The concept of limited government doesn’t do much to advance the agendas of the tech oligarchs or the progs who want to establish a totalitarian state. But they can’t do much with a fully armed population. It vexes them.

 

China and the Defense Biz

(Defense News) Malaysia wants to buy inexpensive trainers and combat aircraft to defend itself from the Chinese threat. There is a back story to this article and that is that the Malaysian air fleet is moth-eaten, military jet spare parts have been stolen and quietly sold to benefit parties unknown within the military, etc.

The bottom line is that if you don’t want the Chinese Belt Road running through your country, you need to get serious about it. The Malaysians want to put a band-aid on it by purchasing second-hand aircraft. But flash news, Malaysia, Chinese agents of influence are already on the ground undermining whatever you do.

A message, whispered sotto voce, to the nations China aspires to roll over is that they need to pay attention to the little things. China would prefer to just buy the place with cheap bribes and whores (are you listening, US Congressman Swalwell?). Malaysia has its own version of the Biden Crime Family.

 

American Seppuku?

 

 

Used AK Mags

You can buy them inexpensively and sometimes you get more than you bargained for.

This magazine was likely carried either by a Russian vehicle driver or possibly even Spetsnaz during the Chechen Wars of the 1990s, as the Tula star indicates it was issued with an AKS-74U carbine, which usually got sent to one of those two groups. The inscription reads “death to the circumcised,” a reference to the predominantly Muslim Chechens.

For the historical record, I have nothing against circumcision…

This one reads “For Dima!!!”, who was presumably a friend of the soldier who carried this mag and was KIA or WIA.

The magazines still work, but they have an interesting provenance, as do many former Soviet magazines that are now making their way west as American citizens buy EVERY SINGLE firearm component that they can get their hands on at premium prices.

 

The fact that there is a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven says something about the anticipated numbers.

 

Comments on Basic Prepping

I’m going to jump on your comments about generators and ask that you expand in comments what you feel that a basic prep consists of. Yes, two is one and one is none – how far do you take that?

I’ll jump in the pool first and you can always fault me for being insufficiently prepared.

Location – to me being prepared has regional variations based on need. That extends to clothing, how much water you store vs your capacity to filter, and so forth.  How much food do you store? Do you bug out?

(a) I’m on an 800′ well, and I store water in 7-gallon containers, which makes them portable. The containers are stackable. I’ve tried larger barrels and they’re difficult to swap the water out of annually and you can’t go anywhere with them. I have filtration but it’s Arizona. It’s dry.

(b) I keep packs pre-loaded with summer gear and winter gear. I modularize with Pelican Cases. First Aid (big kit), off-road recovery kit, tactical kit (CQB), tactical kit (long-range), etc. The kits are not all-inclusive but they are grab-and-go. My go-bag is separate.

(c) I’m about as far away from “civilization” as I can get. Recent fire danger has taught me that during the fire season, I need to be gone in 30 minutes. Could I do it in less? Yes. But that means taking less.

There are other issues such as backup power, backup fuel, etc. Living where I do, I’m always in basic prep mode.

When I lived and worked in the LA/Orange County California area, I always kept my “walk home kit”.  Assuming that earthquakes took down the freeways and roadways, I’d walk home. What did I need to have with me in order to do that? I was heavy on water, ammo, energy bars, and camo & maps. If I had to walk through the ghetto, how many people would I need to sanction? How much ammo would it take, how do you carry the load, etc. Some of the kit, I had as part of my daily load-out – ballistic armor, flash-bangs, etc. On my own in a hostile country, how much more would I need? How much more could I carry? Mobility is critical.

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36 COMMENTS

  1. I’ve got nowhere to go, so I’m prepared to make a stand.
    I’m not leaving all that ammo behind.
    I wish I had some Clyamores.
    But on my daily drive: my 9mm, spare mag. Beef jerky in the glove compartment.
    Towels, tools. raingear. And keep the tank full.

    • General George Patton said, “Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man.” The truth is, though, that they often worked very well historically. A burh or burg or borough was an Old English fortification or fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids and invasions by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs and roads to use against such attackers. Some were new constructions; others were situated at the site of Iron Age hillforts or Roman forts and employed materials from the original fortifications. Attacking these burhs became VERY costly and the Vikings learned not to do that. So in that context, Patton was wrong. A mot and bailey in that era were effective.

      Your president recently threw down the gauntlet, threatening by implication to use nuclear weapons on American soil against people who stood against the government. And that’s interesting because, in America, we elect representatives to represent, not rule. I guess that Slow Joe and Camela/Ho never got the memo? Unruly towns will be nuked? I remember that Rep. Swalwell, the Chinese intelligence asset, threatening the very same thing during his brief flirtation with the Presidency.

      And my point is that making people pay for every inch can often be very effective, claymores or not.

      • Just imagine the uproar had Trump said that. It would be indicative of Slo Joe except he probably meant it.

        • I always wonder whether the oligarchs who control Jo/Ho mean it. It’s like Amazon declaring that they won’t deliver packages to Idaho or something – because it will be nothing but a big hole in the ground. I wouldn’t put it past Bezos or Gates or the Google Mob, but it would mean more coming from them than the walking corpse.

          • I am going to explore tomorrow that the government is already at war with us.
            1775 was the start of the American Revolution, not 1776.
            The Secession of the states was the start of the second Civil War.
            The Third was started when Biden was installed.
            His comparison of our weapons to his is, as you point out, the talk of a despot. And all the defensive nature of their position (the barbed wire, the detention of the 1/6 protesters, the sweep of the military for “extremists” i.e. Patriots) is the result of their own self-knowledge that they are illegitimate. Like some Shakespearean character.

          • Ed, these politicians are now projecting in their language. If Whispering Joe is talking about military level weaponry we should assume his handlers are planning something.

      • Re the gauntlet: Now I don’t know who are running the show (always it’s those darn whos), but I strongly suspect that key elements of whatever cabals are in power hate and fear heritage Americans and want them crushed. Not merely subjugated (they already have this) but degraded, demoralized, and terrified. The things they claim we want to do unto them are what they desire to do unto the rest of the world. “Confession through projection”. Paranoid psychopathy is a terrible thing.

        So, after that preamble, my take. The nukes and F15s remark was probably just Swalwellesque ignorance. BUT, there are nontrivial elements among our rulers who would LOVE to apply Dahya Doctrine to flyover country. (Restrictive ROEs are for fighting Muslims and so forth. When fighting domestic whites, and especially Christian whites, it’s Dahya 2.0.) Dahya of course referring to the southern suburbs of Beirut essentially flattened by the IDF while trying to root out Hezbollah in 2006. Here is a quasi-official statement regarding that.

        “With an outbreak of hostilities [the IDF will] act immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the enemy’s actions and the threat it poses. Such a response aims at inflicting damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and expensive reconstruction processes. [… Israel] will not be able to limit its response to actions whose severity is seemingly proportionate to an isolated incident. Rather, it will have to respond disproportionately in order to make it abundantly clear that the State of Israel will accept no attempt to disrupt the calm currently prevailing”

        Replace “Israel” with “US Federal Government” and “IDF” with “US military” and that statement above is what some of our hidden rulers want.

  2. Regarding the fire danger, there was a ton of rain in the area yesterday so hopefully things are a bit wet around you and a significantly lessened fire danger. Parts of Preskitt got a nice rain Wednesday night and lots more on Thursday morning and afternoon.

    Just one week ago things looked so dry and parched it looked like Preskitt might spontaneously combust. For the record, I’ve gotten .47 of an inch since Saturday.

    • It slowed the Backbone Fire but it’s picked back up. 40K acres, now 6% contained. I’m in contact with some shot callers on the ground. The Snake Fire, on the Rim, would seem to be contained, and that’s good news. More rain next week? Bring it!

    • Send some of that rain over to the East side…Here in Lakeside the clouds barely managed to spit on us a couple of times. Enough to spot the windshield and that was it. We’re still in the low hundredths on our gauge.

      • The Rim had significant rain. My guess is that the coming stretch of rain will wash down on your side of the mountain.

          • I think that my character figures heavily into his novels… of course, that could just be a projection on my part. The darned dragons, prowling around and getting blasted. Talk about toxic waste disposal.

  3. Whispering Joe is literally our of his mind, but apparently Pelosi isn’t ready to pull the plug on Plugs. Getting weird. Time for the ChiComs to let loose an EMP on DC and the Tech media outfits, let them scramble for a few days and give us some peace and quiet.

    Which brings me to your main “ask”.

    I suspect you are about as “bugout” ready as any prepper type or rural resident in a similar situation. On our place we have created serious defensible space, trees thinned from the house out, mow the pastures twice each year, cleared the land from fuels (on going of course), and have 2 months of food stuffs beyond what’s in the freezer. We have a small portable 2k generator and a 4k larger one we used to build the house. Been thinking about putting in a propane powered Generac (have a 500 gal tank, which is typical)…I can do the install myself (Note: Put the generator a little ways from the house, like near the Service Entry pole, or in a vented shed, it isn’t that quiet).

    Since panels have gotten a lot more efficient we could do some solar for similar cost, solar affords power longevity as the sun is usually out here. No wind turbine, the constant high-pitched whine on the smaller ones would drive anyone nuts after a day, plus they tend to break in heavy winds.

    If you are concerned then get a 10k-15k generator – if you want to run most of the house (fuel type is your choice, either one works well). Or have an electrician put in a transfer switch to connect the larger of your generators for critical circuits, like the fridge and well (maybe you mentioned you have this already). Either that or do what I told my brother, who owns a large RV bus for Winter travel, run the house on the built in monster diesel generator, save fuel by cycling use.

    And they’ve come down in price: $4100 for a the set up is pretty reasonable, 16 circuit Transfer Switch included.

    https://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/Generac-Guardian-7224-Standby-Generator/p111025.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjw_dWGBhDAARIsAMcYuJy1ktIlvHPq9i4Uyv9L5V8BpPBNRLsGuL2n23R9nvHBuYTZJGwqVbMaAue3EALw_wcB

    • Concur on your suggestions, especially re: the shed for the generator.

      I wanted one when we got our whole-house automatic system, was told by the contractor and the family shot-caller that they were all-weather and quiet, and I was being silly.

      Noise from the generator doesn’t bother me, but bothers the shot caller, and we have also now had to stand in 4′ of snow messing with the generator to manual start it, because it was grumpy in the cold. Would have been a lot easier (and probably unnecessary) if it had a little building around it.

      Also a note on automatic generators – these machines do not make conditioned power. Their output is full of surges and spikes. Either have some sort of conditioning system installed with them, or at least make sure everything in the house is on surge protection. Essentially all appliances now have microcircuitry in them, even things like freezers (ask me how I know!) that would work better without them. Microcircuitry is insanely delicate to unconditioned power, and throwing away 500 pounds of meat sucks. For example.

      -Kle.

      P.S. – I am also a defend-in-place person. I would rather overcome or withstand natural disasters than flee from them. Obviously there’s not much to be done about earthquakes or volcanoes except place your bets on living somewhere with low frequency (nowhere is entirely safe from earthquakes) , but fire/flood/hurricane/tornado/blizzard are all either avoidable or survivable or both.

      Bug-out is more efficient and flexible though, and one set of decisions works for all or most threats.

    • My Generac works very well, automatic, seamless, loud, but I have no neighbors to bother, and you can’t hear it in the house. You could build a shed for it, but unless you’re concerned about the noise bothering somebody – I wouldn’t bother. I sleep on one side of the hovel and the generator is on the other side. 500 gallons of propane. If I can’t get more propane before it runs out, the problem is not short-term. During the winter, solar collectors don’t work if there’s snow and they’re on the roof. I’d need to. put them on the ground and I’m not really stoked about that. Maybe on poles?

      • Need an inverter generator, conditions the power (most new ones are inverter type, except for the cheapies or contractor style.) So you have a Generac…then you’re set.

        Solar panels on a single pole stanchion with panel rack is what I would do (I hate piling things on the roof or and poking holes in it, only exception would be for my garage for SHW (installed radiant tubing in the slab just in case and to maintain 45+/- degrees in the Winter). If the rack is motorized they can move with the sun and season. Batteries are the main expense beyond the panels and require monitoring, the inverter is the next expense. Battery and solar tech has come a long way so may be reasonable. Musk is still working on his “house” back up battery arrangement, might be available.

        • Is a one-panel rack large enough to power your entire house?

          I’ve heard about the house battery backup system. I expect that it would be expensive and then there’s the question of battery life. Disposing of them would require some sort of toxic waste procedure in an approved landfill unless you went the backhoe route and I’m personally opposed to doing that.

          • Tesla Powerwall (basically a 14kw battery) is $7k-ish just for the battery (it’s large but smaller than a bank of comparable storage batteries). Needs the panels and inverter, and likely needs to recharge fully each day.

            Without getting too deep into the weeds…

            My take is a Generac backup system (or a couple circuit arrangement with a smaller generator) running on some fuel source is the best value for intermittent power outages. If I were off-grid I’d use the Powerwall as the storage, 4-8 solar panels on a stanchion rack, and the best inverter/system monitor electronics I could afford. If you want to run your entire house you need 18-30 panels depending on panel wattage and storage capacity…which is also why this is not “renewable/green/sustainable, that’s a lot of panels per home (and also why power companies “switching to renewables” is a joke.)

        • My Y2k (5000w) generator is gasoline and runs in the 1 car garage I have in the backyard that serves as a giant storage shed (should have been a shop…)
          I ran 240v out there a few years ago and switch off the main and back feed the house through the 240 breaker that runs to the shed.
          I keep spare gas and starting fluid next to it.
          It seems the gas never goes stale in it.

          • What we do as well…at least until Colorado goes full idiotic “green”, making our reliable power unreliable.

        • Sure, inverter generators produce only clean power, that’s exactly what the Generac guys told me when they put in our 11KW system years ago.

          Except, as it turns out, when they are kicking in and having trouble running up to full power. Or when the well water pump kicks in, and takes 800 rpm off the engine for a few seconds due to sudden load. Or when they’re having trouble starting, then running rough because they’re buried in snow and it’s cold, which they also said wouldn’t affect them…

          I tend to be a belt and suspenders kind of guy, and being extra careful and having a plan B has never cost me anything… unlike believing salesmen, which has cost plenty of thousands.

          But, as always, YMMV. My cautionary words are only an opinion, for others to take or leave.

          -Kle.

  5. Although we have a bug-out locale, things would really have to be headed towards the dumper before we’d go up there. As in the Marching Morons coming up here from down South spreading destruction and mayhem in their wake.

    I’m fortunate that my SLW understands the basics of “prepping”. She was doing it before I met her under the guise of “Earthquake Preparedness”, so she already had a bunch of the basics. Since then we’ve expanded, improved, and (somewhat) localized our preps. We each have supplies in our cars, and extra clothing in the winter. We’re fortunate that there’s a fair amount of water here, but I’ve taken to scouting out other sources of water as well. I’m sure the big reservoirs here would be a zoo, or controlled by Lord Humungous, if Something Bad happened.

    I’m in process right now on updating our preps, mainly sorting through everything and inspecting it, and then organizing our storage area so that it’s more usable. I tried to sort things as we stored them, BUT, in the almost four years we’ve been here (already?), “Der Boonker” has gotten all scrambled up. SLW’s painting things too close to the vittles, ammo mixed in with Christmas decorations (Have a Very Merry BANG!), and Misc Stuff just tossed on any empty shelf in there she could find. Very aggravating at times, but the reorg will be HER stuff, OUR stuff, and MY stuff, and if she doesn’t help keep it that way, I’ll hide HER ammo to get my point across.

    I have a 2kW Honda generator that I originally bought for Amateur Radio “Field Day” use, and it’s a trooper in that regard. It’s got enough oomph to run the refrigerator and freezer, and is frugal with fuel. If I were to have a whole-house generator I’d like one fueled with natural gas, but that’s out here as there aren’t any gas lines on our street. If I were looking for a bigger generator (a possibility), I’d strongly consider one of the “Predator” units from Harbor Freight. I know a few people who have them, and they’re quite good for a Horror Fright item. Pretty much a Honda clone, but the engines are dependable, and I haven’t heard bad things about the electronics in them, although I haven’t looked deeply into it. Dual-Fuel conversion kits (gas or propane) are an excellent way to extend the utility of a genset.

    I don’t have much experience with Diesel powered generators, but as you said earlier, Diesel stores better than gasoline (you should still use a “stabilizer”, though), and it’s also much less of a fire hazard. 200 gallons of Diesel wouldn’t bother me to have around, but 200 gallons of gasoline would. Propane has it’s own hazards, but they’re well known and livable with.

    Solar is a viable solution to **augment** your other power sources, but I wouldn’t depend on it 100%, and an off-grid system requires a battery bank, which has it’s own hazards and maintenance requirements.

      • Yup. Pretty much a clone of the Honda EU2000 series of generators. like thier 3kw one is. Inverter output for decently clean power and good regulation, something most older gensets don’t do very well.

  6. And so, here we are, led by a gang of buffoons, mountebanks, frauds and shysters.

    The ancient Romans, who were at onetime a warlike race, would have called them “pastry cooks,” curiously.

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