Mmm, Beef

Posted on May 24, 2006 by Alaska

Not to step on Aaron’s toes as food editor for the Paratus preparedness blog, but Costco by my house just started stocking a six-pack of their house-brand (Kirkland) canned roast beef. I’d given up on storing canned roast beef after trying Libby’s — that stuff’s awful (my dogs like it, though). However, we love Costco’s canned chicken, so last night we tried the new Kirkland roast beef and it was really good! Highly recommended.

Posted in By Ourselves, For Ourselves | Leave a comment

Civic Responsibility

Posted on May 24, 2006 by Alaska

In keeping with today’s SHTF postings below, here’s a nifty little 100-word story from the Dax Files. Would that we had more of such devoted public servants in all our communities!

Yes, go read the whole thing. At 100 words, you have no excuse.

Posted in Armageddon | 3 Comments

Pandemic Preparedness

Posted on May 24, 2006 by Alaska

Comments by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt to the American Medical Association:

“Any community that fails to plan and to prepare and to exercise, with the expectation that somehow the federal government will come to their rescue, will be tragically wrong. Not because we lack the will, not because we lack the wallet, but because we lack the way. This is a uniquely local disaster. It is a global local disaster. We can deliver antivirals in large shipping packs to airports, but there’s got to be a [local] means of distribution…it is putting pills in the palms of hands at the right moment that defines victory.”

“Traditional, good public-health measures will be an absolute essential. Those are skills that, in many respects, we have forgotten how to use, given the fact that we have always had a pill or a shot for everything. Good, basic public-health measures of social distancing, hand-washing and [food] preparation [are things] we need to begin to teach….”

“There’s a big difference [between] having a plan and being prepared. The difference is exercising [i.e., actually practicing with simulation exercises.] … A nation prepared is when everyone has an exercise plan. I’m talking about every federal agency, every state, every tribe, every city, every county, every business, every school, every college, every hospital, every clinic, every medical office, every church, every household. This is something we can teach those who will listen….”

“There will be schools that need to be closed all across America…but you don’t want [the Federal government] deciding whether your neighborhood school closes or not. What you want is a principal that has got a plan and an understanding of when you close and when you don’t.”

I’ve been saving this post since March 13 of this year, when I recorded most of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt’s speech and Q&A session at the American Medical Association’s conference. (Hooray for C-SPAN!) Leavitt’s talk was about bird flu, and as you might hope when the head of HHS talks to a bunch of doctors, both the speech and the Q&A were frank and hard-hitting. I found it a fascinating window into a bunch of medical professionals talking about scary stuff.

HHS is taking the possibility of a pandemic very seriously. Leavitt obviously doesn’t want to be the Michael Brown to a pandemic’s Katrina. But instead of trying to get his message to every American, Leavitt seems to be focusing on getting medical professionals, emergency responders and responsible bureaucrats up to speed. It’s a good strategy, but I’ll bet the principal at the high school where my wife works doesn’t have a pandemic flu plan yet.

I finally got some time over the last few days to transcribe the relevant bits from the recording, and I did so because this speech hasn’t shown up in the list of official speeches on the HHS website.  My transcript is below the fold. Bolded emphasis, and bracketed comments, are both mine. Wanna find out what the medical community is really hearing about a flu pandemic? Read below.

Continue reading →

Posted in Armageddon | 2 Comments

T S has H T F

Posted on May 23, 2006 by Alaska

Well, not quite. But I notice that Drudge finally linked Tuesday to this report of possible human-to-human H5N1 transmission in Indonesia.

Survivalblog‘s been following this story since last week….

Even if this cluster of cases does not turn out to be true HTH transmission, it appears that the virus is very likely resident in pigs, which is not a good sign.

If you haven’t already, this might be a good time to review the checklists at the government’s pandemic flu preparedness site. They’re a start, at least. There are specific checklists for businesses, schools, individuals and families (as well as for governments, health-care facilities, individual practitioners, etc.) A fun exercise might be to ask the principal at your kid’s school, the mayor of your town, your family doctor, if they’ve at least looked at the government’s checklists on what they should be doing to prepare their institution for a pandemic.

Also, if you have small children, don’t forget that Tamiflu for them also comes in a liquid suspension (easier to swallow than pills). So you may wish to get a separate prescription for your child.

Posted in Armageddon | Leave a comment

The Trifecta

Posted on May 23, 2006 by Phil Kadath

The Heartless Libertarian has a post up about the trip he and I made to the gunshow on Sunday and shows off his purchase.

Go Look! Go Look! Go Look!

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | Leave a comment

You are a Coward

Posted on May 23, 2006 by Phil Kadath

At least, if Klueless Kos Kid Zack Exley has his way, that’ll be the message the Dems will run with in 08.

Message for ’08 Dems: Only cowards think we’re at war

The American people are not cowards. They are not the ones behind this prolonged state of panic. Americans are prepared to walk tall and fearlessly even with the possibility of another attack, even though we know it could kill thousands — because we know that America is not in danger. We live happily with many extremely-unlikely dangers in our lives, and we reject the idea that America should degrade its democracy just because some tiny extremist groups have added themselves to the list. (They are so far down that list, in fact, that you are 390 times less likely to die in a terrorist attack than in an auto accident.)

Add up all the little bands of anti-American terrorists. They can’t invade America. Or any of our allies for that matter. Or anyone. They can’t hurt our economy — unless cowards in government let them. The only thing they can do is try to get in another suck punch sometime. And yeah, it will hurt. But our country, our traditions, our future have nothing to fear.

In the face of our natural American courage, some Republicans will try anything to make individuals focus on the chance of becoming victims. RNC direct mail in 2004 used pictures of children in the Breslan massacre and other scenes of terrorism. The “threat level” program tried to make the infinitesimal chance of being harmed by a terrorist feel inevitable. And many Republicans use fear in their words and speeches everyday: “The terrorists want to kill you! The terrorists want to kill you! The terrorists want to kill you!” (So do a lot of people. But they can’t. So stop obsessing!)

I think I’d rather be called a coward than an idiot. Zach Exley is a bona fide, Grade A, USDA Choice, Idiot

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons, Too Stupid to Live | 2 Comments

Two Wrongs

Posted on May 23, 2006 by Phil Kadath

And take a left (wing approach to your decisions).

That is about all I can get out of the 9th Circus’ decision to first, ban the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, since saying the words “Under God” was a promotion of religion, and then turning around and deciding that drowning school kids in Muslim culture, or as I like to call it “Islam Immersion”, is just hunky dory.

In our brave new schools, Johnny can’t say the pledge, but he can recite the Quran. Yup, the same court that found the phrase “under God” unconstitutional now endorses Islamic catechism in public school.

In a recent federal decision that got surprisingly little press, even from conservative talk radio, California’s 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it’s OK to put public-school kids through Muslim role-playing exercises, including:

Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with “In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . .”

Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: “Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger.”

Chanting “Praise be to Allah” in response to teacher prompts.

Professing as “true” the Muslim belief that “The Holy Quran is God’s word.”

Giving up candy and TV to demonstrate Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially “becoming a Muslim” for two full weeks.

Parents of seventh-graders, who after 9-11 were taught the pro-Islamic lessons as part of California’s world history curriculum, sued under the First Amendment ban on religious establishment. They argued, reasonably, that the government was promoting Islam.

But a federal judge appointed by President Clinton told them in so many words to get over it, that the state was merely teaching kids about another “culture.”

So the parents appealed. Unfortunately, the most left-wing court in the land got their case. The 9th Circuit, which previously ruled in favor of an atheist who filed suit against the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, upheld the lower court ruling.

The decision is a major victory for the multiculturalists and Islamic apologists in California and across the country who’ve never met a culture or religion they didn’t like — with the exception of Western civilization and Christianity. They are legally in the clear to indoctrinate kids into the “peaceful” and “tolerant” religion of Islam, while continuing to denigrate Judeo-Christian values.

I’d ask what the original judge and then the 9th were thinking, but I seriously doubt any of that was actually going on.

Posted in The Left is Never Right, Useful Idiots | Leave a comment

In the dictionary

Posted on May 23, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Next to the definition of “Wuss” is a picture of Canadian MP, Pat Martin

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s motorcade has acquired a presidential look.

But one MP says the big black SUV now cruising at the rear of the entourage is a bit too remindful of President George W. Bush.

And its gas-chugging potential raises other issues, even for a prime minister who ditched the Kyoto accord, says New Democrat Pat Martin.

(snip)

The 320-horsepower V8 Chevrolet Tahoe now embedded in Harper’s parade is made in the U.S. GM Canada truck plants assemble Silverado pickups.

As has been said of the SUVs in Bush’s procession, the new black wheels add an air of intimidation to Harper’s motorcade.

“It looks like something Darth Vader would be driving,” says Martin. “We’ve got this gas-guzzling behemoth touring around with the prime minister. It looks tough, it looks quasi-military. Is that the kind of image the prime minister wants to project?”

No doubt that Martin thinks Harper has been taken in by ‘The Dark Side’.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons, Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 2 Comments

A Lack of Empathy is the Least of My Worries

Posted on May 23, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Ace blogged about a Harvard study yesterday that shows liberal’s brains (you know, those squishy things in their skulls that they rarely, if ever, use) get warm fuzzies when they think of or hear about their fellow libtards, but get all twisted when a conservative is mentioned.

U.S. researchers observed the brain activity of liberal college students who were asked to think about Christian conservatives. As they did so, a brain region strongly linked to the self and to empathy with others nearly shut down, while another center — perhaps linked to stereotypic thoughts — swung into high gear.

“It’s as if you think that ‘they’ don’t think like you do — it’s like you believe they are governed by a different set of rules when they think,” explained study author Dr. Jason Mitchell, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University’s department of psychology.

Like Ace, I’m waiting for the test to be performed on conservatives, even though I can already guess the outcome when told about liberals: The humor center will flare up, and if something like a video of a ‘progressive’ talking about Marx/Engles is shown, the IQ center will slowly deactivate and if someone like a replay of a Chomsky speech is played, the part of the brain which controls the sphincter will tell the body to let the ‘African Barking Spiders’ loose.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age, The Left is Never Right | 2 Comments

Bear Arms

Posted on May 22, 2006 by Phil Kadath

In Seattle, near the University of Washington’s Greek Row, the Seattle law enforcement community shot themselves a bear Sunday morning.

An adult black bear, to be exact.

Follow this link to see approximately where the bear was felled.

How did the bear get there? No one knows.

My guess is that he walked, since most bears lack the dexterity to drive a car and the moneychanging skills to pay for the bus ride.

But if you want to know a secret, I get strange phone calls at work. One of them came in on Friday night from a friend who asked if his 40cal Glock would stop a fully grown black bear. I told him that 40 is not Bear Medicine and that unless he got a good shot in the neck, right behind the jaw, it would most likely take the majority of his magazine to stop a charging bear. I then asked why.

You see, this bear was spotted at approximately this location around 2230 Friday night and the woman who had called him and his fellow professionals to the scene was in hysterics and they were halfway-wondering if they should be carrying their long guns when they got out of their cars.

I then told him that I could be there in 20 minutes with my 8lb sledge, which got a dry chuckle out of him because he knew that, A. it wouldn’t be the first time I’d had to swing iron at a bear, and B. I was completely serious.

It was Friday night and I was feeling a little frisky.

They, not being used to running down bear and with a 30 minute ETA for the nearest K-9, lost him within 5 blocks of the hysterical woman’s house.

I guess SPD will shoot anything black (ooooh, now that was out of line!).

On a side note, the Seattle officials are saying that a combination of tranq darts and tazer application is the cause for the bears death, but if you believe that, then you’ll probably also believe that illegal immigrants are no danger to the citizenry.

Posted in Kewel! | 3 Comments