No Nanny State - Molon Labe!

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
--James Madison

[Insert tongue in cheek] Ya know what? If you pay attention, the average American could pretty easily become jaded with their government. Really. [remove tongue from cheek]

One of my brothers and I were having a discussion about bailouts and greed and all the bullshit that goes with it. It is abundantly clear that our various levels of government simply do not represent the individual people. They represent themselves and special interests.

Pick a topic or subject, and there is corruption involved - at least when Nanny gets her mitts on it.

But what do we do about it? I was reading a story in the Sacramento Bee this morning about millions and millions of dollars that were spent by the state government on cars and trucks that are just sitting there. No one needs them, no one uses them, but some bureaucrat knows that if you don't spend your entire annual budget, you get less money the following year.

One department still has pickup and larger trucks parked in its yard that it bought during 2006, 2007 and 2008, a Bee investigation found. The vehicles are awaiting final assembly and are undeployed.

No one will be called on the carpet for this. It will be swept under the rug with promises of tougher reforms. Then it will happen again, and again.

I read that 60 Minutes (I won't watch shit on CBS) did a story last night actually ripping government management in health care. There is a 12%-20% fraud rate - but that's only the fraud they KNOW about.

We now want to increase the size of government in health care by at least 50%. The word, "insane" does not adequately describe that consideration. In private business, it would be like putting an incompetent manager in charge of a bigger department simply because he promises to do a better job going forward.

It would never happen because you'd lose your ass, financially. Nanny doesn't have that same concern. They have no capital invested in the enterprise.

It's gonna happen, and there's not a damned thing we can do about it. Cap-and-Trade will soon follow. More bailouts, more favors, more expansion of government. Logic and responsible government have, "left the building". Regardless of how poorly it's run or how corrupt it becomes, no one will ever be held accountable.

Look what Barry is doing with his various Czars. They're all "presidential advisers" - not vetted by Congress or anyone other than Barry himself. As such, they can't be compelled to testify before Congress. These people are running the country, but we have no right to question what they're doing.

With the single exception of National Security advisers, anyone who whispers into the president's ear needs to do so publicly. Of course, everything then becomes a national security issue. I screamed long and loud when the oil companies were giving back rubs and prostrate gland massages to the Bush administration. We couldn't even get those bastards names, much less what was discussed at the meetings. "National security, you know!"

Regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, the same shit happens. Too many secrets and not enough accountability.
----------

I guess we can just keep trying to plug along and absorb the blows. Don't prosper, just get-along.

If you go off into your own little self-sufficient property, your county will increasingly tax your ass to pay for their largess. You will need to at least occasionally buy stuff from "the world" and they'll hammer you with sales or VAT taxes. If you don't show enough income to pay for the goods you have, they'll come after you for tax evasion.

Perhaps the only hope is that the big, fat bloated government won't notice your tiny existence and will leave you alone. What a horrible way to live. Cowering so the bully doesn't kick your ass. Don't strive for excellence, settle for mediocrity.

I'm just not built that way.
----------

I said a while back that I wanted this blog to evolve into a "things you can do" blog, and not a bitch-and-moan fest.

I try and do that with some of the prepper articles, some financial education and some political insight. But it's not enough.

The problem is, talking about the things that need to really happen tends to draw the attention of the people in power, regardless of the legality of what you're suggesting. Some guy screaming at the top of his lungs on his blog is not going to change one single thing, other than his freedom and maybe his pulse rate.

I seem to keep coming back to the Secret Freedom Fighter paper. It was published back in 1986 by Paladin Press, and is now available online. In broad terms, its philosophy is to fight-the-fight as an individual.

There's a lot I agree with and a lot I disagree with in the book. But I think the philosophy is sound - do your own shit for the sake of doing what you feel is right, not for the spot light. And keep your mouth shut about what you're doing.

When I started this blog 5 and a half years ago, I hoped to bring the rot of big government to people's attention. Things have only worsened in that period of time.

It is unrealistic to think this or any blog will "rally the troops". People will either see what's going on around them, or they won't. I cannot affect enough people to make a real difference, and my time can be better spend focusing on things that will.

So, I'm packing up my soapbox. I don't know if I'll convert it to a prepper's storage bin, or an ammo box. Probably both.

My prepper posts will continue elsewhere on my business' website. In fact, I'll probably poach most of my prepper posts from this site to the new one to help build some content quickly. I won't be publishing that URL here in an attempt to keep my business "persona" separate from my political beliefs.

I'll still drop by my favorite sites to rant and rave. My cranky ass will still be around, just not quite so visibly!

Many thanks to the couple of hundred people that stopped by here each day. Really - I cannot express my thanks enough.

Continue to stay educated on the issues, and do what it takes to get things turned around. Fight the good fight.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
--Thomas Jefferson

Labels: American Spirit, Constitution, Life and Times, Self-Reliance

I'm on the run today and tomorrow.

I'm teaching an Advanced Pistol student this morning, finalizing the training agreement with the new gun shop, helping a buddy move his office, then attending a Filipino/American dinner dance this evening (WTF?!).

Yesterday, I was able to get 10 more pounds of meat canned up - 8 of ham and two of chicken. It was tough not eating chunks of the ham - it was an uncooked, raw ham. Obviously, it had the salt and other flavorings already present, so it smelled great as I was chunking it up!

Tomorrow, I go to the Raiders game to watch them get their asses kicked - In person! They are 14 point underdogs at home. I'm going to try and post some crap while the game is playing. I tried it at the last home game and it didn't work. We'll see...

We're playing Philly tomorrow. I was looking forward to seeing the Dog Killing Bastard, Michael Vick play, but it looks like McNabb returned in fine form last week.

I'm a little conflicted, though. I was planning on bringing my Michael Vick Dog Chew Toy to the game. You know, all in support of Michael and all.

The problem is, he's wearing his old Atlanta jersey. What to do, what to do????



I'm sure I would be called a racist for having his likeness chewed up by a dog.

Labels: Life and Times

Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.
--Confucius

Before I get started, a bit of a heads up: I'm on a bunch of prepper mailing lists. There is a guy out there that sells seeds for survival (hint, hint). I bought some of his seeds and was/am very happy with the purchase.

I'm on one of his mailing lists. He recently sent out an email touting a new gig he has - dehydrated foods. He has a special offer of a year's worth of food -for two people - for $595 plus $50 shipping.

Sounded great. Almost too great.

I did some math based upon the nutritional information on his site for the foods you get. I sent him this email message -

How can you say this is enough food for two people for one year? Based upon the published numbers on your site, the total calories provided by your package is 224,215. For two people, that would be 307 calories per day per person. No one can survive on that. This isn't enough food for one person for a year, let alone two.

I am still waiting for a reply explaining a mistake in the numbers or in the claims, but none has yet been received, so I wanted to give you all the information in case you got the same email pitch.

Caveat emptor.
----------

Alright, on to the star of the show - Cold Packed Meat.

A while ago, Hermit did a post on how he did a test by living on his prep foods for something like 4 months straight. He had a lot of great information about how it worked out.

One of the things he noted was how he went through his canned meat faster than he had expected. This struck a cord with me. I've got meat in my preps, but my instincts tell me I don't have enough in terms of volume and variety.

I currently have Spam, corned beef, chicken, clams and sardines in my preps. They are all store-bought meats. In reality, I'm probably the only one that would willingly eat the Spam and sardines.

I've Hot Packed meat before. You brown the meat up, put it in hot jars, cover with a broth and pressure cook it. I liked the hamburger I did this way. Virtually no difference between regular and jarred meat once the jarred stuff is warmed up.

Where I was disappointed was when I Hot Packed chunks of meat. In my case, I did it to beef and pork. To my tastebuds, it was too dry and crumbly. My hope was to have the meat more resemble the texture of meat when you put it in a stew or similar dish - moist and juicy.

I had read about Cold Packed Meat. With this technique, you pack the raw meat into cold jars. The only thing you add is a bit of salt to the jar. After it cooks up, the meat is left in its own juices. My understanding was that it would be more tender, as it was only cooked ONCE - in the jar.

So, I cut up a bunch of beef, pork and chicken breast -


Each pint jar got nothing more than 1/4 teaspoon of salt. They were packed to within an inch of the rim. I put them in the pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure for 75 minutes.

Here's a representative sample of each meat after cooking -


Left to right, that's pork, chicken and beef.

One of the things I got conflicting information on was how tightly to pack the jars with the meat chunks. Some said to pack them tightly, some said to pack them loosely. My gut said to do it loosely, as it would ensure that the meat near the center of the jars was fully cooked.

The pork and beef, being more "rigid" meats, packed loosely. The chicken breast naturally packed down more tightly.

As it turns out, tight packing is the way to go. When the meat cooks, it shrinks. Look at the pork and beef jars. The meat is sticking out above the juice line. It was VERY dry. Also, the beef and pork shrink up much more than the chicken.

In general, the texture of all of the meats was similar to commercially canned tuna. Very flaky.


From upper right, moving clockwise - Chicken, Beef, Pork. Of all the meats, the pork was the juiciest (the part that remained under the juice). Chicken was next, and the beef seemed to suck the moisture out of my mouth!

It looks like I'm not going to get my moist, juicy chunks-o-meat. The jarred meat will have to be used more as an accompaniment to a meal rather than being the main star. It (and the awesome juices) will be added to rice, barley and potato dishes, plus stews and soups.

I took some of the chicken and made chicken salad sandwiches. Mayo, relish, salt and pepper. Honestly, it was the best chicken salad I've ever had. Really great stuff.
----------

The Cold Pack method was much easier. You don't need to cook the meat first. Nor do you need to first make up a broth. Chop, stuff and cook. Easy peezy.

It takes a bit less than 1 pound of meat to fill a pint jar. Figure you'll need to buy a pound per jar, as you need to trim off as much fat from the meat as possible prior to cooking.

So, if you're going to do Cold Packed meat, be sure to tightly pack the meat, especially with beef and pork. Since the meat is going to breakdown anyway, cut it into smaller pieces to start with. This will aid in the tight packing, and ensure there is enough natural juice produced to keep all of the meat covered in the jar.



After the first experiment, I cooked up 4 more jars of chicken breast, and they turned out great. I'm heading to the store today and if there is pork or beef on sale, I'll buy up a bunch to put into the jars.

My next experiment will be with my homemade Italian sausage. I want to see how they will hold up in the jars. As I understand it, you need to brown and partially cook sausages before jarring.

I need to try jarring fish as well. They've been having sales on whole salmon, so maybe I'll give it a shot. I'll post the results whenever I get around to the tests.

Labels: American Spirit, Life and Times, Self-Reliance

The big post on my canning test is going to have to wait until tomorrow (very interesting stuff, at least to me!), as I am slammed against the wall right now.

I had a scheduled 30-minute interview about a magazine article on my company. It turned into a 2-hour lovefest (in a professional way, of course!). The writer was actually selling my company to the Editorial Director!

In addition to throwing them some article ideas and data (hopefully for a January or April article), I was given the opportunity to be the keynote speaker at a Rotary Club function (invited by the Editorial Director) and another business schmooze-fest. My mug and business will be in front of a couple hundred business owners, politicians and business movers-and-shakers.

Schwing!

On top of that, I need to get the SOPs over to my new firing range partners so we can get classes moving. Oh, and the script is done for the video I'm putting together, so shooting will start this weekend (weather permitting).

It's a great feeling to have all of this crap finally moving forward. I'm staying "cautiously optimistic" - I have to assume some of this stuff will fall apart - but it appears at least some of the parts are beginning to gel.

Rain, wind and stormy weather? Not here, baby!

Labels: Life and Times

We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective.
--Humorist Dave Barry

A buddy sent me this link. Whew! Sure am glad THAT'S all over....

Latest survey conducted by the National Association for Business Economics, which was released on Monday, explains that over 80% of economists hold a viewpoint that recession has ended and expansion has commenced.

I wonder if it's the same group of Nanny drones that believe the world's going to melt from Global Warming. A trustworthy and objective group if ever one existed...
----------

How disturbing is this? Not for what is says, but for what it doesn't say?

On both its news and opinion programming Monday, the Fox News Channel responded to the White House’s portrayal of the network as a part of the political opposition.

Fox is the ONLY network, newspaper or other media outlet being identified as confrontational. Isn't ALL of the press supposed to be that way? Isn't that their job?

Apparently, the White House views all other media outlets as compliant allies. That's the opposite of "the opposition," right?
----------

TOR motivated me to bake yesterday. He's been talking about making bread. Yesterday, I made a big pot of beans for dinner, and decided a loaf (or two) of bread would go nicely with them.

After kneeding and prior to the first rise -


After the first rise -


After forming and the third rise (there is a second one done in the bowl) -


Ready for butter, beans and my belly!


There are few things that smell better than a home filled with the aroma of beans and fresh-baked bread. Maybe turkey and stuffing roasting in the oven, but not many others.

There were no survivors..... ;-)
----------

A first for me with the beans: I made them in my pressure canner. I had forgotten to soak them the night before, and the morning had gotten away from me, so I couldn't do a mini-boil and rest.

On the package of Navy beans, they gave instructions for making them in a pressure canner.

One pound of dry beans, five cups of water and whatever spices you want are all dumped into the pot. I also added a jar of homemade canned beef. Cover it, set the canner to 15lbs of weight and let it go for an hour and a half.

They came out perfectly. I was actually kind of surprised they were so tender and fully cooked.
----------

I'm doing a major (for me) canning test today that I'll post tomorrow.
----------

We're getting HAMMERED by rain and wind. It is the tail-end of the typhoon that just hit Japan. We're supposed to get up to 5 inches of rain over the next 24 hours.

We really need the rain, but why all at the same time! I know our farmers will really like the downpour, though. It's the wind I hate so much...
----------

Good news: I was able to secure an agreement with one of the local gun shops - I'm now doing all of the training for them! We're working out the mechanics (scheduling students, whose credit card system will be used, etc) and should have the first classes scheduled near the end of the month or early November. Sweet!

Also, tomorrow I have an interview with a regional magazine to talk about personal safety, risk management and the like. If it goes well, my biz may be featured in an article in the magazine.

I'll take all the free publicity I can get!

Labels: Corruption, democrats, Ethics, Life and Times, Media Bias, Political Correctness, Propaganda

This lady rocks. She is a firearms instructor that specializes in teaching women how to shoot. She has found a market niche, and is filling it. Good on ya.

A couple of months back, I noticed a problem women students were having in the range - particularly indoor ranges. They were much more jumpy and jittery than the men. Much more. I did some internet searches and came across her site.

One of her articles was talking about this. She made the observation that gun shot reports are in the lower "pitch" range. Just like mens voices. She hypothesized that this was triggering some sort of primeval "danger" response in the women, which in turn manifest itself as excess jitteriness on the range.

I needed a way to acclimate the women to the sounds prior to entering the range.

To test this, I brought a digital recorder to the range with me, and recorded about 3 minutes of gun shots. With new, female students, while we are doing some of the hands-on drills BEFORE we enter the range, I have them wear headsets with the recorded gun shots being played.

So far, it seems to be working!

I don't know if it has anything to do with getting them used to the lower pitch, or if it is just giving them a taste of what's to come. I don't care! If students are less jittery while on the firing line, I'm less likely to have someone freak-out and cause a problem.
----------

She had an article that was her own version of The No Buy Zone. Her focus is on anti-Second Amendment companies.

She's singin' to the choir on that one! Give it a look-see. And boycott those businesses.
----------

Many people know that JP Morgan Chase bought WAMU. I am/was a WAMU customer.

They are in the midst of the conversion from WAMU to Chase. Having been in banking for a million years, I understand how conversions go. Stuff NEVER goes perfectly. Never.

How you handle those screw-up tells what kind of company you're dealing with.

I went to my branch on Friday to make a deposit. I always use the ATM machines. These had been swapped out months ago and converted to the Chase machines.

I put in my card, punched in my numbers and got to the main screen. There was no "deposit" option. I figured I had pushed some wrong button, so I re-did everything. Same result.

I got in line and when I got to the teller, I was terse, but polite. I let him know what had happened. His explanation turned me verbose and rude.

He said, "Oh yeah. We JUST found out about that 45 MINUTES ago."

I proceeded to tell him - and everyone else in line - that I had just pissed away 10 minutes on their machine (they're MUCH slower now). If it was not taking deposits, why didn't they put a sign on the machine stating this?

He said, "OK. Oh, the other machine works just fine."

Thankful that I was constrained by California law from carrying a weapon (jk), I said, even louder, "Do I look like the Amazing Kreskin? Am I supposed to get brain-waves from the ATM telling me which one accepts deposits?"

I got lots of chuckles from the people in line behind me. My work here was done.
----------

I stopped watching the Raider game mid-way through the second quarter. At this time, they are behind 28-0, and it's not even half time. A top-notch Youth Football team could kick their asses today.

JaMarcus Russell is still their quarterback because.....?

They must already be eying the 2010 draft choices...

Labels: American Ingenuity, American Spirit, communism, Constitution, Corruption, criminal, Fascism, Gun Grabbers, Life and Times, nanny state, Self-Defense, Self-Reliance, welfare state

Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
--Martha Graham

The hectic pace continues, but I wanted to share some stuff.

I have a puzzle for the gunnies out there. I had an interesting training session this weekend, and want to see if anyone could determine the cause of this guy's problem. It is primarily a two-part problem. I nailed one part of the problem based upon our pre-lesson phone interview.

Based upon the information, plus one observation, I SHOULD have picked up the second issue more quickly (the second item took me a little over an hour to diagnose).

Interview information: He's been shooting this gun for a number of years - 5+. He is very confused and frustrated. The gun is a Beretta Elite II in 9mm.

He owns a number of rifles, and is able to shoot them all very accurately, but sucks with his handgun. He wants to have better accuracy, as he keeps the gun for self-defense in his home. The last time he shot the handgun was about 4 months ago. He buys his ammo in bulk, so training is only limited by motivation.

Observation: Relevant observations were that he tea-cups with his left hand (cups his left hand under the handle and right hand). His stance was a bit too closed and lock-kneed. Pistol presentation was a bit weak, with a lot of elbow bend in both arms. Lots of muzzle arc after presentation - he was having difficulty getting a sight picture (his Beretta had all-black sights). He had a nice, "soft" trigger pull - no slapping or jerking at all.

His shots were consistently 8-12 inches off bullseye at 7 yards. Most shots were in the lower left-hand quadrant - between 6 and 9 o'clock.

With that information, what do you think were his main problems (two of them)? He had a number of tweaks - each which improved performance, but two things produced MAJOR improvements.

Based upon this information, take your best guess as to what the major problems were. The one I figured out based upon our interview brought his shots consistently grouped just off of our 8" target (so, he had gone from 8-12 inches off center, to 4 inches off center). It took what seemed like forever to figure out the second part. In hindsight, it should have been the second or third thing I addressed - it seems so obvious now.

It was funny as hell, as soon as we got him consistently on target, I thought he was going to hug me right on the range! It was almost like he couldn't believe that is was HE that was shooting the gun. He had been shooting for years like this, and had just about given up. It was very satisfying to see.

Best part is, he signed up for two more hours...!

Post your guesses, and I'll reveal what the two major items were either in tomorrow's post or in the comments.

----------

I inadvertently got to build some skills this weekend.

We've been in our home since 2002. When we moved here, we bought a new lawnmower. For the past year or so, the engine has been having some problems, and I got a small leak in the gas tank. Then, two weekends ago, one of my son's called me out front to show me one of the rear wheels had snapped off. WTF?

They used a carriage bolt for the axle. The manufacturer had taken a 1/2 inch carriage bolt and then reduced the size of the threaded portion to 5/16", which screwed into the side of the lawnmower frame. The bolt snapped right where the threads met the smooth portion of the bold.

Well, you can't find bolt at Home Depot that are built that way. They're either 1/2' or 5/16" - not some Franken-bolt bastardization.

I figured I had two options: Bite the bullet and get a new lawnmower (a minimum of $200) or repair the wheel.

I chose the latter. I went out and bought a tap and die set. I drilled out the 5/16" hole, then used the tap to ream out and thread the hole at 1/2".

I'll be damned if it didn't work! The tap cut the threads like butter. I'm primarily a woodworking guy - I don't do a lot with metals. I thought it was going to be some complex, convoluted process. I watched a couple of Youtube video and was off to the races.

I bought an entire kit with multiple sized taps and dies for under $40, so this was a win-win for me. I got a new set of tools AND saved the money I would have to spend on a lawnmower.

I've got to find some steel rod and try making a bolt with the dies. I'm hooked!

Labels: American Ingenuity, American Spirit, Gun Grabbers, Life and Times, Self-Defense, Self-Reliance

I love you like a fat kid loves cake.
--50 Cent

For some reason, I got a Jones for tamales - those magical wads of steamed meat and dough that are wrapped up in dried corn husks.

I've eaten a lot of tamales in my time. They're like a drug - I can't just take one hit. I consume them to excess. Hell, the primary reason I married my wife (of Mexican and Irish descent) was to have a regular supply of tamales and corn beef and cabbage (big, BIG joke there! Love ya, hon!).

Anyways, I had never made them before, and decided to take a swing at it. I bought the masa harina (the special corn flour needed for tamales) and the dried corn husks to wrap them up. I read the instructions on the bag of masa and saw that I also needed to pick up some lard. I was just going to use some Crisco, but my wife said that pure pork lard is the way to go.

The biggest issue with tamales is the perception that they take a long time. This CAN be true. This is all dependent on what you're going to be stuffing in the centers. If you go with a traditional shredded beef, pork or chicken tamale, from start to eating will be about 6 hours.

If you're going to stuff them with leftovers, cheese, mild chiles or go for sweet ones with raisins, they will take about 3 hours. That's about the same amount of time it takes to prepare and cook a "regular" meal of a beef roast or roasted chicken.

OK, OK, they take a bit longer than normal fare, but it's worth it, damn it! AND, the vast majority of the time you're not doing any work. They're steaming or meat is boiling. Multi-task here, people! They are great, "set it and forget it" meals.

I actually spread my cooking over two days. I took a pork roast and 4 boneless chicken breasts, put them in separate pots, covered them with water and into each pot I threw in about a quarter cup each of dehydrated garlic and dehydrated onions. I brought them to a boil, dropped the heat down to a simmer, covered the pots and cooked them for 3 hours.

The next day, first off, I put 3 bundles of dried corn husks into one of those casserole dishes - something like 9x11 inches. I filled it with warm water and put a plate on top of the husks to keep them submerged.

I then took the meat and hand-shredded it into a bowl. I strained a bit of the remaining liquid and poured it over each of the meats (still keeping them separate). Just for ease of storage, I then transferred the shredded meat and liquid into 1-gallon zip lock bags and put them in the fridge.

DO NOT THROW OUT THE REMAINING BOILING LIQUIDS! I strained them both into a large measuring cup and put that in the fridge as well.

Every recipe I read online said that you needed to "fluff" the lard. WTF? The bag of masa said the same thing. So, I took the room-temperature lard, put it in a bowl and just whipped it up with a whisk. It really did fluff up!

In a separate bowl, I put in 2 cups of the masa flour, baking powder and salt. I added 2 cups of the reserved boiling liquid and worked it into a very soft, moist dough. According to the bag, this amount of dough will turn out 20 tamales.

The instructions said you want to then mix the fluffy lard with the masa and make a spongy dough. My wife had told me that this is the most difficult part. She explained that this was why her grandmother was such a tough old broad!

I turned to technology. I whipped out my Kitchenaid mixer, and let it go to it. In a couple of minutes, I had this awesome, spongy dough!

All of the recipes I found online said that you take a corn husk, smear the wide half of the husk with dough and plop about a tablespoon of filling in the middle. None of them said how thick to make the dough. Hmmm.

I spread it about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch thick. I didn't know if this stuff would "proof" or contract. I was flying blind! Here's what mine looked like -


Yeah, I went over the tablespoon of filling. Sue me.

You fold one side to the center, then have the other side overlap the first. The masa acts as a glue to hold it closed. You then fold the un-doughed bottom up over the crease and fill up the steamer.


I found that each of the bundles of dried corn husks had 6 husks in it. I made a dozen tamales - half of them pork, half of them chicken. I used a pasta steamer that sits 2 inches above the bottom of the pot. Everything I read said to make sure you don't have the tamales sitting in water, or they won't cook up right.

They take about 2 1/2 hours to cook. I checked the water level every 30 minutes and added more as needed.
----------

While the tamales were steaming, I made up a Tomatillo/Green Chile salsa. The recipe was for a canned salsa recipe from New Mexico State University. It was a water bath recipe that took no time at all.

Tomatillo Green Salsa

Yield: 5 pints

5 cups chopped tomatillos
1 1/2 cups seeded, chopped long green chiles
1/2 cup seeded finely chopped jalapeños
4 cups chopped onions
1 cup bottled lemon juice
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Tbsp ground cumin*
3 Tbsp oregano leaves *
1 Tbsp salt
1 tsp black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and stir frequently over high heat until mixture begins to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle hot salsa into pint jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Adjust lids and process in a boiling water canner 15 minutes at 0-1,000 feet altitude; 20 minutes at 1,001-6,000 feet; 25 minutes above 6,000 feet.

You may use green tomatoes in this recipe instead of tomatillos.

If you're going to make this recipe, DO NOT substitute vinegar for the lemon juice. It will negatively affect the acidity of the recipe, maybe making you very sick.

Oh, and it only made 4 pints (plus a little bit more) instead of the 5 pints. It is friggin' awesome! Not too hot, but with enough punch to get ya there. This would be great chilled and eaten with tortilla chips.


The picture doesn't do it justice. It's a nice green color with fantastic flavor. It went wonderfully with the tamales -

----------

What I learned:

Use one of those silicon spreader things for spreading the masa on the corn husks. It goes much more quickly than when using the back of a spoon.

If you mess up and throw out the meat boiling liquid, use a bullion cube to make up some broth. You really want to have that extra flavor in the masa once it is cooked.

Pull the steamer cage out of the pot and let them cool for a half hour or so before eating them. Aside from being cool enough to stuff into your face, the masa firms up a bit, making them easier to peel from the husks.

I've got at least half of the meat left, so I'll be steaming up a batch of these bad boys for lunch or an afternoon snack. Happy as a pig in slop.....

Labels: American Spirit, Life and Times, Self-Reliance

There is more similarity in the marketing challenge of selling a precious painting by Degas and a frosted mug of root beer than you ever thought possible.
-- A. Alfred Taubman

Check this out: I do a weekly newsletter for my biz. It gives tips and insights into personal protection. I touch on awareness, self-defense tools (from pepper spray to handguns) and home defense strategies. It is pretty well received.

I'm putting an issue together on selecting the right self-defense tool based upon your personal lifestyle. Are you young and agile, or older and less mobile? Do you have a lot of kids in and out of your home? What kinds of situations do you often find yourself in that MAY require you to defend yourself (like walking your dog in the park)? Stuff like that.

I was looking through the Internet to gather some crime statistics (fear sells!). I found this on the FBI website -


Astounding. What amazed me is that all of these numbers have improved (gone down) over the stats from 2007!

----------

I need some help. MOSTLY from folks that do not have much (or any) firearms training experience, although input/votes from anyone is appreciated.

I've been offering a couple of classes for firearms, and the response has been "tepid" to say the least. Everything has been through referrals.

The main class is one that is targeted (pun intended) at prospective gun buyers who don't know if they want/need a semi-auto or a revolver. The class is based upon the NRA First Steps class - I just expand it to include both types of firearms.

They get all of the classroom safety and technical training, then go to the range to shoot a number of semi's and revolvers.

The class includes 50 rounds of ammo (25 for each type of gun), eye and ear protection, plus all of the NRA handbooks/brochures/certificates. They pay for the range time and targets.

How much would you pay for this class? This assumes that you have picked me from Internet searches or newspaper ads - NOT from a personal referral. You're a "cold" lead.

We all have a perception of value in our heads. If a price exceeds that, we will often times automatically "shut down" and move on. Where is your, "no friggin' way" line?



----------

Next week, I am meeting with the owner of a new indoor range to try and work out an arrangement for me to do the training at their range. They will sell guns, ammo and other equipment - as well as offer training. So far, these guys are falling all over themselves to hear what I have to offer. We'll see if we can make this work.

Pricing for this will be interesting. I would categorize these leads as "warm" leads. They've taken the time to get off their butts and actually walk into the shop looking for a gun. They've crossed the, "guns scare me" barrier, and moved into the, "crime scares me more" space.

Labels: American Ingenuity, American Spirit, Life and Times, Self-Reliance

Bouncing around a bit...
----------

Astroturf? Headline on CNN online:

Tea party movement has anger, no dominant leaders

Shockingly, the headline hits the Tea Party movement squarely on the head. It is buckets of people, from widely differing backgrounds, from every state in the nation, that are pissed off. Pissed off enough to get off their butts to protest what is happening to our country.

And they're doing it all on their own. No conservative equivalent of ACORN or SEIU or any other major organization are coordinating this. It is the epitome of grassroots.

Isn't that a story in and of itself? Of course it is, but since the story runs counter to the MSM agenda, it is denigrated and marginalized.
----------

Have you folks heard of Scribd.com? Holy crap, what a great resource. They have zillions of documents available online. If you sign up for a free account, you can download most documents in PDF or Word format. Again, for free.

They sure seem to have a lot of stuff that says "copyright" all over it. I was looking for some information on knife making, and they have a number of books that I have purchased in bookstores available for the taking.

Seriously, pick a topic and see what they have. It's quite impressive.
----------

Tonight is either the start of a new era, or the continuation of a steady decline.

Am I talking about American freedom? Socialism and fascism creeping into our way of life? Taxes crushing the very soul of citizens for generations to come?

No. I'm talking about tonight being the season opener for the Raiders.

I'm off in a while to try and find parking for our tailgater. I'm bringing a 5-gallon keg of Amber Ale to help numb the expected pain after we play San Diego in front of the nation (although I'm guessing those of you on the east coast will be tucked in bed when the game starts at 7pm here on the left(ist) coast).

We'll try and set up camp in our usual place (the BART parking lot across the street from the Oakland Coliseum). We'll be eating brats and tri-tip while we watch the early game on rabbit ears. I just picked up one of the digital converter boxes, so this should be interesting.

It will be very difficult for anyone to explain why the Raiders don't win a butt-load of games this season. We have some incredible talent. Serious talent.

But we also have Al Davis. 'Nuff said (plus, I don't want to get sued by the leader of Walking Dead).
----------

ACORN popped again?

First Baltimore, then DC, now NYC.

I swear - I thought I heard the ACORN scum emphatically state that the Baltimore incident was isolated. Two bad employees that were dealt with quickly.

Hmmmm..... seems to be a bit deeper than that, huh?

Not surprisingly, the MSM is barely covering this. No questions of a massive, rotten organization - just excuses and (not so) subtle hints of prosecuting the reporters for doing their job.

Whistle-blower laws protect conservatives too, right?

Labels: communism, Constitution, Corruption, Ethics, Fascism, Health Care Fraud, Life and Times, Media Bias, Propaganda, Taxes

I've got a large supply of whole kernel wheat stored away in our preps. I have the tools and knowledge to turn those kernels into flour, and the flour into breads, "fake" meat and other assorted foods.

It dawned on me that I may not have access to my grain mill. It could be stolen or it could become broken in some way. I didn't want that wheat to become dead weight.

My wife is working on her diet to lower her blood sugar. She needs to eat more whole foods and stuff with fiber. One of the things suggested to her was bulgur wheat.

I've heard of the stuff, but really had no idea what it was. In my mind, it was something hippies ate. I was clueless.

So I whipped out my copy of The Amazing Wheat Book by LeArta Moulton. Back in August of last year, I had used it to make wheat gluten which became fake meat. With a couple of exceptions, it turned out pretty well.

The book had a page on how to make your own bulgur wheat. It explained -

Bulgur wheat is a pre-cooked and dried preparation of wheat, which gives the advantage of cooking faster than whole or cracked wheat.

It has a sweet, nut-like flavor and crunchy texture.

The instructions were fairly simple: Put some whole kernels in a pot, cover with lots of water and bring to a boil. Let is rest for two hours. Add more water, bring it to a boil again, and let it rest another two hours. Dry it out in the oven or dehydrator and viola! you have bulgur.

To use it, you put it in a pot, add double volume of water compared with the volume of bulgur you used, and boil for 5 or 10 minutes. Eat it up.

Not. But more on that later.
----------

I did the two boils and rests and ended up with nice, plump wheat kernels. They were approximately triple their original size. They had a texture very similar to barley - a bit chewy, but not unpleasant at all. They were tasty with a slight natural sweetness to them.

I took a portion of them, put them on a tray and put them into the oven.

I set the oven to 200F. Each hour, I took them out to check on their dryness, and stirred it up a bit so that the whole kernels would be dried. It took a total of 3 hours to dry out the tray.

Here is the "lifecycle" of the wheat -


Across the top, it's raw wheat, then the kernels after the first boil, then after the second boil. The pile at the bottom is the dried out bulgur.

The picture may not show it too well, but the final product was somewhere in size between the raw wheat and the first boil.
----------

OK, so how do you cook this stuff up?

The Amazing Wheat Book said to boil it for 5 or 10 minutes. I brought the pot to a hard boil, then turned it down to a slow boil - I was afraid all the fluid would boil away.

After 5 minutes, there was still a lot of water left. I pulled out a couple of kernels to taste. While edible, I wouldn't recommend them. A bit too hard and chewy.

I let it go 5 more minutes, and little had changed. Another 10 minutes (for a total of 20) and the water was gone and the kernels were nice and plump. Probably not quite as plump as after the second original boil, but probably double in size.

I found this took too much fussing over, though. I didn't want to leave the pot boiling for fear that it would burn.

I checked the Internet for how to cook brown rice, since I figured that was about as close as I would get for another grain. I brought the rice and water up to a boil. I then turned the flame down to low, and put on the cover. I cooked it for 50 minutes, then took it off the fire and let it sit for another 10 minutes.

Perfect. It was just like the quicker method, but a lot less work.

The flavor was good - a bit sweet and a little more chewy than after the second original boil. They were darker in color as well.

I put some of it in a bowl, added some butter, sugar and milk to see if it would work as a breakfast. Not so much. The thinness of the milk amplified the chewiness of the bulgur - they actual squeaked as you chewed.

These would be great as an addition to a meatloaf or casserole, or tossed cold into a salad (that's how we ate a bunch of the stuff after the second boil). It would also work as an addition to a soup. Below is a picture of the soup I made with the Rocket Stove. I just tossed in a bunch into the bowl. Very good.

----------

I'm making up another batch which I will coarsely grind. I see a bunch of recipes on the Internet for a breakfast cereal using the stuff, so I want to give that a shot.

At a minimum, a decent portion of my wheat is going to become bulgur. If nothing more, it will give us the ability to eat the wheat with much less preparation than starting from scratch.

I also want to try and sprout some whole kernels for wheat grass. The stuff is supposed to be very good for you. It can be juiced or added to salads and the like.

I'm sounding more and more like a hippie every day... ;-)

Labels: Life and Times, Self-Reliance

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.
--Albert Einstein

It appears as though my Raiders - once again - suck dirty dog ass. Someone remind me: I'm a season ticket holder BECAUSE....?
----------

I had to actually buy beer today for an upcoming event. Normally, I bring along a 5-gallon keg of my homebrew (equal to 2 cases and a 6-pack), but I'm hoarding it for the upcoming football tailgater season (the highlight of the games) and our upcoming Oktoberfest party.

So, I went to BevMo (I don't know if these are national - they're kind of like liquor warehouses). The beer I wanted was $11.99 for a 12-pack - a half case. I needed a total of two cases.

They had two of the twelve packs. I asked some mouth-breather if they had any more in the back, as there was nothing left in the aisle.

" Uhh, no. We only have wuts out there."

So I asked if I could get the same 12-pack price if I bought four 6-packs.

"Nope. You gotta pay 4 times the 6-pack price." Six-packs were $7.75 a piece.

Fucking asshole. So I put back the two twelve-packs and started looking for another beer. I found another acceptable brew for the same $11.99 per 12-pack.

You guessed it - only two of them left. I looked up top, and spied a whole, boxed case on the upper-most shelf. Sweet! I grabbed it and was off to the checker.

She scans the twelve packs just fine. When she gets to the case, she starts cracking open the box. I tell her I want the whole case.

"Sorry. This is a case of 6-packs. You gotta pay the 6-pack price." Also, 4 times $7.75 each. Fuck me hard.

I'm guessing I turned very bright red in the face. The clerk looked a bit worried.

As I was turning to walk away, to offer me consolation, she said, "Don't worry. You don't need to put the beer away. I'll do it for you."

I don't know if I've ever produced such a loud belly laugh!
----------

WTF? It's not like people were in there throwing elbows to get at the last 6-pack of beer. Me and one other guy were the only people in there. Aside from the 6 employees that were shuffling their feet to look busy.

So instead of making a $50 sale, they've got one pissed off customer that just made the decision to shop elsewhere (and Yes, I hold a grudge).

It's not like their prices crush the competition. I don't know if this was some sort of loss-leader promotion or if they're just incredibly inept. But they ain't gettin' my business any more.
----------

Get this: A while back, I wrote about how a childhood friend of my wife - an avowed communist - was invited to a "special people only" event with Diane Feinstein. They kept the lid on it so none of the Town Hall protesters would cause a ruckus.

So this woman has a couple of boys. They are both half-black (from their now-dead father - long story). The oldest boy was a big old bubba. Very good football player, but dumber than a retarded earth worm.

He went to a JC and somehow, he got an athletic scholarship to attend USC (can anyone say, "Diversity"?). He never played a down in his two years there, but he was smart enough to actually get his degree. Awesome.

Not knowing what to do with his life, he decided he wanted to become a doctor. Not of philosophy or literature, but of medicine. Really.

He now attends Harvard Medical School on yet another "diversity" ticket. I shit you not.

Dumber than a retarded earth worm, and he's going to be telling you to turn your head and cough, or be adjusting the stirrups for your pelvic exam. Oh Lord.
----------

The teacher's union-member commie mom is a big Barry supporter (shocking, I know). After the Di Fi get-together, she called my wife to say her son is having some sort of meeting with someone famous. My wife tells me she thinks it was some politician.

Someone named Henry Gates.

I damned near coughed up a lung.

I explained to her that Gates was not a politician, per se. He was that Harvard racist, Black Studies professor that cried, 'RACISM' when he was arrested by a white cop a while back. The cop that taught the Racial Diversity training for his police department.

The guy that then had a brew with Barry and the cop on the White House lawn.

Oh.

It's good to be connected and the right ethnicity, I guess. I gotta go get me a tan...

Labels: communism, Corruption, democrats, Health Care Fraud, Life and Times, welfare state

Camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business.
--Dave Barry

I've been researching different way of cooking in an emergency situation. I carry a homemade Penny Stove in my GHB. They are excellent for this purpose - small, heat up quickly, are pretty powerful, and don't use a lot of fuel.

They have their downsides, though. You need to carry fuel with you. While I carry mine in the fuel carriers designed for backpackers, it can sometimes be disconcerting knowing this fuel is kept in my car.

Even though they are thrifty with the fuel, when it runs out, the stove is useless. I needed to fix that. I needed a field-expedient stove that used wood as the primary fuel.

Of course, there's the campfire. Very easy to make, but not very efficient for cooking. By their very design, they throw off lots of heat.

I've made Dakota firepits. They work wonderfully, and are very efficient. But, like campfires, they're not portable. You use it where you build it.

It seems like I kept being brought back to coffee can-based stoves. It looked like the most effecient design was the Rocket Stove.

So I built one to test it out.

A Rocket Stove has a number of features. There is the large outer shell, an inner "L" shaped chimney and fuel feed ramp, and a shelf on the feed ramp to provide lots of air in the combustion chamber/chimney to provide a high level of efficiency.

Here are the basics:

The cool thing about rocket stoves is they can be made out of all kinds of materials, from bricks and clay for use inside of a home, to coffee can-sized for use while camping. It's the design that's important.

The first time I heard of a Rocket Stove was a year and a half ago over at the Dragon's place. He made a very nice one that is super efficient.

I wanted to make one that could be thrown together out in the field with discarded cans, items I keep in my GHB and things scrounged in the wild. My backyard would be considered "the wild" for this little test (and NO, I wouldn't allow myself to "find" my power tools in the backyard!).


That's two dog food cans, a larger coffee can and a multi-tool. The two dog food cans would make up the "L" and the coffee can would be the body.

Using the can opener on the multi-tool, I removed the bottom of one of the cans. This would act as the fuel feed hole. I lined it up at a 90 degree angle with the other dog food can to determine where I'd need to cut a hole in its side to complete the "L".


I marked it out (yes, with a Sharpie I keep in my GHB!) and made pie cuts with the point of the knife in the multi-tool (it cut through the can like butter).


Note: When making these cuts, make one center-to-edge of circle cut first. THEN make your other cuts from the outside of the circle towards the center. Your cuts are much more accurate. On the smaller can, while opening up the hole a bit, I was making one of the cuts on the upper part of the circle, and the knife ran on me, cutting the can to the very top of the lip. The reinforced banding on the lip was the only thing that kept me from slicing open the whole can.

After A LOT of tweaking, I got the cans together. I then lined up one of the dog food cans on the coffee can, marked it out and made similar cuts and slapped everything together.

Front view:


Top view:


You'll notice all of the "mess" in the top view from the folded edges of the can holes. I just pushed these flat with the pliers of the multi-tool to clean things up.

I had nothing for the ramp that is used to create the air channel in the feed tube. DING! I keep tins of sardines and kippered snacks in my GHB. The kippered snacks come in a long slender tin. The lid would work PERFECTLY!

I opened the tin, at the kippered snacks (I love these things!) and fashioned the fuel ramp. I basically measured it to length, and folded it so it was the same length as the can. I then folded down the sides of the lid to provide the stand-off to allow airflow. It sat in the can perfectly.


You need to add some sort of insulation between the outer walls of the chimney and the inner walls of the coffee can. It helps to make the stove more efficient. I poured some sand and dirt from my backyard into this void. Some of it started escaping from the bottom of the hole in the coffee can. I grabbed some aluminum foil from the fishing kit in my GHB and stuffed it into the voids. It kept out SOME of the sand/soil, but not all of it. I only filled the void up perhaps half way.

The last thing I did was punch 8, 1/2 inch air holes about a half inch below the rim of the coffee can. Since I intended on using the top of the can as my pot stand, I needed to provide a way to keep the air draft alive.

Now to see if this puppy works!

I scrounged up a piece of a stake made from oak to use as my fuel. I used my Kabar survival knife to split the pieces into usable sizes. I also grabbed an ashtray to start my fire, as it was windy and I didn't want to have my kindling blowing all over my backyard and catching stuff on fire. Here's what I started with:


Starting at top center of the picture moving clockwise: The rocket stove, 1qt camp pot, ash tray with 1 Vaseline-soaked cotton ball and two pieces of kindling with feathered edges, a fire sparker, the multi-tool, a nesting fork-spoon-knife kit, the lid to the pot and three bundles of differently sized oak stake pieces. Please note that this is ALL the fuel I was allowing myself.

You'll also note - right above the pot lid, a bag of light brown stuff. That is one of my Just Add Water (JAW) meals.

My test would be to bring 2 cups of water to a boil and to make myself some soup. Might as well be practical here!

I got the cotton ball flaming with a single strike of the sparker (these cotton balls RULE!) and threw in the two feathered pieces of kindling. They were then put into the feed ramp of the stove.

It was cranking out flame virtually immediately!


I threw the pot on top, and started my clock to see how long it would take to bring the water to a boil and cook my meal.


The flame promptly went out. I removed the pot, and it started right up again. Apparently, the air holes I punched into the coffee can were inadequate for the job. I found that I needed a very aggressive fire to keep it alive with the pot on the stove.

It took approximately 10 minutes to get bubbles to form at the bottom of the pan. I was never able to get a full boil going. I dumped the JAW soup mix in the pan, gave it a stir and covered it up.

I alternated between pushing more sticks into the fire chamber, removing the pot to get the fire going again, and stirring the soup. All told, it took another 10 minutes (for a total of 20 minutes) to cook the soup.

Very impressively, those little bundles of wood shown in the picture above were all I used. In a camp fire or even a Dakota fire pit, that would have been gone in a minute. I had perhaps a 1/4 cup of ash after the fire.


So, what did I learn?

Pro: Very sturdy. Very Cheap. Very fuel efficient. Portable.

Con: Dirty. Even though it was very efficient, there was a ton of soot on the bottom of the pot. No more than you'd have with a campfire, but with its touted high efficiency, I expected less.

Other than that, it was pretty damned impressive. My design didn't allow for enough air to reach the fire chamber with the pot on the top. That's not a problem with the Rocket Stove, it was a problem with how I put it together.

Along a similar line, the coffee can diameter should match the diameter of your pot, if at all possible. This will allow more of the flame coming up from the chimney to "lick" the bottom of the pot and give you quicker desired temperatures.
----------

I'd guess it took me about a half hour to make the stove. I went slowly so I wouldn't cut myself on any of the exposed edges.

It was a good exercise. I will probably put one together that is more like the one Dragon made - more precise, sturdy and larger. It could be brought along when car camping or similar situation or used at home during an emergency when you didn't have access to utility-provided fuels, electricity or other stored fuels.

Labels: American Ingenuity, American Spirit, Life and Times, Self-Reliance

How does shit like this happen?

The above image (click to enlarge) is of the 2-acre lot in Antioch, California, where some twisted bastard held a kidnapped child for 18 years. He repeatedly raped her, and he fathered two children by her, now aged 15 and 11.

Go to Google maps or Zillow.com and key in '1554 Walnut Ave., Antioch, Ca' to get a feeling for where this property was located.

While not a typical Antioch residential neighborhood, it is certainly not out in the wilderness.

The back of the property, where the kidnap victim lived for all 18 years, had neighbors on all 3 sides. She lived back there in huts and sheds.

It appears as though some of the neighbors DID call the authorities. None of the authorities apparently had the skills to notice anything was amiss. No one noticed that the little girl never went to school? Or played with the other kids in the neighborhood? OR GAVE BIRTH TO TWO CHILDREN IN THE FUCKING BACK YARD?!

This bastard was a registered sex offender. He had physical visits by his parole agents, TO THIS HOME, at least once each and every year he was holding her. Perhaps the problem was because they came - every year - on his birthday. Perhaps he had the time to cover his tracks for each visit, since he knew exactly when "the authorities" were coming.

----------

We lived in Antioch for 14 years - from 1988 to 2002. This property is on the other end of town - it's actually closer to where we live now in another town.

We moved because the city was falling into disrepair - gangs had started openly tagging neighborhoods and businesses - and no one seemed to give a shit. Our boys were coming out of private elementary school and starting public high school. The town we moved to had a new high school with a great reputation. They were NOT going to attend Antioch High.

Perhaps the Antioch police were too busy with the gangs. Perhaps the parole agents each had too many felons to do a thorough job.

I don't give a shit. The primary job of government is to protect the rights of its citizens. They ALL dropped the ball, big-time.

It seems as though we have plenty of police and inspectors to make sure you are meeting the ADA laws, the fence height laws, the house color laws and the other codes where Nanny can make a buck when you cross the line.

Apparently making sure a child doesn't get raped for 18 years isn't worth the trouble.

Labels: Life and Times

O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.
--Sun Tzu

OpSec is a term used by the military that is a contraction of Operations Security. The idea is to ensure your enemy doesn't get wind of what you're planning for in your next mission. Think of the saying from WWII, "Loose lips sink ships."

It also has to do with adding inconsistency to what you do - don't be predictable, or your enemy will be able to anticipate what you're going to do next, even without having to gather any information.

In the latest episode of The Colony TV show , they had to deal with a man and woman who laid a claim to the group's building and its contents. The guy literally had a key to the back door, and walked right in.

Some of the group was leery, but a couple of the male members decided to give these two strangers a complete tour of their facilities, security and resources. Simply because the guy had a key to the door.

They spilled their guts, and not surprisingly, the strangers turned on the group. They didn't want to live by the rules of the Colony, and a good deal of resources were lost in a very short period of time.

If these two ever decide to come back with some of their friends, they now know the security arrangements, the head count, the skill-sets, the weaponry, power, food and water capabilities of The Colony. Unless the group makes some changes, they are a plum waiting to be picked.
----------

A reader of this blog sent me a link to this document Secret Freedom Fighter - Fighting Tyranny Without Terrorizing the Innocent. It's an interesting read, to say the least. If you have a Scribd.com account (free to set up), you can download the booklet in PDF format.

The book is largely based on the idea of OpSec - keep your pie-hole closed, and you are much more likely to be successful in what you're trying to achieve.

If I have any criticism of their efforts [people publicly fighting Nanny], it is that they have been too public. Too many of them will be easily identified and targeted by the authorities in control.

Take the case of the Mormons. Everybody in the country knows that every good Mormon is supposed to have a year's supply of food on hand. When the crunch comes, the first thing the military dictator's local representative is going to his list of members. A week later, the Mormons will be standing in the soup lines along with everybody else, only it will be their soup we'll all be eating.

He's right on the first part - if confiscations are to occur, Mormons will be targeted because everyone knows that's where the food is.

What he gets wrong, I think, is thinking that they'll end up in soup lines. I think the way you'll be able to identify Mormon homes is by the head count of Nanny bureaucrats that were sent to "repatriate" the food - that are now stacked like cord wood on the steps of these homes.
----------

So who knows your plans, capabilities and resources? Who knows where you keep your emergency food supplies? Who knows where you've cached food, water, weapons and ammo? Who knows where your precious metals are stored?

Can you trust everyone on that list? Can you trust them not to disclose your information, either through casual disclosure, or under threat from someone more powerful - like the government or some street thug with a knife to their baby daughter's throat? Do you trust them with your life?

Do you have contingency plans for the possibility that your privacy - your OpSec - is breached?

Most folks have some sort of a firewall or virus scan on their computers to keep hackers and malicious programs off of their systems. They perform back-ups of their hard drives so they don't lose everything in the event of a total system breach.

Do you have "flags" in place that might indicate a breach to your preps? Do you have back-up resources pre-positioned for the possibility of having your main plan obliterated? With finances, we are told, "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket." Pretty damned sound advice, I think.

Have you added a level of unpredictability to your plans so that a moderately intelligent person could not deduce what your contingency plans may be?

Do you have some supplies that are "hidden" to be used as "ransom" in the event of a breach?

How long could you survive after the sudden loss of everything you have worked so hard to acquire? Would you be in that Nanny soup line or would you have other supplies and resources at your disposal?

No soup for me, thank you very much...

Labels: American Ingenuity, Corruption, Life and Times, nanny state, Self-Reliance, welfare state

Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
-- Alex Levin

I have a sweet tooth. Big-time. I only half jokingly say that I have coffee with my cream and sugar, not the other way around.

I'm seeing some news reports of a potential spike in sugar prices. Take a look at this article. It seems that our protectionist government limits sugar imports. World sugar prices are $0.22 a pound. US prices are $0.35 a pound. Thanks for looking out for us, DC.

So what would a guy like me do for his sugar Jones if sugar supplies suddenly dried up, or became cost prohibitive? Raiding bee hives and getting the hell stung out of me doesn't sound like a good idea.

My wife likes this sweetener called Agave Nectar. It's a natural sweetener made from the agave plant. This is the plant that is used to make tequila. For tequila, they cut up the core of the plant, roast it, then make a mash of sorts to extract the natural sugars. Once you have sugars, you can do with it as you please - syrups, crystallized sugars, fermentation - whatever you wish.

Hmmmm. Let's see. What do I have experience with in extracting sugars from raw materials?

Malted grains, of course! I've been brewing all-grain beers for decades. As long as I have access to malted grains, I can make a sweet liquid. Hell, in a pinch, I could malt my own grains - from my buckets-o-wheat for instance, if malted barley became unavailable (I hope my sweet tooth never becomes THAT desperate!).

Malted corn, rye, barley, wheat - hell, any grain you can get to sprout and then dry out will work.
----------

When you brew, you mash the crushed grains by steeping them in hot water. This process transforms the starches in the grain into sugar. You then wash the sugars off of the grains (in a process called lautering). The resulting liquid is called wort (pronounced 'wert'). Depending upon the quality of your crushed grains, the temperature of the mash and a number of other factors, you will end up with a wort with a sugar content roughly in the 10-12% range.

You boil the wort, adding hops for flavoring and bitterness, and to help evaporate the liquid to increase the sugar content to the 13-18% range.

Cool it off, add the yeast, ferment, consume.

If I want to make a sweetener, I need to leave out the yeast, and increase the amount of water evaporation. I want to concentrate the sugars, not have them consumed!
----------

I found two primary types of syrup made here in America: Maple syrup and cane syrup.

The maple syrup has a starting sugar content of around 2% - I couldn't find anything on the starting sugar content of the cane juice.

What they both had in common was the general techniques for turning the juice/sap into syrup. You boil the hell out of it, and when the temperature reaches 7 degrees above boiling - 219F - you have syrup.

What was a bit disconcerting is the volume of juice/sap you needed. To get 1 gallon of maple syrup, you need 40+ gallons of sap!

I needed to do a test.

I took a quart of water, and added a quarter pound of cane sugar. On my hydrometer, I got a reading of 1.046 specific gravity. That equals 11.5% sugar content (on something called the brix scale). So I'm starting at about the same point as I'd be by making a mash, and am WAY ahead of the game with regards to maple sap.

OK, a little bit of math (don't glaze over on me here!). I boiled everything down until I hit the magical 219F degrees. I ended up with right around 5.5 ounces of syrup. Since I started with 34.5 fluid oz of "cane juice" (32 oz of water "grows" to 34.5 oz of sugar solution once the cane sugar is added), that means I reduced it by a factor of 6.27. If I take the original sugar percentage of 11.5 and multiply it by the 6.27, I come up with a 72.14% sugar solution. Pretty damned close to the published maple syrup numbers of 67%.


----------

It's thinner than a corn syrup like Karo or imitation maple syrup. It's about the consistency of real maple syrup - kind of like the viscosity of vegetable oil. Sweet as hell, though!

I have some extra malted barley laying around, so I think I'll make up a batch of wort and give it a go.

The cost/benefit equation is iffy, at best. You use a LOT of fuel to boil down the syrup. For the sample I made, I used my kitchen stove gas burner for an hour straight, on high. An inexpensive fuel source is the key to making this stuff economically.

I'm going to try and produce a quart of malted barley syrup, so I'll make up 2 gallons of wort to give myself some cushion. From what I've read, this should take in the neighborhood of 2-3 hours. I'll do some hard math calculations at that time, so see what the cost per ounce comes out to be.
----------

Oh, and not to worry about "wasting" grains for my sweet tooth. The spent grains from a brew can be added to dough for a healthier homemade bread, fed to animals as part of their diet (horses supposedly LOVE the stuff), or added to compost piles.

There is also a technique in brewing called 'parti-gyle'. I've used this in the past to make two different styles of beer from the same mash. You take the first runnings from the grain, and make a high-alcohol beer. You re-mash the remaining grains, and get a weaker run-off that can be used to make a weaker style of beer.

This weaker run-off - as low as in the 5-6% sugar content range - could be used for syrup making. Beer AND syrup from the same batch of grains.

Waste not, want not...

Labels: American Ingenuity, Life and Times, Self-Reliance