It’s Day 347 of 15 Days to Flatten the Curve. Deb and I are fine.
Yesterday we took a big step toward Ernie‘s maiden voyage — everything I’d gathered and packed carefully into totes, as well as all manner of large, loose items like chairs and grills and such, got stowed in the basement of the motorhome.
The enormous game of three-dimensional Tetris occupied most of my day. All of the measuring and planning and sketching I’d done paid off — the bins we picked out slid into place like they were made for our bus.
The previous owner had installed a small shelf in one of the large basement bays, probably to accommodate a satellite box. I removed it this morning before the stowing began, and with that gone our storage scheme came together perfectly.
Once everything was in, I stepped back, did a walkaround and noticed that I had some extra space. Some of it was intentional, to allow for extra groceries and the odd bundle of firewood, but it looked like we might have just enough room to pack a pair of brand-new “zero gravity” lounge chairs that Deb had inherited from her father.
She loved the idea. We did a little more juggling and the loungers found a home among the rest of our “soft” campsite gear.
Deb’s just about finished with the upstairs, too. We’ll haul out food and clothes, get the refrigerator running and bring the water system back online, install the front TV and a few other minor things. Then it’ll simply be a matter of doing a final round of pre-flight maintenance and we’ll be good to go.
At long last, Ernie’s really coming together. We can see The Road from here.
We live in a dense information age. I know, “dense” would be a fair characterization of the relative intelligence behind much of what we read and hear, but here I’m talking about how inundated we are with fact and opinion, reporting and commentary.
It’s relentless. It’s damned near inescapable.
I have quite the appetite for information myself, so I truly don’t mind the glut — I simply filter-out crap and seek reliable sources. And every day I manage to find something of value.
Today I offer several notable quotes from this week’s Information Overload, beginning with words of interest to born-free Americans who have the good sense to keep and bear arms.
“We have orders that would be the equivalent of two-and-a-half years of production. … We have planned for growth regardless of these super-demand surges — and that’s what we call this, a super demand, not a shortage. It’s very similar to the toilet-paper shortage — nobody used more or less toilet paper than they did a year ago. … The thing is, you can’t build your capacity based around these events.”
Jason Hornady, vice president, Hornady Manufacturing
Hornady makes three points worth remembering. First, it would take his company two-and-a-half years of normal production to erase the current backlog of orders. Second, the backlog isn’t due to ordinary consumption-based demand — it’s a surge, a (presumably) temporary spike. And third, any company that builds its manufacturing capacity around the ability to meet “super-demand surges” will hemorrhage cash and won’t be around for very long.
Consumers created this demand surge. I’m tempted to use the word “irrational” to describe it, but I want to apply that word the right way.
There’s nothing irrational about stockpiling — in fact, nothing could be more reasonable than looking at political threats and choosing to set aside a substantial supply for the inevitable “rainy day.” Many armed Americans have done exactly that over the years, buying when retail prices are low and stores’ inventories are ample.
Waiting until a crisis arrives to establish or increase one’s personal stockpile, however, is the very definition of irrational. That kind of panic feeds on itself, creating the “super-demand surge” that Hornady is talking about. Prices go up with demand. Once-overflowing shelves are bare. Those who waited may be colossally screwed.
Equally irrational is blaming manufacturers for the shortage. They’re all running production lines 24/7 now — which was unnecessary and would’ve been commercially suicidal before — to close the (presumably) temporary gap.
How soon the marketplace will return to something resembling normal is anyone’s guess. Plan on it being a very long time.
The current occupant of the Oval Office has been a certified gaffe machine his entire political career. His rapidly dissipating cognitive abilities have amplified that quality — which would be a lot more amusing if the future of the country wasn’t at stake. Take his reaction to Texas and Mississippi announcing this week that they’re dropping all of their WuFlu mandates:
“The last thing — the last thing — we need is the Neanderthal thinking that, in the meantime, everything’s fine, take off your mask. Forget it. It still matters.”
Pres. Daffy McHairsniffer
They just can’t help it, can they? Let’s review.
We’ve been called Bitter Clingers. We’re the Deplorables and Credulous Boomer Rubes. As Daffy said on the campaign trail, we’re Chumps.
And now, according to Doctor Dementia, true Americans who love Liberty and refuse to bow to every State decree are Neanderthals.
That’s what “unity” looks like to a Democrat. Considering the source, I can live with that.
Speaking of dubious sources, have you heard? According to the Left, reopening schools all across America (and particularly in The People’s Republic of California) is all sorts of things you wouldn’t expect. Check this out:
“[Reopening schools] seems like a very white-supremacist ideology to force people to comply with and conform without thinking about all of their intersecting factors and barriers that exist for all families. We are thinking about one type of family when you are speaking right now. Just letting you know, Privilege — check it, you guys. … That’s what slavery is. I’m not going to be a part of it.”
Chardá Bell-Fontenot, vice president, La Mesa-Spring Valley (California) Schools Board
Plus this from the head of a big SoCal teachers’ union:
“If you condition funding on the reopening of schools, that money will only go to white and wealthier schools that don’t have the transmission rates that low-income Black and brown communities do. … [It is] a recipe for propagating structural racism.”
Cecily Myart-Cruz, president, United Teachers Los Angeles
That’s a full deck of Race Cards right there — but, as it turns out, it may not be entirely unfounded.
A recent survey (on the opposite coast, but in a similarly Left-dominated state) found that 24% of black parents want their kids back in classrooms, compared to 73% of white parents. So, just like math, going to school could well be a cultural thing.
This is what happens when The Race Industry infantilizes an entire community, fostering a climate of entitlement that turns born-free Americans into victims and poisons a nation at its very roots.
Newt Gingrich appeared on Tucker Carlson’s nightly program a few days ago. The opening question was, “Why did Biden pick the most divisive policies up-front?” and, after noting that Daffy McHairsniffer had a front-row seat to Democrats’ catastrophic mid-term losses under POTUS #42 and POTUS #44, Gingrich said this:
“…I think what they’ve done is a very calculating and cynical ploy, which is I think they’ve given up on keeping the House. What they’re doing is ramming through everything they can get done before they lose in 2022. So this is kind of a sprint to radicalism. … I think the Biden-Harris model is, ‘We’re gonna lose the House anyway, we might as well grab everything we can while we’ve got the power.’ … Just take the $1.9 trillion political-pork bill — which is not a COVID bill, only 9% of it is COVID… — that bill has more radicalism in it than the eight years of Clinton and the eight years of Obama, combined.”
When Tucker pressed the former Speaker about why the Daffy’n’Chuckles regime insists on leading with policies that further divide America and demonstrably harm Americans, Gingrich’s answer was as startling as it was true:
“Tucker, I really admire your show. I really think you’re remarkably trenchant in your insights, but I just wanna offer you a thought — they don’t want to protect your America. They want to create an alternative America. … So when you and I talk about, ‘Why would they do this [to] America?’ it’s because they really want a radically different country.”
That’s undeniable. It’s indisputable. This is the Unmaking of America — and it’s only just begun.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath
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