OK Christmas is over

(No, these aren't my preps, but what a great picture)
Now it is back to work on everything.  Kids have been properly spoiled, enough food to choke a small horse has been consumed, sleep has been caught up on.

So now a little prepping.  I think that the next phase of the operation is organization and inventory.  The trouble with the creation of even a itty-bitty stash such as mine is that you really have to keep on top of it for it to remain useful in a pinch.

The nice thing about organization and inventory is that while it is every bit as important as the more glamorous (??) aspects of prepping, it doesn't cost a dime and makes prepping more likely for success.

So, for now, on the prepping front, I am going to get things into plastic totes and label everything clearly.

But, what would this blog be if I didn't take something simple and useful and expand it into something pompous and arrogant.  Such is my burden.  In a sense, this next year might strongly resemble this task.  Nothing elegant, nothing really noticable, just moving pieces into place.

We doomers like our go to hell quick scenario.  Don't kid yourselves though kiddies, history is a frightfully slow process.  Yes, sometimes you get something that can be covered in the networks news cycle, but most of the time, it is as thrilling as watching the weeds grow in your back yard.

I figure that this next year is going to be a steady, slow slide downhill, when it ends we will be close to the bottom, but still holding our breath..

This here is what will take the next year to run its course.  How we handle this will define a lot of thing for the next twenty years.

Have a Shameless Saturnalia

Peace

The real problem with the health care plan

We don't have the money.

All the rest is hogwash and political posturing.  The government doesn't have the money to execute it.  The people don't have enough money to buy it.

All the other issues are dreck. 

A Test of Google Docs as a Blog Editor

I doubt that most folks will want to read this one.  Mostly, it is an extended test of using Google Docs to write the blog rather than the clunky/crappy user interface that Google provides to us "consumers" (this is written in 12 point Arial and extends to two line

This is what happens when you set a single return (comic sans 12point).

This is what happens when you set a double return(Garamond 12 point).
 

At least this guy is open about it

Was over reading Mish and came across this Gem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/education/16college.html?_r=1&hp

It is interesting to say the least. But it is a sign of things to come. The self-absorbed will take everything from future generations to fund their golfing and pederasty.

A Joyous Holiday Season

And the truth of the matter is;  I am not much interested in being gloomy right now.   Since the truth is pretty gloomy at the present, there is a disconnect between my desires (a happy holiday) and the purpose of this blog (talking about things in what I consider to be a truthful manner).

So, I think that, unless something inspires me otherwise, I will take the rest of the year off and immerse myself in the mundane avoidance of inconvenient and unpleasant truths that is the hallmark of American civilization and political discourse.

Have a great holidays, forget the crap around you for a bit and treasure the joys that the world can bring you.  I think that the ability to accomplish this simple act is a survival skill that you should hone along with the rest of them.  It might just be the difference between surviving and living.

Benedictio Dei.

The really hard question

Is health care a right ?

Two Taters

I buy big bags of potatoes.  When you have two big, growing boys, they can go through food mass like there is no tomorrow.  Taters are cheap, good for you, food that fills up growing teenagers.

When I get to the end of the bag and they are just starting to get a smidgen squishy, they get wrapped with aluminum foil (this is not at all a necessity, it just makes them easier to deal with in the fridge) and get baked in the oven for use later.

The easiest

The Big Play

Now, this is an add-on to my last post.  In a sense, I will be speaking out of both sides of my mouth here, so deal with it it.  It is called the dialectic and unless you are an unwashed fool, it is how anyone with a modicum of intelligence deals with the world.

The world runs on energy.

Despite all the claims to the contrary, the US is a net energy importer and our native supplies do not meet the demands by a large margin. Drilling the currently known reserves and ramping additional production out of our current wells will no get us to the promised land either.  If we wish to maintain our standard of living and our stuff, we have to get oil from other countries. 

Afghanistan sits astride the routes where the bulk of the known and exploitable energy stocks of the world has to travel to get to us.  If, and folks, this is a huge if, we can control Afghanistan, we might be able to eke enough energy resources out of that region to allow us to downshift and keep the party here in the US going for a while longer.  Maybe, just maybe, if we can keep the external energy supply coming in long enough, we can set up a barely adequate energy infrastructure here in the US that things won't go completely to hell.

Now, let's not for a minute think that this will be a moral act.  When you boil it down, it involves us taking things from other folks who own them.  The other nasty aspect is that fossils fuels are a zero-sum game, there is only so much of the shit and we are proposing to keep using it up as fast as we can.  This simple act means that there will be less for future generations to use along with less for other folks to use.

But, and I don't like this a bit, that appears to be the nasty truth of the matter.  I wrote on Saturday "what are our strategic goals for the area?"  Right now it appears to boil down to two:

• Kicking the Taliban and Al-Qaeda's ass.
• Providing safety to the Afghanistan People.

I would posit that these two goals are nothing but window dressing.  The discussion today presents a brief overview of the real reason behind the troops and the cost and the blood and the pain.

If you look at the situation through the official lens of the stated goals, it is not an acceptable action.  If you look at it through the lens of the real goal, it may be distasteful, but acceptable.

It might be worth it, though I am not sure, I am undecided.

There was one a place known as Dien Bien Phu

A place where a European power attempted to impose its will on a contry far away from its borders.  Oh, I think that the French had gotten over the "Mission Civilitrice" nonsense at that point, but the thought was still there.

Froggie controlled Hanoi and Haiphong, while the Vietmihn attacked the periphery and worked furiously to squeeze the supply lines.  Sound familiar?

Now, there are a lot of things still lacking from the equation.  Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap were ruthless geniuses.  Time has lent them this patina.  It remains to be seen if the Pushtun can come up with a leader of their caliber.

So, we had better start reading and thinking.  Our peace-prize toting president has delayed the inevitable by saying we will begin pulling out in 2011.  But truthfully, I give that statement the same credence I would give the promise that a teenage boy gives a teenage girl.

From what I have seen and what I have read, the Pushtun do not appear to have the word "quit" in their dictionary.  I believe that the Russians and the Brits might have some advice for us concerning the chances of the Pushtun laying down and doing what they are told.

What we had better start asking is "what are our strategic goals for the area?"  Right now it appears to boil down to two:

• Kicking the Taliban and Al-Qaeda's ass.
• Providing safety to the Afghanistan People

I can't say that either of these are legitimate goals for a foreign country.  I would posit that these are the sole responsibility of the Afghani people.  The Taliban were the de facto, if not de jure government of Afghanistan before we decided that wouldn't do.   But this comes down to one point that I wish to state over and over again.  If a country puts together a government to rule its people, does another country have the right to remove that government? 

An Interesting look at things

How can you think that even for a minute?

(The stage directions for the actor uttering these lines are to feign a look resembling revulsion mingled with pity)  Usually the line is delivered in little more than a shriek.

I get this a lot when I mention my firmly held belief that we just might get through all of this shit OK.  Not easy, not without pain, but OK.

You see, when you are talking with true believers in the collapse scenario, they are all 100% convinced that things are going irreversibly to hell (BTW, I give this scenario a sixty-percent chance, with thirty percent going to painful change of government and ten percent chance of working things out).  They cannot comprehend the idea that someone could think that things aren't completely and irredeemably fucked.

The same thing is true with the global warming issue.  The subset of folks who are married to the idea of catastrophic climate change cannot understand why us unwashed lumpen cannot understand the desperate need or the truly desperate straits we navigate. 

You see, we navigate into the furture blind.  What is really happening is that some folks are claiming gnosis with the future and are willing to do anything to lead us into the promised land.  But as with prophets in general, most of them really don't know where or what we will become, they just have blind faith that they are correct.  Anyone who carries the taint of doubt must be less than pure in their eyes.

So be careful in the next little bit of time.  Whether your prophet was Roubini or Panzer or Erhlich or Obama or Mann there is going to be a need to think for yourself and ignore the invective and sloppy thinking that dominate the extremes.

Simply saying that you suspect the conclusions of some practitioners of abtuse and fuzzy fields (population biology, climate research, and politics) is not a mark of stupidity in a lot of cases, but rather a mark of a healthy skepticism.

Which in my mind is the hallmark of all true science.

Not much to say today

Yesterday, my sense of irony was just not up to the task.

Permanently tethered to the banal

It seems that a bunch of folks around here are permanently tethered to the banal.  It probably is the same way where you live.

The biggest obstacle to the society coming to grips is the deep seated desire found in the majority of the population that nothing is happening, nothing is different, can we just get back to the good times thank you.  That majority drives the decision making process in this country.

So we have a merry go-round of politicians who promise to fix our problems, to return everything to the place where all material wants are handled and all problems are massaged away.

This is where we get the lying pieces of shit we call leaders.  They are all lying to us, we know that, but we want the one that lies the best, because he lets us keep our lottery ticket fantasies and our dreams of salad shooters.

Consider for a moment the "anti-war" president Obama who just won the "Nobel Peace Prize".  Just sent 34,000 troops to Afghanistan at the tune of a million dollars a year per soldier/sailor/marine.  Now if that isn't cognative dissonance, I don't know what is.

I didn't expect anything much out of Obama.  I am not disappointed, just amused.  The poor sad sack has such a shitball choice of advisors and bureaucrats and military chiefs leading him around by the nose that the poor sod doesn't know which way is up.

The country will keep going this way until "we the people" grow up.  As long as we believe that someone is there in the government to save us and to make things better, we are nothing but grist for the mill of thieves that run the country.  They will spin the lies and the false dreams as long as we continue to buy them.

Until we are content with the real world and perhaps our own suffering in it, we will be saddled with someone else's solution.

Appliance Woes

Both the reefer and the dishwasher are on the fritz.  So today I am going to try and see if I can get them running without messing them up more than they are now.

That is the key to the problem folks.  You have to make sure that you don't really screw it up in the process of attempting a repair.  You have to leave your macho crap behind and know when to put down the tools and call someone who knows what they are doing.

So the reefer just kept a running and a running....stopped getting cold too.  So, upon consulting the oracles of the internet, I came upon the first attempted fix to clean everything, let it sit for a day, and plug it in to see if it started working (this involves dirty heat diffusers, bubbles in the freon, and frozen up thingies in the fridge).  This is the kind of fix that is well within my abilities.  So that will be the first attempt. 

The dishwasher is a different pickle.  The oracles of the internet are pointing at replacing an inlet valve.  This will (gasp) require that I pick up a screwdriver (shudder).  I am a damn chemist and a petty bureaucrat, this is gonna leave some permanent psychological damage.

I had better fortify myself with a drink before I start.

I am skeptical

I guess that this makes me a heretic.

Hmm...It worked for the Catholics (I am still one, albeit just by the hair of my toenails).  It also worked for Freud, after all any one who opposed him was in need of therapy.  It works for the pentacostals and the Mormons, who toss you as quick as you can say, "hey, just a minute here".

Now I guess that I am a bad boy for starting to say "hey, just a minute here" on the climate warming/CO2 debate. 

There has been a whole bunch of good observational data obtained about the climate.  In a whole bunch of places, the temp has been going up.  Nuff said there.

But what I am starting to question is the forward extrapolation made by the climatologists based around data derived in the last fifty years.   I will allow that the data shows an increase in temperature and CO2.  But even that simple statement is fraught with enough caveats and ass-covering as to place it in the banal. 

You see, I feel strongly that any civilization that can create a usage curve for petroleum such as this

is likely to raise the temp a bit here and there.

But that is the point, look at the right side of that curve.  OOOPS.  Looks like we are going to be ratcheting back on the bad stuff tout suite. 

So, from my point of view, we are looking at a problem in the process of self-correcting.  We are also looking at a vigorous minority of the population who are pressing aggressively for societal change and looking at "global climate change" as their covering motive. 

The sad part about environmentalists is their utter lack of patience.  We are going to return to the radically simpler way of life they espouse, but it will be done in the ring village that will deconstruct the mega-cities.  We will drop our use of oil, but it will be through the population loss that comes with the final failure of the "green revolution". 

You see, environmentalists are the sort of folks who think that by holding hands and singing kumbaya, we can keep what we choose and advance to a better place.  Noble thoughts those.

I on the other hand, am an old cynic, content with the fact that the world rolls around the way that it is supposed to.  We will reduce oil use because it ran out.  We will reduce population the old fashioned way, with war and pestilence and famine riding around, partying like it was 1999.

We will end up back to where we ought to be.  A world population of around 1-2 billion.  A more local and constrained lifestyle. 

It's OK

Welcome to history.

Kitchen Sinkers

 

The Youngest's Wrestling team tends to drop by...Food needs to be around

Ingredients

•   1 cup butter
•   1 cup butter flavored crisco 
•   1 cup peanut butter
•   1 cup white sugar
•   6 eggs
•   1/2 cup water
•   1-1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
•   4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
•   1-1/2cup packed brown sugar
•   2 teaspoon baking soda
•   2 cups rolled oats
•   2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, peanut butter,crisco, brown sugar and white sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then water and vanilla. Combine the flour and baking soda, stir into the creamed mixture. Finally, stir in the rolled oats, coconut,  and chocolate chips.Roll into 1 inch balls.
   
3. Mush the dough balls down with a fork 
   
4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until the cookies are lightly toasted on the edges. Remove from the baking sheet to cool on wire racks.

Please Give Thanks

We have had a sweet ride for a long time. 

It may well be that things are going to get a little dicey.  That is all the more reason to thank the creator for those things he has given you.  All of the easy times, youth, and frivolity that each and every one of us has used was a gift.  Now, we don't get to keep it forever, but while it lasted, it was a sweet ride.

So review you life and take the time to be grateful for the thousands of blessings that have been bestowed upon you. 

I would recommend some serious prayer on the Sunday following on how to accept that the Lord both giveth and taketh away. 

Visualizing Empires Lifespans

Claudius sent me this one.

I like it.  It is too bad they were politically correct and forgot the American Empire.

I am certain the Filipinos haven't

days off

One of the true pleasures in life is taking the odd time off and knowing that others are going to work while you stay home. 

Now, don't get me wrong, this is not a habit that you should indulge yourself in frequently, you should go and pull more than your share of work at the job, but, on occasion, a well-deserved reward of a day off is sweet.

This isn't a vacation.  No, vacation are parlous things, fraught with demands from family and a schedule that, if they tried that shit at work, would have you talking with the union steward.  Nope, this is just a day off.  Gonna do a little cooking, brine a couple of turkey breasts, and get ready for the wretched excess of the US thanksgiving.  Just so you know, I am not late, we are going on Saturday (family crap).

Envy me.

Apple Brine

This is good for one of those frozen turkey breasts.  (on sale at Safeways for $0.99/lb)

• 1 gallon apple juice 
• 3/4 cups kosher salt
  
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/2 cup sugar
  
• 2 Tbsp Garlic Powder
  
• 2 Tbsp dried onion
  
• 2 Tbsp white pepper
  
• 2 Tbsp powdered ginger
  
• 1 Tbsp mustard powder
  
• 1 Tbsp nutmeg
  

Definitely Worth looking into

Stupid's Pledge


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Phillips

Think About This One

OK, no one said that I was consistent.  But when you read the news, some things just come out to bite you.  Again, I must thank Jim over at Some Assembly Required for giving me a heads up.  I highly recommend his site.

One of the reasons that you ought to have a bit of your savings in something non bankish is that all of the government debt has to come to roost somewhere.


This article seems to show that perhaps the Asian countries are getting wise to our banksters little tricks.  In my mind, most of the "rise" in stock markets are contrived things, more along the lines of a game of three card monte than legitimate ways to allocate capital. 

So now, Bloomberg news has its shorts in a knot because other countries are not willing to throw themselves on a grenade to save us.

I am quite fond of Malaysia.  I have far too many entry stamps in my passport from the station at Johor Bahru.  I am also quite impressed with how they stood up to the banking community during the 1997 crisis and fixed their own economy with the painful capital controls and hard work needed.  They told the IMF (the serial rapist that has historically been employed by our banksters) to take a flying fuck.  Good on them.

Well, I have a feeling that a lot of these countries will take a page from Malaysia's book.  The hot money (what a great term, as the function that it performs has very little to distinguish it from theft) will have to slow down.

Could get interesting

Please Go Look at This

Please read this first

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/#more-1853

Then go here.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/11/hacked-hadley-cru-foi2009-files.html#more
 
Please research yourself.  Don't stop at these two, try to come to grips with the complexity of the data.

Please don't try and cherry pick.  Don't just read a bunch of flap on websites that you already agree with. 

Please don't judge instantly according to your current prejudices, but rather, use the data here as a means of judging what is happening.  What is happening is not straightforward nor is it amenable to simple solutions.

Global Warming is not a hoax, it not the truth either.

Staying the same is not a hoax, it not the truth either.

Global cooling is not a hoax, it not the truth either.

The long term solar minimum currently is a data point, not a pointer to the future.

We really don't know what is going on, we only have the ability to look at all the facts available and draw the best possible theory, which has an unfortunate tendency of being proved wrong at the next data collection.

Think for yourself, forget the shrill raving of folks with axes to grind and firmly held convictions.  The subject being discussed is complex, the data given is difficult to encompass, and there is no way to make an easy judgement.  It is a difficult subject with hard to understand physics involved.

There has always been scandals in science.  There will also be times where scientists use language and methods not appropriate to the temple of science.  Even if there has been fudged data at one center, the other centers are still there for cross checking.

Be careful.

Minor League Cassandra

Truth be told, I am getting sick of waiting for the storm to hit.  I have been waiting around for a bit.  What I thought was coming has been takings its sweet time and ssssslllooooowwwwwlllllyyyy shown up piecemeal, and only around a quarter of the shit currently having arrived here at the bottom of the heap.

Cause the longer it holds off, the bigger it appears to be and the less there seems that I can do to give myself a legitimate edge.  Oh, don't get me wrong, a full pantry has nothing at all wrong with it.  Some savings in the bank, some savings not in the bank.  Nothing wrong with those either.  Not too much of anything around, because too much puts you in a dangerous spot.

Naw, mostly I think that pissing and moaning too much puts you in a bad place mentally and spiritually.   Yes the world is unfair and unjust, so what?  I don't see any appreciable change.  But the world rolls on.  Just remember to stop thinking of the world as a snapshot, a static point in time that defines your world as being right when it is "this way".

Mostly you have to develop an attitude of getting through the gap in the world that is your life.  Be aware that you will be colder and warmer than you are now.  You will be richer and poorer than you are now.  You will get through them all.

Enough of this for right now, I have to order some parts for the 3D printer I am going to try and make. 

Tin foil hat land of the blogosphere is quiet

Too quiet

Man...this sucks..

I had a big piece worked up about global warming.  It had graphs and links to data sets and statistics and everything!

Google ate my homework.

Shit.

Anyway, the nut of the discussion is that;

1. we are running out of fossil fuels,
2. fossil fuels are causing the problem,
3. a bunch of folks gotta pass away
4. life goes on

Gotta go, sunday games are starting

The truth about blogging

As you can probably tell, I have no issue with blogging.  It is an easy way for me to spend some time writing in a diary. 

Lets not for a moment think that it has any more meaning than that.

What amuses me to no end in the folks at http.(fill in the blanks here).blogspot.com who set up paypal accounts and place big notices on their blog how "your contributions are what keeps (fill in the blanks here) running. 

Give me a break folks.  Google doesn't charge a dime for this crap.  What your really want is someone to pay you so that you don't have to get a real job.

Most bloggers who do this tend toward the shrill.  It is as though these folks claim to see deeper into the future and write about it to save us.  They should be well compensated for their erudite and dire warnings that have a pronounced tendency of not quite working out the way they said.

So, give to folks if you want.  But hell, I think the money would best be spent elsewhere.  If something out there in the blogosphere gives you a good feeling, go and buy a bum a drink.  Go and donate to a food bank.  Start a business and build it up enough to hire someone.  Loan some money to a needy friend and don't fret about getting it back.

But remember this.  Most of the folks who are claiming to need contributions are usually sitting in a warm house, writing on a laptop, using a high speed internet connection that comes with their cable TV, and usually have a pretty good shtick going.

Goin' slow vs Go-Go

The hardest thing that most folks will have to deal with when things start heading south is that their movement is going to be seriously constrained.

Americans "love of the road" is going away.  You are going to have to make the place that you live where you want to be, not some mythical elsewhere when you have enough coin scraped together.

We have somehow become a society of jet-planes, second homes, time share condos, and endless racing around.  Lets face it, as peak oil comes in to roost, you had better be comfortable where you are, because it is going to be hideously expensive to get somewhere else.

Movement equals energy use.  I have 500,000+ airline miles and by having such I acknowledge that I have been part of the problem.  I helped lower the needle on our the gas tank that powers civilization.

But it really isn't going to be all that bad.  Most of it is going to be a simple recognition that the party is over.   What will probably happen is that the cost of getting around will rise until folks realise that they pretty much have to stay put.

Maybe this will solve a lot of my big issues.  Maybe we can get shut of the shallow, self-absorbed masturbation that passes itself off as the "tourism industry".  By making travel expensive, when you go and visit other places maybe it will become the precious gift that it is.

Heroes and Baby-Killers

 We seem to whipsaw back and forth about our military.  When I got out, we were baby killers.  Now, anyone who wears a uniform is labelled a hero.

We have to get a grip here folks.  Like it or not, a military is composed of an overwhelming majority of just plain folk.  Just doing their job.

There are small minoritiy of personnel who fall under the hero classification.

There is also a small minority of folks who fall under the baby-killer classification.

In a real sense, the adoration of the military that is occurring now is actually more worrisome to me than the crap I went through when I got out.  Men on white horses come out of societies where the military is put on a pedestal. 

I wonder when the pendulum will reverse course.  If it doesn't we may find out how history usually stores peoples who place too much faith in the military.

LATE EDIT

I can wear one of these.  So don't give me any shit...I have earned my right to an opinion.

Prepper Recipe #1 TVP Sorta Enchilada/Burritos

I am going to start working on my recipes and how to cook with prep stuff.  Just to show that you can have a pretty sheen diet on stuff from the basement.

In the morning

• 1-1/2 cup of Beef Flavored TVP from Highland Health foods in Kennewick, Wa.  
• 1/2 cup of dried peppers from Healthy Harvest in Vancouver, Wa
  
• 1/2 cup of dried onions from Healthy Harvest in Vancouver, Wa
• 1/4 cup of McCormick Taco mix from Costco.
• Shot of Soy Sauce
• Teaspoon of Salt
• Shot of Worcestershire
• 2-1/4 cup of boiling water

Throw all this stuff together in the morning in the pan that you boil the water and when it cools enough, stuff it in the fridge for later.  Take it off the heat, you don't want to cook the stuff with the water, you just have to get it back to reconstituted.

In the late afternoon reconstitute some dried hash browns (get these in the big milk carton kinda box at costco).   Just put them in a bowl, and cover them with cold water.   Or just grate up a couple of spuds...same same.

Go to your local Mexican food store.  Go to the aisle where they have the canned sauces and buy one for your taste range.  These are cheap and tasty as hell.  Buy two of the the big cans.  Might as well get your tortillas here while you are at it.

Mix up the TVP mix, the potatoes, and around 1/2 to 2/3 of one of the cans of sauce.  put a big glop on the tortilla and roll it up and put it in a big cooking dish.  When you have filled the dish up, dump the remainer of the sauce evenly over the  filled up pan  (you can put cheese over it if you wish, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't)

Stick it in a 325 oven for about an hour and fifteen minute.  (More or less depending on your oven and conditions)

The Old Saw about the camper and the bear and its relationship to blogger types.

There once was a pack of scouts camping in the wilderness overnight.  As they were cooking dinner, a ferocious grizzly bear came into the clearing and started towards the scouts.  


One of the scouts took off running, as he was running, the scoutmaster shouted at him, "don't be a fool, you can't outrun a grizzly bear!"


The scout yelled over his shoulder as he continued running.


"I don't have to outrun the grizzly, I just have to outrun you!"

In a way, a lot of the bloggers who are writing about the degringolade that we are facing are in the same position.  But think about the fable more deeply.  What would have been funny or useful about the parable if there had been no response from the smart camper.  None of the rest of the scouts would have heard the response.  None of the scouts who would have not already figured out running would have lit out. 

When you blog, try to keep the other campers in sight.  Try to yell encourgement and useful observations as you prep like hell.  Don't worry, the stupid ones (read here McMansion Owners) and the scoutmaster (TPTB) will get what they deserve.  Your job is to help those who just froze up for a second to get up and started.

Come on Mish, Give it a Rest

You know, I read Mish Shedlock over at

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Every day.  I really think that a lot of what he says it right on and he is a font of clearly presented and well researched data.  He is thoughtful and thought provoking, and a fairly good writer.

But, I think that he is coming a little unglued with the "free market" thing.  A proposed miniscule tax on a corrupt and self serving industry that is at the root of all the problems we are going through is going to be the end of the world as we know it and the swan song of the free market system.

Give me a break.

It is just a matter of time before the market crashes anyway.  The "recovery" in share prices is nothing more than trading bullshit with no relationship to reality.

So who cares if the market crashes because of the tax?  We might even get a few of our nickels back that they stole from us as we show them the door.

You see, the problem with folks like Mish is that the "market" is a sacred thing.

To me, it is nothing but a golden calf

I'm Still Here, Nothin' Worth Sayin'

'Nuff said.

Hard Shit

One of the most glaring issues facing us as a country and a civilization is our complete lack of desire to do difficult tasks.  It might well be our downfall.

Probably the most glaring example of this lack of work ethic is the battle cry at the beginning of the globalization movement;  "We think, they sweat".

I cannot imagine a future world where such arrogance and frippery will be allowed us.  I am afraid that we are going to have to roll our sleeves up and get to work.

Oh, baby boomers like me won't have to worry about it very much.  We are too old and set in our ways to change.  The ones of us (and truthfully, I question if I am in this group) who have worked for a living are too damn broke down to keep it up for long, and the ones of us (maybe me) who haven't are too damn old to bring on line now.  By the time that the changes will be in full swing, most of us boomers will be taking a dirt nap.

But the changes that must be made are changes made at a generational level.  The tripe being peddled by the kumbaya crowd that an individual can make a difference is going to soon be recognized as the self-serving pablum that it is.  What is going to seen is a re-instatement of work ethic as the manufacture and maintenance of concrete items on a human scale.  Individuals will have to work and make sacrifices as part of a group, not soloing as self-serving solipsists.

So I have been ragging my sons about their real education.  Math and science are now in the fore.  Nothing but A's and B's are allowed.  No exception.  I am also going to have to accellerate their learning with hands-on projects at home.  Mostly I tell them it is time to get used to doing real things.  Not pushing around digital crap and make work for a corporate master.

The Presiding Evil

A corporation is a legal person under our current set of rules governing the country.  This must end.  They must be restrained and brought to heel.

They will do anything to maintain their position of wealth and privilege, do not expect that any movement against them will not engender a response. 

If we are to break out of the trouble we are in, we have to break the corporations.  They are nothing but a set of separate tribes, sometimes warring, sometimes cooperating, but always intent on making the world into a place where they get more than their fair share. 

By acting as a tribe, with their primary loyalties nothing more than the lining of their shareholders and managements pockets, they are free from anything resembling moral resonsibility to the rest of the country. 

Think about it.  Corporations have to hire paid liars named PR companies to burnish up their lies and make them look like model citizens.  They have to have a battery of lawyers on hand because they know that their actions will fuck people over and they will have to defend their actions in court.

They have bribed our representatives and placed their men at the highest levels of government to do their bidding. 

Lets not play games with tea parties bitching to a government that is owned and operated by these.  The government is currently serving its masters. 

The masters just aren't "We the people".

Just a question for your perusal

We rage on about the Fed and the congress and the supreme court and the president and all the other crap. 

We wonder about wall street and the plutocrats and the global economy.

I am really starting to wonder if our time is being wasted by thinking about this crap.  We have no effect on it, it is a game being played far above our heads, and it detracts from our concentration and thus the ability to make the changes in our own lives.

Not really certain about this.  Just a thought

Just a thanks

 Man:

I still have a job, as crappy as it seems sometimes.  The bills are getting paid(barely) and there is a small spot put aside.  There is food and kids and water and good books and music.

You have to remember that ingratitude is theft.  Things could be a lot worse, you had better go looking around for all your blessings and tender mercies that have been given you and be thankful.

J

No explanation required

Thermos Cookin'

Let me tell you about an experiment that I did today. When I started there was no reason to think that it wouldn't work. So I am writing this up as it goes, with the final report unknown at this point.

I have a 1-quart, stainless steel wide mouth thermos. I'll try this for the cooker.

The recipe is for rice and beans.

• 1/2 cup brown rice
• 1/2 cup pinto beans
• 1/4 cup TVP (bacon bits)
• 2 tsp bouillion
• 1 tsp garlic
• 1 tbsp taco powder
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp sage
• 2 cups boiling water

Pre-tempered thermos by pouring in boiling water and waiting 5 minutes, then dumped everything in the thermos. Closed up tight and waited for eight hours.

Results? Well that didn't work. Crunchy beans and rice.

Phase II

OK....what I am thinking is that the beans have to be soaked first. Then the mess has to be brought to a boil and dumped into the tempered thermos. I am thinking that just dumping the cold ingredients and hot water together into the thermos at the same time just used a great deal of the heat energy to bring the temp of the ingredients up and the overall heat energy of the system down.

So now I think that I oughta establish the thermal characteristics of the thermos itself.

a) Temper thermos with room temp water for five minutes, then dump in 4 cups of boiling water, measure temperature and wait 8 hours, measure temperature again.  Water temp at beginning 200.  Water Temp at end =142

b) Temper thermos with boiling water for five minutes, then dump in 4 cups of boiling water, measure temperature and wait 8 hours, measure temperature again.  Water Temp at beginning 205. Water Temp at end = 162

Marketing Formulae

I guess that I have been writing less lately because I have been a touch depressed.  Oh, don't fret, it isn't the kind of depression that makes you want to go out and swallow the latest from big pharma, it is something else.

That there is nothing new under the sun is a given.  But what is being passed around as commentary in nearly every media is almost worthless.  The MSM is doing everything it can do to get things back to the go-go days.  The blogosphere is obsessed with either a.) bizarre (albeit amusing) fantasies about punishing the evil-doers, b.) a play-by-play of where we went wrong and how, if only people would have listened, we might have avoided the mistakes that we made, or c.) indulging in a mental replay of either the Postman or The Road.

In a way, all of the activities above are nearly worthless.  It might be good for a bitching session among close friends while at a bar, but it is not going to get us out of the pickle we are in.

So, I am going to try my best to lean toward ideas that will get us moving out of the mess.  As much as I hate to say it, the hippie-dippies seem to be on the closest thing to a path moving forward.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not espousing liberal views, but rather pointing out that the folks that went back to the land in the commune movement and stayed there might well have been right all along.

So y'all are welcome to call my shit when I am just bitching to bitch.  I will try to be better at working on ways to let us get through.

Logarithmic

"the only reason we haven’t see thousand-percent inflation as a result of the vast manufacture of paper wealth in recent decades is that most of it has been used solely to buy even more newly manufactured paper wealth."

 From the Archdruid 

Seven in One Blow

Perhaps one should read the old fairy tale.  In a way, it is very appropriate; the tale of a master bullshitter and his rise to power.

Seven banks failed last night.

Go check out http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html to see the entire list.  106 down so far this year.

We have also poured a trillion or so into saving other banks.

Even after all that, the banksters just keep going and making sure that every bit of blood is taken out of the citizenry.

So, I would recommend looking really hard at what you have and what you need.  Deposits in institutions who's sole purpose appears to be to rape their customers does not seem like a good bet at this point.  Neither would certificates saying you own chunks of things that you have no control over.  Sometime I even question the wisdom of keeping too many portraits of dead presidents about.

Just a thought.

Ugh

Its Friday.

I'm pooped.

What I wrote yesterday for posting today was crap, thank God for delete functions.

Come back later (tomorrow).

Pumpkin from last year

• 3 cups white sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 8 eggs
• 3 cups frozen pumpkin
• 1 cup water
• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
•   2teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon dried ginger
  
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Mix up all of the wet ingredients in a bowl, toss in the spices

Mix up all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Mix the two together

Bake in a cookie sheet as a single layer for around 30 minutes at 375.

Stainless Steel

This is good stuff folks. Is it perfect?...kinda depends on the application. But I am seriously considering getting my stock together for utensils for when my life gets waaay simpler (read here, kids leave home).

When you look around your life and your friends lives and their kitchens, how much of it is defined by having a bunch of shit around that your really don't use.  When the kids move out, I will be jettisoning a lot of crap.  A great deal of it will be kitchen crap.  What I am thinking about going down to is a big pot, a little pot, a big fry pan,4 sets of silverware, bowls, cups,  and plates.

As I am not interested in ever replacing them, might as well get them now in stainless steel. 

Porlock

Consider for a moment these two articles:

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2009/10/twilight-of-money.html

and

 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/10/msm-reporting-as-propaganda-no-one-minds-our-new-financial-lords-and-masters-edition.html

You know, I am constantly in awe by how well these folks write.  I cannot thank them enough for their efforts and their generosity in sharing with us.

I am pointing these out as sterling examples of a theme I have harped on repeatedly in the past, the fact that we have taken on false dreams as the driver for our society.  We have dressed up the truth in a veil of illusion (माया) and then pronounced the veil to be the real truth.

Maya is a theme in the Indian religions, where philosophy tries to pierce the veil for a transcendent truth, we in the west are just now piercing the veil to find a more mundane truth:  that we have lived well beyond our means and that the piper is at the door, demanding payment.

But to look beyond this mundane, some folks are starting to see a more basic truth, that the lives we have made for ourselves can never be paid back.  The "debts" that we owe are paper myths.  Stocks are tulip bulbs.  Deriviatives are opium dreams.  We fear the accounting that will come because we want to think that our "share" of the dreams can be salvaged from "that person from Porlock".

The Pathos of Air Travel

We have devoted a large segment of our energies and creating a "tourism" industry.  To put it bluntly, this is the biggest crock of shit that western culture has come up with.

You see, what it turns out to be for the most part is the rich white folk (and lets be honest, the rich yellow folk) have an outlet for their surplus money.  So they put up overpriced hotels in odd places, replete with cabana boys, hookers, cheap booze and tourist traps.  You see, if you spend all your time going other places, you maybe won't notice all the pathetic compromises that have made to impoverish your life while fattening your bank account.

The other horn of the stupidity was the business traveller.  This is the scummy fucker who brought us globalism to fatten his own wallet.  Travelling was mostly done because they are such slimy bastards that they had to get well away from where they live in order to get anyone to do business with them.

Boeing and Airbus have been doing land office business selling planes to service this travesty.  Planes that gobble precious natural resources and spew hydrocarbons and CO2 into the upper atmosphere where it can do the most harm.

Airlines are the beginning and end of the idiocy. serially creating pre-failed business plans in marathon planning sessions conducted in the executive bathroom.  Can anyone think of an airline (other than that odd bus company, southwest airlines) that has a viable business plan.

At the end of the day, the whole industry of getting lots of folks somewhere else in a plane was always collective idiocy.  I for one will not weep when it does finally die.

An Open Response to Publius

Publius:

I guess what I liked about it was its commentary on the attitudes of gold-heads.  As a group, the folks who are out there screaming "gold, gold, gold" are, for the most part, buttheads, and do fit the description in the link.

The folks out there buying gold and talking their book are actually speaking of the failure of the currency (which will be a horrendous event, coupled with massive pain and countless losses).  The big trouble I have with a lot of the folks who do this is their smug, self-satisfied, and thoughtless disregard of what their "wealth" will bring them.  To be "rich" in a sea of poverty and want is not the aspiration of a decent man.  

As for gold as the medium of exchange and a non-fiat based currency, that is a different story.  I think that we ought to be exploring how to move to a more stable currency system.   But before we go haring off chasing some purist notion of a "stable currency", we should look into the past for more guidance.  A straight gold standard brings with it a lot of issues as well as stability.  One should consider the words below.

An Ongoing Conversation

A couple of posts came up lately, one mine, one over at Mayberry's. In a way, the both of them kinda got me thinkin'. So I went and talked to my mom and Aunt's and uncles and the old folks back in the Italian rural ghetto I grew up in.

What I talked to them about was how folks ate. I didn't talk to a person who was less than 79 and I listened harder as the folks got older. What I talked to them about was their eating habits and how they used things like clothes.

They ate low on the food chain. Even I remembered that part. Gardens were big. Canning was a fact of life. Meat portions were small and you got one piece.  Potatoes and polenta was used as filler.  Green beans in a mason jar were a fact of life.  Sweets were simple like cakes and cookies and were used as bribes for children and when visitors came over.

But they remember having a good life.  That is the key to the whole banana.  Try stopping the fancy crap that you see on restaurants and TV cooking shows.  Try eating basics.  You will find that by stopping your pretensions and your striving and just eating simple good food you might start a process of simplification that will make you a better person.

A Moment in Time

Whether or not we are going through a generational event such as the depression or a mere downturn on the way to a glorious future should not make a difference to a prepper.

The reason that I came to this conclusion is that a lot of the folks out there that I read are acting like the world is gonna end this next week. I think that this is a silly thought, to be placed up there with UN taking over the US and free unlimited power from flying saucers.

You see guys, if the s does htf, all your preps are really going to do is allow you time to think and react.  They will not make you the new lord on the hill, dispensing justice and living large.  They will not allow you to fight off hordes of mutant zombie bikers.  They will just give you time to think.

The future is a dicey affair.  For all of my whining and dire forecasts, my crystal ball is as murky as the rest of them.  I like the old greek thoughts that we back into the future, that our sight is limited to the past.

Thanks to Dorcas Daddy for a great post

 Go over and read this at the original site


And what be goldbugs culpability? They resemble anarchists: strongly motivated to be on the vanguard for a variety reasons, but ultimately selfish and probably mistaken for apocalyptic systemic implosion remains a tail event. In this view , gold remains "a trade", and not an end to itself. More irksome, a bet on Gold may be "right", but it - betting as it does upon the acceleration of pus manufacture, feels (to me) somehow uncivic-minded - a wasteful employment of intellectual energy that might be set upon making what is systemically and socially un-well, better.

Exactly right. Put another way, if you are bullish on gold, you are bearish on America, civilization, and the fate of those around you who keep their money in the bank. It's not a hedge against inflation--it's a bet on the inevitability of failure.

In craps, the casino dice game, there are two main bets available to you. You can bet the "Pass" line, meaning that you are hoping the person rolling the dice wins. Or, you can bet "Don't Pass," betting that the shooter will lose.

The odds on a "Pass" bet are 1.414% against you. The odds are 1.402% on the "Don't Pass."

Mathematically-minded players occasionally bet "Don't Pass," due to the slightly lower house edge, but in a real casino, you will quickly be shunned, taunted, bad vibed, and possibly get punched in the face.

Getting punched is a low probability event, but not low enough to justify (to me) the .012% edge you gain by betting "Don't Pass." Also, it's like a 95% chance everyone else you are gambling with will think you are an asshole.

Gold is the same deal. Even if you are right, you are an asshole---and the slim protection you get probably doesn't overcome the negative expectation that someone will punch you in the face.

Why I Personally Like Silver

You should have a stash of stuff.  It isn't going to save your life, you will probably spend it sometime, but by maintaining it, you will keep at least a portion of your mindset focused toward the idea that things might not go the way you wish.

Things are getting twitchy out there.  Despite the latest news that economists are coming out en masse and declaring without a doubt that the recession is over,  one might want to have stuff squirreled away in the off-chance that they are wrong (yet again).

Twenty dollar bills are a nice thing to have around.  People trade you good stuff for these.  I would recommend that you keep some about.

The "smart folks" say that gold is the bomb.  Boy, what a store of value, the stuff will be usable when you need something.   I question this.  Look, gold is the stuff of nations and kings and folk who like the stratosphere.  If TSHTF, the stuff will be just too damn valuable.  Consider this for an object lesson.  

Like it or not folks, you have to make a decision soon about how to line your squirrel stash.  If you feel that you have enough pull to run with the big dogs, then go out and load up on gold bars.  But if you do that make sure that you have enough on hand to pay your lawyers and private security people.

Silver has always been the store of value for us low-lifes.  A silver dollar is a couple of weeks of beans and rice or a quarter tank of gas.  There are other possibilities, but think also about fungibility.  Ingots of metals won't be easily traded.  Whiskey has a nasty habit of vanishing when your friends come over to visit.  Food is too damn bulky if movement is at a premium.

So ponder it, maybe I have forgotten something.

Money as Distilled Fear

 
In a real sense, the issues that we face as a country are directly related to our clinging to those things that most damage our very souls.  We have created a medical system that ignores the need and obligation of our personal deaths.  We have a natural lifespan that we are ignoring, replacing the vitality of a healthy life for the long and tortured senescence of a life artificially prolonged by modern "medicine".  We are mistakenly choosing length of life over quality.

Our economic woes as a people are rooted in the incessant need for more, when we choose to count our luxuries as necessities and constant growth and increasing wealth as an inalienable right.  But by increasing our personal wealth and focusing on our personal comfort in the now, we are paupering the future and damaging the planet.

There is a necessary urgency about temporal things which is a duty to yourself and your kin, but it is critical that you not carry this too far.  There is scarcely any sin against which the bible more warns us, than the disturbing, distracting, and self-centered clinging to the things of this life.

Sufficient unto the day.

A mature society keeps the comforts of this life in perspective, The will of the creator places bitterness or sweetness in our lives.  For us to structure our lives and our society around the false idols of security and luxury is the mark of small souls, cowering in fear because they may somehow have less than their desires in the imagined future and thus lead a life of not enough.

We must reconcile ourselves to our place in the world and our place in the society that nurtures us.  We can no longer strive for the material "more" that has poisoned our souls and makes us live in fear for its potential loss.

Thank You Nancy Stetson

Nancy Stetson would be proud. When I was taking her classes in international politics, she would wax poetic about the bloody Thirty-years War and I would sit in my alcohol sodden, sullen pout and say to myself "yeah, yeah, lets get onto to modern warfare".

Now as I have gotten a little bit of experience under my belt, I am beginning to see this conflict for what it was; the crucible of our society. Nearly everything that is happening today is becoming more and more in focus as you look through the lens that is this period of time.

The modern phrase is Balkanization. The modern equivalent to the papacy is the corporate state and the faith in free trade. The west is France. China is Spain, and the rest of the world is Germany.

The whole thing should be interesting, things are falling apart. Granted it is slow motion, but rust never sleeps.

I Ching Cast

Yes:  I am an odd duck.  I always cast an 古文經 hexagram before doing anything that I feel might have excessive consequences.  I have always found it to be a useful tool for focusing my mind and it seems to provide good results more often than bad ones

I still detest China, but their culture has a lot more to offer us than ours has to offer them.

Here are the results:

The question was:

Silver or Food for preps?   

7
7
7
6
6   
8

2.   否    P'i / Standstill [Stagnation]



        above  CH'IEN  THE CREATIVE, HEAVEN
        below  K'UN  THE RECEPTIVE, EARTH

This hexagram is the opposite of the preceding one. Heaven is above, drawing farther and farther away, while the earth below sinks farther into the depths. The creative powers are not in relation. It is a time of standstill and decline. This hexagram is linked with the seventh month (August-September), when the year has passed its zenith and autumnal decay is setting in.

    THE JUDGMENT

    STANDSTILL. Evil people do not further
    The perseverance of the superior man.
    The great departs; the small approaches.

Heaven and earth are out of communion and all things are benumbed. What is above has no relation to what is below, and on earth confusion and disorder prevail. The dark power is within, the light power is without.  Weakness is within, harshness without. Within are the inferior, and  without are the superior. The way of inferior people is in ascent; the way of superior people is one the decline. But the superior people do not allow themselves to be turned from their principles. If the possibility of exerting influence is closed to them, they nevertheless remain faithful to their principles and withdraw into seclusion.

    THE IMAGE
   
    Heaven and earth do not unite:
    The image of STANDSTILL.
    Thus the superior man falls back upon his inner worth
    In order to escape the difficulties.
    He does not permit himself to be honored with revenue.

When, owing to the influence of inferior men, mutual mistrust prevails in public life, fruitful activity is rendered impossible, because the fundaments are wrong. Therefore the superior man knows what he must do under such circumstances; he does not allow himself to be tempted by dazzling offers to take part in public activities. This would only expose him to danger, since he cannot assent to the meanness of the others. He therefore hides his worth and withdraws into seclusion.

    THE LINES

    °Six in the second place means:
    They bear and endure;
    This means good fortune for inferior people.
    The standstill serves to help the great man to attain success.

Inferior people are ready to flatter their superiors in a servile way. They would also endure the superior man if he would put an end to their confusion. This is fortunate for them. But the great man calmly bears the consequences of the standstill. He does not mingle with the crowd of the inferior; that is not his place. By his willingness to suffer personally he insures the success of his fundamental principles.
       
    Six in the third place means:
    They bear shame.

Inferior people who have risen to power illegitimately do not feel equal to the responsibility they have taken upon themselves. In their hearts they begin to be ashamed, although at first they do not show it outwardly. This marks a turn for the better.

The Color of Money

I think that what is happening is that the lens that we view the world through have become cracked of late.  The Weltanschauung that has served us for the last fifty years is breaking apart and we are trying desperately to paste it together so that we can finish off our lives in the luxury that we have become accustomed to.

You see, what is breaking apart is the idea that the methods of kings and empires should be used to maintain a sumptious lifestyle for a kumbaya mentality. This provision is being sustained with the country turning its back on the methods of  those who arrange for our gluttony, sloth, and and avarice.  I guess the lenses that we are trying to glue together are bifocals.

We have developed a country rife with a central contradiction;  in the past fifty years a partnership of the mercantilist corporations and the military have provided exceedingly well for a people who scorn the methods and philosophies of those who implement the largesse. Now the well is running dry, imperial overstretch is well into it's second decade and the guns and butter equation is looking pretty threadbare at this point.

So what we are facing now is the beginning of the resolution of the contradictions that we have created in our society.  If we are to accept a kumbaya lifestyle, we will have to accept a radically simpler lifestyle with serious constraints on the freedom of the individual.  Simply put, a McMansion with a filled two car garage and world peace cannot be reconciled.

If we choose to continue our current lifestyle, we will have to become a warrior nation.  We will have to lose our distaste for kicking peoples ass and taking what we wish.  

Just going to see how this goes

I have taken myself out of exile as an experiment.

Let's see how it goes.

I will probably only do one post a week now.  Probably on Sunday.

I hope the loonies don't return

John

Labor Day Weekend

Gotta buy boys school clothes, go hikin', clean the house, watch football, and immerse myself in the mundane.

Y'all are on your own.

Reversion to Mean

Or; why I am dumping gold

I don’t really have that much left. Living close to the bone for the last couple of years has reduced my hoard to a embarrassingly small number of eagles.

But with the current congress and administration being as corrupt and venal as the prior congress and administration, there will be many things coming into play to “save” the system in the next while.

Alas, BHO is enamored with the idea of channeling FDR. And should the banks begin going south in a serious manner, I suspect that he would be more than happy to pull the shitty trick that FDR pulled and nationalize the store of wealth that is gold bullion. In a sense, I have no real issue with this. In another sense, it is repugnant to me.

In the second sense, gold is stored wealth. As such, it is dead wealth. It is a means to hoard and store the fruits of past deeds and productivity. In old folks who have worked their whole life, it is a means of allowing comfort and a degree of certitude in a future where their ability to earn is diminished. In that sense, when the gold is taken away, it is casting these into the maelstrom. This is an evil act. But it also represents a very small part of the world of gold.

In the main sense, gold is the wealth of the wealthy rapists who have transferred the productivity and wealth of the world into their own pockets. They are buying up gold to lock in their ill-gotten gains.

So taking gold is a sword with two edges. I can’t say that I will be particularly depressed either way, but the point of this screed is to discuss using silver as a store of wealth for us lowly types.

Here is the part where Dorcas’ Daddy will probably take exception (BTW, make sure you check out his site, it is one of the best combinations of commentary, obsession with timekeeping, and metallurgical porn around). I Think that Silver is undervalued in a historical sense. It used to be worth around 30:1 compared to gold earlier in this century. Before that it had been as high as 13:1 in the 17th and 18th centuries. Right now is at 60:1.

No one has ever nationalized silver to my knowledge. If shit starts going down, it will probably head up faster than gold. It also has the advantage of being in the price range of stuff people need in hard times. Gold is big stuff, it usefulness is actually diminished by it’s high value. Flashing around an eagle may mean a gun in your face. Flashing around some silver is not nearly as rewarding.