perfidy

Oregon, oh Oregon. Wedged into the middle of Ecotopia, Oregon is not much good for anything. But, it is a state, and therefore we must perforce ridicule it.

• A great place and not just a game where everyone dies
• Not Every State Can Have A Personality
• Home of quality babes like Tonya Harding and Monica Lewinski
• Spotted Owl... It's What's For Dinner
• We’d burn witches in our Salem, but they’ve gotten canny
• Like Hell, but wetter and smaller
• When we say Beaver State, we mean the animal, perverts
• As weird as California but not as pretty
• Communism failed everywhere else because Salem wasn't in charge
• Ever Dreaming of Conquest
• No Taxes, No Pollution, No Visitors
• We're tolerant because there are no minorities here
• 54-40 or fight!
• Where rain lives
• Do Not Fear Our Giant Prehistoric Trees
• Give me Birkenstocks or give me Death!
• From Chief Joseph to Senator Packwood in one century
• The Oregano Dime Bag State
• The Beavers don’t appreciate your insinuations
• Nike means victory, except here, where it means sweatshops and overpriced sneakers
• Ore Ida Perpetua
• The Big Beaver Furrier’s Dreamland
• In Oregon, Where Shadows Lie
• Holding Back the Sea since 1846
• Land of the Setting Sun
• Rufis Labiis Volat Propriis - She flies with her own red wings
• Oregon: The Apathetic Sta
• West West Virginia
• Just do it. But not with the beavers, that’s cruel
• Oregon - Deprogrammers Welcome
• Jerry Garcia was here!
• Crunch all you want. We'll make more.
• Women not required to shave their legs and armpits
• The Big Ear State
• Beaver! Beaver! Beaver!
• Got Plywood?
• Home of Skid Row
• The Hard-Case, Soft-Head State
• We're not named after a musical instrument
• The Pruny Hands State
• Where beer was reborn
• Keeping Idaho from falling into the ocean for 200 years
• At least we’re not New Jersey, we think
• Where grunge went to die
• The hippies found us. Not the other way around
• I'm a lumberjack, but I'm ok.
• S. M. Stirling Hates Us
• Windsurfing is fun, but not a viable means of escape from Oregon
• Waiting for LA
• Come visit our hippie internment camps
• We don't let you pump your own freaking gas because you're a moron
• Packwood. Beavers. See a pattern?
• Whiter than Ohio, but not as white bread
• Who’d a thunk the Oregon trail would bring us here?
• 100% Beaver and British Redcoat Free since 1902

Yesterday I ordered some books from an online purveyor of used books. Normally, nothing about this process is worthy of comment. But this store, the one that had the three books I wanted at the lowest price, is a little too concerned about doing good.

It’s primary purpose, apparently, is to collect books by donation, and use the profits of selling some of them to fund literacy operations and ship books to places that are not well supplied with books. Like the whole of Africa, for example. All to the good. More power to them. If certain people spent more time reading Sense and Sensibility, Somalia would not be the dog’s breakfast that it is.

But as I went to check out, I noticed a small extra charge. It was only $.12, but being the frugal person that I am, I clicked the little “What the fuck is this?” link. It turns out that I was being charged for Carbonfree™ Shipping.

What, you may well ask, is Carbonfree™ Shipping? Well, let me quote the helpful popup window:

Until Willie Nelson's Biodiesel bus does deliveries, we've got no choice but to send your book on normal planes, trains and automobiles. They all deliver your book considerably faster than we could on our bikes, but they belch carbon dioxide into the air the whole time. In case Al Gore hasn't stopped by your house, sat you down, and given you his slideshow yet, we've got some news for you. These carbon dioxide emissions are overheating our planet, causing a "climate crisis". Carbon Offsets are a way that we can "offset" these emissions through the purchase of clean energy credits and reversing deforestation. It is only a few pennies per book, but when thousands of people do it every day it adds up.

We looked at our shipments and used Carbonfund.org’s Carbonfree™ Shipping application to estimate the average offset needed for our packages and we always round up. 100% of the funds charged as Carbon Offsets WILL be used to purchase carbon offsets. Once Better World Books is 100% carbon neutral, we'll start to offset the carbon emissions of our non-profit partners. After that, we'll offset Exxon's emissions. They'll never know what hit 'em.

We work with Carbonfund.org to make this possible. If you like it, demand Carbonfree™ Shipping wherever you shop online.

Thank god Al Gore has not stopped by my house. And thank god you aren’t so doctrinaire that you do deliver my books by bicycle. I’d like to read them.

I know they’re trying to help. They think that the sky is falling, and they’re trying to do their part. And it’s only twelve cents. I can afford it, I hope. But inflicting their environmental pieties on me, at my cost, just irritates me. I don’t think that the world is coming to an end. And if the climate is changing for the warmer, I don’t think that what they’re doing, or the whole damn Kyoto accord will make a lick of difference. Even the people who put it together don’t think it will make a lick of difference. Carbon dioxide is not the most powerful greenhouse gas. And of all the CO2, the bit produced by us is a very small percentage. And greenhouse warming might not even be the reason we are seeing warming. And, for the last couple years, it hasn’t been warming.

Maybe I’m just being curmudgeonly, but I want my damn twelve cents back. And if I can’t get it, I’m going to light a plastic fire in my back yard, and cause at least twelve cents of environmental damage. Maybe even fifteen cents worth, because I’m pissed.

So that’s two twin kits. The third is in the house.

The house kit is farther from completion than I like, but it is far enough along to be utilized. My thinking again was portability- which I tackled by limiting myself to a single bag and, again, short-term survival.

I packed several sets of foundation undergarments, pants, and shirts (I tried to think in terms of a week, 10 days living) into a drybag. I got a couple of them at EMS and probably paid too much for them, but they are good quality. They’re a sort of hardcore vinyl that, with a roll top closure, makes them waterproof and probably submersible.

I cannot overstate the misery that being wet can bring. In a field situation without access to dry clothes or warmth, wet brings hyperthermia most quick. Even if the daytime temp is comfortable, the night might be cool enough to hurt you if you’re wet. Everything in the home kit got packed into drybags.

So I got one for my clothes and the misses got one for her clothes. Another bag- not as burly but still weatherproof- has toiletries (including toothbrushes) and a couple small towels. Another, not completed, will have clothes for the Li’lest Lethal, who is actually hardest to pack for because he grows so fast. Stuff I pack now will not fit him if we need to boogie in 6 months; not sure how to tackle that yet.

Anyway, once you squeeze the air out and collapse everything, all those weatherproof bags I just mentioned fit very nicely in a single GI duffel bag- with room to grow, even. The duffel bag is only a tough nylon, but since everything inside is individually pieced out in good dry bags, I don’t have to sweat leaving it outside or even transporting it on the roof of the truck if I have to; plenty of ratchet straps and bunjees help there. And, also important, it’s not so heavy that the misses can’t move it by herself.

So at least in the short term we can stay somewhat dry, hydrated, fed, and reasonably clean.

That brings me to weaponry.

So like I said, I went with a 3-kit plan: a twin set (one for each vehicle) and a larger one in the house.

The mission for the car kits is immediate survival, ie, living rough for a couple days but at least being able to say how bad it was when it’s over, vs. being a corpse. They are packed such that whatever scenario might cause you to need them- broken down in the middle of nowhere, natural disaster- you will live to tell about it if you can get help in relatively short order.

I had a mental sketch of some specific pieces of equipment I’d want in it, but I thought long and hard about the container to put it all in. I wanted a single container that held everything, but was still lightweight enough to be readily portable in case it had to be hauled away in a hurry. What I went with was a standard mil-spec 5.56mm ammo can.

It is a metal box, approximately 11.5”x7”x6”- those are the dimensions of the .50 cal ammo can, and they’re about the same. Hell, might even be the same can, I dunno. I only know that I could get 5.56 at my local Army surplus store and it was about the right size for what I had in mind. It has a hinged lid (readily removable) and closes tightly- it’s weatherproof, too.

Now, if you carry a lot of junk in your vehicle, an inflexible metal box might not work for you- you’re not going to stuff it into an unused corner or squeeze it around some other things. It’s also not really adaptable for comfortable long-distance humping; you’ll want a big butt-pack or small ruck if that’s how you want to do things. But the advantage of the metal can is three-fold: durability, obviously; you can catch and transport water in it if you have to; and you could cook in it. Even if it was just to boil all the water you’ve been humping around in it since the world ended.

So what’s in it? All the stuff you think should be there: flashlight- I did go with a battery-powered job (which I wanted to avoid where possible), but it takes a watch battery that lasts years, is smaller than my thumb- so saves space- and is absurdly bright. Only drawback is it requires 2 hands to turn it on and off (which I also wanted to avoid-1 hand operation is the way to go). First aid kit- got two from Brigade Quartermaster that are pretty squared away; of course you can make your own. Knife- one you can do work with. I have a small but burly Cold Steel tanto boot knife in one and an old commie bayonet in the other. Tarp- for improvised shelter in case the vehicle itself is unusable (ie burned up or underwater); I think I went with 10x10; might be 8x8. A 50’ length of 550 cord which, in a pinch you could slit, and extract a couple miles of lesser fibers from. An emergency “blanket” which, really, is just a sort of giant baggie; ditto the ponchos.

There’s some other stuff in there, but these are still not 100% complete- I still want fire-making capability in each car kit (prolly one of those magnesium bars with the striker built-in), and I haven’t decided on food yet. Anything dehydrated is out, because it presupposes that potable water is available. I have it down to 3 manufacturers, but just haven’t made the choice of emergency ration yet. And speaking of water, I need some water purification tabs as well. Even though I do haul potable water, I only have about 10 gallons, only in the truck, and for about 4 months out of the year it’s frozen solid. You’re never going to be able to haul enough potable water for an emergency- again, assuming you have to leave your home- so you need to be able to safely drink the water you find.

Now, in the event that we were home when the balloon went up, we would of course take only one vehicle. But we would take the kit out of the car we were leaving, and thereby double our supplies. This is also why we will always have a vehicle capable of 4 wheel drive in the family- let’s not be restricted to finished roads if we have to flee.

As for tools, the vehicles have the usual stuff- socket kit and jack and whatnot, and I don’t go far without a decent multitool on my person anyway, but I don’t kid myself- I don’t know anything about auto repair, and I’m not going to learn as the tidal wave comes racing across the country or the supervolcano is brewing. It’s important to consider one’s limitations with this stuff, and I don’t drive around with a giant Craftsman tool chest. Similarly, you might notice that I don’t include gear to catch fish or game in my car kits. Well, number one, I explained that long-term living rough is beyond the scope of these kits, and 2, I never tried to catch a fish in my life and again, learning by trial and error as my corner of the world comes unhinged didn’t sound too realistic to me.

Over the years we ministers have talked a pretty big game about preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Or the Ende Tymes. Or the alien conquest. Or Fimbulvintr, heralding the march of the dread Jotun from icy, misted Niflheim to join the hosts of Ragnarok, the final battle of Gods and Men that will destroy the universe.

All the time, we’re talking about this stuff, but now we’re starting to do it.

Mostly.

What I did was finally prepare an undead/alien/fire/water/Valhalla emergency kit.

Three, in fact.

Let me lay out my thinking on preparedness. As with most of my thinking, it’s simple: to a significant extent, you are responsible for your own health, your own safety, and the security of your property. Leaving those things solely to agents of the state, meaning any gubmint agency from the local dogcatcher up through Homeland Security, is quite dumb.

There, I said it.

Even when it is a warm June Saturday where all is right with the world, when everything is rainbows and puppies and the single anvil-hued thunderhead that brewed up from the west took one look at the saccharine sweetness of that perfect day and imploded, choosing to choke on its own rain and dissolve in a moist suicide instead of marring the perfect-est day ever dreamed of by a fairy princess on her wedding day. Even on days like that, leaving your security to the state is dumb.

Don’t misread me, here- I’m a pretty far cry from organizing my militia to sortie from our Idaho compound and destroy the ZOG when the seventh seal is opened or whatever. I’m talking about taking a little responsibility for looking after what’s yours. Or, if you choose to leave your fate to bureaucrats, at least have the courtesy not to bitch when they blow it.

However, it must also be said that, at least in my case, I will not be able to last long without outside help of some sort. There is just no way that I have the knowledge or budget to prepare for an indefinite period of living outside of at least rudimentary society.

So I was faced with two opposite ends of the preparedness spectrum: do nothing, and hope that the feds will arrive quickly and administer relief effectively; vs do everything, and get myself a portable machine shop, decontamination shower, training in 4 or 5 urgently applicable disciplines with an M.D. to boot, a few thousand gallons of fuel and potable water, enough food to last the rest of my life, and a secure underground lair to store all that.

Plainly, each of those opposite ends is laughably unlikely. My thinking on preparedness led me to develop a mission concept that split the difference: prepare for a week of self-sufficiency. That would allow enough time for a natural disaster response to begin, and more than enough time for a smaller localized event- fire, flood- to be sorted out. Admittedly in the case of permanent upheaval I’m in a tough spot, but then so aren’t we all.

In the wake of the joint EMI/Apple announcement that DRM-free EMI tunes will be available for sale on Apple's iTunes store, people have been speculating on what it all means. Aside from many predictions of the imminent demise of DRM, one potential fallout is a new chapter in the audio standards war. (Apple favors AAC, Microsoft WMA, and MP3 is the default other format. For more info on audio file formats, see this wikipedia overview with links, or the second half of this article for a good explanation.) Arik Hesseldahl of Business Week talks on this, and it's well worth a read, but the bit that got me laughing was this:

AAC-format supporters include some notable names, including Microsoft's Zune. So come May, the 16 people who own one will be able to buy EMI tracks from iTunes and presumably play them on that device.

I am amused by how Microsoft always quotes market share figures by saying, "Hard Drive Music Players." They've gotten less than 10% of maybe a quarter of the total music player market, and that doesn't even take into account iPod sales from Apple stores and online. They might have managed to get 2% of the total market. Quite a splash considering how much cash they through at it.

Oklahoma has had some hard knocks. The Dust Bowl, the bombing in Oklahoma City, and the existential pain of being Oklahoma. To cheer them Oklahomians up, here are some new, funner(tm) slogans:

• Labor Omnia Vincit is not the same as Arbeit Macht Frei
• We have 42 distinct words for "dust"
• We're like the Canada of Texas!
• Home of the world famous Dustarium
• Like the Play, Only No Singing
• We're OK, you're NOT!
• No, I'm not from Muskogee. No one is.
• I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto
• As mentioned in The Grapes of Wrath
• Gateway to fuck-all
• Sooner does not mean premature ejaculation
• When you think of Oklahoma, please think of the rousing song “Oklahoma!” Do not think so much of the less rousing song “Trail of Tears.”
• Oooooooooh klahoma them ternaders sweepin' down the plains!
• Some people say we don't suck!
• We wish God would hurry up and call Oral Roberts home already
• The Forcible Resettlement State
• We're Texas Without A Coast
• The circus has been here twice!
• The Scoured by Dust State
• 'Sup, Okla-homie?
• Swallowing, and swallowed by, dust
• Tornado Alley. ‘Nuff Said.
• Indian Territory, now and forever. Well, for a little while.
• The Slow Drawl State
• Oklahoma - Even Texas Has To Make Fun of Somebody
• The Unassigned Lands State
• Oklahoma: Named After an Indian Tribe We Slaughtered
• The avenging sword of the lower Midwest
• Why would the white supremacists bomb us, godammit?
• GUSTY®
• Five Displaced Civilized Tribes, plus Rednecks
• More than just a catchy song
• The Frying Pan State
• From a Musical of the Same Name
• Bank Foreclosure capital of the universe since 1932!
• The Red Person State
• Oklahoma is OK. Really.
• We’re really an East Coast kind of state
• Come for the lethally violent weather, stay for the arid flat sameness of terrain
• They had to make us a state, just to avoid having a pan shaped hole in the map
• Where storm sirens are the signal to get lawn chairs, video camera.
• Oil and dust, it’s what for dinner
• How come the Navy never names ships after us anymore?

Orson Scott Card, author, Mormon, and Democrat, has an interesting essay up over at his site the Ornery American. In it, he examines the Mormon aspect of Romney's candidacy from the point of view of a fellow Mormon, but one who is also occasionally in the public spotlight. Interesting stuff, especially this bit:

When I heard that Mitt Romney was actually running for President, my first thought was, "Is he serious?"

Doesn't he know that there is zero chance of a Mormon ever being in the White House?

Actually, no, that wasn't the bit, is was this one:

Only Dumb and Crazy People Believe Those Doctrines!

Ah. Here's where we come to the ugly part.

This is what that article about Mormon beliefs in The Week was really about -- making Mitt Romney seem like an idiot for believing in Mormon doctrine.

In his book, Hugh Hewitt recounts some really offensive, outrageous attempts by opponents of Mitt Romney to try to force him, in press conferences, to answer questions about Mormon belief.

"Do you, personally, really believe in [insert wacko-sounding doctrine here]?"

Sometimes the people asking that question will be evangelical Christians out to "expose" how false and ridiculous Mormon doctrines are.

But when the press picks it up, it'll be anti-religious people using a man's religious faith as a reason to ridicule him so he can't be elected President.

Do you think Mormons are the only people who can be treated that way?

If you're a Catholic, would you appreciate some reporter asking a Catholic presidential candidate, "Do you really believe that when you take the communion wafer, it literally turns into human flesh in your mouth? Isn't that cannibalism?"

If you're a Baptist, would you think it was legitimate for a heckler at a press conference to ask a Baptist presidential candidate, "So you think that when Jesus comes again, you're going to just rise right up into the air, no airplane, no jet pack, you'll just fly? Or aren't you a good enough Baptist to be in the Rapture?"

This was in the context of discussing the fears of the electorate in regard to a Mormon candidate. I think Card has it spot on here, and I believe we will see this, and much more as long as Romney stays in the race.

Another point that Card raises, one that I'm not so sure of, is this:

The mainstream media have taken a look at Mitt Romney and, just like George W. Bush in 2000, he's the nightmare candidate for them -- the one they have to kill.

Why? Because he's exactly what they most fear: A conservative who can appeal to moderates. After all, this guy won an election for governor in Massachusetts. As a Republican.

I think that to the extent that the media are going to gang up on someone, they're waiting. Except for targets of opportunity as conservative candidates come into range. The target that the liberal media must kill is the one that the Republicans nominate. In the meantime, I think they'll be going after the most "extreme" right wingers, and puffing up the tame Republicans like Romney, Guiliani and McCain. Until all the bad ones are gone, anyway.

This bit also amused me, considering my recent reentry into political bloviating:

Is Mitt Romney the Best Candidate?

I have no idea. I don't know enough about the other candidates -- or about Mitt Romney, for that matter. Just as I hope no one will reject him because he's a Mormon, I am not going to support him just because he's a Mormon.

I'm a Democrat. I would be really grateful if my party would nominate somebody who doesn't make my skin crawl just thinking of them in the White House (i.e., someone who isn't Hillary Clinton).

I'm glad that there are Democrats that feel that way. Very glad.

Card wraps things up with a question: "Let me ask you Republicans who would consider yourselves moral conservatives: Would you really let a person's religious beliefs absolutely disqualify him from the Presidency? And if you're leaning that way, think about this: If it was a choice between a moral conservative and decent person like Mitt Romney, who happens to be a Mormon, and Hillary Clinton, would you really sit out the election rather than cast your vote for a Mormon?" This question doesn't really apply to me, but I think it will be the most important question determining the success of Romney as a presidential candidate. Can he convince the religious parts of the Republican party that he is an acceptable candidate? For me, its a no brainer when it comes to choosing between Hillary and anything else. I'd vote for Dark Cthulhu before I'd vote for Hillary. Mormon barely registers. But for the born again, someone who is born again wrong is a real stumbling block, no matter how much he might agree with them.

Read the whole article, it's worth your time.

From Bruce Schneier's on Security Blog, a link to a fascinating story of a young British fraud prodigy, in two parts.
And don't forget these important Bruce Schneier Facts:

• Bruce Schneier doesn't need facts. With one roundhouse-kick he can generate a formal proof for whatever he needs.
• Bruce Schneier only smiles when he finds an unbreakable cryptosystem. Of course, Bruce Schneier never smiles.
• Bruce Schneier doesn't need to hide data with steganography - data hides from Bruce Schneier
• Bruce Schneier expects the Spanish Inquisition.
• Santa Clause doesn't know if Bruce Schneier has been good or bad
• There are no prime numbers. Only numbers that Bruce Schneier does not want you to factor.
• If Bruce Schneier wants your plaintext, he'll just squeeze it out of the ciphertext using his barehands
• Bruce Schneier counts in binary. With his fists.
• Strong cryptography does not exist for Bruce Schneier. There is only weak and less weak cryptography.

Christ Getting In Shape For Second Coming

HEAVEN—Since His birthday last Dec. 25, the Lamb of God has committed Himself to a demanding regimen of exercise and prophecy-fulfillment in preparation for the Second Coming.