Tag Archives: news

Article – America’s meat shortage is more serious than your missing hamburgers

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If you go to Wendy’s this week, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to get a hamburger. Go to the supermarket and you’ll probably see some empty shelves in the meat section. You may also be restricted to buying one or two packs of whatever’s available. Try not to look at the prices. They’re almost definitely higher than what you’re used to.

This is the new reality: an America where beef, chicken, and pork are not quite as abundant or affordable as they were even a month ago.

One of the far-downstream  consequences of the Current Situation that probably not too many people thought about when this started. My habit of cruising the remaindered meat aisle and freezing any good deals I find should serve me well. But, honestly, if meat costs a little more…so what? It’s not a problem for me. And, really, this is true of everything. No matter what it is…from caviar to plutonium to machine guns…it’s always available, it’s just expensive. If beef jumps a dollar a pound..:::shrug::: I can deal with it.

Of course, prices go up when supply is low. I can adjust. It’s when the product is completely unavailable…thats the problem. I’ve got a pretty goodly supply of animal flesh sitting in the freezer but thats very much an ‘eggs in one basket’ kind of thing. That freezer craps out on me, I lose a good 85% or so of mt supply of meat. Oh, I have the resources on hand to can it all if something like that happened, but I think that perhaps having more than one freezer should be the way to go. I’ve the generator to run them in case of a power failure, and should the power failure last longer than my generator can support, that still buys me time to can it all.

I’d been picking up more canned meats from CostCo these last two months….chicken and beef mostly. I’ve talked about the CostCo canned roast beef before and I highly recommend it. Canned chicken is canned chicken…it’s all pretty much the same. In addition to the canned meats I’ve a couple cases of Mountain House freeze dried pork chops, diced chicken, diced beef, and ground beef. And, yes, I am aware of canned bacon but I’m just not a huge bacon guy…I like bacon, but I can live without it.

Being the jaded survivalist, I wonder how much of this meat panic is genuine and how much of it is a self-fulfilling prophecy brought about by the media. Thus far, for me, in my locale, I haven’t seen any real change in pricing or availability but then again perhaps it takes a while for these effects to trickle down to flyover country. I’ll continue to buy my meat trays once a week and just keep working the vacuum sealer. A full freezer is never a bad idea, really, anyway.

Article – Ranks of Absent U.S. Food Inspectors Swell on Virus, Union Says

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Well, normally I take anything a union says with a big grain of salt. Add in another heaping tablespoon for it coming from Bloomberg. But…it makes sense.
As I pointed out to someone in comments earlier, most people just looked at the immediate consequences of this pandemic (“I might get sick”) and many fewer looked at the downstream consequences (“The guy who fixes my car might get sick and I need to have work done on it.”, “The guy who delivers the food to the market might call in sick”, “I may not be able to schedule that root canal in two weeks”, etc.)
Meat inspectors? Sure. Probably the same for vehicle inspectors, air safety inspectors, engineering inspectors, etc. (Which might underscore that perhaps we have too many inspections required in our everyday lives.) Occupancy permit for your new addition on your house? City inspector isn’t coming out. Vehicle inspection so you can renew your tags? Most garages are at half staff and have huge waiting lists. You get the idea.
All of this, though, is completely predictable if you think far enough out. What is it that you cannot do yourself and will bottleneck things if the person who does it is unavailable? Thats the question. The answer, of course, is to have a workaround in place…could be stockpiled materials, alternate vendors, DIY, or a Plan B to make do until later.
And, maybe, it’s a good idea to make sure the freezer is topped off. Just in case.

Article – Food Rationing Is New Reality for Buyers Once Spoiled for Choice

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(Bloomberg) — At a Publix store in St. Petersburg, Florida, handmade signs limit customers to two packages of beef, pork and Italian sausage. In Toronto, shoppers at a west end Loblaws can’t buy more than two dozen eggs and two gallons of milk.

Spoiled for choice before the pandemic, North American shoppers are finding they can’t get everything they want as grocery stores ration in-demand items to safeguard supplies.

While the panic that swept through supermarkets in the first weeks of the coronavirus lockdowns has eased, people are still filling fridges and pantries with stay-at-home staples from flour and yeast to pasta sauce and meat.

The strong demand comes at a time of supply disruptions as food makers adapt to dramatic shifts in buying patterns and some processing plants close as workers fall ill. As a result, stores are restricting purchases to prevent items from vanishing from shelves. For shoppers, that can be unnerving.

Wait..so there is a global crisis that may cause disruption in the availability of some food products? Who couuld have possibly predicted such things? Well, pretty much anyone with half a brain, really.

Hazlitt said that economics was not about just looking at a particular action, but rather at the consequences of that action, for all groups, further downstream. It seems like many people figured that out, on a subconscious level mostly, as people wet out and started buying huge quantities of goods for reasons they couldn’t really articulate.

Which reminds me, the Current Situation is showing what people (as a group) are truly made of. For all their ”we are in this together” nonsense, even the most obnoxious NPR-listening, Volvo-driving, limousine-liberal is out there buying up  more than her ‘fair share’ of goods. Why? Because when it really comes down to survival we put our ‘tribe’ first. That tribe can be your family, your religion, your race, your class, your region, whatever…but we all have one. For 99.9% of us it’s our families.

Food rationing? Maybe, but not as it really is… ‘food rationing’ is not settling for store-brand Mac&Cheese because the Trader Joe Organic version was sold out. That’s not rationing. Rationing is getting something that is probably not what you want, not in the quantity you want, and not in the quality you want…and you’re grateful to have it.

Gun Jesus has a nice four-part series on food rationing in Britain during WW2. It’s interesting to see what you would have had to work with.

Link – Governor to take ventilators for NYC as hospitals buckle

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Now Cuomo jumps in the seize-it bus, and throws property rights under it.

NEW YORK (AP) — With coronavirus deaths climbing rapidly in New York, the governor announced Friday he will use his authority to take ventilators and protective gear from private hospitals and companies that aren’t using them, complaining that states are competing against each other for vital equipment in eBay-like bidding wars.

“If they want to sue me for borrowing their excess ventilators to save lives, let them sue me,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

There is a proper response when someone tries to steal your life-saving equipment, however that response does not involve suing them.

 

The media and how we’re all supposed to have been dead weeks ago

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The media really is the most blatant example of the self-licking ice cream cone when it comes to the end of the world. Anyone remember a few weeks ago when, after the US turned an Iranian general into aerosol form, the media was telling us World War III was about to start? And how it was a foolish military event that would precipitate the Middle East plunging into chaos and the draft would be reinstated and we’d all die at the hands of Iranian sleeper  squads and…and…and…:::crickets:::. The Iranians lobbed some missiles to save face in the eyes of their neighbors and…thats been about it.

But, oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth that the media engaged in.

And now, the Chinese have, somehow, got a virus going on that’s going to sweep the planet and we’re all going to catch it. OMG!!!11!!!11111!

:::yawn::: I’ve been to this dance before. Let’s see….SARS, Bird Flu, Ebola, and at least a few other strains of flu. And in every single case there was no impact bigger than what a heavy snowfall would cause in a major city. No barricades, no cities being cordoned off, no martial law, no empty grocery shelves.

Just think how traffic-free the commute will be afterwards

Look, I’m not a medical professional. I’m not even a medical hobbyist or amateur. But what I am is someone who has heard ‘the sky is falling’ from the media so many times that it’s hard no t to be jaded. Especially when, according to MSNBC, we were all supposed to be radioactive debris from Iranian nuclear bombs a few weeks ago. Sure, maybe this time the media is right but….good grief, what are the odds of that? People with a more medical background, like Aesop or Reltney may tell me I’m wrong and that I should be taking this a tad more seriously than I am but…I dunno…

Look, I’ve already got enough food, fuel, water, power, ammo, etc. to let me lock the door and sit here for a few months if I really needed to. So even if the media actually rolled a seven this time, I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine. Especially since it looks like hand washing and regular flu precautions (not licking doorknobs, etc) seems to be the way to stop the spread. Wash my hands? Not let people sneeze into my mouth? I can do that.

Anything different at Zero’s humble abode? Nope. Not a thing. No last minute grocery hoarding, no 55-gallon drum of Purell, no pallet of bleach wipes, no hazmat suit. Business as usual with the only noticeable change being even less desire than normal to engage in air travel. And at a reported(!) 5% mortality rate, I’m just not concerned. Wake me when Capt. Trips gets released..then I’ll get busy.

Article – Blankets, canned tuna and faith in God — how fleeing Venezuelans survive

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The rich were the first to leave. They wired their savings abroad and hopped on international flights.

The middle class departed next. They went on buses, sometimes riding for days across several countries.

The poor remained.

They stayed as the economy collapsed, food got scarcer, medicine shortages turned deadly and the electricity cut out for days at a time. But finally they too began to exit Venezuela.

They simply walked out.

Once you become a refugee, your options are severely limited. But, sometimes, staying put isn’t an option and you’ve gotta go, go, go. Having the resources to make the trip easier, faster, and safer are paramount.

The fact that you’re able to have internet access and read this shows that, financially, you’re probably light years ahead of the people in this article. But, situations change and they change fast. When the truck driver offering to haul you through the mountain passes wants hard currency instead of trading for cans of tuna…those little 1/10 Eagles or 1 0z. silver Maples might come in handy.

Anyway…interesting article. Venezuela is a lost cause until they finally have their coup, and in the meantime the suffering there will provide interesting insight for those of us who study these sorts of problems and how to survive them. (Most obvious solution? Prevention…don’t vote for socialists.)

Article – Design of AR-15 could derail charges tied to popular rifle

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DALLAS (AP) — A subtle design feature of the AR-15 rifle has raised a technical legal question that is derailing cases against people who are charged with illegally buying and selling the gun’s parts or building the weapon.

At issue is whether a key piece of one of America’s most popular firearms meets the definition of a gun that prosecutors have long relied on.

TL;DR version: ATF’s definnition of a ‘receiver’ includes parts that are not present in just an AR lower, thus an AR lower is not a receiver. QED.

Historically, ATF has never let little things like legal definitions stand in the way of them doing what they want. I suppose the only way for this to get resolved is to redefine what a receiver is, which seems likely. The AR is certainly an inconvenient rifle for the anti-gun crowd…it’s ubiquitous, easily modified to skirt ‘assault weapon’ bans, modular AF, and, it seems, defies legal definitions that never anticipated such guns. Everyone should own at least three or five.

 

Two ‘house of worship’ attacks, two different results

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Interesting contrast… two houses of worship have someone attack worshippers. The folks in NY are helpless until the bad guy flees the scene. The folks in TX open up on the bad guy and put an end to the situation. Some interesting lessons in there, hm? The difference wasn’t the religions, the difference was the prevailing attitudes of the locale.

Texas is a place where “I killed him, but he needed killin'” is a legal defense.

Video of the incident can be found online. It appears one armed congregant got shot as he was trying to present his pistol. There’s a lesson to be learned there, I think.

The demonic monkeys at ATFE have been busy

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In case you don’t follow the industry blogs, ATFE has been on a bit of tear lately ‘reclassifying’ certain guns. They seem to have a particular mean-on for a bunch of the ‘rulebeater’ guns that have been coming out. Most notable as of late, a ‘firearm’ shotgun with wrist brace and the bizarre-but-give-em-points-for-trying Reformation AR.

ATFE has finally, it appears, started to get it’s battle plan together on how to deal with the  not-a-shotguns and the whole ‘wrist brace’ issue. I’ve been predicting for a while that at some point ATFE would work up the cajones to address those things. They’ve waited long enough that there are so many of those things out there right now that if everyone decides to keep them and do a $200 transfer there’s going to be a bit of a surplus in ATFE’s budget. Maybe that was the plan all along.

Or maybe those two guns were just outliers and ATFE will stick with their current classification of the other guns. You know, kind of how they stuck with their classification of bump stocks and the like.

Or maybe ATFE is feeling cocky because they figure the net election will get some anti-freedom Democrat in the White House. (And while you might argue that being anti-gun is not the same as being anti-freedom, I would counter that being anti-gun is pretty much the textbook definition of anti-freedom.)

Either way, if ATFE is feeling their oats perhaps they’ll dust off some of their old wish-list items as well…remember that proposed ban on steel core .223?

Because of these sorst of maybe-I-do-maybe-I-dont inconsistencies from the fedgoons, the smart survivalist never stops stockpiling ammo and gun stuff things that can be regulated out of availability on a whim.

Article – Switzerland is getting rid of its emergency stockpile of coffee

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ZURICH – Switzerland on Wednesday announced plans to abolish the nation’s emergency stockpile of coffee, in place for decades, after declaring the beans not vital for human survival, though opposition to the proposal is brewing.

Nestle, the maker of instant coffee Nescafe and other importers, roasters and retailers are required by Swiss law to store bags of raw coffee. The country stockpiles other staples, too, such as sugar, rice, edible oils and animal feed.

If you’ve spent any time as a survivalist, you know that the Swiss are the closest thing to a country that has institutionalized preparedness (the Israelis probably get runner-up). Their ‘secret’ bunkers that litter the countryside are famous…as was their mandate about new home construction including shelter space. Add into the mix the long-standing (though that may be changing) access to military arms for its citizenry and you have a recipe for nation that could be said to have made preparedness a national platform.

And…apparently….coffee was part of that preparedness plan.

In just about every classic piece of survivalist fiction (“Alas Babylon” springs to mind) there is always a little section about how the lack of coffee is greatly lamented by survivors (with cigarettes and alcohol coming in a close second). The Swiss, apparently, hedged their bets and stockpiled some java to get everyone started when they wake up in the morning.

I don’t drink coffee, but I do keep some freeze dried coffee around. I am told by aficionados that although freeze dried coffee is regarded rather poorly, it is magnitudes of order better than no coffee at all.

My own personal addiction is CocaCola. I can go without if I have to, but I won’t be happy about it. I find that my cravings for the sugar and caffeine can be met with long-term-storage-friendly drink mixes such as powdered ice tea mix. However, for the folks that smoke or have a less-than-healthy relationship with alcohol, well, I don’t envy them.

Part of me is a bit disappointed that the Swiss are slowly dismantling the policies and practices that made them a beacon of preparedness. For a while they were a great example of ‘civil defense’ to point to when discussing national policies on the subject.

But, in the end, the only person responsible for your safety and security is you. It’s nice when governments make it easier with things like tax breaks, flexible building codes, and free ammo, but you always need to operate as if it’s going to be just whatever you can do for yourself… which is often how it actually goes.