perfidy

There are three ways that I never imagined I would begin a Ministry post:

“After the first time I docked my yacht in Barbados, I vowed it would be the last.”

“This is my cock. There are many like it, but this one is mine.”

“I ditched my .45 for a 9mm.”

I don’t own a yacht, and my emergency plan to convert my wheelbarrow into a small boat will not yield a seaworthy vessel. I do have a wang, yet prefer not to write about it- for everybody’s sake- whenever possible.

But I did get rid of my .45. For a 9.

Before anyone gets all goofy on me, hear me out. Losing a red-meat, by-gar Amurrican round like the .45 ACP in favor of something European was not a decision I undertook lightly. But it was the right choice, and I think you’ll agree.

My first handgun was a S&W 686P, a 7-shot, .38(+P)/.357 with a snub 2.5” barrel. Really sweet, smooth as silk. It was rated for the +P and heavier rounds (200grain+), but I found that lighter .38 loads were ideal. Anyway, I got rid of it because I needed some dough, but didn’t miss it (much) because it was too fat and chunky to carry concealed anyway. It was a fine weapon, just not ideal for me.

A quick aside about concealed carry in the Bay State: strictly speaking, open carry is *not* illegal in MA, but this white boy isn't gonna be the test case. I have never, ever seen anybody walk around with a visible weapon on his hip (barring a uniformed person with a duty rig). Ev-ar. And since agents of the state hereabouts are not above making up gun laws as they go, it's better for everyone to just keep your shit under wraps. So concealed carry was foremost in my mind, a weapon I could carry wherever I was permitted to do so.

Next in line was a S&W 4006, a full sized auto in .40. As a lefty, I liked the ambidextrous controls, I liked the size and weight, but it was a touch too big to carry concealed- I bought it as a duty weapon when I was moonlighting at ArmCo- and frankly I wasn’t keen on the cartridge. I felt .40 had a little too much snap to it; it seemed to flip the front sight more than I could control. I’m sure I could have trained to greater proficiency, and would have if it was the last weapon on Earth- there’s just too much choice though to settle for good enough.

I moved up to a .45 when I traded the 4006 for a SiG-Sauer P220. At first I found the furniture a little awkward for the southpaw, but got myself together in fairly short order- still plenty of room for improvement, mind you. The round gave a solid thump in the palm when fired, and I never felt the weapon to be quite as light in the muzzle as the .40 was. Terrific duty weapon, good round, all was well.

Except that I couldn’t do a thing with it off the clock. Yes I *could* carry it concealed, inasmuch as I could physically put it on my hip and wear a low coat over it. Kinda like the way you can transport a canned ham by stuffing it down the front of your shirt- no one’s real sure what’s in there, and no one’s gonna ask, but it’s obvious there’s something going on in there. That’s what it felt like trying to conceal the P220.

In time that brought me back to my friendly local purveyor of deadly machines, and a choice between a 9mm Sig P239, a compact Glock in .40 (I forget the model now), or a NIB Smith M&P compact also in .40.

I went with the Sig.

But all told I think my reasoning is valid. I ended up with a weapon I can actually leave the house with. Ammo is cheap and plentiful. The weapon design is familiar, as it’s basically a cut-down P220, and is robust- probably overbuilt for the round. It fits my hand well, and feels OK in an IWB holster.

None of my sound reasoning of course will deter those of you who want to jack me up for going Euro. To you I say this: the zombies will not care what size projectile is tunneling through their cerebellum.

"Investment Strategies in a World Where Time Travel is Possible"

It's got aliens, it's got time travel, it's got the possibility of end of days. What's not to like?

Intrepid engineers - both amateur and professional - have come up with some prototype portable laser weaponry for when the zombies come. And one of these projects is even one you can build in your own home workshop.

Helpful advice for surviving when the zombies come, all in a convenient wearable package:

Get yours today here.

Patton has accused me of being overly concerned about wasting a scarce natural resource. The category tag. In this, of course, he is completely wrong. Naturally, I could have argued that over-categorizing a post dilutes the utility of tags. And I would have been right. But that wasn't the point. I was attacking him on aesthetic grounds, and just to stick a stick in his eye.

Just to prove that I am not some sort of homo-tree-hugging-enviro-commie, this post, which really is about everything, is tagged with every category we have. And, when I have a free moment, I'll add some new categories, and add them to this post.

So there.

A recent visit to my personal abode and culture bunker by Clan Johno included a soundtrack provided by Band of Gypsys.

In subsequent discussion, I explained that someone who hears "Machine Gun" and is not moved has no soul. And I didn't mean "soul" in the James Brown, real supabad sense. I'm not saying you have to like it- you could be moved to loathe it. OK. But the energy and the wailing and the wah wah wah weeeoooooDRAAAAAANNNNNNNN ah wa wa wa wa wa awaw provokes all who hear.

Which days later got me to thinking about dying in a horrible plane crash.

Assuming I had it with me, and I had the time to listen, and I was together enough to make my player work at that moment, and not flipping the fuck out at the prospect of my imminent demise, I decided I would like "Machine Gun" to be my terminal music. The last music I heard before impact and non-existence.

Yeah.

So. All the assumptions listed above apply to you. What is your terminal music?

I find, to my embarrassment, that I am utterly unable to top this. The Reg reports on a notional rule of engagement for autonomous killing machines. Boiled down, it's “Let machines target other machines, and let men target men.” But these quotes are priceless:

Many Reg readers will be familiar with the old-school Asimov Laws of Robotics, but these are clearly unsuitable for war robots – too restrictive. However, the new Canning Laws are certainly not a carte blanche for homicidal droids to obliterate fleshies without limit; au contraire.

It isn't really made clear how the ask-permission-to-kill-meatsacks rule could really be applied in these cases.

Which seems to suggest that a robot could decide, under Mr Canning's rules, to target a weapon system such as an AK47 for destruction on its own initiative, requiring no permission from a human. If the person holding it was thereby killed, that would be collateral damage and the killer droid would be in the clear. Effectively the robot is allowed to disarm enemies by prying their guns from their cold dead hands.

As clever as Mr. Canning is in trying to come up with these rules for our lethal robotic servants, in the end the three rules are going to add up to one thing: if it is human, kill it.

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.

Even though it was inevitable, you still never want to see an article containing a statement like this:

"Let the robot holocaust commence: robots think we taste like bacon..."

I comfort myself that the article in question was posted at a site whose provenance is best described as "marginal" (i.e. "one step above Wikipedia"), but I pass it along, just in case.

It is perhaps overstating the obvious to say that advancing technology will bring new dangers. What is less obvious, is that advancing technology will require advances in the state of the art of warning signs. Before there were lasers, there was no need for the "Do not look into laser with remaining eye" signs. A hundred years ago, there was no need for the radiation trefoil, the biohazard sign, and so on. When we finally get around to inventing self-replicating nanosystems, devices to modulate spacetime, artificial intelligences and, to be sure, giant fighting robots - well, the humble warning sign will need some upgrades as well.

But fear not! Someone has done the work for us. And that someone is Anders Sandberg.

Mr. Sandberg has thoughtfully and carefully designed a panoply of warning signs for the singularity. Here are some of my favorites: (You can see all of them here.)

The black light bulb for ideas that aren't just bad, but contagiously bad, is effing genius. Likewise, this image just screams that something ominous and desirous of personally introducing you to a naked physical singularity, and not some nerdly rapturous technological singularity.

This sign is fantastic, Sandberg really captures the ominous potentiality of something that isn't merely self-replicating, but remorselessly self-improving. Think hordes of nanoscale Tony Robbinses, getting leaner, meaner, more numerous and more garsh-darn positive every second.

We are already verging very close to needing this sign, especially in areas of downtown London, and soon in Chicago.

And of course, the all-encompassing:

That sort of sums it up, doesn't it?

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Mr. Sandberg for instantiating our fears in handy, easy to print warning signs. But he didn't stop there. No, indeedy do. He came up with a further classification scheme to indicate just how dangerous a particular danger is.

A level 0 threat threatens all humanity - imminent danger of species extinction. The number of individuals descends on a log scale to level nine, where only a few people might be endangered, and then down to level 10, "no humans threatened, but other values (such as unchanged biosphere, aesthetics or economy) threatened." He speculates that the colors of the warning signs above might be altered, but that might affect recognition. Instead, you might have the two signs, the warning type sign, and under it a color coded threat level with perhaps some explanatory text. His example is amusing:

SELF-REPLICATING DEVICE. LEVEL 0 THREAT: GLOBAL DANGER. DO NOT MESS WITH

It seems to me that these warning labels pretty much cover most of the likely dangers - excepting of course Cthulhoid elder creatures, homicidal extraterrestrials, and giant fighting robots. Of course, none of these would typically allow anyone to affix a warning label to them, nor would that warning label be of any possible help to anyone confronted by these dangers.

[wik] Found this on the Blogundershlock, as Sandberg's post references an early Schlock Mercenary webstrip, by way of Bruce Schneier's blog.

Ministry readers are familiar with our ongoing concern for surviving the onslaught of any number of real or ethereal enemies: the robots, the zombies, the aliens, the Dark Ones, the Atlanteans- the list is long and dread. Those readers also understand that we are, to put a fine sharp point on things, concerned with our survival.

But we recognize that in order to rule the stooped, half-mad survivors of the smoldering afterworld, there will have to be stooped, half-mad survivors. With that in mind, we do have to maintain some concern over the wellbeing of the balance of our species, and it is in that spirit that I share this link and discussion with you now.

Slate has some thoughts regarding a short-term, family-scale survival kit. Alot of the products make sense- particularly regarding the storage, transportation, and treatment of water. The collapsible water cans are a great idea. Also, anything that can function without a wall socket or batteries, like hand-crank flashlights and radios would be terrific.

A couple things though have been overlooked. A decent multitool, for example. A small portable Gerber or Leatherman ought to be handy anyway, in your usual life, and one certainly belongs in a survival kit. And they don't break the bank, either- I got a good Gerber for like $50, but it pays to shop around. Other tools should be included as well, like a decent knife. Sharp things have been fundamental to the success of the human species thus far; why would it not be so after the Poppyclips?

Another item that's overlooked in these discussions is dry bags. That is, nylon (or other non-naturally occurring material) duffel-type bags. I think people tend to underestimate how fast water can fuck up everything, even just being in the rain for a couple hours. You can buy these in any camping supply store or online, and they're not expensive, either. They come in all sizes, so can keep food, documents, or delicate equipment dry, besides clothes or blankets. When empty of course they can wad up to nothing, so there's no space constraint. More of these is better, I feel.

And it goes without saying that no survival plan is complete without considering personal safety. It is surely inadvisable to keep loaded firearms in a duffel bag in your closet with your hazmat suit and respirator, but that doesn't mean you ought to eschew them entirely. Seriously, what in your personal life experience with other homo sapiens leads you to conclude that, in the absence of governmental authority -even if only briefly- people would not hesitate to take from you what they need to live another day? Are you willing to put your own survival- and we are talking survival here, not comfort and convenience-in the hands of strangers? For your family's sake, I hope not.

All of these things though are only things. Valuable and important things, but tangible objects. People also need intangibles, like a plan for how to get to where they feel safe, or training to build a fire, erect a shelter, apply first aid, or use a weapon.

Apply these ideas to your actual survival plan, and you will be in a much better position to be ruled by us later.

This may be a bit of troubling news. Seems that an element of Orcan Searangers went after a Dolphinic Force Recon unit. According to Ministry sources, which at this time are sketchy and quite preliminary, they were supposed to be conducting joint training operations within the FinWarrior exercise. Something seems to have gone awry, and the dolphins had to dash into fresh water and up a river to escape being eaten.

As usual, trust a hippy conservationist for comic relief:

Conservation staff unsuccessfully attempted Thursday to herd the dolphins out of Oruaiti River and into Mangonui Harbor...

You think it might be because the dolphins are not interested in being food?

Levity aside, this may be troubling news. We are counting on the Cetacean Alliance in the looming fight with the robots, and without air-breathing allied mammals to take the fight to the briny deep...

Well, let's take it one step at a time. I'm still waiting to hear from Atlantis Command for an update, which should have more details. For the time being, let's just treat this as a rogue action. I've recommended postponing the balance of the FinWarrior '06 exercise until we get a handle on things.

No, not a perverse children's game, but an actual musical. Z-Spot: The Zombie Musical is playing this June 25th at the Wonderland Ballroom in DC. Check your local theatres, and then run screaming in the other direction. Everyone knows Zombies can't sing.

[wik] The Wonderland has an exceptionally poorly executed website.

While you may not have noticed, writhing in pain as you were from five days of perfidy withdrawal symptoms, yesterday was the National Day of Slayer. Here is the post that would have appeared yesterday, had not our HTML gnomes been held hostage by Islamic Terrorists who hate our (but not HTML gnomes' ) freedom.

Today, [yesterday -ed.] as some of you will have noticed, is June 6, 2006. Written that way, it seems like any other date. But with some subtle rearranging, it becomes…

666

So, all the goody-two-shoes will be raptured up to the great, poorly designed upside-sown fundie boat church in the sky, and the rest of us can get on with what’s really important. To wit, celebrating the National Day of Slayer. Pull out your old Slayer albums, crank it up to eleven, and let the creator know that you appreciate one of his less appreciated creations.

For Perfidy readers in Florida, the Ministry recommends retasking your Ministry-approved Zombie Survival Kits (ZSKs) to defense against Alligators. By our calculations, the death rate from alligator attacks has seen an approximately 700 fold jump over the past weekend. A conservative linear extrapolation of this trend would have us losing the the entire population of Florida by sometime next Tuesday. We always thought it would be zombies, or space lizards, or giant fighting robots. But the exact face of our doom is immaterial. What matters is that we go down fighting, with a shotgun in one hand and the bible in the other. Well, maybe a revolver and the Torah. Or a baseball bat and the Bhagavad-Gita. Or a flouncy small sword and a readers digest condensed Shakespeare. Or a metalstorm pistol and a leather bound edition of Dune.

Anyway, armed, and gripping firmly some physical artifact of our our long, glorious and ultimately doomed civilization. Death to the Alligators!

Ministry Crony Mapgirl is a useful little blogger. She shovels out the personal finance info with both hands, and is undoubtedly helping thousands to conquer the soul draining terror of indebtedness and lack of sound financial planning. Yet, I find that I miss the gossip and angst of the old mapgirl blog.

For instance, this useful post on a marvelous concept called "EBoC." The Emergency Basket o' Cash. Being who I am, I would change that to Bucket o' Cash, but your mileage may vary. The old Mapgirl would have layered this post with obscure references to people I might have heard of, and hinted at how someone, at some point, someone I may or may not have met and is only identified by initials or codename, once may have had need for an EBoC and a fast car.

Still and all, its good advice. Having a bucket o' cash can come in awful handy. Having it directly to hand, as in physically in a bucket in your home, is even more handy. For example, if the zombies come. Now, in all likelihood, the zombies will start out small. In the interim between the first casualties, ignored by the media and also by all right thinking people - but before the inexorable exponential curve of zombie population growth leads to the total collapse of civilization - having a bucket o' cash will be a very useful thing indeed. With a cold, hard, cash, you can buy essential items for your zombie survival kit that you had up to that point neglected. Items that the foolhardy will not yet realize are essential, and will for the sake of greed part with.

For example, Minister Johno is sadly negligent in acquiring sufficient firepower to deal with the looming zombie threat. However, should he have access to a ZSK EBoC, he could (once alerted to the arrival of the zombies) run down to the local gun nut lair and purchase a weapon and ammunition. Money will be useful almost right up to the total collapse of civilization, simply because most people will refuse to believe that civilization is in fact collapsing. Use that delusion for your own benefit. Besides, you wouldn't want some sap who'd rather have a thousand bucks in crisp twenties than a finely machined shotgun and a bag full of ammo at your back anyway.

So, even though Mapgirl was unwilling for the sake of appearances to discuss this crucial aspect; follow her advice, or have your brain eaten.

[wik] I wonder if we could get Tyler Cowen to discuss the inflationary aspects of the money economy intermediate phase of the zombie takeover.

As if tailor-made for our ongoing non-discussion of the sloppiness and inadequacies of human-based journalism, Reuters has a story about the need for the Big Apple to prepare to bite the Big Weenie: a huge hurricane.

Yeah ok fine- slow news day I guess, so Reuters goes with a news story about something that hasn't happened to fill space. I get that. But at least they could've made some effort to work in other stuff for New Yawkahs to prepare for and be afraid of, stuff that might be at least as plausible as a tremendous hurricane.

Better prepare for Bird Flu; SARS; SARS Flu; Bird-Fu; atmospheric nuclear detonations and EMPs; comets; asteroids; reinforced tungsten rods; black triangles; black helicopters; black shadow people; anything that comes through a stargate; possessive demons (never to be confused with progressive demons, who just want you to sign petitions and buy their crappy band's demo); sunspots; invaders from outer space, the hollow Earth, or extradimensional universes; hums, vibrations, harmonics and other resonances of a non-corporeal nature; the Second Coming (unless you're Jewish); the First Coming (if you are); terrorists; zombies; skeletons; ninjas; bikers; tsunamis; earthquakes; dust storms; sand storms; gravel storms; Grape Nuts storms; hail (of all hyphenated-ball sized) storms; the BBC/BBW nexus; any and all federal agencies, task forces, or commissions; the Bilderburgers, Brandenburgs, Habsburgs, hamburger, and the Hamburglar; all appliances, equipment, or accessories that glow in the dark; Ethan Frome; LCDs; LEDs; IEDs; LSDs; LSTs; DVDs and IUDs; and everyone on the subway, or pretty much everyone, period.

So make sure you store potable water and stuff and you’ll be fine.

Loyal reader #0017 Ken, the infamous Oldsmoblogger, has come up with an idea that may actually force the Ministry to lift its gaze from its jewel-like navel, and actually embrace the world outside. Minister Johno recently commented on the formation of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists. This tongue in cheek effort generated a twitch of the lips and a muted snigger from the Ministry, but did not capture our soul, put a song in our hearts and leave us yearning to sign up for the duration.

Ken, genius Ohioan (like all Ohioans save Governor Taft) took the idea of the keybees and shook off the dross. He took the nugget that remained, polished it on his shirtsleeve, and gave it a new paintjob. The result, we must admit, is awe-inspiring:

The Regiment Hewlett und Packard, of the Kaiserliche und Koenigliche Reichsarmeevirtual.

Ken has said that we can't purchase our commissions in the regiment like in the good old days. Which, given the nature of the project, seems rather odd. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Minor Perfidy would like to be the first to volunteer. Long live the Empire and the Dual Monarchy! Death to the filthy Ottomans! Consternation to ethnic nationalists and there anarchist fellow-travelers! A finger in the eye to all who would frustrate our plans to conquer the world through our cunning scheme of well chosen marriages and ineffectual military operations!

We can dedicate the Ministry Catastratorium and Bunkhouse to the effort. It will be the nerve center and kaffeeklatsch for the revolution. And, of course, a place of retreat when our armies are inevitably defeated.