Category: Philosophy

Snack Mix

Couple of years late, but finding things on Facebook is horribly unreliable, so I thought I’d better put it here.

Made with stuff from Trader Joe’s.

Combine equal parts by weight of Thai chili lime almonds, roasted salted pumpkin seeds, pistachio nutmeats, and dried cranberries. Add half that weight of oat bran sesame sticks (those were from Cub come to think of it) and half that weight of crystallized ginger (cut down to more suitable size pieces), and a handful or two of raw walnut pieces. Mix well.

None of the pre-mixes I was seeing were really doing it for me, so I finally started mixing my own. This is obviously high calorie density, it would almost work as a real trail mix where that’s a feature rather than something to be careful about. I do it with the kitchen scale, but you can just guesstimate from bag weight, at least if nobody is stealing from the bags of each ingredient. Tumbling the Rubbermaid container it half-fills mixes it quite quickly without doing much damage.

Keep citizens armed and safe

Guns are the great equalizer.  They let older, smaller, less athletic, less able-bodied people stand a chance when young, fit, energetic, predators try to prey on them.

Citizens use guns hundreds of thousands of times (or millions; it’s hard to define and hard to measure, but numbers I’ve seen from research papers range from maybe 250,000 to 7.5 million) each year to defend themselves from crimes.  Guns save lives.

There are, I think, four main problems leading to the sort of rapid mass murder scenario we’ve had recently in Connecticut.

First, people are being pushed to the wall by social expectations of conformity and roll fulfillment, competition, and such, way too often.

Second, the culture of celebrity tells people that being “famous” is the greatest thing that can happen to a person.  People who have seen every aspect of their life collapse can still view themselves as a success if they become famous.

Third, mainstream culture fetishizes the gun as a magical implement that bends people to your will, makes you taller, and so forth, while keeping people terrifically ignorant about real guns.  This is not an attitude you find among actual “gun nuts”!

Fourth, getting assistance with mental health issues is stigmatized, and is not well supported in the health care system (which in turn doesn’t cover nearly enough people well enough in the first place).

Occasionally, these things come together with appallingly tragic results.

And, immediately, people start demanding that we take action against…none of the above.  Instead, they want to deny basic civil rights to everybody in society.

Is Your Question Loaded?

The four rules of question safety:

  1. ALL questions are ALWAYS loaded
  2. Never let your question cover anything you are not willing to learn about
  3. Keep your finger off the “Enter” key until your question is on topic
  4. Always be sure of your subject and surrounding disciplines

With a tip o’ the hat to Jeff Cooper and, er, “jdog” (yes, I tracked that through and know who that is).

Go-bag Considerations

Mulling over some things, slowly and (with luck) with a little help from my friends.

A “go bag” (also known as a “bugout bag” and a “jump kit”) is a pre-packed bag that you grab when leaving in a hurry. Depending on your job and situation, this could be for emergencies, or for relatively normal quick departures (if you make a lot of them).  People thinking this way often keep some stuff permanently in their car, and have other stuff packed to grab as they run out of their home in a hurry.

Jim Macdonald (author, EMT, and Making Light moderator) has written on the topic in various places.

Except for his consistently omitting firearms, and packing amounts of medical supplies suitable for an EMT (him) rather than an out-of-certification lowest-level first responder (me), I find his thinking sound (Jim is ex-Navy, and not by any sane definition “anti-gun”). Still, people live in different places with different terrain and climates and have different skill-sets. I think my ideal bag is different from his (and I’m sure he’d agree, at that level).

So I need to go through the analysis from the top.

First stage: what types of situations might require bugging out from your home, or from anywhere you were with your car, and how likely are they? Once these are identified, we can (in a later article) start figuring out what tools and supplies will be useful in which situations.  (While it doesn’t quite fit the definition, the stuff in the car is also what you’ll use if you come across an accident and need to help people, so those cases are included too.)

The probabilities will no doubt shift over time in response to my thinking and to comments, so please if you take issue with a probability in a comment, mention what you’re taking issue with!  Don’t just say “You’ve set the chance of civil unrest too high”; say “I think ‘very high’ is an absurdly high setting for civil unrest’.  That way your comment will make sense when I’ve agreed with you and altered my description.

Probabilities are set to “very low”, “low”, “medium”, and “high”.  Note that this is scaled; the actual probability of having to flee my home due to weather is rather low, but that’s the most likely reason I’d have to flee, and I’m calling that “high”.  In terms of emergency preparedness, it’s one of the most probable things.

Accident

Particularly car accident.  Either one I’m involved in, or one I come across when I’m in my car.

Probability: high.

Authoritarians / Assassins / Mob / Gang

Attack targeted at us.  Very low probability?  Contact lists can give information to enemies if we’re into insurrection.  Don’t forget to clean them out when necessary!  Note this category includes the government.

This may lead to a need for NOT being seen.

Probability: low.

Bomb Scare

Warning, pre-explosion.  Also chemical spill scare, etc.  Ordered to evacuate.

Probability: very low.  (low-density residential neighborhood)

Chemical Spill

Spill from truck, or commercial plant I hadn’t noticed was hazardous. Deliberate aerial application.  Ordered to evacuate.

Probability: very low. (4 blocks from the freeway, though many trucks take the bypass; no major chemical-using industry anywhere near that I’ve found).

Civil Unrest

Riots, etc.  This may result in staying in, or getting out.

Probability: low.

Earthquake

New Madrid will be huge, but it’s fairly far away.

Probability: very low.

Epidemic

Not likely to require quick departure.  Maybe if ebola has broken the boundaries?  Quarantine.

Probability: very low.

Explosion

Gas explosion for example.  Or any kind of bomb scenario. (In theory flood can be triggered by explosion, but the scenario here looks unlikely.)  Ordered to evacuate.

Probability: medium.

Fire (huge)

Could be ordered to evacuate.

Probability: low.

Fire (nearby)

Could be ordered to evacuate.

Probability: low.

Fire (our house)

Fire extinguishers can help get out even if you find it to late to kill the fire. We have smoke detectors wired to the alarm system and its siren.

Probability: medium.

Flood

Very low probability at our location of normal weather-based flooding.  Sewer backup is always possible, or major water main break. Mostly it’s at the “water in basement” level rather than the “house floats down river” level. My office, however, is in the basement.

Probability: medium.

Radiation

Fallout, dirty bomb, deliberate dissemination.  Ordered to evacuate.

Probability: very low.

Utility disruption

Gas and electric in winter for example.  Don’t have to leave that quickly.  Ordered to evacuate.  Not counting half-hour outages of electricity, which are unfortunately common.

Probability: low. (hasn’t happened anywhere I’ve lived in 55 years).

Weather

House crunched by tree or tornado, etc. Area of damage / devastation? (Fire and flood can be triggered by weather.)

Probability: high.