September 2023 – The Laughing Wolf

Preparedness Pays: Draft Chapter 6A

Time to get back to this, and need to do at least one more related post, maybe tomorrow.

NOTE: This is a (very) rough draft

Finances And Preparedness

This is going to be a very short chapter, as unless you are interested in investing in bridges, oceanfront property that you can get to at low tide, or magic beans, I’m the last person you should look to for financial advice or investment advice. If I knew what I was doing, I would be writing this on my tropical island lair being waited on hand and foot by a very attractive female staff. Since I’m writing this from the basement bunker with the landlord’s cat stalking me to demand attention…

My advice is to do a better job than I did on financial preparedness, and use professional help if you can get it.

That said, there are a few things to keep in mind. Practical preparedness applies to finances large and small. Are you prepared if the card readers at the grocery store go down, and they can only take cash? That happened to someone I follow online recently, and because they had taken the precaution of keeping some cash hidden away in their wallet, they were able to get their groceries and head home.

At a minimum, it’s a good idea to have enough on you to make a purchase and then make it home. It may be $10 and bus fare, or it may be more plus a tank of gas. You need to be prepared so that things like this aren’t a disaster, just an annoyance.

As noted in the previous chapter, at this point it’s about building up to meet the larger disasters in life. It’s being able to cover an emergency car repair or other not-so-minor problems in life. It’s about having the cash or credit to cover even larger expenses. For the first, build it up over time. Have it as both cash and other valuables, on hand and in a bank account. For the second, work on that credit score. My thoughts on credit scores and how they view things is best left unsaid, but it is a game you need to learn how to play so as to use it to your advantage. There is a lot of good, and free, information and help available on improving your score. Get good advice and do what is best for you.

As for the on-hand, keep in mind you may not be able to access your accounts in a timely manner during an emergency. Power could be down, the card processing network could be down, you might be miles from an ATM. This is especially true during a bug-out situation. Fire, flood, chemical spill — it doesn’t matter. What matters is getting out ASAP and being prepared to pay cash for things you need later.

Also, diversify if you can. Right now, given inflation, I wish I had invested in gold. Look at precious metals or other items of value that are low volume/size but hold or even increase in value. If something really bad happens, paper currency can become worthless overnight even in this day and age; electronic assets can be erased; banks can fail quite rapidly (as we’ve recently seen); and, well, there’s an almost endless litany of what can go wrong. But, just as with the premise with everything else, it’s not the type or number of disasters, it’s how you can prepare pretty much comes down to one thing: save. Having cash or other valuables you can use in an emergency is essential.

One final thing to consider is that governments can and have banned private ownership of gold and other valuables. Our own American government did so under FDR, a tale of which more people should learn. So, choose wisely and remember the first rule of Preparedness Club. Also, don’t have everything in one spot.

For this tome, that’s all I’m going to say about finances. Getting good, sound, and professional advice on your situation is what matters, so you can be as prepared as possible.

I so thought those beans were going to be a good investment. Sigh.

Getting hit by lightning is not fun! If you would like to help me in my recovery efforts, which include moving once we have medical issues cleared up, feel free to hit the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo, use the options in the Tip Jar in the upper right, or drop me a line to discuss other methods. It is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. Thank you.

The book as it goes:

Preparedness Pays: Draft Introduction

Preparedness Pays: Draft Chapter 1A

Preparedness Pays: Draft Chapter 2A

Preparedness Pays: Draft Chapter 3A

Preparedness Pays: Draft Chapter 4A

Preparedness Pays: Draft Chapter 5A

Cookware Question (Updated)

I had picked up some Wilton cake pans for cooking and baking as I caught a deal on themn and I’ve had very good luck with the brand before. Didn’t have a choice on the non-stick, as I really prefer plain metal. Hugely disappointed this morning that after cooking some chicken yesterday to find that the non-stick coating is flaking off one of the pans and into the food. Entire tray of enchiladas gets to hit the trash.

Not sure you can see them, but there are also some bubbles forming on the bottom of the pan.

So, anyone got any recommendations for some good bakeware since I’m likely to have to replace the Wilton pans completely?

UPDATE I: Whatever else happens, I have to commend Wilton’s customer service. I got a reply yesterday that was friendly, professional, and not scripted. I sent them the information they requested and the two photos above. I also offered to ship them the pan if they wanted to examine it. Today they took me up on that and are paying to have it shipped back. They also asked me to confirm my mailing address as they are offering to ship me a replacement. Will keep posted on how things go.

Snicker

How big of a loser do you have to be to get booted by the Army, and then sent back by North Korea for being totally useless after you defect? Pretty much a total loser. Better make that TOTAL LOSER. He’s earned the caps, and I admit I am snickering and even laughing at the situation.

Thank You Again!

I thought I should share a photo of part of what your amazing generosity has done. This is part of the items I’ve been buying (or making) thanks to you.

On the new folding massage/therapy table are some of the moist heat packs, professional-grade cold packs, the over-the-door pulley system, various foam rollers (two medical and two made from pool noodles), weights, and balls.

Before the next surgery, I would love to get one more of the professional-grade cold packs, which will run about $35 with shipping. I also want to get another cover/holder for the moist heat packs so I can do both arms at once, which is about another $35 (the covers are roughly twice the cost of the heat packs!). I’m also looking to get some more weights, so that I can continue to ramp up. I’m also wanting to start putting food away for the weeks after surgery, as well as bagging up the meds and supplements as that worked very well last time. Few other minor comfort items that would be nice to haves are on the list too.

Not shown are some of the PVC constructs and the thera-band set-up. Forgot to add any of the former, and the latter not that photogenic as it’s mostly bands on a locking D-Ring.

Thank you all for making this all possible. It is really helping with the recovery and ensures I continue to move forward while waiting on the insurance company and paperwork to continue at least some professional PT. Again, thank you!

Two Reads

Sorry not to have been posting more, but life has been keeping me on my toes. Lots I do want to talk about, from the invasions here and in Europe to the full-on assault on the Constitution. Need to get back to posting more regularly on preparedness as well.

But, I do have two good reads to recommend to you this morning. The first is from VodkaPundit on the “failed” Ukrainian counteroffensive. Quick question to ponder as you read: can you remember a single time our military and intelligence leadership, as well as corporate media, have been right in any regard to Ukraine? The second is a book review, said book I now want to read as it takes a different look at slavery in the U.S. and how we may be on a very wrong path in regards our future in space.

Whole big discussion needs to be had on that, and on the idiocy being pushed that colonizing space will be as bad or worse than colonization here on Earth and will destroy the beauty in the skies. There is a reason for the attacks on farmers and on any effort to build a better future. More soon, I do hope.

It’s Not About Russell Brand

I really hadn’t paid much attention to Russell Brand, even as a number of libertarians and conservatives began to embrace him as he started speaking out against the narrative. For all that I was surprised and a little pleased that he seemed to be waking up and speaking out, he wasn’t anyone who I was in a hurry to metaphorically embrace.

To be blunt, Russell Brand was a degenerate sleazeball with few or any redeeming values. In point of fact, both he and Jonathan Ross deserve to be stomped into mudholes for any number of things they did. Both should be on their knees giving abject, sincere, and unconditional apologies to the shade of Andrew Sachs and to any and all of his living family — particularly his granddaughter who they attacked and trashed. Not that I ever expect to see either one of them do so, as that requires honor, integrity, and self-honesty; in short, things I think both creatures lack.

According to some, Brand — at least — has turned over a new leaf. I have no direct knowledge, but hope that is true. People can change, both if they want to and — most of all — with God’s help. I do sincerely hope he has done so.

Whether he truly has or not, his departure from the narrative has earned him the ire of his/our “betters.” Our would-be masters, to be quite honest. He has engaged in heresy, and as with the Inquisition of old, he must be punished for going against the dogma of the religion of progressive thought. Make no mistake, it is indeed a secular religion replacing God with the state and singularly lacking in Grace and Mercy. In this theology, no one has died for your sins, and those who sin must be martyred and seen to be martyred both figuratively and even literally. The latter is already here, but will increase in the days ahead.

So, for the sin of going against the new religion of state, Russell Brand is facing a number of accusations in the media over past behavior. While he has acknowledged that his behavior was bad in the past, he categorically denies the worst of these new accusations. What’s important here is not that he is being accused of rape and more; but, that the accusations are being made in and through the media of the state (literally and figuratively) in England. Not in a court of law where he would have at least some rights to discovery, to cross examine, or otherwise mount a legal defense. This is all being done in the media, state controlled media, and what’s more the government is stepping in to ensure he is not allowed to mount a defense. To the point of threatening Americans and American-owned companies.

Enter Member of Parliment Caroline Dinenage who as chair of the “Culture, Media, and Sport” committee of parliment who has taken it upon herself to do everything in her power to deny Brand not just a chance to defend himself, but to even earn a living. A man she has already convicted in her own mind, though she seems to be trying hard to keep this from ever reaching a court of law. According to her, the accusation itself is proof enough of guilt, and to hell with centuries of English law. To get a good idea of her crusade, read this thread including all the letters she’s written.

The fanaticism is clearly evident, and make no mistake it is the fanaticism that has seen innocents burned at the stake, and innocent women and children herded into the gas chambers or into pits to be shot and/or buried alive. Yes, it is my opinion that she shows, in these letters and other utterances, that same level of fanaticism and dedication to the new religion of state. It is my opinion that she would have fit in perfectly with the National Socialists of Germany, and particularly with the Democratic Socialists of East Germany. Her efforts here make the Soviet show trials of the past look like the height of fairness and honesty.

I do hope Russell Brand understands that even if he were to apologize profusely for any real or imagined actions of the past, it will not matter. If anything, it will only make it worse and I suspect Dinenage and others will derive great mental and even physical pleasure from his humiliation and destruction. Without Grace and Mercy, any such apology will only be used as further evidence of guilt and the need to absolutely destroy the target.

Such creatures exist here and we’ve already seen them in action. Long before the Biden Regency conspired to eliminate free speech and other rights, we had and have various movements that thrived on accusations, and proved that many would apologize and grovel even without proof or legal challenge. We’ve also seen the courts and law enforcement corrupted into a multi-tiered engine of the state, and the new religion of state.

What’s happening now is not about Russell Brand. It’s about power and control — over you. Fight back. Refuse to grovel. Pray for them. It all works and is needed. Do not take the knee, but stand. They really can’t handle that and even as they double-down on those who do so, it allows others to stand. Courage is contagious. Spread it.

Help The King

A long time ago, in a blogosphere that now seems far, far away, there arose a man who took up the helm of the Last King of France at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical. A knack for photos and memes, a wry sense of humor, and a love of life made him a daily read for myself and many others. It was partly an ongoing joke that I have him (still) listed as my single NSFW entry.

Time has marched on, and between the loss of his beloved wife and his own health issues, he hasn’t posted much in a while. This weekend, Linda SOG wrote let me know that he has entered care and while his health is okay overall, his spirits are a bit down. So, she has put out the call for anyone who remembers Rodger and his blog with fondness to send him a card. While this is not a ‘get well soon’ time, it is a good time to share memories of the blog, laughs, and otherwise help bring a smile.

If you do so, be sure to use your screen name as our real names are rarely how we are known. To send him a card, drop a line to LindaSoG at gmail dot com and she will get you his address. I plan to do so as while my memory is fuzzy these days, I do remember the laughs and some interesting discussions in his comments.

Stolen F-35?

Sarah A. Hoyt has raised the possibility that the missing F-35 has been “stolen.” Rather, it has been given by corrupt figures in the military and government to China. That the incident and ejection have been faked to cover up that action.

I will state that such is a possibility. I do not, however, see it as a probability at this time. Before I get into some of that, let me preface with a few remarks and conditions. My own ejection training is a decade or two out of date, and was primarily focused on two-seat fighters. I got the training while getting my physiological training certificate at Little Rock. When it comes to ejection systems, I am most familiar with the ACESII system which used to be quite the thing.

Some quick notes. First, ejection is NOT fun as you are subjected to a large number of G’s and potentially some other delights. Common injuries were neck and back, though broken limbs (arms and legs) were not uncommon on some previous systems as if you didn’t have them in the right spot/position, they not only caught force they could also catch parts of the plane as you rapidly left it. Ouch.

Second, another common accident was having the person ejecting forget to transfer their oxygen hose from the main panel to the seat bottle. The little green apple of the seat bottle is your friend. There is a reason that used to be practiced during both physiological and ejection training. If you don’t remember to do that, as you leave the plane the mask is rather violently ripped from your face and helmet, and often did bad things to your neck and sometimes to your face and neck. Failing to switch fell under the category of “Very Bad Thing” as a result.

Third, the activation of an ejection seat usually triggers a beacon to help guide SAR to the downed pilot. This is separate from any Emergency Locator Beacon (ELB) on the plane itself. As an FYI, on civilian planes it is possible to manually activate the ELB, my memory is fuzzy (stupid lightning) on military craft. Seem to recall that it depended on the aircraft. Yes, military craft do tend to have such to aid in recovery (or destruction at need).

Fourth, no matter the system, the canopy goes bye bye in the process. In a normal ejection per my training, a charge blew the canopy back and away so you didn’t end up like Goose in Top Gun. Also, if your seat failed when you pulled the cord, the alternative was to raise the canopy and let the slipstream rip it off. As it did so, a lanyard was yanked and the secondary system (hopefully) would succeed where the primary failed. Today, you have that, canopies that allegedly fragment, and others — like the F-35 — that split in two so you can get safely launched. See here, here, and here for more info on the F-35 system.

The system in the F-35 works at ground level, which is quite an improvement as earlier system really needed you at 200 feet or higher to work properly. There are some other wrinkles that are fascinating including that it can apparently act automatically without pilot input.

BTW, putting the plane on autopilot when departing mid-flight goes back to WWII. You wanted/needed a steady platform as there were no ejection seats, and if the plane wasn’t under control of the auotpilot or a courageous pilot, it tended to do maneuvers that prevented the crew from leaving. Training was (is?) to do everything you can to hold it steady or to have the plane hold things steady. It makes your departure much smoother and helps prevent any number of injuries. It is interesting to note that some aircraft just keep plugging along after the pilot has left, while others tend to go immediately out of control.

UPDATE: See this comment for one such incident in the late 80s.

In this case, the pilot was apparently seen coming down under canopy, more details here. Side note, glad to see AvLeak is still around. Could it have been faked, such as pushing him in a seat out the back of a transport? Sure. But, no such plane appears to have been nearby at the time. Two, if there were, guarantee a number of the Aviation OSINT folk would have been talking about it by now. Expect to see some serious digging by these fine folks soon.

For all it is highly automated, and features MAGIC CARPET and other delights, it’s really not capable of automated landing. It can get darned close I’m told, but not there. FYI, the old MLS (such as on the Shuttle and other craft) never did truly work as advertised I’m told. We are getting closer, but not there yet. So, the idea of programming the plane to keep flying, go full stealth, and land at an undisclosed location without human intervention is rather unlikely.

Which brings us to the other fly in the ointment. From a purely intel/black ops standpoint, using this type of event to steal one is not very likely. In fact, I can think of a couple of dozen reasons not to do it this way. KISS rules, and I’m not talking the band. Doing it this way violates KISS in so many ways I can’t count them all. In short, secrets keep the fewer are involved. When you court the public, flight trackers, a wingman, and a host of others involved, you are NOT keeping it simple in the ways that count.

Frankly, if I were to want to do a public disappearance, it would be one plane, over water. The fewer who know what is going on, the better. Actually, the easiest way to get one and ship it to the enemy would be via paperwork and that is frighteningly easy to do. No fuss, no muss, no real paper trail, and it would only need a very small number of people to make it happen. That’s also about as far as I’m going to go on that too.

Now, I admit I’m more than a little curious why the transponder quit working and why no ELB (yet). In defense of the transponder, having a rocket motor go off right in front of you can be a bit disconcerting. If the plane went down in water, the ELB is going to be problematic to detect if it works.

Right now, I’m leaning towards the plane having remained in auto pilot and it did some form of soft landing, most likely in water. If it had done a soft landing on land, odds are we should have had some sign of it but that is not guaranteed. Until we have more data, all we can do is speculate. Again, I’m leaning towards the F-35 doing a modern version of a WWII ghost plane, but until we have hard data…

UPDATE: I was wrong about water, it did indeed apparently hit on land. Sad thing is, at this point, even if every part matches it won’t really matter.

Missing Pt. 2

Okay, part one was tongue in cheek. But, this is the stuff of legends. Did it crash into a lake? Did it just come down somewhere relatively intact? Did it go down at sea?

If you go back and read about aviation in WWII, you are going to come across a number of documented stories where planes made it back to England — without their crews. One I remember reading about, the crew bailed out as the plane was loosing altitude such that the didn’t think it would clear the coast. So, they all bailed out. This lightened the load such that the plane not only cleared the coast, it did a near perfect belly landing at the field from which it had departed. Freaked the ever living out of the people there when they found no crewmembers inside.

I seem to recall the late, great, Martin Caidin writing about some of these, including an incident he witnessed during a commemoration flight.

A lot of modern planes, however, don’t do well if they lose computer control and such. In fact, a couple of them will just about come apart if they lose such controls at speed. However, if they keep that control and are on a steady path via autopilot, who knows?

So, go back and read up on some of the ghost planes of WWII. It’s fun and it says a lot about how rugged the planes then truly were. Only time will tell if we are about to add a modern tale to the mix.