Ready Made Resources has a Gas pistonupgrade for your AR-15. Switching to a gas piston operating system from a direct gas impingement one leads to a cleaner and cooler operating rifle. This should lead to fewer malfunctions and considerably more time between cleanings. The OPS-416 kit is a true drop-in gas piston conversion, installing easily in a few minutes with a minimum of tools or technical expertise.
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Krayton Kerns , DVM on “Environmentalism as our national religion”.
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A SurvivalBlog reader reports that he has received a recall notice from Remington for his Model 700 regarding the X-Mark Pro trigger system. If you have a Model 700 or Model 7 manufactured between May 1, 2006 and April 9, 2014, you may want to look into that.
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What happens when ammo burns? – Mike Williams, SurvivalBlog Editor At Large.
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Many SurvivalBlog readers sent this in: Interactive map shows the staggering 47 PERCENT of the country that is currently uninhabited. Note that many of the areas in the southwestern U.S. is not just unhabited but pretty close to uninhabitable. Commercial buildings are also listed as unoccupied because no one actually lives there according to the census data.
“Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the name of the Lord; praise him, O ye servants of the Lord.” – Psalms 135:1 (KJV)
Today we present another entry for Round 52 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $11,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 52 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
I have lived all my life in rural areas in the mid-south United States. Ever since I was little, gardens, orchards, vineyards, poultry, livestock, beekeeping, hunting, fishing, and trapping have been a way of life for me. Now, that is not to say we are off the grid or don’t buy any food from the grocery store, but all this supplements the life we live. Both the family I grew up in and the family I now have are large families, by today’s standards. Like my father, I have a job in town to pay for land and a home in the outskirts of the county. We are blessed to have upper, thick loess soil and rainfall amounts that exceed fifty inches annually, with an average of two to four inches during the summer growing months. A minimum of 180 frost-free days each year ensure a long growing season. The recent droughts that have plagued the nation haven’t affected our local area, and the farmers have had a crop to harvest every year for as far back as I can remember, though some years are better than others, with their best harvests coming in the last few years. The only down side to good soil, plenty of rain, and a long growing season is that the grass and weeds grow vigorously, along with everything else.
This blog– survivalblog.com– is one of the few things I read consistently, and many a time different articles would make me think of what I could grow to feed my family year round if the grocery stores no longer had food. Of course I would still have our long-term storage foods, poultry and livestock, over fifty fruit and nut trees, blueberry bushes, raspberry bushes, strawberry plants, asparagus patches, and all the seeds that are saved for the annual vegetable garden. Still, what about friends and neighbors who only have large yards of grass that they mow. What could be grown in yards, pastures, and parks (without fertilizers and insecticides) that would be nutritious and could be stored without canning or freezing until the next year? Immediately, peas and beans came to mind. Field peas or cow peas (as some people call them), Black Eyed, Purple Hull, Black Crowder, Pinto, Cranberry, and Lima are the types of peas and beans I am talking about. Check out www.victoryseeds.com for a description of each. You may have to find certain varieties that are suited to your environment. They will grow on poor soils and don’t require a lot of nitrogen, like corn does. Although I see some aphids and insects on them, the yield has not been substantially reduced. I have had pumpkin bugs kill my squash and pumpkin vines, but I never lost my peas and beans to any insect or disease. I currently store a variety of bean and pea seeds and all my garden seeds. Field corn, sweet potatoes, and regular potatoes over winter and are planted again each spring. Peas and beans are hands down the easiest, in my experiences, to grow, harvest, and store of all the above. We currently grow several varieties of each, and they are easily grown, don’t require fertilizers or pesticides, are nutritious, and all you have to do for storage is let them dry on the vine, then pick them, and store in a dry place in the hull where rats and mice can’t get them. Shell them whenever you have time. Don’t store them in plastic bags or they may mold; use paper bags or cardboard boxes. I have heard stories that my great grandmother stored her shelled beans and peas in pillowcases. Deer do love to eat pea and bean plants, but if you are in a survival situation I expect you have already eaten the deer. If it is not a survival situation, build a good fence.
Now that we know what to grow, how do we turn those lawns, pastures, and fields into food-producing gardens? If you had a tractor, plow, and fuel or a team of draft animals and plow, you would be in business. Good luck trying to use a hand held tiller to break sod-covered new ground. With a strong back and a good steel handled shovel or several wooden handled ones, my brothers and I broke the ground for my Dad’s large garden each winter when we were teenagers. That was over twenty years ago. Although my ego tells me I could still do it, we have found an easier way. Over the last seven years we have changed the way we garden, and it is less labor intensive and protects the fertility of the ground. Previously the garden dirt was broken with tractor, tiller, or shovel, but now we copy the local commercial farmers of corn, soybeans, and cotton and use a no till method that preserves the earthworms and organisms that are beneficial and reduces erosion of topsoil. I have used this method on beans, peas, corn, melons, squash, pumpkins, potatoes, and anything else that is planted by seed. This method is not considered “organic”, but if you buy food from the grocery store you are not eating organic anyway.
What we do, come May or June, is go to a section of our lawn, grown up garden ground, or a piece of land that has had the timber harvested. It does not matter if it has weeds or grass growing on it, although less is better. We then mark where our first row will be with a string pulled tight between two stakes. Stay away from trees since their leaves will shade the peas or beans and their roots will draw moisture out of the soil. If the ground is sloped make the rows crossways to the slope to reduce erosion. After the string is pulled, the person with the strongest arms takes a good sharp garden hoe and chops a hole, one to two inches deep, in the ground every 18 to 24 inches apart. This is my job, and if I am chopping through the sod in our lawn, it is quite a job. Kid number one lets me get eight to ten holes ahead (to stay away from the sharp hoe swings) and then starts dropping three to four seeds in each hole. Kid number two covers the seed with the chunk of sod or dirt chopped out of the hole. Kid number three rests under the shade tree by the water hose until the row is finished. Then the three kids swap jobs on the next row, while I move the stakes 30 to 36 inches over for the next row. I have found this is the best way to keep the kids from complaining that one job is easier than the other, and it keeps them hydrated at the same time. Also, your children will invariably ask questions like, “Why do we have to do this Daddy? None of the other kids in my class at school have to do this.” You get to explain that if, God forbid, the grocery stores ever ran out of food we would still have something to eat. Then you have to explain what things could happen that would cause the stores to run out of food. Most of the time they end up appreciating what we are doing, but they still want to hurry up and get done so they can get back in the air conditioned house. In four to five hours we can have half of an acre planted, depending on how hard the ground is, how hot it is, and how many water breaks I need. Half an acre of beans or peas makes all that my family and two families of kin folks will eat in a year, in a non-survival situation. We usually plant another half acre of field corn for poultry and livestock feed, along with our regular garden of tomatoes, okra, squash, and more.
The same day, or the day after the seed is planted in amongst the weeds and grass up to knee high, I take my hand sprayer, mixed with eight ounces of 41% Glyphosate per gallon of water, and spray a light mist of the mixture on all the weeds and grass. The grass and weeds will yellow, then turn brown, and die while the seeds that were planted sprout and grow. Within a few weeks all the grass and weeds will be gone and a nice stand of peas, beans, and corn will have taken their place. I did a search on Glyphosate and could not find any conclusive evidence that it is anymore harmful to humans than diet soda. All the corn, soybeans, and cotton that are grown commercially in our area are genetically modified, so Glyphosate can be sprayed directly on them without killing them. If you are eating food that you did not grow yourself, it probably has been exposed to Glyphosate. While I am apprehensive about chemicals and genetically modified seed, I can see the benefits of this method:
Like I said earlier, the local farmers are breaking their all-time best harvest records every few years, while using less fuel, pesticides, and herbicides than ever before. The seed I use is not genetically modified, so after it sprouts Glyphosate will kill it along with the grass and weeds. Therefore, any more weed or grass control is best done by hoe or hand. However with a several week head start, the peas and beans should make a crop before the weeds and grass over take them.
A 2.5 gallon jug of 41% concentrate Glyphosate costs around $60 at our local Tractor Supply Store, and it will last me two years or cover about three to four acres of grass and weed killing area.
So, now you have one more prep to stock. May God bless you.
HJL Adds: Glyphosate (aka Round Up) was introduced as a herbicide my Monsanto in 1970. Its design function was to allow Monsanto to genetically alter crops for resistance to it, so it could be sprayed indiscriminately on the crops, killing off the weeds that choke the crop out without hurting the crop itself. When absorbed through the leaf of the plant, it becomes toxic to the plant and kills it. Glyphosate resistant plants still absorb the herbicide, but are not affected by it. It falls under the EPA’s regulation. In the U.S. it is considered noncarcinogenic and low in dermal and oral toxicity. The EPA claims eating a lifetime of foods sprayed with maximum doses will result in no adverse health effects. The European Commission, however, has said that there may be a link to birth defects.
The unabsorbed chemical binds to soil particles and is rendered inert. However, because of this binding action, it may be persistent, and it may harm the natural soil processors such as insects, bacteria, and earthworms. I, personally, do not use it in my garden areas, though I will use it as a herbicide in other areas. I have noticed that some grasses seem to be unaffected by it, and continued use in those areas make the unwanted, resistant grasses grow without competition.
Dear HJL,
Regarding the letter about “Banksters”, I spent a few years in banking. I was the guy that ran the computer department. I have never found anyone more clueless about computers than bankers. Every teller had a paper tape calculator in front of them. They had to do all the calculation, then enter the computed values into a computer terminal. Their constant question to me was, “Why do we have a computer?” That did not endear me to the management. A senior VP of operations came to me telling me, he wanted to run a manual test for backup to the computer. I asked him where he thought this could be done. He said accounting. I asked how many bookkeepers would be required to process the quarter of a million transactions every day. We decided there wasn’t a building big enough in the city, nor enough bookkeepers. There has not been a great deal of improvement in the thinking of bankers. They are in the business of collecting money, not spending it, to protect their customers. Well, that’s true, other than the required insurance, which will not cover enough. Humans are short-sighted critters. They rarely learn from history or the experiences of others.
I moved on from there. I discovered there is more widespread ignorance about computers than knowledge. – DCJ
HJL Replies: It seems that there are a number of industries that are incredibly distrustful of computers, even though they use them daily in the actions of the business. It is also a individual “people” problem. People do not like to change and will not learn new technologies unless forced. The educational system in our country seems to be in the same boat. The children in the classroom will often be able to run circles around the teachers and administration with electronics, yet the teachers are expected to prepare them for industry.
Of course, the students need to learn how to function without a calculator, too. Contrast your experience with the next time your local Walmart has a power outage. Rather than run the registers manually, they just shut down because the clerks usually can’t count money. I used to have fun with my students who worked there by deliberately going through their checkout line and purchasing something under $20. I would hand them a $20 bill, let them ring it up, so the computer told them how much change to give me, and then hand them some additional change so I would get a different return of change. I would then often have to help them count the proper change out.
Harrison Gear LLC, is offering a 10% Discount off your order (or they will cover the shipping of your order) for all SurvivalBlog readers. To take the discount, you have to call their office at (406) 404-4084 to make your order and then reference the discount to the operator. Or you can email them and request that an invoice be sent. They will take payments in a variety of ways, including check, cash and money order.
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Some Bad News: 7N6 (5.45x39mm Russian) Ammo is Now Officially Import Banned.
JWR’s Advice: Stock up on a few cases before prices jump above 25 cents per round.
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You have to wonder who taught them these ideas? Watch as Anti-NRA Protester Explains Why You Shouldn’t Be Able to Protect Yourself With a Gun If Your Life Is in Danger. – JBG
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Despite worldwide claims of “Never Again!”, here we go again. Leaflet tells Jews to register in East Ukraine. So far, the authority under whose name they were distributed, claims that he had nothing to do with it. – P.M.
HJL Adds: There is some question as to whether this article in USA Today is actually true. USA Today has not cited their sources, though they do have a photograph of the letter in question. SurvivalBlog’s contacts on the ground in Ukraine are refuting this information as disinformation from the FSB
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The USPS wants to mine and sell data gathered from your mail. – H.L.
“Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” – Alexis de Tocqueville
April 16th is the birthday of two notable novelists:
Agorist-Libertarian activist J. Neil Schulman (born April 16, 1953). He is best known as author of the novel Alongside Night.
and,
The late Samuel Youd(born 1922, died February 3, 2012). He was the British novelist who was best known for his science fiction writings under the pseudonym John Christopher, including the survivalist novel Death of Grass(titled No Blade of Grass, in the American edition) as well as the Tripods Seriesof young adult sci-fi novel series. A fascinating man, Youd wrote prolifically, using eight pen names. He was a good friend of sci-fi novelist John Wyndham, and both of them were famous for writing what are often called cozy catastrophes.
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The EPA is losing its mind. They want to redefine water to mean all surface water rather than just navigable water so they can regulate it. Here’s what Krayton Kerns thinks.
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Today we present another entry for Round 52 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $11,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 52 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
This article is not about practical survival skills; it’s quite the opposite. It is a pre-collapse idea only and will disappear post-SHTF. Why this is useful information is that it’s an idea that may let you make the leap to living at your retreat full-time sooner and help you make ends meet while other income sources are developed. It is a plan for your home-based business, requiring no start up capital, and it’s a job for which you are already hired. You won’t have to leave the house to work or to get paid. There is actually no selling either.
I, like many of you, am a stay-at-home mom. My husband works full time outside of the home and also works side jobs when he can. We took JWR’s advice about diversifying our income, and in addition to taking care of the household, raising children, gardening, and so on, I have a small home-based business. We are savers and are able to meet all of our needs with these income sources. However, there are still a few times a year when it seems like there is too much month left at the end of the money. There are also times when you just need to buy something that is bigger than the monthly budget allows. I started looking around for ways to bring in a few extra dollars, but it was hard with the schedule of a mother, as well as seasonal chores. When part-time jobs were available locally and seasonally (which is not often), they often had many applicants or strict hours, which precluded me. We weren’t looking for a lot extra, just enough that we could start to build up a bigger emergency fund and have a more ambitious purchasing plan than we had for items needed.
After a long time of searching, I came across Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome) . This was exactly what we were looking for, and it’s probably what you are looking for also. As I came to realize, it is a prepper’s best friend.
What is it? Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (“Mturk” for short) is a company started by Amazon in 2005 as a way to weed out duplicate pages on its website. It has since grown. It is not a “get rich quick” scheme or anything like that. Far from it. It is a web-based network of workers and employers. Requesters/employers post a “Human Intelligence Task” (“HIT” for short) on the Mturk website. In a nutshell, these are things a living, breathing human must do that computers are not capable of. Workers complete the task, and the employer approves or rejects the task. If it is approved, you get paid for it. Simple enough, right? Let’s dig a little deeper.
First the legal stuff. For U.S. workers, you need to be eligible to work in the U.S. They send a 1099 tax form out at the end of the year for your wages, and you are responsible for any taxes owed on it. Remember, you are a real employee doing real work, so you owe real taxes. You are considered a contractor.
Sign up is simple. You can sign up with your existing Amazon account information, but they will require a SSN or tax identification number and a few other things. You submit the application, it is reviewed within 48 hours, and you are ready to start to work.
What kind of work can you do? There are roughly 500,000 open HIT’s on MTurk at any given time. There is a huge variety of work to do. Some are psychology surveys for graduate students. Some are marketing research, like do you prefer packaging “A” or packaging “B”. There are audio transcriptions to be completed. Some ask you to record yourself saying certain words or phrases. (Think language learning CD’s. Someone has to read all those phrases in German.) Some ask you to classify a product into a category that you would use to search for it. Others want you to beta test a website and provide feedback, or write a short article for something. Others have you searching for certain terms on Google and then reporting the rankings and what major city you are near. Most are simple; some are more complex. I was a tad skeptical at first, but these are real, honest jobs. Each has its own payment and time frame to be completed. How many of these HITs are open to you depends on your ratings and qualifications.
MTurk has a very interesting “feedback” system, and it pays to do good, quality work. (Like any job, when does it not pay to do well?) Each HIT you accept is tracked, and you are ranked in certain categories. These categories include:
Employers can put certain requirements on jobs, such as total hits approved equaling more than 1000 or HIT approval rate is 95% or higher. As a general rule, the more restrictive the qualifications, the better the pay. I like this system much better than something like an eBay style system, where it can be manipulated. MTurk ratings provide a much clearer and honest picture of what each worker does.
In addition to the ratings above, you can also obtain “qualifications”. There are currently a little over 13,000 different qualifications that you can receive. These are granted by the employers. Some require a test, while others do not. As an example, one of the transcription companies has a sample transcription job as a test. You complete it and submit it. Your score is your rating and will qualify you for future transcription jobs. Others are confidentiality statements. Again, the more restrictive the qualification (i.e., can you speak Finnish fluently), the higher the pay.
Speaking of pay, I’m sure by this point you are wondering what the pay is and how it works. Honestly, it depends on the job. Some jobs, like rating jokes (yes, it’s a real job) pay a penny a joke. Others, like development of a web page or transcription of an hour-long audio (also both real jobs) pay $40.00. The majority that are available to newer workers pay between $0.05 and $2.00.
In order for you to get paid, you need to sign up for an Amazon Payments account. It is Amazon’s version of PayPal. An employer prepays Mturk for the work to be done and deposits the money into its account with Amazon Payments. When you complete a HIT, it gets sent to the employer to approve or reject. The default setting for employers is to auto approve completed hits after seven days. They can change this to a maximum of 30 days, meaning it could feasibly take up to 30 days to get paid for the job. Most approve HITs within a few days. Once your HIT is submitted and the employer approves it, that amount is transferred to your account. Amazon gets their cut by charging the employer a small fee per job. This fee is paid by the employer, not you. Amazon holds all funds for the first ten days of a new account. Once you have money in your Amazon Payments account, you can spend it directly and immediately on Amazon (how convenient for them!) or have it deposited into a bank account. Bank accounts must be linked like they are through PayPal. Once they are verified, transfers typically take two to three days to show up. We have a separate account we opened up specifically for PayPal, so we used this one. With the abundance of free checking accounts out there, I highly recommend opening up one specifically for this and/or PayPal.
When I got my email saying my application had been accepted, I couldn’t wait to begin. I excitedly told my husband all about it and set aside an hour one day to see how much money I could make. My first job was to write a 50 word answer to a debate question. Easy enough. That paid $0.15. My second job was a marketing research survey for packaging for a new cracker. That paid $1.00. In the first hour of work, I made a little over $8.00. Initially, I was frustrated. I applied one hour of my time, and I only made a little over minimum wage. Not to sound conceited, but my time is worth more than minimum wage.
Later that night, after the house had gone to bed, I sat down to give it another try. This is when the beauty of it hit me, and why I realized it was so prepper-friendly. I had gone about it wrong earlier by sitting down for an hour straight. Here was a job that I could do 24 hours a day, when it was convenient for me. I could do it five-minute HIT by five-minute HIT, if I wanted. I could spend 15 minutes in the morning, doing it while coffee brewed, and 15 minutes before bed. I could miss a week if I wanted to. I could truly do it at my own schedule. If I had to can vegetables that day and couldn’t get to any HITs, it didn’t matter. Likewise, if we got snowed in, I could do HITs all day.
Also, I could do it all at home in bed if I wanted. All you need is a computer and an Internet connection for the HITs, and honestly, some could be done on a smart phone. It is truly an all season, 24 hour a day, work at home, direct deposited job, with work available on demand. The application process is strictly determining if you are eligible, not having to go through a selection process. Whether home is an apartment in the city or a retreat in Montana, as long as there is Internet, you can do it. Most of the HITs do not contain video or images, so dial-up should work for it as well. You could even do it at the library computer if you are limited by that.
I settled on a goal of $5 a day. In pieces of time here and there, I tried to make my goal each day. Some days took five HITs. Other days it took 20 HITs to meet my goal. On a few days, I only made $1.50, while others I made $10. At the end of the first 30 days though (honestly only 26 days, since I didn’t work on Sundays) I had beat my goal and made $180. This is not a huge amount but is very respectable. This represents many things– eight or nine ounces of silver, a new .22 rifle, an extra trip or two to the grocery store, or an extra car or credit card payment. This did not require me to change anything that I was doing. I took advantage of some “down” time I had to be productive. When you think about this over a year, you are looking at roughly $1800. I know of very few homesteads that could not use an extra $1800. If you are on a super strict budget and started to use Mturk, you could buy two PTR91s or an ounce and half of gold after a year with no changes to your income. We decided to wait until we reached $240 in the account to withdraw anything. $20 went in an envelope for our tax liability. (You don’t want to forget to set that aside!) $20 went for a donation to charity. $100 went to savings for a rainy day, and $100 went to our purchasing plan. We withdraw the money when the account reached this amount for ease of budgeting, rather than making a monthly withdrawal. As stated above, it showed up in our account three days after making the transfer online. The couple that told me about Mturk each has their own account. Hers goes to buy Christmas and birthday presents, and his goes to buy new guns.
Some people are able to make a modest living strictly off of Mturk. In the event of a job loss, I think it could help hold you over till a new job was found. If you had two adults doing it, you could make even more money. I think it is a huge blessing for prepper families who are rural and don’t have part-time jobs available nearby or where work is only available seasonally. You can even do it on a bus or train commute. It may be the extra income stream needed to make the move to your retreat full-time. It could really help the self-esteem of a disabled or older family member and allow them to enjoy a way to still contribute. If you are in the unlucky position of having a spouse that does not support prepping, it may be a good way to go about a purchasing plan without disagreements over budgeting. The possibilities are endless.
Here are a few final thoughts on the matter. Like anything, there are some bad apples. Amazon tries to run a tight ship, but with 500,000 HITs, some things slip through. Amazon hosts the site but is not responsible for content. It is up to workers and employers to police it. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. If a 30-second survey pays $50, it’s probably not real. If anything asks you to download software to complete the HIT, don’t do it. This is a violation of HIT rules and should be reported to Amazon. There is a small amount of adult content on some Mturk HITs. Some are things like reviewing flagged images or surveys about sexual habits. These are very clearly marked on the listing page, and as such, are easily avoided. Even HITs that MAY contain adult material are very clearly labeled for easy avoidance, so you will not accidentally stumble across them. People try to use computer programs to complete HITs, so many HITs have test/reliability questions built in to them to ensure a live human is completing the job, such as “If you are reading this question, please select item 4” or something of the sort. Read all instructions. Do good work. It pays. Employers can and will give you a bonus above and beyond the stated amount for quality work. I did a HIT that was to beta test a website. I had an issue with one portion of the page. Rather than just point out the issue, I included my ideas for fixing and improving it. In addition to the $0.80 the job paid, I was given a bonus of $1.00. Good work also leads to future work. Employers will email you directly with a link for new HITs when you have done quality work. Capitalism is alive and well, with workers going after high-paying jobs and employers rewarding good workers.
I hope you try Mturk. It is a very friendly, easy way to make actual money from home and is available on demand to all. My husband’s French grandmother was very fond of the saying “Petit à petit, l’oiseau fait son nid.” It translates to “little by little, the bird builds it nest”. We are continuing to build our nest, one HIT at a time.
God Bless!
HJL,
In reference to the article “https://survivalblog.com/hyperinflation-is-coming-10-basic-steps-to-surviving-an-impending-currency-collapse-by-sp-part-2/“, the author speaks about selling on eBay and using PayPal. I must advise your readers that this is indeed a good idea, however, please be informed about the rules and regulations dealing with taxes. There are limits as to how many items/listings you can sell and how much money you gain prior to them being reported to our favorite entity– the IRS. There are a few things that can be done, such as selling in lots. For example, if you have 10 dolls, rather than selling each one individually they can be sold in one lot; this would count as one, not 10 listings. Also if any limits are exceeded then you would have to abide by your specific state laws regarding a small business license and all the fees that go with it. I’m just saying, do your research on both sites. Great article by the way.
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Hugh,
Great article although one thing jumped out about “STEP 3: Liquidate Useless Items to Generate Extra Cash” and the example of selling off old clothing. That is a great idea as long as you are buying things you need, BUT those old clothes might be worth more in hyperinflationary times than they are worth today. We are already seeing a surge in consignment stores of all types as the cost of living has escalated.
It is a good idea, just be careful on what you sell as the future values (monetary or barter) may surprise you. Thanks – B.M.
While eyes are focused on the Bundy Ranch, another rancher has been winning the battle in courts over much of the same issues: Federal Judge Rules for Property Rights, Smacks Down Abusive Feds – P.M.
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Spying The Open Skies Of America – B.B.
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“Frankly, I don’t know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I’m not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we’re number one. There’s no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on ‘Macbeth’. The three of them are like j*******s who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don’t know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words.” – columnist Burt Prelutsky, LA Times
Sent in by E.M.
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For those who are tired of the PVC-coated copper wire we buy at the Orange Box Store when making antennas (low strength, looks like garbage after a few weeks in the sun), RBS reminded us of The Original Wireman.
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Donald Rumsfeld’s letter to the IRS: His taxes are a known unknown. We were all thinking the same thing anyway. – CPL
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It may be satire, but it sure hits home: FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States. – C.R.
“It’s clearly more fun to make the rules than to follow them.” – Seth Godin