll be assassinated or otherwise removed from office (a fraudulent, rigged investigation for corruption, perhaps?) as quickly as possible.  He threatens too many powerful, rich constituencies with his proposal, and they won't stand for it.

I certainly hope he succeeds with his proposed policies . . . but I don't think he stands a snowball's chance in hell.  The forces arrayed against him, politically, criminally and monetarily, are simply too powerful.  I'd love to be wrong about that, but I doubt it.

Peter

I came across this on Gab the other day.  I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but it's certainly food for thought.

The rules of sewage:

Imagine you have two cups. One contains the purest, clearest, most wonderful water possible. The other, raw sewage. When you mix the two, you get sewage. The same for a cup of sewage and a pitcher of water, or a barrel of water. Regardless of the size of the pure water container, the sewage contaminates it.

This became the root of what I refer to as “The Rules of Sewage” in regards to a person’s character. This one is the First Rule of Sewage, The Non-Proportional Rule of Sewage. It means, as the saying above goes, that you can sometimes learn a thing about a person that taints the entirety of their personality – e.g., a person beats their spouse. It doesn’t matter what else they are, what acts they do, they are polluted by that one thing.

This simmered in my mind over a couple of years, and I started to formulate other Rules of Sewage. Each was based on the same base concept – mixing water and sewage. Thus far I’ve come up with six.

The Second Rule of Sewage is the Non-Compartmentalized Rule of Sewage. You cannot pour a cup of sewage into a container of water, and have it only remain in the place you poured it. Bad character leaks into other elements of character. E.g., a person who cheats on their spouse – thus breaking a sacred oath – cannot be counted on to keep an oath in any other part of their life.

The Third Rule of Sewage is the Immersive Rule of Sewage. Imagine an edible fish taken from that pure water, placed in sewage, and somehow surviving – no matter the fish’s immune system and other defenses, it will become contaminated. No matter how pure you are to begin with, if you are surrounded by bad people or bad content, it will start to affect you. E.g., a good, honest person who goes to work in a place with bad ethics and stays there – for whatever reason – will sooner or later find they are making compromises to their own character and standards, and rationalizing their doing so. (And this is, of course, the root of the proverb “Birds of a feather, flock together.”)

The Fourth Rule of Sewage is Irreversible Rule of Sewage. Simply put, it’s a lot easier to mix the sewage in and ruin the water than reversing the process. While people are certainly capable of change, it takes deliberate effort to do so, and usually also an ongoing awareness and maintenance of that change to avoid slipping back to whatever factor is being avoided.

The Fifth Rule of Sewage is the Odiferous Rule of Sewage. Sewage, to put it bluntly, stinks like sh*t. Bad odors like that can be covered up or contained, but not forever. Sooner or later the malodorous item in a person’s character will out, and be readily apparent. This actually ties in with…

The Sixth Rule of Sewage, the Reactive Rule of Sewage – when faced with a tank of sewage, normal people react negatively. And while a person learning something about another (ref: Rule One) won’t physically turn their head away and scrunch up their face in disgust, I believe the plain truth is that upon learning of such a think will cause a decent person to dissociate – to whatever degree possible – from the other. Failing to do so, or worse expressing approval, could be considered an example application of Rule One about them too.

I can certainly get on board with the Sixth Rule, often expressed as "Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas".  What do you think of the rest?

Peter

Stephan Pastis, as usual, says it all.  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

Yet again, let me point out that with all the manipulation, lying, cheating and deception going on - from both sides of the political aisle - we should not expect a free, fair election in November.  Shenanigans will be the order of the day.  Do not trust any professional politician (i.e. one who's done nothing else except work in politics since leaving high school or college).  If they've grown up in and through that system, they're as untrustworthy as that system.  By all means pick one's flavor of politician and vote for them, but don't expect that to change or improve our society.  I reckon we could count the moral, ethical, honest, upright politicians in the House or the Senate on the fingers of one hand, two at most.

Remember the acronym TINVOWOOT - There Is No Voting Our Way Out Of This - because you're going to be hearing it a lot between now and then.

Peter

Friend of the blog Lawdog has written an emotive and (I think) very important article titled "Meditations On Duty".  Here are a few excerpts.

Every day we are bombarded with news articles about District Attorneys campaigning for “No bail requirements”, “Reduced sentencing”, “Alternate sentencing”, all of which appears — in some cases outrighted stated — to give felons and habitual criminals a leg up.

We are continually shown footage of riots in major cities and at universities where the rioters arsonists, and violent thugs are treated with kid gloves.

Just or otherwise, there is a very definite perception that District Attorneys would much rather throw the book at someone with no previous criminal history, while the felons and violent thugs get deals.

On the other paw, for a man to be even hinted at any variety of sexual offence, whether it be harassment or outright rape, is to be guilty until proven innocent.

And to certain parts of the howling Internet mobs you can never be innocent — and they will make it a crusade to destroy your life.

. . .

I find myself in a position that I’ve never been in before. All of my life I have known that if people needed to be helped, I should help them — I’ve literally been a Boy Scout. All of my adult life I have known that if there is gun-fire, I will run to that sound and protect people.

I … don’t know anymore.

It’s already started. If Rita isn’t with me, I will not stop to help a female stranger, or children. I will call local law enforcement and have them sent there, but without Rita being present I will not offer aid on my own. That goes double if there are children involved.

And that mortifies me, but the risk of having my life destroyed with false allegations is not worth it.

For the first time in my life I do not know what I will do if gunfire erupts in a public place where I am.

If a spree shooter attacks a public place where I am, or am near — I will get family and friends to safety, but after that I literally do not know.

Do I run to the sound of gunfire and solve the problem? I’ve already been the victim of wrongful prosecution once, do I risk that again? Do I take a chance going up against a protected class, and earning the “mostly peaceful” wrath of the howling mob, and a legacy media that lives for stirring up rioters?

There's more at the link.  Go read the whole thing.  It's worth your time.

Remember, too, that Lawdog is a retired officer of the law.  He's spent a career fighting crime and criminals.  If he, in his position, is no longer certain that he can engage evildoers without being tarred with their brush by a politically correct or "woke" justice system, how much more so should we, private citizens, be worried about the same reality?  We can't claim prior and extensive experience in dealing with crime to justify our intervening to help its victims.  We don't have the "protection", in the eyes of the law, that Lawdog has.

Today, we have to accept that in very large parts of these United States the justice system has been warped and twisted along "woke" lines, so that it today protects the politically correct cause du jour and its adherents.  If one doesn't belong to that group, one is almost automatically at greater risk from the authorities, irrespective of the facts of the situation.  Over the past few years I've written a number of articles about this conundrum.  In case you missed any of them, I'll link them below.  I highly recommend that you take time to read them and think about them, because the situations they describe might confront you at any time in this crazy world we live in.

In particular, note the problems involved in trying to remain anonymous if you live in a "woke" judicial environment, and don't want to be connected to otherwise legitimate acts of self-defense.  The first article in the list above addresses that issue.  Also, I've said before that a revolver is no longer the optimum choice as a personal defense weapon, because it holds too few rounds to deal with a mob or gang situation.  That remains true:  but there's a countervailing argument that unlike a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver doesn't spit out cartridge cases all over the scene, which can later be analyzed.  There's something to be said for that if you're in a hostile, unreasonable, biased prosecutorial environment.  To make up for the limited number of rounds in a revolver, carry one chambered for the biggest, most powerful cartridge one can control in rapid, aimed fire.  Hitting harder is seldom a bad idea in defensive shooting.

Suffice it to say that in a prosecutorial environment that's as (or more) likely to punish the good guy as the bad, discretion is our watchword.  If, despite that, we choose to intervene, we'd better do so with our eyes wide open as to what trouble that may bring down on our heads.  We should have a good lawyer on speed dial, and refuse to say anything unless and until he/she is with us and has had an opportunity to brief us.  Furthermore, we should minimize the ease with which rogue prosecutors and shyster lawyers can go after us.  This does not include tampering with evidence (which is a crime in itself), but simply observing due caution and discretion is never a bad thing.  Our defense attorneys will thank us for that.

Finally, no matter why or how we've intervened, don't speak to police or anyone else after such an incident unless and until our lawyer(s) has/have interviewed us and briefed us about what may, or should not, be said.  It's too easy to talk ourselves into a jail cell!  Here's a law professor's view of that, and Massad Ayoob's limited corollary to that perspective.  Both are worth watching in full.

Food for thought.

Peter

There's been an enormous, emotional reaction to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem's revelation that she shot an errant dog after it had killed a flock of chickens and then appeared to turn on her.  If you've missed the story, you can read about it here.

My first point is, if the incident is as she described it, she did exactly the right thing.  One of her dogs had inflicted death and destruction on another person's animals.  There's no "miracle cure" for that;  once an animal starts down that path, it'll continue unless and until it's stopped the hard way.  I've seen it many times before, and twice have assisted a friend to shoot packs of dogs that had "graduated" to chasing cattle, biting at their legs and throats, trying to bring one down to kill and eat it.

My second point is that far too many people today have lost sight of the basic facts of life.  They're living in a cocoon, an emotional fuzzy ball of fluff that's insulated them from reality.  As "Ragin Dave" put it at Liberty's Torch:

The people freaking out about this are people who have never once been outside of their protective bubble. Sometimes real life demands hard choices. When I read the story, I just shrugged and went “Yeah. So?” I think it would do this country a world a good if many of those pampered bubble dwellers had to actually see where their food comes from, and perhaps harvest that food themselves. The first time I helped harvest and butcher an animal I became much more appreciative of the food on my plate, and the people who work to put it there. I think that lesson needs to be taught to an entire generation these days.

True dat.  Life is full of hard choices.  Killing an errant, dangerous animal is just one of them - and by no means the most difficult.

Choices are often hard in the abstract, but a heck of a lot easier in the concrete.  It's easy to say, "Oh, I could never shoot someone!" when asked what one would do if a criminal attacked one's spouse or child.  When it actually happens - when one's spouse or child is subject to a brutal, relentless attack that can only result in her death or serious injury - it's a whole lot easier to justify shooting, and even killing, the attacker.  That also tends to change one's whole outlook on life.  Shooting an errant, dangerous animal is part and parcel of the same response.

I remember a young lady I knew back in South Africa.  She was one of the anti-violence, peace-and-rainbows-and-unicorn-farts people, nice enough as a person, but without much of a clue about the darker side of the world.  When I invited her to join a class I was presenting on defensive firearm use, she recoiled in horror, as if I were some sort of monster.  (I was more than a little surprised that her husband, a shooter and hunter and outdoor type, had married her;  but he obviously saw beneath the surface to the real person, who hadn't yet revealed herself.)

That changed in the small hours of the morning she found an intruder climbing in through the window of her two-year-old daughter's bedroom.  According to her (somewhat bemused) husband, she stormed into the room (pushing him aside in the process), pepper-sprayed the intruder in the eyes, waited until he'd put his hands up to his face, kicked him hard in the unmentionables, and proceeded to beat him unmercifully about the head with her daughter's favorite wooden stool (so hard that she broke it).  According to him, when the cops arrived, they stood around scratching their heads and saying things like "Ma'am, why did you call us?  You were doing just fine on your own!"  Kipling warned us about the female of the species . . . and I suspect he was right, particularly when the female in question is the mother of a young child.

I heard about the incident at five o'clock that morning, when she called, woke me out of a sound sleep, and demanded to join my next shooting class, at once if not sooner.  She learned well, and persuaded her husband (who, already a shooter, needed little persuasion) to buy her a Colt Commander lightweight .45 pistol, which she proceeded to carry everywhere with almost religious fervor.  She'd learned the hard way that life happens, whether we like it or not - and she was determined to make sure it worked out in her (and her child's) favor next time.  The rest of her (former) circle of friends were horrified at her transformation, needless to say, and promptly turned their backs on her;  but her husband (and yours truly) were all in favor.  It did their marriage no end of good, too.

So, I fail to see why all the fuss about Governor Noem's actions with respect to her dog.  She did what was necessary, when it was necessary.  I have no idea whether or not she's a good governor, as I live a long way from her state and have never had the need to do any research about her:  but the story makes me more likely than not to consider her favorably, as a politician who's walked the walk as well as talked the talk.  Readers who know more about her can tell the rest of us in Comments if that's a reasonable assessment.

Peter

Andrew Fox is a former Major in Britain's armed forces, who served three combat tours in Afghanistan.  He posted this tweet a few days ago.  I've taken the liberty of reproducing it in full.

I gave a presentation this morning, partly about Afghanistan. On the drive home it set me thinking.

My hunch is that part of the reason for Western protests about Gaza is a total failure to understand what urban war is, and what it looks like, and people are horrified to see it. Totally understandable. Now couple that to a powerful disinformation campaign that exploits those feelings of horror and tells them what they’re seeing and can’t comprehend (urban war) is something else (genocide).

As a commander in Afghanistan on my first two tours, which were before the “counterinsurgency” era, I saw my job as being to apply maximum violence to kill the enemy legally within rules of engagement. If I had a Harrier or an A-10 or an Apache to call on, I’d use that as a first option. If not, I’d use mortars or Javelin or machine guns if I had them. Only as a last resort would I commit my rifle sections.

That’s war. And that’s what Israel is fighting, on a far more brutal scale. Hamas and the surrounding Iranian proxies are an existential threat to Israel’s existence as a country. It’s that which people in the West fail to understand. We’re used to expeditionary wars of choice on the other side of the world. Israel has kibbutzim 5km from where their troops are fighting. The IDF in Gaza can look over their shoulders and see their home. It’s a totally different perspective on war from the one we in the West are used to. 

Hamas have to be deleted as a fighting force for Israel to survive as a country with safe borders. To achieve that is the single most basic function of government. This isn’t a war Israel wants but it’s one they’ve been forced to fight. They’ve already taken double the fatalities the British did in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. 

If they wanted to, they could stand off with jets, and hit Gaza City and Khan Younis and Rafah simultaneously and level the place - and legally. If it’s a military target and you can justify the collateral damage, the law of armed conflict says that’s legal. That Israel hasn’t done that tells you all you need to know about whether this is a genocide or not.

I don’t blame people for being sucked in by disinformation about Gaza. It’s been sophisticated and effective information warfare. I have no limits to my contempt for those who throw around “genocide” when they know perfectly well it isn’t. The most serious of crimes shouldn’t be debased like that, and shame on South Africa and their allies who have abused international law in this way.

War is horrifying, brutal, and extremely violent. Gaza isn’t a conventional counter-terror campaign. We saw on 7 October how well armed, organised and tactically aware Hamas are. They use human and humanitarian shields. They’ve forced Israel into the only appropriate response, and it’s the innocents in Gaza who suffer. That the numbers of innocents injured and killed is so low is a testament to the IDF using tactics that have incurred far higher IDF casualties than other options on the table.

“War is hell” is a cliche for a reason. But it’s nothing more than a war that we see in Gaza.

That's the military reality of the situation in Gaza at resent.  It's a war.  It's not a "peace mission" or a "genocide" or an "occupation" at all.  Israel was attacked, and now it's defending itself in the only way possible - by removing the attackers and the threat they represent.  That's a very harsh reality . . . but it is reality.  To pretend otherwise is stupid.

Peter

An incident in California demonstrates just how vulnerable much of our critical infrastructure really is.

An internet outage that caused massive delays, some hours long, for flights at the Sacramento International Airport (SMF) started after AT&T wires were intentionally cut, officials said.

. . .

"It looks like someone who knew what they were doing," [Sergeant] Gandhi said. "So this wasn't just a couple of teenagers ... ripping some wires out as a prank. [It] looks very deliberate ... like they knew what they were doing."

There's more at the link.

I hate to think what proportion of our critical infrastructure (airports, sewage and water plants, power stations, dams, factories, refineries, rail interchanges, etc.) are dependent on Internet connections for part or all of their operations.  I suspect it's most of them.  Those Internet connections mostly run over cables, or via satellite.  Given how easy it is to take out a major fiber-optic cable (dig down to it, set off explosives, and Bob's your uncle) or use a local EMP weapon (as already possessed by many hostile powers and nations) to interrupt satellite communications in a given area, and all those critical points are suddenly offline.  How long will it take to reconnect them all?  Will it even be possible, if it can't be done in a hurry?  Many of them can't take too much of an interruption before they have to shut down their plant, and once that's done it can take a heck of a lot of maintenance and preparation before machines can be turned on again.  (Just as one example, if you shut down a crucible in a metal plant, the metal still inside it will solidify.  Getting that back to a liquid, and decanting it, can take weeks or months - if it's possible at all.  Another example:  re-energizing an electrical grid.  That takes a lot of power just to restart everything, but if generating plants have all been shut down, where's it to come from?  What about transformers that blow during the process?  Are spares on hand?)

Emergencies aren't just caused by storms or earthquakes.  Determined enemies can create emergencies that take weeks, if not months (and perhaps years) to sort out.  Hence, emergency preparations need to take such elements into account.  If you live near or are dependent on (e.g. for employment) any of those critical infrastructure elements, your emergency preparations should take that reality into account.  Being thrown out of work due to your employer having to shut down operations is just as much of an emergency, in its own way, as having water or power cut off to your house.

Also, consider how much of our daily lives now depend on the Internet.  Home security systems, banking, shopping, entertainment . . . if we lose the Internet, how will we do all those things?  Have you checked where the nearest physical branch of your bank is, and its hours of operation, and how to get there?  It might surprise you to see how difficult it will be to conduct your financial affairs if you have to go there in person, rather than tap at your keyboard.  (That's one reason why keeping a reasonable stash of cash at home, just in case, is anything but overkill.  It may be essential.)

Peter

I was cynically amused by the outrage displayed by a shopper at Whole Foods in Boston.

A Boston-based influencer has sparked outrage over inflation after claiming she paid $7 for a single apple at a Whole Foods.

. . .

“Genuinely what economy are we all f–king living in that it costs 7 dollars to buy an apple?” she asked. “I could have sworn that some other like apple that I bought was not 7 f–king dollars. It’s crazy, like 7 dollars for a latte? OK. This apple better be tasting so f–king good.”

There's more at the link.

I agree with her:  that price for a single apple is absolutely ridiculous - but so was her behavior in buying it.  If she'd put it down and walked away, she'd have saved money and the store might have learned a lesson in consumer economics.

Something like this is behind quite a lot of inflation.  Businesses aren't pricing their goods according to what they pay for them, plus a fair and reasonable profit.  Instead, they're pricing them as high as they think they can get for the product.  From a strictly capitalist perspective, of course, they're entitled to do so, because there's nothing forcing us to buy their products in the first place.  We can always look for lower prices somewhere else.  However, that becomes a lot more difficult when the availability of product is restricted (e.g. a breakdown in the supply chain, a natural disaster, etc.).  Under those conditions, products that are critical to life, health and safety may be priced out of the reach of those who most need them.  Is that just?  Is that fair?  "Pure" capitalism says it doesn't matter - that the market determines the price.  Simple human decency (not to mention the teaching of a large number of religious faiths, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam) argues otherwise.  There's no point in debating that here.  Opinions are likely as numerous (and as diverse) as our readership.

Another aspect of that problem is corporations that enter a market offering deliberately low prices, even below cost, in order to gain dominance there.  By doing so, they drive out of business other companies that can't afford to price-match them.  As soon as their competition is gone, they increase their prices to normal levels - sometimes far above normal levels.  Since consumers no longer have anywhere else (local) to go for what they need, they have little or no choice but to pay the now-inflated prices.  I've seen that at work, too.  A few years ago, back in Tennessee, a garbage removal company tried to enter our local market by offering rock-bottom rates.  Our existing service, a small family-owned business, put out flyers to all its customers, pointing out what was happening and saying that if the new entrant succeeded, they'd have to close their doors, because they didn't have the financial resources to fight back.  When a number of us checked, we found that the new entrant had used those tactics in a number of nearby municipalities, and then drastically raised its prices once customers were "locked in" to its services due to the absence of competitors.  Most of us stayed with our existing supplier, and the new entrant, frustrated, took its efforts elsewhere.

In so many words, a lot of the inflation we experience from day to day is actually caused by manufacturers and vendors setting the highest prices they think they can obtain.  They'll cite scarcity, supply chain issues, weather and anything else you can think of - but they won't reduce their prices unless and until market factors force that upon them.  Fundamentally, it's greed at work . . . and greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  Unfortunately, many businessmen appear to ignore such factors.

One major exception to the rule is Waffle House, and they deserve a round of applause.  I'm sure most of my readers have heard of the "Waffle House Index", a widely referenced measurement of how severely an area has been affected by a disaster.  I've seen Waffle House at work through several hurricanes in the South, and one thing is very noticeable;  they never gouge their customers on price.  They get their restaurants back up and running as fast as humanly possible, and they maintain their pre-disaster prices no matter how much extra it costs them to bring in supplies over disrupted and sometimes hazardous routes.  Kudos to them for offering their services to survivors and rescue workers who need them very badly.  There are other stores that do likewise, but that's often at the discretion of local store managers.  Waffle House is the only chain I know of that does so as a matter of policy.  (If any readers know of other chains that do business that way, please let us know about them in Comments.)

Peter

We've mentioned Selco Begovic in these pages several times.  He lived through the Bosnian war from 1992-1995, and has written three books incorporating his and others' stories from that war, plus lessons learned that we can apply in other emergency situations.  He's one of the few writers in that field who's "been there and done that", and speaks with the authority of hard-won experience.

This morning's snippet is from his book "SHTF Survival Stories:  Memories from the Balkan War".  I highly recommend it, and Selco's other books as well.

The blurb reads:

There are many books out there on all the different aspects of preparedness and survival that can provide you with information, checklists, and theoretical solutions to potential problems. But no matter how much you read or how well-researched the books you choose are, there’s only so much you can take away from these tomes. Getting your information from someone who has survived a "sh*t hit the fan" crisis will take your preparedness to an entirely different level. Meet Selco, a legend in the preparedness world. He survived in a city that was under siege for more than a year. He had no power, no running water, no stores for supplies, and every day, he ran the risk of meeting a violent death, whether by shells, sniper fire, or a person intent on hurting others. This book is a collection of memories from the darkest days of the Balkan War, where each moment could have been his last. This isn’t a cheerful and uplifting guide to survival. There’s no misplaced optimism. There’s only Selco, the darkness he faced, and the grim reality of an SHTF scenario most of us can’t even fathom. But if you can grasp it all before it happens, you’ll be much further ahead than those who are frozen in shock. Please note that Selco's first language is not English. These stories have been lightly edited for clarity, but they still retain the "accent."

As the blurb says, this isn't light, easy reading at all:  but it's very accurate in describing how civilization can (and does) go to hell in a handbasket when things go very wrong.  I've experienced that in three nations in Africa, and therefore I can verify what Selco says from my own experience.  The misery war brings is pretty much the same all over the world, no matter where it takes place or in what language its stories are told.

I've chosen just one of the stories Selco tells in this book.  This is "Laura's Story".  WARNING:  This discusses brutal violence, rape, and a number of other very dark topics.  If any of those subjects offend or upset you, you should not read further.

“Laura” was 42 years old at the time of the event, a clerk at the local bank, two kids in school, and her husband was a driver for the city bus services.

She is now 64 and the house where we are having this conversation is small and wet. On the floor there are several pots, probably used for catching rain from roof leaks. She looks like she is sick, smoking homemade cigarettes. The smell is awful.

She looks like she has given up, like she is going to kill herself right after our conversation.

She told me her story of the war.

Do you remember the period of hyperinflation when you could buy with credit and when that check came to payment it would be worth maybe 10% of the original value, some few months before killing and chaos started?

Inflation was like a toy for some folks.

Now when I remember that I feel like an idiot because I did not realize that everything was going to shit when something like that is possible.

Women from bank, my colleagues, were bragging how they bought extra stuff that way with almost no money, I was proud because I did not do that.

You know, my father was one of the first who organized an uprising against the Germans here in the big war, a real Communist. He even went as a volunteer in Spanish civil war there, fought against Franco.

He told me a story that once he met Marshall Tito in war, at some Communist conference. It was deep in the Bosnian woods in the winter of 1943, while they were encircled by Italians and Germans.

He told me that he was not like a man, he was an idea, he was the state. The movement that you just need to follow because he knows best.

I was raised to believe in the state, in the communist system, in the ideals of the state for workers and peasants.

When the war started in Croatia, I, just like most of us, believed that somehow someone will recognize that we are all same people, Socialists and Communists, and that we just needed to stick together, and everything would be fine.

But I did not know that the Western world did not want us to have Yugoslavia. We were simply too strong for them. They wanted us to hate each other, and to pull out that old hatred between Yugoslav nations.

And then one day my husband came home earlier from work. He looked badly shaken.

He told me that his coworker was absent from work for two weeks, officially he was ill, with pneumonia.

Rumors were that he was volunteering as a fighter in Croatia. Some people believed and some did not believe.

But when he came back to work, he had golden necklaces around his neck, golden rings, and big smile on his face.

Some folks said that he was bragging around that there in Croatia if you are willing to fight there were a lot of things to plunder, money and gold, and he whispered with sick smile that if you have the will and if you wanted there were lot of “available“ women, too.

Husband said that guy was always bit weird when it came to women and alcohol, but after he returned from that “weekend fighting“ for money, he always had a sick smile on his face, like he had seen that you can get money, gold, and women in much easier ways than standing all day long in a decades-old bus and selling tickets to angry workers and confused school kids.

My husband never was a brave man. He was good man, but he liked to pull back from situations where people used fists or knives.

You could say that he was coward in some way.

After few stories he heard from that colleague, the fear installed in him for real and forever. Anyway, that forever did not last too long.

S*** moved from Croatia to our town pretty soon. One morning I realized that my coworkers who were other nationalities were missing from work.

And I realized too, that their workplaces were empty more or less. While I was talking about how we should stick together in the spirit of socialism, they were organizing how to get the hell out of town.

I still believed in life together between people of different nationalities.

And then one morning my husband came earlier from his job. He told me that people in uniforms came and confiscated the buses in the name of the “Cause” and the state. Nobody said what cause or state, but he saw that they had blood in their eyes, and nobody was willing to ask too many questions.

They told the workers that they need to go home and follow the orders of the local “crisis government.”

In that time there were already several of those crisis governments, each with their own agendas, militias, and orders. People still tried to understand which of those government represented the state.

What they did not understand was that the state was already gone. There were wars between those people too.

My husband finally beat his fear and went to the local criminals to buy a rifle. He gave almost half the money that we had saved for new car for that thing.

When he came home with the rifle, he was even more afraid.

He did not talk too much, but I understood that he was more afraid to use that rifle than to be without it.

He was a weak man. He could not help it.

Somewhere around that day when he bought the rifle, we sent our kids to my sister, some 200 km from our place.

It was the first and probably last time when my husband’s fear was used to make a good decision. I did not want to be separated from my kids, but he just kept on telling me, “Laura, you do not know what is happening, and what are people saying outside. The kids need to go away from here.”

They left town in one of the last of the Red Cross organized convoys. Their small faces were confused behind the glass. While I was waving them at the local market where the transport was organized, my husband was in our backyard trying to kill beer bottles with bullets from his rifle.

Our neighbor was trying to teach him how to operate the rifle. Rumors in town were that this neighbor had some violent history. Some even said that he was in the French Foreign Legion.

My husband was a cook during the basic training in army, and he forgot even the basic stuff that he learned in the army.

After we got word from the Red Cross that our kids got to their destination in good order, we were kind of more relaxed, but silence moved into the house.

For days we listened to the radio on our car battery. Electricity, water, and all other services were gone. We still were trying to figure who was fighting, who was defending who was liberating, and who was representing the law in our city.

And then one night we awakened to strong kicks at the door.

“Police!” they shouted. “Open the door, now!”

My husband shouted at me, “Where is the rifle?”

I did not know of course, and I still believe that he simply forgot where he put it. He was completely lost in fear.

Anyway, he opened the door. They told him that they were newly organized police and that they trying to organize law in the city.

Of course, he believed them.

They had uniforms, helmets, weapon, and authority. He simply was that kind of man. He wanted to trust.

He even remembered where he left his rifle when they asked him. And then they told him that he needed to go with them to the police station and fill out some simple paperwork because that rifle, nothing more.

I never saw him again.

I still remember how he was very calmly putting his jacket on while he was having a conversation with those guys. He had trust on his face. He was happy there was someone finally who he could trust, who would tell him what to do.

What else does a law-abiding citizen need? F***!

I never saw him again.

But I saw those people again the very next night.

They did not knock or yell this time. One of them simply crushed the doorknob with his boot.

When they entered house one of them punched me in the face right away, and he said to me just one word. “Gold?”

He kicked me with his boot few more times before the meaning of that word finally got through my brain and then he kicked me few more times before I caught my breath and strength to tell him where my gold necklaces and rings were.

You are asking me did they do anything more to me? You mean did they rape me?

Yeah, they did. Two of them raped me while the two other guys were collecting interesting stuff in my house.

I still do not remember if the other two guys raped me, or if they did not.

After the second one somehow, I kinda left my body. It was like I was floating next to the ceiling while he was on me.

I remember the words “Let’s just kill this bitch.”

Much later I realized that those words were spoken about me.

Did I want to be killed after that?

No, actually not. In that moment I felt only physical pain, but I still had the will to live. I did not want to die. Not yet.

I survived that, just like hundreds of other women in that time.

I do not remember how I lived the next month or two.

I mean I remember everything in a way: black market, famine, diseases, endless killings, side switching, rumors about peace and everything else.

But from the moment when those guys left my house, everything was blurred. I simply pushed on and on.

I learned how to treat wounded in one of the local militias, I found a man who protected me, not because he loved me or because he was a good man. It was because I was a woman.

I remember endless wounded guys screaming and in pain.

And then one day peace came, I was hearing from all sides that peace has come, and finally everything was gonna be fine.

And that was moment when I broke.

I was an old woman. My husband was dead, but actually officially he was still missing. I could not even get a pension from state because officially he was not dead. He was not founded in one of the thousand improvised graves.

He was probably killed immediately after he was taken from our house, maybe 500 meters from our house. Turned to dust or just pile of bones somewhere in someone abandoned well, or on the bottom of the river.

Where are my kids?

One is in America. She is some kind of small boss in a local fast food restaurant. Whenever I speak to her on phone, I understand her less. Each time she uses more English then our language, and each time I am happier.

Why?

I want from her to forget this country, this language. I want from her to forget me, to never come back here, I do not want her to be one day outside her body while some guy is on top of her and another searching her home for gold in the name of state.

My other kid?

Well, he is some kind of musician. Lives in Italy. I think he is homosexual.

What are my feelings about that?

I do not care, as long as he does not come back here. I do not want him to be taken from the house in the middle of the night in the name of the cause, in some future “Balkan conflict.”

Sometimes I have a dream that he might be on the other side in some future war here. What if he was one of the guys who searched for gold and valuables after he killed a woman’s husband?

And next morning when I wake from that dream, I even more want from him to hate everything that is here, country people, system, even me.

Just as long as he does not come back.

What do I do for living?

I do what I learned in that time. I care for sick folks. I have a few older people that I take care of. I wash them, clean them, take care for this disease, and similar.

It is enough for cigarettes and beer and that food that I eat.

I’ll be fine.

Do I trust in living together with harmony between different people?

Hmmm, I do not care for that. I do not give a s***.

Well, there you have it.  A family who had never prepared for the complete collapse of the society in which they lived . . . and paid the price for it.  If you think that can't happen anywhere else, even in America, you're deluded.  I've seen it happen elsewhere, and experienced for myself the consequences.  In some of our inner cities today, conditions very like those Laura describes are a daily fact of life.  I'm not joking.  They really are.

Read, and learn . . . and ask yourself:  "If this happened to my family, tomorrow, how well are we equipped and trained to survive it?"

Peter