I’ve heard that this was designed by FEMA, but I have no idea. My family has been using it for close to two decades, and maybe longer. It’s not meant to be a “complete list” of what is needed to prepare for emergencies. Instead, it’s more of a mnemonic. It reminds you of what’s most important in your preps. There are lots of mnemonics you can learn.
This is a longish one, folks, so check out what’s behind the cut…
The site still isn’t to where I need it. But it is functional. I have imported all of my posts from GFZ. This is a step forward.
I am in the process of writing a Vine Of Liberty plug-in to handle theming and some other missing features. The one that irks me the most is not having a quick link to the comments section of the page.
We’d like to hear what your thoughts are on the banner and icon. The Icon is likely to change, but Ally did an outstanding job getting the banner done. That was based on the prompt “Modern American patriot guarding a vine in a barren field”.
I’m starting to see the state file F.A.R.P. 28(j) letter, “Citation of Supplemental Authorities”. This is the official way that a party tells a circuit court that something happened that they need to consider before issuing their opinion.
The gist of most of them is, “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited”. Followed by “we are the exception to the rule(s)”.
I am slowly gaining a more in-depth understanding of how ceph works. It is an amazing file system.
It uses replication and I found that it also has “erase coding” capabilities. The erase coding capabilities allow you to reduce the amount of disk space required to achieve full redundancy. The default redundancy is via replication, that is a 3x multiplier. The lowest erase coding is a 2x multiplier and that gets as good as 1.5, when there are enough hosts and OSDs.
We are soliciting articles, you can send your word/LibreOffice articles to awa(at)vineofliberty.com.
I’m a prepper. The term “prepper” means different things to different people. For some, it evokes images of old underground bunkers filled with canned goods and wall mounted, folding beds. For others, it’s more akin to what grandma did when she put away the harvest from her kitchen garden. Still other folks consider it to be stockpiling firearms to raid the rest of us. I’m sure there are a hundred or more points in between my three, as well.
So what exactly is prepping? It’s a short form term for “preparing for emergencies” or “preparing for the apocalypse.” There are at least as many ways to prep as there are people on the planet, and maybe more. No one way is definitively right or wrong. As an example, the Mormons are required to be always prepared for the end of times, which they are told will last just under two years. Therefore, their church insists they always have two years of food on hand, along with anything else they need to survive until the end times are over. While I may not be invested in their end times prophecies, the principle is a good one.
I tend to prepare for 18 months of emergency. I try to be fairly flexible in my preps, because I don’t know if TEOTWAWKI will happen like Nagasaki, or more like the recent pandemic. I have a little bit of many things, designed to cover the most important bases for my family. Your preps probably are (and should be) different from mine, because your family will need different things, and more importantly, has different skills than my own.
There was a reason that the DoJ wanted Rahimi before the Supreme Court. The facts in his case were bad facts. Bad facts lead to bad law.
The first thing to note about the Rahimi opinion, is that it is an “as applied”. This means the opinion only counts for Rahimi. The decision does not directly affect anybody else.
Rahimi claimed that §922(g)(8) was unconstitutional on its face. This requires that there are no circumstances where it could be constitutional. This is an extremely high bar to meet.
This is where the bad facts start. Rahimi was subject to a domestic violence temporary restraining order. This requires that certain requirements be met. As stated in other articles, the law, as written, does not require that the accused receive notification, only that the notification was sent. It does not require that the accused appear at the hearing, only that they have an opportunity to attend.
Rahimi received his notification, appeared in court. This means that the first two, of three requirements are met.
The third requirement, is that the accused be found to be a credible threat.
Rahimi admitted, and the court found, that he was a credible threat.
This meets all three prongs of §922(g)(8) Read More
I talk with AWA a lot about some pretty esoteric topics. Lately, talk has surrounded some of the 2A cases he’s been following, Rahimi in particular. It has really gotten me to thinking.
I believe originally (and this is opinion, as I really don’t know and I haven’t looked it up) jails were meant to be a place to stick someone when they did a bad thing. It was a punishment, a grown up version of time out. The greater the bad thing, the longer the jail time. Somewhere along the line, the goal became to rehabilitate prisoners into better people who wouldn’t be going out and committing more crimes. In general, I tend to agree with that idea, though I’m not certain it should be done while a prisoner is actually IN jail. But regardless, there are always going to be those people who simply cannot be rehabilitated. They will always pose an ongoing threat to free people. The Mansons of the world, as it were, should never be allowed out.
When it comes to the scary “big” criminals like Dahmer, Manson, Berkowitz, etc… it’s easy to look and say, “Yep, lock ’em up and throw away the key.” It’s also very easy to prove that they will never be able to safely walk among other human beings. Rahimi isn’t a Dahmer, though. He’s an average dirtbag. There’s no question he’s guilty of the crimes he committed. He’s trash. But the crimes he’s committed will likely land him somewhere between 2 and 20 years. Reading about the cases he’s accused of, it’s looking more like the lower number than the higher one. Regardless, it means he’ll be out on the street while still relatively young and vital. Yet, looking at his record, what assurance do We the People have that Mr. Rahimi won’t go out and shoot up another Whatsaburger, or cave in the head of his next girlfriend?
There was a remark about the lathe flywheel I recently worked on. Something about the precision of previous eras.
They had more precision than you might think.
Today, one of the tools we use to measure accurately is a micrometer.
This magic device allows use to measure down to 0.0001, all because of a screw.
Inside the thimble is a threaded rod. It is 40 TPI on an imperial micrometer. When you turn the thimble one full revolution, the spindle advances 0.025 inches.
The thimble is marked with 25 evenly spaced marks. With just those, we can measure to 0.001″
But what about those 1/10,000s? That is done with another piece of old tech, the vernier.
If you take and mark the sleeve with 10 marks, with 9 spaces between them, such that the 10th mark aligns with the 11th mark (10 spaces) on the thimble, we have a vernier scale.
The lines of the vernier align with the lines on the thimble at exactly 0.0001 increments.
You can use this method in larger things as well. If I have a stick with 101 marks and I place that against a stick with 100 marks, I’ve created an ability to subdivide that stick by 100. It is pretty remarkable.
The Wheel
The wheel is laminated to create a width of 3 inches. The wood is a hardwood that does not expand or contract. One laminate is about 2 inches thick, and the other is 1 inch thick.
If we were to remake the wheel, we would likely do it with two layers, 1.5 inches thick.
The jointers create wheel layers by jointing two or more planks of equal thickness together to make a single plank, 44+ inches wide in both directions.
To hold the laminates together, holes are drilled in each plank, about a foot apart. The holes are then transferred to the other layer. The other layer then has the hole drilled slightly offset. When the wooden pegs are driven into the holes, that offset pulls the planks together to make everything tight.
A piece of cordage or a beam compass can be used to draw the perimeter of the wheel. This would be at 44+ inches.
The laminate would be trimmed close to the line but not touching.
A hole would be drilled at the center point, and then made square with chisels.
The entire thing would then be mounted on a spindle to drive it. That could be as simple as two benches with a groove to hold the spindle. The wheel would then be spun up to speed.
A tool rest, would be brought in, the craftsman would then use his lathe chisels to make the wheel completely round. This is an easy, but time-consuming process.
It is easy because the task is to slowly move the chisel from one edge to the other. The speed of that movement requires that the cutting chisel be in contact with the work for one complete revolution.
Since the wheel is turning slowly, 40 to 60 RPM, it means that you can only move a 1/16th of an inch per revolution, or so.
After the wheel is turned true (completely round), the crown is put in via the same method.
A reasonable person turning a wheel like that can expect to get a 44-inch wheel running true within 1/32 of an inch, without having to work at it. It is easy.
There are entire volumes written about making things flat or straight. If you can make something flat or straight, you can make right angles. It is not difficult. If you can make right angles, you can make many other angles.
While the micrometer is a new invention, a simpler tool was used before, it was just a straight stick that was fairly long. It was placed on a pivot, near the nose of the stick. The other end moved across some sort of scale. As the nose moves, the tail moves more. If the distance from the pivot to the nose point is 0.5 inches, and the distance from the pivot to the tail point is 12 inches, every movement of the nose is amplified 24 times.
While you might not be able to see a movement of 0.001 in the nose, you can see the movement of 0.024 in the tail.
We can have precision with simple, old tools. It just takes a bit of work to get there.
The Harrel v. Raoul case is one of the many challenges to the Illinois PICA act. It is grouped with other PICA challenges.
For the last 6 Fridays, the case has been distributed for Conference. On the following Monday, the Supreme Court issues their orders. For 6 weeks, the case has been redistributed for Conference the following Friday.
Today’s order list is out. They did not grant nor did they deny cert.
They also did not Distribute for Conference on 2024-06-28. That could just be normal holiday behavior, but something different happened.
If you’re coming here from GFZ, you may already know me. Over there, I used the nickname Hagar, because I was very unsure about posting when AWA first asked me to do so. I’m certainly farther left than most people reading this blog, but I’m definitely not “Left.” I’m not “Right” either, though I do seem to be drifting that way on many issues. I spent a lot of time over on GFZ looking into how the Left perceived things, and tried to explain it to everyone here, to foster communication and learning. I will continue to do that here on Vine of Liberty.
But… I’m also many more things. I’m a re-enactor, specializing in the late 14th century England, and 18th century America. I’m an author, with several books and many articles under my belt. I’m a cook, which is reflected in both my re-enacting and my writing. I’m an interfaith minister. I suspect that, now I’m openly myself, I’ll write more about all of those things here on the blog. If there’s a topic you’d like to know about, let me know and I’ll see if I or someone I know has information. If you want information from the Left, I’m happy to provide, if I can.
I love to start conversations about tough topics, and so I tend to read and respond to replies relatively quickly. I have a long-standing personal rule that I don’t interact with certain types of replies, though. People who do name-calling, fat shaming, or are generally dicks, I simply don’t respond to. If something goes over the top, I might let AWA know about it, but most of the time I just don’t respond to it. You’re welcome to your thoughts, and I’m welcome to ignore them. 😉 As an example, I don’t respond to posts about “Obumma” or “tRump” or other bastardizations of presidents’ names. A long time ago, someone explained to me that people who use such rhetoric are generally doing so because they lack the intellectual oomph to go head to head, and so I don’t embarrass those who do it by engaging them. Just my little bit of community service.
On the other hand, politely challenging my viewpoints will almost always get a response out of me. I love to learn, and so if you’re giving me an honest challenge, I will do my best to rise to it and educate myself. I won’t always agree with others, and certainly don’t expect people to agree with me all the time. But I work very hard to present factual information, with opinions being clearly labeled as such.
I’m a staunch 2A gal. I’m a staunch “separation of religion and state” gal as well. Religious freedom is a big one for me. Because I spent my childhood in Canada, I know the woes of socialist healthcare, and so I definitely am not a fan of Obamacare. I am very much a sincere and devout convert to my new home country, and I love America very much. I’m part of this blog, and was part of GFZ, because I see the harm that the “great divide” between Left and Right has caused and is causing, and I want to do what I can to help heal it. I realize the writings of a random woman on a small blog in the middle of New England really isn’t going to do much for the country as a whole, but it’s what I can do, and so I do.
You will probably see a lot of posts about myself and the Fort at No. 4, because it is an important part of my life. I love teaching history to people, especially in a setting where those who come through can touch and taste and interact with that history like they do at the Fort. I believe making history come alive is the secret to making it interesting for kids, and so I patiently churn butter and make fried bread and teach the school groups about building fires in the beehive oven. I try to make it fun, which automatically makes it interesting.
Another thing you’ll probably see from me, if people are at all interested, is stuff about prepping. I tend to look at prepping as more “how to live comfortably without internet, electricity, running water, and central heating” than “bunkers and MREs.” That’s reflected in my hobbies and my interests. I have many subjects to touch on, from making lye from wood ash (which I’ll actually be doing at the fort, at some point this fall) to washing clothes by hand. Again, if there’s something in particular that interests you, let me know and I’ll either write about it, or find someone who does!
So there you have it. I’m me, Allyson, and I was Hagar. Nice to meet you all. I’m kind of happy to get out from under the shroud.
You will probably see a lot of posts about myself and the