A Gray Man – The Suburban Redoubt

Disunion, Union, Preachers and Doers

A Gray Man — Sat, 18 Apr 2020 17:03:41 +0000

Only dead fish follow the stream -old Scandinavian expresion It has been a while since my last post but I have been pretty distracted, I must admit. In this post I focus on some psychological lessons I have learned watching the past couple of weeks. This are lessons I already knew but the past few …

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Masks…ahem

A Gray Man — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 13:23:20 +0000

https://nypost.com/2020/03/28/experts-say-face-masks-can-help-slow-covid-19-despite-previous-claims/ You shouldn’t ignore what so called experts are saying, but don’t simply uncritically accept it either. Think for yourself.

Decoupling

A Gray Man — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 15:58:14 +0000

These articles and others like them that have been making the rounds have been spinning around my head in recent weeks: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/cheap-manufacturing-be-damned-sentiment-builds-for-moving-u-s-companies-out-of-china In short, decoupling basically means in practice a shift away from international supply chains. These chains emerged in part because outsourcing to foreign nations has some advantages: cost savings, technology transfer, etc. But …

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Notes on a bug in: week 3

A Gray Man — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 14:47:57 +0000

So mi casa just completed three weeks of near total bug in. In the absence of a therapeutic emerging that transforms everything (its pretty clear at this point that it would have to cut way into the case fatality rate and, more generally, the ventilator use rate) it looks like this might be the situation …

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Guns 101: Part 2

A Gray Man — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 01:47:08 +0000

In the last post we learned some basics about guns. In this post we begin a discussion of half of the gun equation: ammunition. There are a stunning number of options in the world of ammunition. Most ammunition is designed with a specific kind of performance and/or mission in mind. I can’t cover all ammunition. …

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An inflection point?

A Gray Man — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 02:13:06 +0000

Saw this today: Well, I don’t know if that title is how I would put it. But it does seem like we might be at a kind of inflection point, where an idea that had currency in a small minority, prepping, begins to achieve wider acceptance. To be sure, the people clogging Costcos right now …

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Prepping isn’t just about the prepper

A Gray Man — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 13:55:56 +0000

In the past two days, during which the images above were captured, the covid-19 walls caved in on ordinary Americans. These images match reports I have heard from the local Costcos in my corner of the South. A father of a friend at a local Costco yesterday estimated the line was 150 (give or take) …

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Bugging out is generally a bad idea

A Gray Man — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 12:14:25 +0000

“We’re driving a U-Haul out to the Hamptons. Which means I’ll probably be the first to die” So it turns out that covid-19 is messing with the Spring Break plans of our betters and instead they are doing what any sensible prepper would do in an emergency like this: bug out out to the Hamptons. …

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Covid-19 and society

A Gray Man — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 00:18:24 +0000

This evening the local news had a special on covid-19. An economist opined that this could cause a recession. On the other hand, if there was some good news, such as a fall in cases in Italy, it could rally people’s spirits and make them think everything was going to be alright. I got stuck …

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News: A trailer

A Gray Man — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 14:40:08 +0000

So people are fighting over rotten food on one of the cruise ships: https://nypost.com/2020/03/09/people-fighting-over-rotten-food-on-coronavirus-stricken-grand-princess-cruise-passenger/ It’s like a trailer for the movie “SHTF”. And to think this is a crisis where there actually is food available.