Party time is over

Is there a more patriotic dessert than a piece of Red cherry pie with a scoop of White vanilla ice-cream and a slice of Blueberry pie next to it?

Mrs ERJ says it isn't patriotism but gluttony.

But she doesn't know what a sneaky fellow I am. This week I purchased the cherry pie. Then I will buy the half-gallon of ice cream. The week after I will buy a blueberry pie. I'll show her!

A couple of videos that I found informative

The men that don't fit in by Dry Creek Wrangler. Wirecutter at Knuckledraggin posted this. Dewayne is an observant and thoughtful man. His delivery is measured and comfortable in pace. He speaking to those of us who live by "I will be me and you do you and it can be good"...and must resist those who try to mold and bend us to their conception of what reality should be.

How to make the absolute best black powder (for firearms) by Everything Black Powder. Like Dewayne, the presenter speaks very clearly and anticipates questions that are popping up in your head. Near the end he stresses that you cannot cherry-pick the refinements he generously shares and still expect to get the same results they get. Yet, he understands that their process evolved and many stubfarts might not want to be quite THAT fussy...so he does share the two details that made the biggest difference (switching from lead balls to brass balls in the mill .and. greatly increasing milling time). "Why not steel ball-bearings or nuts in the ball mill?" you ask? SPARKS!

Worth rereading

Survival (or thriving) isn't about heading for the hills, hiding from world. Instead, survival is about developing resilience and self-reliance as individuals, families & communities, so that we don't need government or the Elites. Not needing government takes away most of the power and influence of both elected politicians and unelected bureaucrats, as well as the lobbyists of the corporate world. Dystopian Survival

If you look at what is spent on educating a child, you would see that it has grown much faster than the rate of inflation and most of the growth has been in administration and compliance (to regulations). That is in spite of all the presumed efficiencies brought by technology. At the risk of insulting recent graduates, the quality of the education declined during that period so we spent more and got less.

If you look at the cost of health care, you would see that it has grown much faster than the rate of inflation. Much of that is due to the cost of increased administration and the cost of compliance to regulation. That is in spite of all of the presumed efficiencies brought by technology. At the risk of insulting people in the medical profession, the general health of the American public declined during this period. We spent more and got less.

Covid pushed technology and self-service into the economy. Before Covid, most people went to the Secretary of State to get their license plate tabs and for other mundane business. Now, nearly everybody gets their license plate tabs at the kiosks in supermarkets. But did the S-o-S cut a single employee? Doubtful. Did they use all that extra, unallocated manpower to comb through lists of registered voters and purify them. No.

Look at the hurricane response in Appalachia. All that money poured into FEMA and they actively resisted people trying to help each other.

Government agencies want us to register our gardens and report how many potatoes and tomatoes and cabbages we planted. They want us to "chip" our animals and track how many cows, goats, chickens and ducks we have on our property. Isn't food expensive enough? Isn't the state of the supply chain precarious enough?

"Government" has finished it transformation from a functioning organ (like the liver or the adrenal gland) into carcinoma with no function other than to grow.

The pendulum swings. Trump has four more years in office. Likely, some of that will be a shit-storm as the carcinoma fights back. There is a flip-of-the-coin chance that a clone of Kamala Harris will get "elected" next cycle.

We have been blessed with (maybe) three more years to prepare. We have time to build our own skills and to share them with young people. We have time to strengthen connections with like-minded family and to connect with our neighbors.