After The Math

[curt]

....or, how to deal with the inevitable aftermath of the approaching collapse of the US and with it, the World economy. We had a thread like this going good over at the first RBC...remember, the one we all moved to from other cyber places like The Smirking Chimp and Project for the Old American Century ?? Those were the days. We were hot on convincing people the USA is fascist. Life was rough. Nobody listened. We screamed our lungs out, some of us. Still, nobody listened. The Bush bashing took the front seat of most every discussion. No time for reality. No "Blick in die Zukunft" (view in the future). Tough titty, too late, the train is gone and now we have to look around for "a place to sleep". (after a personal experience as a young GI in Frankfurt. Life sucks when you realize you blew it big time by not listening to people's warnings)

Quoting Bo......(from a mini crusade he was on today);

"Well, here's your future discussion topic: The USA is dead.

The body's been burned to a crisp, hung from a bridge, and the limbs are falling off.

The RBC is now making plans to survive the aftermath. That's the reality we need to prepare for now."

So bring 'em on, those survival techniques. Copy & Patse from the other other RBC too. What good will it do us o'er there when the damn place (TribeNet) collapses ?

[littleoldme]

Too cool Pan, I have a flowering bush out back of my house. The hubby and I planted it about 8 years ago. I don't remember what kind it is, but the bees love it. It was covered in bees and butterflies yesterday.

[Mouse]

The Government wants you - Britain has lost around a quarter of its bee colonies in the last year. The Government has announced plans to create a network of amateur bee-watchers to address the bee crisis.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/items/02/2008_16_mon.shtml

Listened to this today, watching the bees busy in the rosemary in my front garden.
Last summer in the back garden there was a nest of honeybees under the wild tussocks where once was a lawn. i understand they colonise old mouse workings like that. Good. Hoping to see them again.
Used to sit with my eyes closed just listening to the fiercesome drone of hundreds of bees browsing the cotoneaster. Alas that has not been the case for some years, very much quieter.

[curt]

We have wild Bees in the house. In the house. They nest up in the rollo cases over the windows. Not many. Last year, there were close to none. They come in, set up neat little hives and go about doing what Bees do. Never a problem. We saw them crawling in the cracks and after opening one of the casings to repair a broken rollo, I found their neat little nests. Left them as they were, of course. They do no damage, no harm at all. No honey involved.

A friend is an Imker, a Bee-Keeper. His honey is top notch! Pure, natural honey from happy Bees.

Without Bees, we would all perish in a matter of months. 36 or so. Yip.

[littleoldme]

How cool. My big rose bush is back in mega bloom mode, so I've been watching the wee critters flitting back and yon. My cardinals are here , I want a new bird bath to tuck back into the branches, with the feeder. I haven't seen any big ol' bumbles yet, but the yellow jackets are out in the clover.
It's a beautiful day today. Two of my oldest friends are coming to get me today, we're gonna play! (Do crafts)

[BO]

And so it begins... Food rationing at Costco

"The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come."

Pieces of shit are already hitting the fan. Wait until the masses start panicking at the thought of potential food shortages. Can you say self-fulfilling prophesy?

Might not be a bad idea to stock up now.

[waldopaper]

here's where you can download the army survival manual. it's a dum pdf file... with good advice like: "never apply a tourniquet around the neck." makes sense to me.

[BO]

Nice to see you, Waldo. I was beginning to worry about your absence.

Can't imagine ever needing a manual that demonstrates techniques for survival in the wilderness. I'm thinking a manual that demonstrates urban survival techniques might be more useful. Stuff like hand-to-hand combat, weaponry, counter surveillance, how to eat your neighbors, etc.

Been a lot of self-extermination stories on the news lately--people getting lost in the mountains, drowning in our local rivers, driving themselves off cliffs, blowing their own heads off cleaning their guns, Meth labs burning down houses, etc. Watching the nightly news has become like watching the Darwin awards every night.

Seattle used to be a somewhat sophisticated city. Now, the typical Seattlite seems to have a third grade education, a meth habit, no job, four kids, and is barely able to form a sentence. IMHO, they represent the biggest threat to survival in my neck of the woods.

Still gotta get those shells.

[littleoldme]

I know this really doesn't fit here, but I've got baby birds in my rose bush. The mocking birds built a nest and have hatched 4 baby birds. If you kinda peak from the side you can see all their little bitty heads with their wide open mouths. Too sweet. Mom and dad are knocking themselves out trying to keep them fed.

Personally, I've stopped reading any news. I just don't wanna know anymore. Nothing I can do to change it, so I'm going to enjoy my kids, grand-babies, and my baby birds.

[curt]

I don't understand. What doesn't fit where? Anything & everything fits everywhere, here. That is what is so special about this RBC. None of that "you're off topic my dear" crapola. Anything & everything fits everywhere. Lemme show you why....and how.

"I've got baby birds in my rose bush. The mocking birds built a nest and have hatched 4 baby birds. If you kinda peak from the side you can see all their little bitty heads with their wide open mouths."

This is so basic, it can fit most anywhere. We all have our wide open mouths.

News? What is new, what are news? TV? Mine hasn't been on in weeks, with one exception. That was for a soccer match. A big one. I fell asleep before the players hit the field.

Everything is related. We are all related. It all comes full circle......eventually.

Which fred are we on here any way ? Any way !

Ruedesheim am Rhein. That is where I were today. Not alone. Not alone................never alone. Can't be done, being alone. Not possible.

Left out here with one companion. Met more on the way. No word's exchanged, not at 100KmH on the Autobahn. By the time we got to ......................Ruedesheim, we were 20 some strong. Met some online friends, saw some stuff, bought some stuff, left some stuff behind.

Will such events even be possibile in 3 decades? We can calculate as acurate as we can............the after the math will show it cannot be..........

our tanks will run out somewhere along the way. Mine did today.

Still, life goes on. If it doesn't, we're further.

Progress.

[Mouse]

It is generally severely overcast weatherwise. Gardening and looking after childer leaves less time for failing to understand anything.

There is only one bun in the oven after all. Jolly good. Not twins. Poor girl is hungry all the time. Comes to me for extra rations, cooked her steak and kidney casserole today. Afterwards she slept and Small showered her with rose petals. She objected so I volunteered and now I have zigzags up and down my legs that were drawn with the scarlet petals. Very soothing.

There are some days when you wake up warm, scramble downstairs in the sunshine, and find yourself shivering at noon and rushing back up to change into your winter clothes. It's really rather sad. Like last year, except less sunshine. Last year there was a whole week of sunshine at Easter. Then nothing till October if I remember rightly.
The young plants go into a huddle and bury their heads between their shoulders, hands in pockets, air recalcitrant. That's not fair. They only want a bit more support really, something to hold on to.

Have you noticed how like bureaucracy bindweed is?

[BO]

Had lunch today with a friend I hadn't seen in twenty years. We both mentioned we had no friends anymore. In the last twenty years, our lives have taken parallel paths. We rose to the tops of our professions, did all the conventional shit suburbanites do and flamed out.

Now we're working for beer money and contemplating our mortality while we realize that our past value systems were a crock-o'-shit. Damn, I love the guy. And we've finally reached the age where we aren't afraid to say it. to one another.

These days, I can be surrounded by people and feel totally alone. For no other reason than I can sense readily when I don't fit in--which is most of the time. I feel like motorcycle boy in Rumble Fish suffering from the acute perception that we're all beta fish stuck in the same bowl. We need to get free. But most folks really don't want the freedom. They need their oppressors because they haven't taken the time to think about their own condition. They know nothing outside of what they've been told.

All hail motorcycle boy. Motorcycle boy rules. (Waldo taught me how to add this last sentence to wrap up my thesis)

[BO]

On the other hand, I've got crow babies nesting in the scupper on my roof. I've been too busy and it's been too rainy for me to get up there and toss 'em overboard. Damn crows are worse than dogs. They get into your garbage and shit all over the place, and wake me up far too early when they rap on the metal parts of my chimney as the sun comes up. They'll be the last living things on the planet for sure.

I did save a mouse last night though. Cat brought it in. Had to run around like a mad man to catch it before it found a place to hide and die. Threw it out in the woods.

Yep, the news is depressing. I hardly ever watch it--truth be told. It's become hard to tell the news programs from Jerry Springer or Oprah. They all run together when you consider them all covering the same neo-feudalist crap--symptomatic of the decline of the human species. It's only when I'm in a particularly macob state of mind that I watch any TV at all.

Time to go. A big ass wasp just flew by me head...