Shortage Preparation Goes Well

Today I did something really great, and I’m here to share it. I modified my apple-peeling machine and improved it tremendously. It only takes about 15 minutes, but you have to have a tap.

The world’s most popular peeler/corer is a Chinese contraption made of cast iron. They run around $25. They look like they could not possibly work, but they’re excellent. You can peel, slice, and core an apple in around 10 seconds, including putting it on the machine and taking it off.

The machine has a screw, and on the end of the screw, there is a fork. You jam your apple onto the fork and turn the screw. The screw shoves the apple toward a stainless blade with a hole in it. The core goes through the hole, the blade spiral-slices the apple, and a second attachment removes the skin.

It’s not perfect. You will usually get a core that’s cut off-center, so you will often need to cut little hard bits out of the slices. If you think that’s a big deal, spend an hour coring, slicing and peeling apples without a machine. You will sing a different tune when you’re done.

The big problem with these machines is that the stainless blades move around. They’re held in place by a single screw, so the blades can rotate when the apples hit them, shoving the core hole off to the side. The solution? Drill a second small hole in the blade beside the hole for the original screw. Drill a corresponding hole in the cast iron of the machine. Tap the hole in the cast iron and run a small screw through the blade and into the machine.

Now you have a blade held in place by one big screw and one little one. It will never move again.

I modified the machine because I’m drying apples.

People who think they hear from God are predicting food shortages. I’ve written about it before. I don’t plan to try to become self-sufficient, eating bugs and worms and whatever for the long term, but as I have said in other posts, I think it can’t hurt to have enough food for a month or two. Dried apples are high in calories, they taste great, they can be used in things like fried apple pies, and they will keep you regular. In a big way, if you overindulge.

It would be hard to get the yellow transparent apples my grandmother used to dry in Kentucky, but Granny Smiths are somewhat similar, and they make fantastic dried apples. Forgive me if I repeat myself. I am too lazy to go back over what I’ve already written. I made a batch of dried apples yesterday, and I have a bigger batch in the dehydrator. The ones I made yesterday are so good it will be hard to leave them alone.

I should learn how to make fried pies. I have an excellent, authentic Eastern Kentucky cookbook, and the recipe is probably good. If not, I can use it as a starting point and improve it.

Fried pies seem to last forever. I know they will go at least a week in a covered container.

I now have protein bars, a jug of whey protein, corned beef, beef for jerky, lots of oatmeal, a good deal of flour, extra sugar, all the caffeine-free Coke in the county (they quit making it “just until the pandemic is over”), and two big jars of grated cheese to go with my many pounds of dried pasta. I now think getting through a month will be a breeze, as long as I have electricity. I won’t stop gathering, though. I want more nuts.

Here’s hoping this all turns out to be a huge waste of time.

No Let-Up in the Forecast

Tropical Storm Eta is oppressing the Southeast. How long has it been out there? It sat on Nicaragua for days, and now it’s finally stumbling around the gulf. The NHC thinks it will be around until at least Friday!

I wouldn’t care, but I think it’s killing the cool weather that should be here now. We’re under pre-hurricane-style clouds, and the air is warm and a little stuffy.

I’m used to seeing storms get it together or vanish in a few days. This storm is defective.

I can’t help wondering if it has supernatural significance. Storms vary in duration, but this seems crazy, and God has taught me that unlikely events can have supernatural origins.

Many people thought Katrina was a message. The name means “catharsis,” and the storm did great damage to an area full of sinful, unrepentant people. It killed people by flooding, and the strange thing about that is that the dead let themselves die. They could have escaped easily, but they chose to stay home, in areas that were likely to flood. A commonly held theory says they stayed home because they thought they had to be there in order to receive their government checks. I don’t know if it’s true, but it would make sense. Leftists who are addicted to welfare suffer from something called “learned helplessness.” Things that don’t faze conservatives devastate them.

I’ve noticed this in my dealings with friends who come from government-dependent cultures. They can’t do anything. They can’t fix their cars. They don’t know how to fix their credit. They can’t do home repairs. They always need advice with regard to simple matters other people don’t consider challenges. Maybe the War on Poverty is the reason. When you’re used to sitting at home waiting for handout checks, the police, and social workers, you don’t have much motivation to become capable. If anything, you are rewarded for weakness and passivity.

“Eta” doesn’t seem to mean anything. It’s the name of a letter.

An imaginative person might say it seems like Eta is hovering over us as a sign that there is a lingering battle among supernatural beings over the election.

The other day, I said the only earthly entities that could end the election and resolve the matter for good were Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and the courts. I forgot the electors.

Electors have traditionally had the liberty to vote as they pleased. It may disturb people to read it, but when you vote in a presidential election, you’re not really voting for a candidate. You’re voting for a representative, and your vote is a strong recommendation, not an order. It’s like Congress. Because of past electoral defections, many states have passed laws making it illegal for electors to go against their mandate. Not all states have done this, and at least some of the laws have no enforcement provisions. At least one law’s enforcement provision is so weak, it would not provide much discouragement.

When leftists say they want to abolish the Electoral College, it’s not a small thing. In fact, it’s revolutionary, in the sense that they want to accomplish a leftist revolution by destroying a Constitutionally created representative body. Leftists are the Antichrist’s children, and they want revolution, not mere change. Sadly, Americans don’t hate the notion of revolution. Our country was born in a revolution, and somehow that has persuaded many of us that revolutions are good things. There are a lot of Chinese, Cuban, and Russian people who feel differently.

The more I think about it, the more I think the American Revolution was a stupid, counterproductive act that has brought curses on us. People think we wouldn’t have been free had we not rebelled. Oh, really? So we would have been put in gulags and death camps, like Canadians and Australians? I admit, Canadians and Australians have lost a lot of freedom in recent years, but they have done pretty well for most of their history.

I now believe kings are better than mindless electorates. Putting ignorant, dishonest, selfish people in voting booths is a practice that has to lead to destruction eventually. Hitler came to power in a fair election, as did Daniel Ortega. I think deposing or killing or rebelling against a monarch is something Christians should only do in the gravest of circumstances. Eighteenth-century Americans were not miserable or desperate.

America was established as a leftist enterprise. We shouldn’t be surprised if leftism increases and destroys us.

Trying to abolish the college or nullify its purpose is not much different from trying to abolish Congress. It’s a gigantic power grab intended to turn people who don’t live in blue states into slaves who lack representation in the Executive Branch.

People who hate the Electoral College should also hate the Senate. It works the same way. The House of Representatives provides representatives for each area depending on its population, and that’s how leftists think the government should work. The Senate gives Alaska and Wyoming the same number of senators as California and Texas, in order to prevent low-population states from being enslaved. If the Electoral College is evil because it gives rural citizens more power per capita than urban citizens, then the Senate is much, much worse.

Will the Senate be slated for destruction when the left is in charge? I don’t see why it should not be. It should be a pressing goal for the revolutionaries. I’m sure they would be willing to give up Hawaii’s disproportionate power in order to conquer red America.

I don’t know if it matters, because I expect Skynet–the Internet and the wireless web–to overcome and replace the world’s government. Future human beings will be like the Borg, if God doesn’t show up and prevent it. Elon Musk is even trying to hardwire IT devices into our brains. The likelihood that such devices would not be made Internet-capable is zero.

People think the election is over, but it hasn’t been held yet. It won’t be held until the electors meet. A lot of things can happen during that time. Biden could be exposed as a criminal because of his China ties, he could die, or the press could “suddenly” discover his dementia and make such a big deal out of it electors would feel justified in abandoning him. Or the left’s astounding, proven campaign of voter fraud could be exposed so thoroughly, electors would be unable to make themselves vote for Biden. Maybe electors will switch their votes simply because they dislike the man.

This is a crazy year, so expect more crazy things to happen.

Like Tropical Storm Eta, the election fight hovers over us, spoiling the atmosphere and refusing to let us rest.

Biden didn’t lose his mind during the campaign. He has not been right in the head for a while. I can’t help wondering if it’s because of his two brain surgeries and his plastic surgeries. Many experts believe there is a strong link between receiving general anaesthesia and developing dementia. Is this why Biden is a shadow of his 2018 self? Is there any possibility that the condition that gave him two aneurysms has produced other abnormalities that would explain his reckless behavior and uncontrolled outbursts? These are things I think about.

Biden has hair plugs, and he has had work done on his eyes. I don’t know what else he has had done. Plastic surgeons say he has had a facelift, and there are scars in front of his ears to prove it. He also appears to be on botox, and he is famous for his bleached smile.

Trump’s first wife claims he had a scalp reduction, but as anyone who has seen a Trump rally can tell you, he is as sharp as a tack. He may be eccentric, but he knows where he is and what’s going on, and he can talk at great length without a teleprompter.

A shocking Trump resurgence would fit in beautifully with the rest of the 2020 perfect storm. This year seems to have been designed to infuriate the Antichrist’s children. We have a mild pandemic the press has convinced us is a major crisis, and the left is using it to control and imprison people. They have also convinced them it’s Trump’s fault. We have a president leftists hate with insane fervor, for no good reason. We have a 6-3 Supreme Court, thanks to a confirmation leftists wrongly believe was illegal, and that court has ultimate jurisidiction over the election results. If Trump had won handily on election day, it would have angered leftists, and riots would have ensued, but it wouldn’t be as provocative as a false Biden victory followed by events that put Trump on top before the electors met. Such a scenario would likely plunge us into immediate, widespread chaos and violence. If we are supposed to have a future of chaos and murder, a Trump rebound makes much more sense than a relatively clean election day blowout.

Pastor Dana Coverstone had some famous dreams about this season, beginning months ago, and he said he saw foreign troops on the ground here. He said he expected food shortages, too. As far as I know, none of the things he expected have been proven impossible. They keep coming true. Can it be that he really is a prophet? He doesn’t make that claim, but he’s doing as well as a true prophet could hope to.

I’m still working on emergency food. I dug out my food dehydrator, and I dried Granny Smith apples. The problem with them is that they taste too good. It will be hard to leave them in bags until I need them. I’m not positive my first batch is as dry as it should be, so after I removed it from the dehydrator, I put the apples in a bowl in the refrigerator. If that doesn’t dry them out, nothing will. I sometimes wonder why people don’t use refrigerators as dehydrators. They seem to do a great job of dehydrating things we don’t want dehydrated.

I should make a bigger batch today. It takes 4/3 of an apple to fill a dehydrator shelf, so I’ll do the math and work it out so I don’t end up with partial loads.

My apple peeler is a great help, but the sheet metal part that slices and cores moves around. It’s held steady by one screw. I may drill and tap and add a second screw so it can’t go anywhere. Or maybe I should look for a better machine.

I don’t know if homemade jerky is cheaper or better than the store kind. I’ll find out.

I keep praying for the rapture to come fast. I believe the WAP world is so rotten, it’s time for the tribulation. I want a better atmosphere, and I want to be with people who are like me. I want to be somewhere where I know I’m at home. That will never happen on Earth.

Fox News Can’t Really Call an Election

A great thing happened to me a few years back. God told me to get off social media. I was tired of dealing with proud boneheads who would not listen, and God told me to let them go. He also said I should quit reading the news. I listened. It brought peace to my life. People I know who remained engaged suffered with uneducated, biased individuals who let rumors and gossip rule their thinking. I was off on my own, enjoying life. I’ve written about it before. I call it “the little rapture.”

As the 2020 election drew near, I started looking at the news again. I felt God was telling me to. I felt he was saying that I used to be too weak to deal with the constant provocation, but that because I had grown, I could read the news without doing myself harm.

I started looking at political Youtube channels. It got to the point where I felt like a prisoner. I would go to Youtube hoping to find something interesting about guns or tools or science, and I would find myself watching the same angry people over and over.

This morning, God told me to let things go again. I unsubscribed to the Youtube channels, and I also gave up Parler. It’s a hopeless Twitter competitor. I joined a few weeks back. You know how it works. Conservatives and Christians get shut out of social media, so they start their own alternatives. It’s never as good. Even if you’re a Christian, no one you know will be there, and strangers won’t show any interest in what you say.

I feel wonderful. I don’t have to look at the fighting and scrapping–the carnality–any more.

What’s happening with the election? I could not help seeing that a few news outlets are calling Biden the president-elect. Trump says it’s not over. You know what? It’s not over.

Only three sources can shut down the election permamently: Trump, Biden, and the courts. If Trump concedes, it’s over. If Biden concedes, it’s over. If the courts say it’s over, it’s over. Both Trump and Biden have the authority to end the election by conceding. No one but the courts can end the election by declaring a winner. It’s meaningless if Trump, Biden, or any conglomeration of journalists or states call one person the winner. The courts have the final say.

I’m going to wait for the court challenges to end.

It’s strange that every news outlet in America waited for Al Gore to have his day in court after he made his ridiculous, unfounded challenge to the 2000 results, yet they don’t give Trump the same consideration when there are proven allegations of fraud in several swing states.

Anyway, I walk by faith, not the declarations of journalists and crooked politicians, so I will wait for a conclusive end to the election.

A bunch of Christians have predicted that Trump will win, claiming to have knowledge, not just impressions. Of course, most people who say they’re prophets are wrong.

Swamp dwellers, including journalists, don’t know how to deal with Trump. He isn’t Mitt Romney or John McCain. He has zero regard for what other people think, and he’s extremely tough. If he feels like battling for justice, he’ll do it, even if half of the country hates him for it.

Trump has a special anointing from God, and many people think it’s a two-term anointing. If that’s true, then it may be that we will witness the kind of spectacle found in the Bible. God saved Moses and the Hebrews when they were between the sea and the Egyptian army. He kept the lions’ mouths closed while Daniel was in the den, but he saw to it that Daniel’s enemies and their wives and children were eaten. He killed 185,000 Assyrians in one night to shame Sennacherib, his armies, and the rabshakeh. Maybe we’ll see the courts and law enforcement drag Biden off the stage. Or maybe Trump really will have to go. Whatever the case is, I’m a man of faith, so I’m not going to pay any attention to the wishful declarations of people who have no real power. We will have a firm conclusion soon, and pretending we know the truth now only does harm and sets us up for civil war. People who think journalists have the power to call elections would be irate beyond description if the courts ruled for Trump, especially if Amy Barrett were involved. Maybe that’s the plan.

Today I used my freedom to zero my first red dot scope. I put it on the AR-15 and adjusted it so it works at 50 yards. At 30 yards, it shoots through one hole. At 50 yards, I get about a 1.5″ spread. I think it’s because I can’t see well enough to shoot accurately at 50 yards. There is no magnification, so you end up with a big fuzzy dot that makes it hard to know exactly where the gun is pointed. It may be that I have the illumination turned up too high.

The red dot is pleasant to use, but it’s not magic. I’ll have to use it a few more times before I can come up with an informed opinion. My understanding is that parallax is never a problem with these sights. Is that the main appeal?

I also tried using jags and a bore guide to clean the gun. It was a 90-minute nightmare. The patches that are supposed to work with jags will not go through the barrel, even when you do what they tell you to do in videos. I got patches stuck in the gun several times. I finally cut tiny patches from patch cloth and made them work.

The bore guide seems like an asinine toy to me. It’s supposed to protect the barrel and chamber from damage. How can brass hardware and carbon-fiber rods damage steel? Hard to swallow.

I had to wrestle so hard with the patches and jags, the bore guide went all over the place. I’m sure brass and steel came together many times.

My suspicion is that hipsters have made cleaning AR’s way more difficult than it has to be. I’ll bet brushes and Boresnakes work just fine.

UPDATE

It turns out the people on gun forums don’t know anything about using jags. It’s a wonder they manage to clean their guns. They were useless as sources of information, but of course, they had plenty to say anyway.

They told me some really WRONG things, including this: if your jag is too tight, put it in a drill and use sandpaper to reduce it. So the engineers who make jags aren’t smart enough to figure out how big they should be?

I found the right information on a couple of manufacturer’s sites.

1. The main purpose of a bore guide is to protect the gun cleaning rod from sharp edges in the breech area.

2. The correct size patches for .223 and 6.5mm are 1-1/8″ and 1-1/2″. Multi-caliber patches don’t actually work. Maybe they’re okay for loops, but they’re not for jags.

3. To use a jag with a patch, you pierce the corner and wrap the patch around the jag. You can make the fit tighter or looser by fiddling with it.

I got out my Tikka T3x, which was already cleanish, and I tried the wrapping method. Worked perfectly. It was snug enough to get junk out of the barrel, but it did not get stuck, and I was able to control it so it didn’t jump out of the barrel and drop the patch. Because the patch was wrapped around the jag, it stayed on when I pulled it backward, so I was able to go back and forth.

I ordered 1000 patches in each size. That should keep me going for a while. I ordered a Dewey rod made especially for AR chambers. I tried wrapping a patch around a jag, and it worked great.

Montana X-Treme is the company that made my 6.5mm jag. Their site said to wrap the jag. Their jags have several sets of rings on them, so the rings cover over an inch. People were recommending tiny patches. There is no way on earth to get a tiny patch to reach all the rings, so when you use a tiny patch, you’re using about 2/3 of the jag you paid good money for. Bigger patches wrapped around the jag are the correct choice.

I ordered a 6.5mm Hoppe’s Bore Snake. I’ll use it to clean up the bore after using jags and so on. It’s faster than 52 patches in a row.

Man, life is better when you consult people who actually know something.

I Work for the Board of Labor

A few weeks ago, I ordered myself a chalkboard for my kitchen. I needed something in front of me to remind me of things I needed to get done. Amazon screwed up and sent me a whiteboard. I hate those things. I sent it back. Michelangelo and Da Vinci used chalk. Head start teachers use whiteboards.

I put a list of nagging tasks on the board as soon as I screwed it to the wall. There must have been 20 things on it. I’ve been wiping them out ever since. I highly recommend chalkboards.

Today I arranged for gutter companies to come by and give me estimates on some roof improvements. I also sold one of my old welding carts, and the buyer also bought my old 80 cubic foot C25 tank. He got a great bargain, but I had to get it out of my workshop. That put me in a position to knock another item off my list. I drove to Airgas and bought a 125 cubic foot tank. It’s on the new cart now. The cart is ready to work. I can still make little changes here and there, and I haven’t transfered all my welding paraphernalia to it, but I can pull it up to my table and start welding.

I wore my MAGA hat to Airgas. I’ll wear it until the fat lady sings. If a 74-year-old man who just got over coronavirus can do several rallies in different states every day for weeks, I can wear a hat. It’s not much of a gesture.

Things don’t look as bad as the MSM would have you believe. Trump seems certain to win Pennsylvania. Biden’s anti-fracking crusade really put a dent in his numbers. We are now learning that Arizona was called early. There are 400,000 votes yet to be counted, and there is a good chance they’ll put Trump over the top. North Carolina and Georgia look good, Alaska is a sure thing, and Trump is suing in Michigan and demanding a recount in Wisconsin.

If he gets Arizona, Biden is in trouble. If he gets Michigan or Wisconsin, Biden is in trouble.

My feeling is that God is making Trump sweat because of his pride. It’s not pure imagination. It’s a strong feeling I get during prayer. But a strong feeling is not a prophecy.

Of course, if I’m right, we will be up to our armpits in rioters soon, and it may be even worse than the riot routine we’ve gotten used to.

I’m sure they’re rioting somewhere today. They always are. Riots used to be unusual. Now they’re like rain. It may be dry where you are, but it’s always pouring somewhere. After Trump wins, we should expect heavy-duty simultaneous riots in as many cities as BLM and Antifa can afford to attack.

Maybe they won’t be able to riot everywhere. After all, George Soros and Hollywood celebrities aren’t made out of money.

The riots will be Trump’s fault, according to the MSM. Everything is Trump’s fault in Bizarro World. Hurricanes. Forest fires. A fat lady became Youtube-famous for claiming Trump made her obese. He really gets around, in the fantasies of the Antichrist’s children. In sane times, people would be amazed to see grown-ups blaming a Republican president–who isn’t allowed to send help–for terrorist riots performed by leftists. Now, it’s normal. Up is down, men are women, and blizzards are proof of global warming.

“Trump made me do it.” Flip Wilson should sue.

Trump reminds me of Jesus Christ. They are the most lied-about people in history. They are hated without reason by more people than any other figures I can think of. They do great things for others. The blessings are undeniable. Somehow, they are given no credit, the blessings are characterized as problems, and problems other people create are blamed on them.

The Antichrist’s children remind me of my sister, who appears to be one of them. The more you do for her, the more she hates you. Helping certain people is like playing war games with the WHOPR. The only way to win is not to play.

This is the only country on earth, apart from one outlier with a gigantic oil field, where large numbers of people pushed for socialism during an economic boom. It just isn’t done. You’re supposed to go socialist out of desperation. You don’t do it when unemployment is at a record low and the stock market is at a record high. It’s like demolishing a house because it looks too nice.

That blackboard is really something. It hangs there, silently disapproving of me. It motivates me to do things so I can erase items from the list. It does what nagging wives wish they could do, without the misery and dreams of divorce.

Here’s hoping Trump wins Arizona. I’ll write another item on the board: “Lie on face for three hours, thanking God.”

The Pennsylvania Problem

I managed to avoid looking at the election results until a short time ago, at around 8 a.m. I have to say that things aren’t looking hopeless.

1. Our left-wing terrorists were not stupid enough to do their act while the polls were open, so there shouldn’t be any issues with suppression of Republican votes. I’m judging by the news I can find online, so be gentle if I’m wrong.

2. Biden lost Florida, and he lost BIG. The Realclearpolitics average had Biden up nearly a point, Florida had a huge influx of left-leaning Puerto Ricans, and Trump still beat him by over three points. That, all by itself, should have pollsters looking for new jobs. They really blew it. Again. They do nothing but poison the process.

3. Trump is expected to win Georgia and North Carolina. Alaska will go for Trump, of course. Not that it’s a major score. Michigan may well go for Trump.

4. Trump is way ahead in Pennsylvania, with the vast majority of votes counted. What if the uncounted votes are from Philadelphia County, home of a major den of incorrigible leftists? That must be what’s happening, because Trump is over 12 points ahead.

I said I was afraid Pennsylvania would be the new Florida, and I was right. Phildelphia is a slimy, corrupt city, and if my guess about the locations of the uncounted precincts is right, they may be forging and “finding” ballots in high gear right now. It’s very sad to see Pennsylvania caught up in this mess.

T.B. Joshua, the Nigerian evangelist who prophesied that 2020 would be a year of humbling, and who accurately said the Wuhan epidemic was going to end abruptly, made a vague prophesy about our presidential election. He said things don’t always turn out the way we want, and he said Amy Coney Barrett would be a major factor. Does it mean the Supreme Court will squash Pennsylvania-swamp vote fraud efforts? I don’t know. I don’t see Amy Barrett helping the Democrats unless the law is so cut-and-dried she has no choice. I don’t know if Joshua’s prophecy is real, and I’m not sure what it means. It’s interesting, though.

I’m not sure, but it looks like a Michigan win would leave Pennsylvania as the state that would determine the outcome. I don’t see how Trump can win without Michigan. Am I mistaken? I guess he could do it if Nevada went his way, but Nevada doesn’t look great.

The polls were wrong about Trump again, regardless of who wins. Is it because pollsters are incompetent (yes) and dishonest (probably), or because voters are afraid to say they support Trump? I think the last factor is a big deal this time around, but the more I look at polls, the more I realize the people who compile them are extremely inept. I’ve seen at least one pro-Biden result in which the vast majority of people sampled were Democrats. If you can do something that dumb, you have no business conducting polls.

I can’t recall ever hearing of a poll that oversampled Republicans. I wonder if it happens. If not, we should be asking why not.

The worst possible outcome, barring extremely unlikely events, is that Biden will win after getting stomped in states where he was expected to sleep his way to victory. I don’t see how this would help America, but it would provide some comfort.

My state made a big mistake. The public created a $15 minimum wage. Say goodbye to thousands of low-end jobs. Say hello to increased hiring of illegal aliens and higher unemployment. People never learn.

Ballot referendums threaten to make Florida a volatile state. Fringe nuts tried to put an anti-semiautomatic-weapon law on the ballot once. They could have caused real problems. Moms who vote with their maternal instincts instead of their brains could have turned Florida into Virginia.

I will continue to pray and hope for the best. My own peace, safety, health, and success come from God, not politicians, but a lot of people depend on presidents.

Things to do While America Tries to Kill Itself

It has been a pretty stress-free day. I woke up at 7:00, which was way too early because I was up past midnight. I prayed and so on, and when I woke up again, it was nearly 11. Not bad!

I had a strange dream. My grandmother was still alive, and she was driving me and another grandchild to Lexington, Kentucky. She was old, but her mind was clear. Nonetheless, her driving was scary. I kept suggesting she let me drive, but she said her doctor had told her driving was good for her.

We had to stop at a government facility where everyone emptied their pockets and set the contents in baskets on conveyor belts. I didn’t put my carry piece in the basket. When I got to the other side, my stuff didn’t come through. I remember longing for the good old days when Americans could get in the car and drive from place to place without stopping to be searched. Apparently, in the world of my dream, those days were over.

I don’t know if the dream means anything. My mother generally represents the church in my dreams. Who, then, does her mother represent? Catholics? The Jews? You would think it would be a body that gave rise to the modern church.

Last night and today, I received nice packages that gave me something to do.

I don’t want a bulky, expensive grill that costs $2000 and does nothing a cheap grill won’t do, so I have a turkey fryer and a small stainless Pit Boss Grill. For a long time, I’ve had them on the patio on a cheap Home Depot table. The heat did a number on the plastic, so I ordered myself a stainless prep table. They sell them on Amazon for a little over a hundred bucks, but the Amazon jobs use thin steel, and their lower shelves and legs are galvanized, so they will rust. I decided to splurge and get a real commercial table with stainless shelves and legs. It’s very sturdy. I should be able to clean it very easily, and any rust should be negligible.

I also got a stand for my smoker. They cost a lot, but it’s no fun putting meat in a smoker that sits nearly on the floor. I now have a much more convenient height, and the stand has wings for things like BBQ tongs, sauces, and seasonings.

I had to assemble everything. Putting the smoker on the stand was quite a job.

I’ll post a photo. Yes, there are shovels on my patio. I’m still not done removing the stump from the poolside planter.

I haven’t bothered getting a real patio table. I looked around, but I didn’t see anything good on the web or at the local consignment place. I don’t want to blow $1500 on a new set. It doesn’t matter. My plastic folding table is very practical, and no one seems to mind.

Tomorrow, I expect to receive a wireless BBQ thermometer with two probes, and it should be accompanied by some other items.

I installed an induction stove a while back, but I did’t get nonstick pans, and somehow, a couple of my saucepans didn’t make the trip from Miami, so I ordered two induction-ready skillets and some replacement saucepans. I have several pans I should get rid of because they don’t cooperate with induction. Time to visit the Salvation Army, I guess.

The thermometer will make barbecuing easier.

The runup to the election has been unpleasant. I would hate to see a great president who honors God and puts his country first put out of office by witches, terrorists, a corrupt and vile press, the Chinese, and a lying, demented hack no one in his own corrupt party respects. Now that there is nothing to do but watch and pray, I feel better. If Biden wins, it won’t harm me personally. God looks after me regardless of what happens around me. Other people won’t fare so well, but they will be getting what they chose, and I don’t have the power to control their actions.

I will try not to watch the returns, and I hope I can sleep without help. I don’t want to find myself staring at the computer at 3 a.m.

I hope I won’t continue watching the news after today, apart from occasional glances. I hate reading the news. Smith Wigglesworth wouldn’t allow newspapers in his house, and he did just fine.

It’s nice to have pleasant projects to pass the time during what could have been a rough day. Hope everyone who reads this has peace. Don’t forget: our president isn’t the source of your safety and blessings, so there is no reason to despair if a man the Democrats rejected for three decades somehow wins the prize. Like all hard times, a Biden rule would be hardest on people who don’t know God.

One More Cloud in the 2020 Perfect Storm

For a long time, I’ve been expecting a Trump victory followed by a huge, prolonged, possibly unending explosion of leftist terrorist riots. Tonight, it occurred to me that something even worse might happen.

Most Democrats have already voted. They’re terrified of coronavirus because they’re addicted to the screeching, unscientific nonsense coming from leftist networks and politicians, so they were afraid to go to the polls. Republicans have generally chosen to wait until election day to vote. As a result, we have a situation in which conservative votes could be disproportionately suppressed if terrorists rioted and kept people away from the polls.

The question is whether the terrorists are smart enough to understand this. If they are, they will surely riot. If that happens, and there is significant voter suppression, the election may be delegitimized, and we may end up in a situation in which the President justifiably refuses to vacate the White House until a fair election is held. That would throw the nation into chaos for months.

I’m writing this to ask people to pray terrorists will stay home tomorrow. Maybe God can influence them without violating their free will.

It looks like Pennsylvania is the new Florida. Florida used to be the state that gave everyone heartburn during elections. Trump is doing very well in Pennsylvania, the state’s attorney general has made an ass of himself by declaring that Trump can’t win the state, and Philadelphia is a current terror hot spot. Maybe Pennsylvania will be the spark that sets off the civil war.

Of course, it maybe that terrorists will disproportionately suppress Democrat votes, since they concentrate in leftist strongholds. Maybe their plan will blow up on them. But I don’t think that could happen. Even in cities, the remaining voters are probably mostly conservatives.

Anyway, I’m throwing the topic out there and suggesting people pray.

Isn’t Democracy Wonderful?

Today I dove deeper into the sea of pre-post-election-dystopia preparation. I picked up some more panic-related items while I was shopping.

I grabbed a bottle of ghee. I don’t know how well butter will keep if left-wing terrorists manage to mess with the power, but I want to be able to make macaroni and cheese while the apocalypse dawns. I picked up 8 cans of evaporated milk, and I may go back and buy Velveeta. It may not be cheese, but it’s pretty close, and bacteria are afraid of it.

I bought oatmeal and disinfecting wipes, too. Oatmeal can be eaten raw, and sanitizing wipes are supposedly in danger of vanishing again, just as they started reappearing on shelves. I love sanitizing wipes. Being without them is not an option.

I should dry apples. I should do that whether or not the world ends. Dried apples are wonderful.

Right now, I’m smoking a chicken. I still haven’t produced a decent smoked chicken with the new smoker. I used too much of this and that. Hoping for a home run this time.

I injected it with Jim Beam, salt, and sugar, and I gave it a cautious sprinkling of my BBQ rub. I’m smoking it with citrus wood taken from the diseased trees I had to cut down. I don’t know if citrus is the best choice, but I want to see what it tastes like, and even if it’s not optimal, it will surely be good.

I have a wireless thermometer on the way so I can keep a close eye on future smokes. It has two probes. One will go in the food, and the other will measure the smoker temperature.

I guess I should have waited until tomorrow to smoke the chicken, because I still have some smoked ribs. Oh, well. I’ll manage to deal with the surplus.

Some time tomorrow night, we should have some idea whether or not America is irredeemably insane. They say mail-in ballots may delay the election results, but we’ll probably have strong evidence as to who won. I hate to think of Kamala Harris running this country. She strikes me as a nastier person than Biden, which is saying a lot, and she’s the farthest-left senator we have. She will do incredibly stupid things if she finds her way into the Oval Office. When I pray, I keep feeling very strongly that Trump is going to win. That would be wonderful. The morning of November 9, 2016, was one of the best of my life. Reliving it would be even better.

I just found out I’m better prepared than I thought. When I moved 3 years ago, I left a box of junk in the garage and ignored it. Today I looked inside and found 4,000 pistol primers, a bunch of brass, and unused pistol bullets.

Anyone who says laziness doesn’t pay is a fool.

More

The chicken did not make me happy.

I have come to the conclusion that the people who wrote the directions that came with the smoker know a lot about how much wood to use but not much about anything else. Today I set my smoker at about 225, and I cooked the chicken until it hit 172 inside. The directions said to go to 165, but it just didn’t seem right. Anyway, I was only a few minutes off, and the chicken was extremely juicy but tough.

I think I need to go back to my old ways. Go down to 200 and go 4 hours. It invariably worked. If you can pick your barbecued chicken up by the leg, it’s no good. The leg should fall off. I don’t want a chicken that fights with me.

I stuck the chicken in the oven in a covered dish at 300, and I’m giving it an hour and a half. I know I can save it.

As for the citrus wood, I don’t like it. It reminds me of the smell of burning shrubs. Next time I’m using hickory again, and I’m going to cut up some oak so it dries out for future use.

The mac and cheese was wonderful, but I think I can make it better. I think I should forget about baking it, because that breaks the cheese into chewy clods. I like the chewy clods, but I also like smooth, silky cheese sauce. Next time, I’m going to make it in a saucepan on very low heat, move it to a casserole dish, and only bake it long enough to set the bread crumb crust. It will be magnificent.

Citrus might be good for smoking fish. People say it is. It’s not for chicken. Avoid.

This is How You Prepare for Guests in 2020

Today I decided to take a small step toward preparing for post-election leftist terrorism. I looked into protective gear, and I ordered a red dot scope and a better laser for my rifles.

I have been through a number of elections, and I have been concerned about election outcomes before, but I can’t recall being concerned about the other side trying to harm me physically or take my home, my possessions, and my wealth. This is new, for the United States of America. I don’t think we’ve seen an atmosphere like this since Sherman marched through Georgia.

I’m not overreacting, either. Leftist terrorism started months ago, so no one can say I’m concerned about something that isn’t going to happen. It’s happening today. It happens every day. The only uncertainty concerns degree and duration. Will the terrorism decrease or increase? Will it go away quickly, or is it a permanent part of a new way of life?

It’s a permanent part of a new way of life. You can take that to the bank. The terrorists have no goal, so they have no reason to declare that their campaign of violence is over. When sane people fight for a cause, they have a goal in mind, and when they reach that goal, they stop. Leftist terrorists don’t have a goal that has been articulated or which can be achieved. Some say they will stop when racism is abolished. Of course, that can never happen. It would be like the abolition of bad table manners or shoplifting. There are nearly 8 billion people on earth, and they can’t all be changed. Even if they could, leftist terrorists redefine racism all the time. These days they say all white people are racists. That means racism can never end until all white people are killed. Terrorists have come up with a farcical goal which, to them, justifies unending anti-white racism and violence against innocent people.

Will terrorism decrease or increase after the election? I think it will ramp up until our cities and suburbs are Iraq-style “red zones,” at least where Democrats are in charge. Terrorists in such areas have no reason to quit, and they have ample incentive to continue. They get free stuff by looting. Many are paid by BLM, which is a multi-billion-dollar concern funded by insane Caucasians. The lowest people on earth, who would ordinarily be ignored, are now given bullhorns and the privilege of cursing at random citizens; they enjoy a certain type of local fame, so their already-swollen egos are pumped up. They don’t face prosecution. They don’t have to compensate their victims. What possible reason could they have for quitting? It’s not like they have productive careers they’re putting on hold.

Today I went so far as to look into body armor and helmets. I couldn’t resist. I’ve even considered spending $3000 on an infrared rifle scope so I can kill terrorists who invade my property at night.

Helmets are interesting. These days, armies use plastic helmets which can turn small-arms fire. They’re more resistant than the steel helmets our soldiers wore in Vietnam. There are problems with them, however. If you hit one near the rim, it’s much more likely to let a round go through. If you hit it once, you will shatter the plastic where the round lands, and the next round will either go through or push the shattered plastic in so far the round will shatter the wearer’s skull. Plastic helmets are only good for a few rounds.

A couple of companies have tried to market steel helmets made from better steel than the old Vietnam helmets. When you shoot these helmets, it doesn’t matter whether you’re near the rim. The protection is the same. And they don’t shatter, so if two rounds land in the same area, you aren’t relying on a floppy mass of kevlar to protect you. They don’t deform as much as plastic helmets, so if you’re hit, the round is less likely to push the helmet into your skull. A damaged helmet can be pounded back into shape. And steel helmets don’t weigh any more than plastic ones.

People ridicule steel helmets. Do they know what they’re talking about, or are they like the backward folks who resisted the use of rifle scopes for 50 years? My guess is that steel is better, but asking me about ballistic helmets is like asking a podiatrist about astronomy.

Steel bashers say plastic helmets confine bullet fragments after they’re hit, while steel bounces them in random directions. You can coat a steel helmet with stuff that supposedly reduces this problem, but does it work? And is the risk of being hit by fragments more important than the higher risk of being killed by an intact round while wearing plastic? I don’t know.

You can get a used military helmet for $200 on Ebay. A new steel helmet costs the same amount, without accessories. A new plastic helmet from a top company like Wendy will run over a grand. That’s a lot of money for a helmet that caves in and becomes flexible after one round. Are you supposed to buy several and keep spares on hand in a conflict?

Here’s the only thing I know for sure: protecting your head from bullets is very expensive.

I checked out vests called “plate carriers.” They have pockets for armor made from steel and other materials. Depending on how badly you want to stay alive, you can get different types of plates. Supposedly, ceramic is the best, but if you drop one, you ruin it. I don’t get that. How can a plate that can’t be dropped survive a rifle round? There are also bare steel plates, which throw fragments, and there are coated steel plates which throw fewer fragments. And some plates are heavier than others.

It looks like I would have to blow close to $700 to get something that would work against typical rifles.

When you start thinking about preparing for war, you understand how inexpensive peace is.

There is good news. The best material for building bulletproof barriers is cheap. It’s sand. You just need bags. It’s too bad you can’t buy a vest full of sand, plus a sand helmet.

I think it will be a long time before terrorists make it to my farm, but many people aren’t so blessed. I wonder what people who are stuck in cities are feeling right now. I wonder about people who live in suburbs that are close to cities. They used to be safe from rioting, but the terrorists are now making a point of taking it to people who fled cities for protection.

Not only are people close to cities more likely to be harmed; they are more likely to be prosecuted for defending themselves. Look at the McCloskeys and Kyle Rittenhouse. Where I live, the McCloskeys would never have been charged, and Rittenhouse–as pure a victim as has ever existed–would have been given a parade. If you’re trespassing on my land with a weapon and bad intentions, I can shoot you dead, and that will be the end of it. If I lived in a place like Chicago or Austin or Atlanta, and an armed invader approached, I would have to choose between death and a high likelihood of a bankrupting prosecution followed by an unjust imprisonment.

I’ll say it again: the rapture can’t come soon enough.

The Bible calls the tribulation “the hour of temptation.” Murderous feelings will increase, and people will menace each other. Leftist terrorists are in tribulation mode already. When you know a group of evil, incorrigible, unthinking people are out to get you, you will naturally be provoked to anger. Provocation is a form of temptation. It’s one of the things raptured Christians will be spared. God doesn’t want us to be down here dealing with extreme temptation which is likely to land us in hell due to bad decisions.

God raptured me out of Miami, and if I play my cards right, he will rapture me off the earth before I find myself looking up the barrel of my rifle at a deranged animal in man’s clothing.

I’m still preparing a little. If I had more certainty about the immediate future, maybe I wouldn’t bother.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Harder

I have to point out that there is nothing as great as living in the South. It’s like a big playground for adults. If you’ve ever watched Ducky Dynasty, you’ve seen exactly what I’m talking about. You may think that show is all fantasy, but the truth is that it shows exactly how Southerners live.

If you’re jealous, take heart. You can always move. My Uncle Jim was born a yankee, but he moved to Kentucky, and in a few years, he was totally healed.

Today I went to the heterosexual barber shop where I always get my hair cut. I wore a MAGA hat, and I thought I might stand out among the customers. A couple of guys who only spoke Spanish were in the chairs when I arrived, and they kept quiet. Soon afterward, another man arrived.

The barber said, “It’s Mr. Trump himself.”

The man was about 5’11” tall and weighed maybe 135 pounds. He was wearing a MAGA visor, the sides of his head were cut close, and on top of his head, he had a puff of orange hair that looked like a pom-pom.

Best of all, he had a Bush tall boy in his hand. And no intention of getting a haircut.

I told the barber I didn’t realize alcohol was allowed, and he asked me if I wanted a beer from the fridge. I turned it down, but the gesture warmed my heart.

I could not drink; I had to drive to Harbor Freight. Also…Busch.

Mr. Trump told us about the rallies he had been to. He said there was one in The Villages–the giant retirement complex to the south of me–drew over 10,000 golf carts. I don’t recall the exact figure. Golf carts! How Southern is that? And of course, he had a story about an idiot who grabbed someone’s Trump flag and ripped it. The perpetrator ran off in a pickup, but his triumphant escape was cut short by a traffic accident. Remarkably, no one in the shop gloated.

Only one person–another quiet individual who could have been Mexican–wore a mask. The rest of us criticized coronavirus hysteria and talked about the horrors of a Biden administration. The barber said if they tried to lock the shop down or pull any more shenanigans, he would just go to jail instead of cooperating. Of course, jail is one of the few places in this county where you’re highly likely to catch the bug.

If Biden wins and the rapture doesn’t come this year, at least I picked a great place to die.

By the way, Harbor Freight has a 15% coupon on tool chests. That’s pretty rare. It expires tomorrow, so strap one to your golf cart and take it home.

Scratch That off the List

Three projects are behind me now: my welding cart, smoked ribs, and mac and cheese. Well, four projects if you include my new kitchen blackboard. I put a list of things to do on it. “Paint cart” is at the top.

The ribs are fine, except I think I should decrease the salt and avoid using too much rub. The mac and cheese was gritty in spite of using starch instead of flour. I’m melting the cheese too fast. The cart is just about perfect. Here it is.

I was going to wait for the paint to cure completely before assembling it, but it looked like it would hold up, so I moved ahead.

I already put two welders on it. I need to get a bigger C25 bottle. Perhaps tomorrow.

Once I get things settled, I’ll decide where to put cord hangers.

I hate to sell my Harbor Freight Vulcan cart. It’s a great tool. I just don’t need it any more. My Eastwood carts are okay, but they’re cumbersome, and they always seem to be in the way.

I plan to build a second cart as soon as possible. The workshop has to be tamed, and welding carts are central to the plan. Today after I finished this one, I experienced a taste of my future. Some Vise Grips and other tools were lying around in the way, and I grabbed them and put them in the cart’s drawers. It felt wonderful. I couldn’t see them any more.

I should probably be building a bulletproof cart with rifle ports so I can welcome uninvited Biden supporters (undocumented guests) in November and December, but maybe they’ll be too busy killing Republicans and running over cops in their own cities to visit me out here.

I wore my MAGA hat while running errands today and yesterday, and it seemed like I couldn’t go to a single store without being accosted and congratulated on my good taste. A guy who was rounding up grocery carts told me we had to keep praying.

I have 48 cans of tuna, my own well, and enough ammunition to kill a small city. I hope the rapture comes in December. If not, I think I will still make it through January.

Jim Beam and Corn Starch Trial #1

Our nation is hurtling downward toward chaos, BLM is trying to kill cops in Philadelphia, Christians are predicting a 2020 rapture, and what am I doing? I’m smoking ribs.

I’ve been eating cheeseburgers for lunch. There is nothing wrong with that, but I don’t want to eat a big cheeseburger every day from now on. When I got my new smoker, one of my hopes was that I would be able to increase my protein and fat consumption in style, while–I told myself–reducing refined carbs. Ribs and many other smoked meats aren’t served with buns.

I’m going to try to smoke once a week. That will cover me for three dinners.

Yesterday, I went to Walmart to buy motor oil. You should know about Walmart’s oil prices. Advance Auto Parts had a sale on oil, and it would have cost me about $40 to do one change, with a dubious filter included. I bought 6 quarts of synthetic oil at Walmart yesterday for about $16, and I bought a Fram Titanium filter at Advance. My total cost will be around $28. Not bad.

Anyway, Walmart’s price for St. Louis ribs was pretty good, so I picked some up. They’re smoking right now.

I wanted to marinate them, but I don’t like wasting marinade. I like to use liquor, so a pint costs a lot. Today I tried a new strategy.

Ribs come in shrink wrap. I have giant cattle hypodermics. I made a mixture of Jim Beam, sugar, and salt, and I shot it into the rib package through a tiny hole. I tried to cover the hole with tape, but it wouldn’t stick. I should have tried a waterproof bandage. Anyhow, it was not a problem. The plastic confined the marinade close to the ribs, and none spilled. I was able to rotate the package and distribute the marinade, and I put the package on the counter, meat side down, for half an hour.

It worked really well.

I used around half a cup of liquor. I can’t think of a better use for it. I wish it wasn’t a brand promoted by Mila Kunis, a well-known proponent of the murder of unborn babies, but it will do the job.

Last year, Jim Beam (part of a Japanese company) suffered a huge warehouse fire and lost 45,000 barrels of liquor. They told the press the lost whiskey was “young.” Eerie.

Smoking meat with a rub is not hard at all. I make my rub, put the meat on a towel, apply the rub, put the meat in the smoker, shake the towel out in the yard, and put the towel in the laundry. No mess to speak of.

As for my carb intentions, things are not going as well. The other day, I was starving after a long fabricating session, and I decided to throw some old stuff together and make macaroni and cheese. I got to thinking about it, and I wondered if putting flour in the sauce was a good idea. Flour doesn’t convert completely into a gel. Even in gravy or a roux, it’s slightly gritty. It occurred to me that starch might work better.

I Googled around, and sure enough, people do use starch. I’m going to try it today. I’m also going to use a block of cheese instead of shredded, because shredded cheese has tiny cellulose fibers in it.

The trick to making ribs part of a healthy diet is to stop thinking of them as special-occasion food. Ordinarily, when I eat ribs, it’s a big deal, so I want Texas toast, beans, mac and cheese, and dessert. The key is to think of ribs as just another protein.

Clearly, I have not met that goal yet.

The Smokin-It smoker is a joy to use. Highly recommended.

Workshop-Destroying Decluttering Project Nears Completion

The welding cart project is 95% done.

Today I welded some upright tubes on the tank platform. I thought they would be useful for holding little bars for hanging cables and cords. I haven’t welded any bars to them because I want to put the machines on the cart first. I thought that would give me a better idea where the bars should go.

When I was done welding, I separated the project from the chest and shot truck bed paint on it. It’s drying now.

Tomorrow, I plan to bolt the project onto the cart, put the machines on it, stuff it with welding tools, and clean up the shop. Then I’ll make decisions about welding hangers on it. I’ll have to grind some of the paint off in order to weld them on, but I thought it was better to do some of the paint over than to have to cut bars off and move them. That would require removing paint anyway.

I managed to flash myself while doing a tack weld. I had reading glasses on. Presumably, they absorbed some of the UV rays, but how much? I’ve been praying and using my supernatural tools to prevent pain and discomfort from developing.

It’s not a big deal. Every welder flashes himself sooner or later. Flash injuries are fleeting. Still, it’s frustrating to forget something so important.

There have been times in the past when I thought I had flashed myself, but I never had any pain later, so I was wrong, I was healed by God, or I didn’t get enough radiation to cause problems.

Once this thing is up and running, I’ll use it to make a second one for two other machines. Two new tool chests will really free up storage space.

I Have a Panic HOUSE

Today I am having my roof fixed. I’m paying $1000 for something I could probably do myself, but I am not interested in rolling off the roof and becoming a permanent yard ornament. I’m also not excited about having my ceiling fall because I didn’t know how to do roofing correctly.

I wanted to put blinds in my former dining room before the roofers showed up. Why? Because it’s a workshop/gun room now. I have a lot of ammunition in that room, and anyone looking into a window would know what it was. These days, ammunition is like gold. You can buy it, but if it’s a popular caliber, you’re likely to shell out three times what it cost last year.

Roofing companies are a top resource for released prison inmates. If you can’t get a job anywhere else, a roofer will probably take a chance on you. Good information to have, if you’re a homeowner or, perhaps more importantly, a homeowner’s wife or daughter. The thought of an electrician or plumber seeing my stuff doesn’t concern me all that much. Roofers are different.

Sadly, I signed a contract before buying blinds, and I didn’t think I had time to get them installed before the roofers showed up, so I didn’t do anything.

Today the roofers showed up without warning, so moving my ammunition out of sight, one container at a time, was not an option. Someone was looking out for me, however, because I had my ammunition loaded on a wheeled shelf unit. I rolled it into a hallway, and I was all set.

I should have bought these shelves a lot sooner. I cheaped out at first. I bought plastic shelves from Home Depot. I wrote about this a couple of days ago. They run $40 each, and when you overload them, they bend. Mine bent. The shelves I have now are fancy chromed Seville Classics jobs from Amazon. I have two units. One is mostly dedicated to ammunition. The other is for reloading components and other items. I have hundreds of pounds on the first one, and it’s not sagging at all. Wish I could say the same of myself.

I moved one of my plastic shelves to the laundry room, where it has become my paranoia storage area.

I went to Walmart yesterday for dishwashing powder and salt, and I bought a big, heavy bag of jasmine rice. I also picked up 4 pounds of great northern beans, canned salmon, two large jars of Skippy, and 6 pounds of pasta. This is a lot of food. One person could probably go a month on it. I also have 6 gallon cans of Stanislaus pizza sauce.

You would think a long-term food supply would take up a lot of room and cost a lot of money, but you would be wrong. My shelf unit is maybe 25% full. My total bill at Walmart was around $80, and I bought a lot of things unrelated to preparation.

I plan to add more rice and maybe some different beans. I have 48 cans of tuna on the way. I want to dry apples. When you’re from Appalachia, not having dried apples is uncivilized. Ordinarily, drying apples is a pain because of bugs, but I have a screened-in pool, so no flies.

I checked into generators. Not a great option, unfortunately. I would have to spend close to $20,000 to get a whole-house rig that would cost me $5 per hour to run. That’s about $3600 per month for electricity, assuming diesel would even be available, and the price would go way up in a crisis. Unless you have your own natural gas well or hydroelectric plant, I think you can pretty well expect to do without power in a hard core prepper scenario. Maybe you can run your laptop off solar panels.

I wonder if people are buying manual pumps for their wells.

There is zero fresh water near me, unless you count swampy ponds.

I suppose I’ll have to hope we still have power during the civil war.

The Internet says my power company uses a mix of coal, uranium, “biomass,” and natural gas. What is “biomass”? Chicken manure, maybe? Is there anything chicken manure can’t do?

Let’s see. Coal comes from the South, so that may still be available after the North turns on us. Natural gas comes from the South. I would guess that biomass comes from the South. Would we still have nuclear power? The plants are in-state, but would we be able to get uranium? Maybe the Chinese would sell it to us on Alibaba or Banggood.

There is a lot of oil in Jesus-friendly areas, and there are also many refineries. That’s good.

If you would like to dry your own apples, I have the ultimate tip. Spend $25 on an apple peeler. They really work. You can core, peel, and slice an apple in 5 seconds. I should go get apples today. You can dry them by setting them on a window screen.

I don’t like factory dried apples, because they put a chemical on them to keep them white. It kills the flavor. To get the real flavor of dried apples, you need to avoid that stuff. Real dried apples taste like apple butter. Factory apples taste like air.

The future is uncertain. Are we looking at a few weeks of pro-Biden terrorist riots followed by a crackdown and resumed calm, will we have a full-blown civil war complete with drawn borders, or will we simply move into an Israel-type situation in which terrorism is a normal part of daily life? Actually, we’re already in that situation, except that the acts of terrorism committed here haven’t been as serious as the ones Israelis face.

A full-blown civil war with new borders would be a catastrophe, because leftists would freeze or simply steal the bank and security accounts of conservatives and centrists, and they would also cut off our access to phones, the Internet, and credit. Leftists would probably be massacred routinely due to their inferior capacity for violence. They’re pretty good at throwing bottles of pee, but they would do poorly while trying to familiarize themselves with firearms, camouflage, tactics, and so on. Jesus people have been shooting, hunting, and serving in the military for centuries.

My hat is off to people who think they can do well after a total breakdown of society. It would be very hard to prepare sufficiently well to guarantee that. I figure it’s realistic to prepare for a bad month or two, tops, and I see no hope of providing my own electricity over long periods. I will have to bank on a future in which companies in my area adapt and continue producing power.

Should I cut some firewood? Arrgh. Anything but that.

In my area, I would probably need wood for maybe 45 days. That’s a lot of wood. To prepare it, I would need to create huge snake-infested piles which would eventually attract termites and rot.

I have a lot of downed wood already. Maybe I should just wait and see what happens. I can cut it into firewood if I have to. I was going to burn it, but maybe it has value.

In any case, there is no possibility my ammunition will get the roofers excited today.

Trump Milkshake: Existential Threat to Mankind

Two huge stories are in the news today. It’s hard to decide which one to write about.

For a long time, I felt God was telling me to avoid looking at the news. That was pleasant. Now I feel he is telling me I have to look at it. What’s the difference? I believe the difference is in me. It used to be harder for me to look at the news without being provoked or discouraged. Now, with better supernatural tools, I am more stable, so the news is not as dangerous to me.

“Dangerous”? I must be a Bible-thumping climate-change-denying mask hater! How can information be dangerous? Actually, it can. The informative value can be exceeded by the damage it does to your heart. This is one reason why God tells us to be separated from the world. Merely witnessing what happens around us can tempt us in ways that can be destructive. You have to limit your exposure to the cursed, God-rejecting world in order to avoid being overwhelmed.

Here are the big stories: President Trump has proven his unfitness for his job by ordering a milkshake, and Pat Robertson has “prophesied” regarding the near future of America.

I know it’s hard to believe that a grown man with responsibilities would order a milkshake, but Trump did it. He was in a security briefing, and he called a waiter into the room and offered everyone a malt. We can’t say for sure, but there is no proof he didn’t tell the waiter to hold the nuclear button while he tweeted. There is no proof it didn’t happen, so we can assume it did. When will this man be stopped?

“Journalists” are enraged. They are offended, so they must be right. The theory is that our elected and appointed officials would continue spewing dangerous information while a waiter was in the room, because, well, THERE IS NO PROOF THEY DIDN’T. There is also no proof they or the waiter renounced white supremacy.

I guess I’m a feckless optimist, but I can’t help thinking top officials would stop blurting out sensitive intelligence while ordering milkshakes from a person with a low security clearance.

If hackers take out our missile silos as a result of Trump’s milkshake gaffe, it will just be more proof Trump isn’t groovy. Bush II wasn’t groovy, and now we have another non-groovy chief executive, and I just can’t stand it one more second.

I should rejoin Tiktok just so I can get in the car and do a meltdown video.

As for Pat Robertson, he says he “thinks” Trump will be reelected. Prophets don’t “think” things will happen. God tells them things will happen. God will never tell you he “thinks” this or that, because God knows. There are no opinions in heaven. There are only facts no one there questions.

Anyway, Robertson says there will be post-election bloodshed followed by a 5-year period of peace in which people will serve God and pray together and so on. He says God will resolve people’s disputes. Then there will be a big war, and I believe he said the second coming would come after that.

Can’t buy it. It doesn’t seem to line up with the Bible or the dreams and impressions charismatics have been having this year. I have not seen a reference to a 5-year Messianic age in which the world gets straightened out. The Bible says there will be a millennium of peace, not 5 years. I don’t know where Robertson got his timeline.

I keep saying I have a very strong impression that the rapture will be this year. I don’t call it a prophecy. I haven’t found any ways in which the impression conflicts with the Bible, and it makes sense in too many ways to list. But I make mistakes, and God didn’t hand me a scroll with a detailed prediction on it.

I “think” I’m right. I’m just about sure Robertson is wrong.

He claims to receive information from God about people’s problems, and viewers have called in and said they’ve been healed while watching him. They idea is that God told Robertson these things but did not attach names to them, and when Robertson says “someone” has this or that problem, people who are watching realize he’s talking about them. There is considerable evidence that this actually happens, and I don’t get supernatural information about strangers’ medical issues, so who is more likely to be right about the future?

Just putting it out there.

I’ve decided to buy a little food. You never know. I ordered 48 cans of tuna at a great price, and I’m going to load up on dried beans and rice. I plan to lay in some canned salmon. Canned fish lasts forever, and beans and rice are good for at least a couple of years. Maybe I should get a big jar of compensational multivitamins, too. For maybe $150, I can set myself up with food for several months. I’m not very excited about it. I don’t want to be here to eat it! I heard someone is throwing a big party in heaven, and the food there should be a lot better.

I should dehydrate apples. Imagine life on beans and rice without anything to help push them through the colon. Apples could save my life.

My ammunition situation is good. Example: a couple of days ago I found 1000 rounds of 9mm bullets I had forgotten I had. I need to put them in cartridges.

I bought lead semiwadcutters and started loading them, but I found the overall lengths were not consistent. People said it might be that compressed air in the cases was pushing the bullets back up. The recommended answer: coated bullets. I bought more semiwadcutters coated with plastic. I don’t recall how plastic solves the problem, but I’ll try it. I believe the coated bullets have less grease on them. The uncoated ones left lube all over my dies, to the point where I was afraid it interfered with reloading.

I have no desire to be part of the upcoming civil war, but I like to shoot, and I don’t want to be deprived. And maybe someone who is part of the war will need my ammo.

I want to be ready for whatever happens. These days, I battle demons, literally. I evict them from my presence several times a week. I tell them I will not host them. It’s a very strange thing. After going after a few spirits–let’s say murder, the spirit of antichrist, and laziness–I’ll start to fall asleep. It happens over and over. I think this is because hostile spirits speak into your mind all the time. When you drive them out, you get some quiet.

It’s a very real thing. Everyone has demons. Jesus had Satan himself and had to drive him off more than once. It’s strange that Christians think they can’t have demons, but Jesus could have Satan. Are we better than Jesus?

I now pray for God to bring the rapture ASAP. The more I think about it, the more I realize humanity has had ample chances. The Bible says stripes are for the fool’s back. Some people can’t take gentle hints. Maybe the tribulation will bring a bigger harvest than the rapture. Maybe billions of scoffers will yield once they’ve suffered enough. God has been kind, and things have gotten worse, so maybe it’s time to put away the carrot and bring out the stick.

The thought of being in the lifeboat and encouraging the captain to paddle away from people floating in the water is a little scary, but look at what the world has become.

I don’t want to be here when I can be fined or jailed for refusing to call a man a woman. I don’t want to live to see wealth taxes and “reparations”-based land confiscations. I don’t want to see Christian and Jewish families massacred and raped. I’m very content with the evil I’ve already seen. It will suffice.

When the Tiktok car-meltdown people are in charge, it’s time to be somewhere else. Ask a Cuban or a white South African.

Today I plan to work on my new welding cart. I have to do something while the world burns, and I can’t play the fiddle.