Open Thread 11-5-21 - Up on Cinder Blocks

Hey folks, does it seem like that the U.S. is up on cinder blocks and the wheels are being stolen? Surely that thought has crossed your mind recently, right? It does seem like it though doesn't it? If so, I wonder if it's a controlled demolition or going down on its own volition, out of anyone's control. Either way things don't look too good right now. That's just my humble opinion anyway.

What are you going to do for water and cooking/heating if the lights go out for an extended period? You can store water but eventually it will run out if the power stays out long enough. Here's a couple of skills that may come in handy.

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How to dig a shallow well.

Digging a shallow well from dowsing to digging to capping. Whether for a garden, farm animals, or just plain survival, this is one handy skill to log away in your noggin'.

This technique can also be used to dig a deep well. There are affordable kits that you can buy or you can manufacture your own. Do a search, you'll find many products tailored for this very thing.

Purifying water from a shallow well is also possible, a quick net search will find some solutions for that as well.

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How to make a rocket stove.

Build yourself a small, simple cooking stove from easily found items. A few small twigs will supply enough heat to boil water. Here's how you do it.

Here's detailed point by point directions to make a rocket stove with a #10 can and four soup cans. I suggest you print this one out.

How to Make a Rocket Stove From a #10 Can and 4 Soup Cans

It's also possible to make larger rocket stoves for cold weather heating. Let a search engine be your friend.

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As far as food, you're on your own. May I suggest stocking a few months worth and then a large garden, chickens, livestock, hunting, foraging wild plants, etc.?

I hope you find this stuff informative and let's hope we never need them in an emergency situation.

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Comments

I'll be on the road today, I'll try to pop in if possible.

Any more practical suggestions on how to make it through a powerless situation?

This is an open thread so tell us what's on your mind.

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8 users have voted.

This is a small thing, but I found solar powered battery chargers to be useful.
The type I have takes AA and AAA sized rechargeable types. The batteries are a bit pricier than the single use ones, but pay for themselves over time.

https://www.envirogadget.com/solar-powered/aa-and-aaa-solar-battery-char...

https://reviewbest1.com/best-aa-and-aaa-battery-chargers/

and battery testers ..

https://www.mytechreviewer.com/best-battery-tester/

https://reviewbreeze.com/best-battery-tester/

helps to keep your devices running Wink

Cheers

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11 users have voted.

@QMS
These are worth looking into as well:

Solar powered generators

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If I lose water there are four or five million others in the same boat. I'm thinking water will not be my top problem.

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6 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

@The Voice In the Wilderness
if I was you I'd devise a bug out plan.

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8 users have voted.

@JtC
1. remove clothing
2. sit down
3. bend over
4. kiss your ass goodbye

That's what we devised in 4th grade doing those dumb "duck and cover" drills. Even nine year olds knew better.

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7 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Remember the power grid issues last year? Expect more of the same.

(I should clarify, I'm not the insider...this is just scuttlebutt I've overheard from people who know.)

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10 users have voted.

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@Dr. John Carpenter
now's the time to grab a generator if you haven't done so already.

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@JtC
They are now selling their whole house generator connected to a solar system for primary power instead of back up power. the utility company becomes the backup.

VERY INTERESTING.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Seems my “round to it” is slowing me down. My place in Texas has an old cistern that is still standing and I have talked a lot about getting it lined and top put on it for water storage. There is also an old well that has been capped off and could be possibly put to use.

I have two of the Goal Zero solar battery chargers that need to solar panel to put them to use. Once again, indecision and just moving on these things has been my state of being. Since last February when the “great storm” hit Texas and the grid failed, these are things to really now consider.

I do have some food stored but would be prudent to assess what I have and where I need to improve. All said, I have a lot of things that I could be doing to prepare myself for when the wheels come off and the cinder blocks get stolen!

Have a good day all. Am still in Santa Fe and watching the leaves falling and the ravens setting up quite a racket in the trees here.

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8 users have voted.

Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.

This ain't no dress rehearsal!

@jakkalbessie
heh, I moved to Texas about a year and a half ago from northern Illinois in hopes of escaping the winters there, only to be met by the "great storm" that you mention. Really though, when that happened I was totally in my element, didn't bother me at all except for losing power for 22 hours and water for a couple of weeks. Biggrin

Sounds like you have most of the battle already won with just a little tweaking. Getting prepared may help you sleep a bit better at night.

We're off for the Texas hill country for the weekend. Fredricksburg specifically. I love the hill country, it is so beautiful.

Thanks for stopping by, old friend.

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9 users have voted.

intended to dig a well for his garden. He did it himself. Once he got it tested, it turned out to be better quality and much better tasting than his city water. He uses it exclusively now.
It would be very easy to do that on my acreage, as this town is known for its' springs.
I know first hand that our water system is prone to failures in any inclement weather. I can only imagine what would happen if the employees walked off the job.

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9 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp
didn't you get married recently? Maybe your hubby will dig a well for you. Ask him nicely, I bet he will. Maybe.

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@JtC Hubby is so damn busy doing "honey do's" I don't know how he could fit it into his schedule!

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Lookout's picture

I've always wanted to build a rocket stove, but have so many other options I've not done so yet. We have a propane stove here in the house, and a woodstove down at the shop.

But at the camp house I've got a little folding camp stove that can cook with just a few sticks...
folding stove.png

There are several types that fold and store easily.

We have a well and a generator to hook up to the pump. We also have a spring where is easy to collect water.

I think preparing for the worse is a good idea. You haven't lost a thing even if the shit doesn't hit the fan.

Thanks for the OT and have a great trip!

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9 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
country folk definitely have an advantage when it comes to being prepared.

Sounds like you've done your homework. We hope to get up your way eventually to scope your work out for ourselves.

Thanks for the additional info on the stoves. Good stuff.

Gotta' go pack now.

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snoopydawg's picture

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg Why does anybody want the sun to set so early during the winter months? I just don't get it.

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NYCVG

snoopydawg's picture

@NYCVG

Actions have consequences.

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9 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg I've seen this.

de Blasio thinks that kissing up to the Big dems in charge that he will land a new job somewhere somehow.

I will be surprised if it works out for him.

The terrible forcing of NYC to be vaccinated has sullied his previous remarkable good work.

now, nobody is for him.

Not the lower income people whose homes and lives he's improved and not the Elite who always hated him.

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4 users have voted.

NYCVG

zed2's picture

@NYCVG The poor and middle class working people know that whenever anything gets "improved" its bad for them, as they own nothing so it benefits others. More often than not, "improvements" trigger huge raises in rents, etc. Churning of any kind is invariably to get rid of them , and they can no longer afford to live there any more. Without fail.

So build back better is actually a kind of "build back whiter"

a disaster for all.

Suppose you have a cheap or renewable source of energy. Rooftop PV @NYCVG solar, or similar. In theory you could use that electricity preferentially to charge your car and basically have free fuel for driving. That energy, for you is practically free. Air is compressible so you could store air in compressed air tanks, or you could pump water uphill.Another very simple way of storing energy is in a massive wall or similar, say you could warm an adobe wall, With the sun, which is free. Have to start thinking how to save energy and passively warm. Or moving southward.

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studentofearth's picture

@NYCVG A little sunshine begins heating water pails and tubs for the livestock. I need to haul less hot water by hand or use less electricity to prevent ice. I can do a better quick visual for potential health problems with sunshine, than flashlight.

The extra hour of early light was extremely valuable when I had a 9-5 job. The extra hour later in the day never made my chores easier or improved quality of care for the stock.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Got to keep President Manchin and the moderates happy.

Edited to add this gem.

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dystopian's picture

Trigger Warning. I have been triggered. Danger! Danger! This is in response to SD and NYCVG's comments above suggesting permanent daylight savings is the solution if I read them correctly.

I really don't think the people in Barrow Alaska want it to get dark so early, in November. Nor do I think they want it to last so long, until what February or March.

I was amazed being from socal how much earlier it got dark in Boston and NYC on the same dates in winter. And conversely stayed lighter so much later in summer.

The reason these things vary around earth is because of the laws of the universe and physics. The axis of earth and its rotation around the sun. Shall we change those for y'all too? You can move south and have more light in the winter, but you will have less in the summer. The sun being up an hour longer all summer in the southern tier of warm states burns mountains of A.C. because the sun is up longer. Is that good and positive?

Daylight savings time is a manmade artificial construct. It is not reality, but play pretend time. It does not save anything. Which is how you can tell the idea came from marketing. We should never change them in the first place. Why can't the time be OK the way it is? Why do humans think they can tweak everything and make it better? Egotistical arrogance.

High noon is high noon because that is when the sun is at the highest. That is when noon is supposed to be, when the sun is at the highest in the sky. Not when your oh-so-important selves deem it should be. Why don't you just move it a few hours? How do you argue against those that would move it two hours?

But for some of y'all the axis of the earth at some times of the year just ain't good enough for you the way it is naturally? And your convenience which is mostly habits you constructed is more important than the laws of the universe? More important than the laws of nature and physics. This is the ego of humankind. As some native Americans said long ago of daylight savings time, only white man thinks he can cut 6" off the end of the blanket and put it on the other end, and think they have a longer blanket.

What is wrong with reality of the natural universe that you feel it should be changed? The time? Leave it alone, don't ever change it from standard time. Keep yer dang fingers out of the circadian rhythms of all the rest of the planet for your silly whims built on some thinking trap you fell into.

With apologies,
Thanks for listening, had to get that off my chest.

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8 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

janis b's picture

@dystopian

Why do humans think they can tweak everything and make it better? … As some native Americans said long ago of daylight savings time, only white man thinks he can cut 6" off the end of the blanket and put it on the other end, and think they have a longer blanket.

[video:https://youtu.be/ALPup5i0FWw]

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dystopian's picture

@janis b That was beautiful, and so are you! Thanks Janis! peace and love be with you.

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4 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

@dystopian
in the dark.
CHANGE THE SCHOOL HOURS NOT EVERYONE ELSE'S TIME!

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1 user has voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Could not sleep but did doze off and immediately had a dream where a disasters of some sort struck. Fire, maybe earthquake even. Man, it was intense not lasting very long. Woke me up fast. So I decide to get online to start getting emergency supplies and gear. But first site I look at is c99 and found your essay. If this wasn't a sign, it was a strong hint.

I live in an old suburb with huge back yard, and over time have stocked on emergency needs. And over time the supplies have dwindled as sons wanted to take stuff for camping, propane, me a late night easy snack, etc. The one I missed is a hand powered flashlight where you squeeze a rotator to generator enough electricity to make the flashlight functional. Reminds me, get a transistor radio.

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6 users have voted.
zed2's picture

This country wont be a safe place, and the people who claim to protect you are often the worst choices to do so. If 9-11 and coronavirus have taught us one thing that should be it.

Power corrupts, absolutely!

I was just reading about 7 WTC which seems to be a well documented disproving of the assertions that were made, by the NIST and government. Numerous videos were made of these events which show that the cause could not have been anything other than a intentional destruction, by professionals of the similarly named building complex..seemingly only explainable by the controlled implosion of these tall buildings & This is what a co worker pointed out to me just a few days after the events. And he was a scientist. And a computer graphics wizard. He also timed the collapse and concluded that nothing else could have been possible.

So the videos (collected and analyzed by many many people) represent proof thatthe official explanation was not done with the called for scientific rigor, to put it mildly.

They failed to explain the surgical precision of every one of those buildings crumbing straight down.

Why did they do this? They will have to be asked when (if) they are put on trial for the murder of 3000+ innocent people..

This scheme, whatever its goal, is also why there was a D-Notice or omerta on the media especially in the UK where the change was really obvious because there was a lively discussion in the UK press about GATS, especially, exactly until 9-11 and then it was abruptly stopped. There is no freedom of press in the UK like the US used to have.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHIfSfb-RvM]

Would such a disaster be used to falsely justify a take over of society by a very few, and a diminuation of freedom and democracy? So that everybody who resisted could be branded a potential terrorist? Nullifying those pesky Democratic values? The book "Globalists" describes the ordoliberal ideology of the people who now control this country, the EU and much of the world which is quite different than the democracy I grew up in. Its the real reason why they dont make sense anymore and these kinds of politicians, like Macron, the hugely disliked elitist president of France, he just doesn't get it. Nor to the DNCs. Nor do the GOPs. They just have rigged the system so people are trapped with them, and nothing better, ever.

(-11 has also been used to "justify" (sarcasm) like has been done with Coronavirus, the repression of freedom of speech in the US. With endless DRAMA and HISTRIONICS. No we don't want these things they force on us.

And it seems obvious the goal is to distract attention away from the tragedy of a horrible but many predicted this disease was coming because the huge explosion in international travel and the fact that people now can and frequently do travel to the other side of the planet in a single day.

Making global pandemics inevitable.

Still, is anybody surprised, that we, because we are the poster child for medical injustice, have ended up with the worst mortality 5 million deaths and the failure to cope with it appropriately especially in its early days, is turning it into a endemic disease that may be very difficult or even impossible to eradicate. Imagine the astronomical toll in deaths in the large parts of the world where there is no government or doctors or wealthy corporations. This is a really hideous crime, if its in any way intentional. its killing of the poor simply because they are poor. Forcing people to live up to the wealthy countries demands of them - with the intent of stripping off all their natural resources.

The 'propertization' of everything so it can be stolen. Terra Lawson-Remer (California politician) has written very articulately about this forcing of a global theft in GATS and NAFTA. Her paper is worth reading. As it names whats being done by its proper name. And makes it clear that its a theft and also a "choice" that we the people NEVER made. They would claim that by electing neoliberals we gave THEM the right to trade our country and futures away. Did you? I didnt. I have also stopped voting for fake parties incumbent candidates.

But I would like to ask people to search in the various search engines on the WTO GATS Agreemenmt and do it using dates. You will find that a lively discussion of GATS was occurring in the British press, not here, and that it was abruptly stopped after 9-11. Since then there has been no more discussion, even now when Brexit threatens to end the UK's NHS, that is being hidden, because GATS forbids their selling insurance and providing a subsidized government competitor at the same time. So since the UK is not aboutto stop selling FS's (nor is the US) because of GATS, the NHS has to go, nomatter how many poor Britons die. This is why they left the EU, which protects social services not because they help people, its because they have become identified, (before Bolkelstein Directive, etc. ) with a social contract they had already committed to dismantle by joining WTO, (those jobs are promised to the Third World as their reward for their embrace of capitalism and highly mobile global capital. Their deal would fall apart if we tried to save the middle class jobs that sweetened the Uruguay Round deal, Ive been told. So TISA is just to make the GATS look legitimate. (when otherwise it has big and glaring problems)

Thats the way it is here too. People told about it don't beleive the politicians could be or are that evil, even when its literally staring them in the face (as it is today)

Look they lied to all of us and refuse to tell the truth. The situation with the so called infrastructure bill proves it.

Politicians who contend we can snap our fingers and vote for public healthcare (or childcare, or expansions in any "services" that were committed to global trade) without abolishing commercial health insurance are shameless liars. Not as bad as the people who stole democracy, but they are their enablers.

Returning to the discussion, the British people were conned out of their NHS but dont know it yet. Had it continued it would have prevented the UK from falling into the Brexit trap which is guaranteed to kill the NHS next year. (Its too good of a deal, as it steals the profits that the WTO guarantees investors, and also occurred after the standstill which took effect in the mid 1990s, which would seem to be a complicated legal case wide open to challenge because Beveridges NHS dates back to 1947 (when unions and the working people were much more powerful, politically. "They would never have gotten them to do that now" and indeed they made it illegal with the WTO. Only a real single payer system like Canadas could happen now. So The UK is out of compliance and the noncompliant NHS has to go. They designed the WTO rules to do that. And take back the most appreciated entity in the UK (just a few years after they celebrated it in the Olympics?) I think so would seem to be a good example of narcissistic pathological projectiuons habits. was part of the EU. I have no idea. Had UK citizens known this they would have been more vocal about it. (Instead it seems people are being paid to deliberately confuse them. So one can see where the WTC bombing must have been attempting to accomplish. Push this important fact out of the press and justify a huge theft of not just freedom of speech and democracy but also it allows drug prices to be weaponized. Starting with the deliberate destruction of deals the UK government had made with Big Pharma to bankrupt the NHS. Think of it as the first salvo of a dirty war against the poor and normal,honest people everywhere, a war betwren evil and good in between greed and common sense, in its purest forms. with their fake backwards extrinsic fraud's backwards fraud moral values the oligarchs want to see us do away with. Our measures against discrimination miraculously turned into discrimination and forbidden to us. No wonder Hillary Clinton wanted to keep black people close..

- its connection to healthcare is also why the media NOW never cover single payer or the TRIPS agreement being the cause of insane drug pricing and the government having no power or any other attempt to reign drug prices in.Except the fake ones that GATS blocks, this to fool people into not realizing that we've all been conned . And keep us voting for the same crooks, and deceived into not seeing the obvious. . The incident happened immediately before the pivotal WTO 4th Minesterial, in Doha, Qatar, 9 to 14 November 2001 where much of the GATS and TRIPS agenda was literally stuffed down the planets throat. Sympathy for the US because of the thousands killed was still running high allowing us to get our way there (for example the creation of the TRIPS drug pricing situation of today) when perhaps it would have been better if we hadn't (gotten away with it) Certainly the millions of deaths that have occurred from HIV and people never getting life saving drugs all through the 1990s because of US and EU pharmaceutical industry would not have happened..Ive heard estimates of as many as 30 million deaths. Because they could not pay the $12,000-15,000 a year ($35/day for the rest of one's life) that drug companies demanded per person for the lifesaving pills.. Thats the same as they charged sick Americans with HIV. (and quite possibly still do)

Its a matter of principle for them.

Soon we will be a nation of nomads.. Rootless, voteless, nullified. Exactly what they want.

Be well. Rise Above!

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2 users have voted.
zed2's picture

rechargeable batteries save money. many batteries are never used. They have limited shelf life.
just like all of us.

[video; https://www.ae911truth.org/evidence/videos/video/2-architects-and-engine... ]

It should be obvious that one or two parties are fake, there to destroy their members interests not empower them as tools for the ugly rich's global coup which is starting now, and pump up their bloated incomes with their Big Pharma death profits.

They are too slick.

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2 users have voted.
zed2's picture

Buy Baby Buy" is the name of a chain store in the country I live in. They sell cheap and flimsy appliances. An ode to over-consumption and the planned obsolescence if I ever saw one. Appliances and computers last too long, engineers are being told. Make the machines wear out sooner! Your jobs depend on this!

They want to blame it on the Russians or Chinese.

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zed2's picture

Thats 20th century logic that all revolves around people and commuting and 9 to 5 work. But such jobs and lifestyles are fading away in many places. The era of large scale commuting is ending as people are trying to get out of crowded cities. Its dangerous, I think people are realizing, to be so close to so many other people.. in stores, streets, etc.

Also, people don't want to waste their entire lives spending all of their time going nowhere in those often boring, dead end jobs. The world doesn't revolve around the "investor class" (as we're taught). It revolves around you, your friends and especially family and friends.

Your prime learning years are before you are 30, later in life and your brain wont be growing, it will be shrinking. Your sunken eyes show how much.

Politicians are trying to create false scarcity in order to make ass kissing to make some other person rich look more attractive. But most people feel - correctly - that they re being shut out of that system, by design.

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2 users have voted.

@zed2
Proles are inherently conservative. all the (D) party's propaganda justifying looting and arson just makes the "Law and Order" Right more attractive.

An Illinois proposal to counter the shooting of cops at traffic stops is to forbid cops from making traffic stops. Oh! Boy! Driving in IL is already wild west. OTOH the proposal may be really intended to sell more speed camewra systems. Parking in Chicago has already been privatized. Rahm sold the Chicgo Skyway (toll road) to a private company. Seems like (D) and (R) are in a race rightwards.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.