TamHob
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Did you notice Putin also said that roubles will be fully convertible for gold and that unfriendly countries can also use gold (and friendlies Yuan and Bitcoin)? That puts a floor price under physical gold. Currently the floor is a bit below the market price but presumbly roubles will rise as the EU HAS to buy gas starting very soon if they want to get through winter, that will increase the effective gold price, arbitrage takes over and poof goes the paper gold markets in a slow motion bank run. How much was the estimated rehypothecation again, x300? Interesting that Putin has also chosen to support Bitcoin. Maybe throwing the Western commoners a bone to help jam up the introduction of the CBDC’s?
@John Day,
You posted yesterday – how to reduce community vulnerability when no one much is currently interested in growing veggies? This occurred to me too a couple of years ago, I don’t want ours to be the only family looking well fed in a starving neighbourhood. Accordingly I’ve been madly burying kilos of acorns a year from fast maturing oak species. I collect the acorns from trees I’ve id’d in my home town and I use a bit of old pipe attached to a long sharp tipped walking stick to make the hole and drop the acorn in, then close the hole by stepping on it. We don’t have squirrels so most come up. I walk at least an hour nearly every day and I’ve done that pretty much anywhere there is open public ground and I think a tree might survive the mowers. Also as I go, I also identify patches of weeds growing in waste areas against future medicinal needs: St John’s Wort, Briar Rose, Elderberry etc.
My second idea was to naturalise potatoes on any neglected waste areas I come across, I buy about 35 kg of seed potato a year and dig for tubers in the less visible areas I’ve already planted. As well as digging them in, anyone dumps a load of branches, lawn clippings or leaves in a nature reserve near me and it gets a potato under it. The mowers often mow the plants but they seem to do well enough to spread a few square metres over several years and there are tubers there when I dig. Lots of plant diversity and clover around them so disease build up doesn’t seem to be an issue. Approximately 30% of the ‘grassy’ areas in our local parks are actually edible annual and perennial weed greens (stellaria, plantain, dandelion, sheep sorrel, oxalis, purslane etc) so I’m confident that vitamins and minerals are a lesser issue than calories since a little bit of those go a long way.
Most recently I’ve started planting the edges of tennis courts and fencelines etc with scarlet runner beans. Big seeds so easy to plant with my stick and pipe, they look so pretty people don’t pull them up and they regrow for seven years, good protein and very productive. It’s not enough by itself of course but I figure it will all help. I’m also internally debating the ethics of naturalising oil olives as well. They are certainly very weedy in my area and the birds will takeover spreading them if I can get some going in the cotoneaster thickets around the place. On the downside they are also very weedy in bush areas.
We have different climates of course, but I understand sweet potato does well around you?
On the plus side, Coles, one of our two super-dominant grocery retailers has apparently announced a small back down on its staff vaccine mandate – they will only enforce it where required by law as opposed to universally. Not enough to win me back, however, now that I have discovered the wonders of the local farmers market and the delights of mystery ingredient shopping at the Asian and Middle-eastern mini-marts.
So (very unprofessional from a legal investigations stand point, though also very intimidating) Victorian (Australia) Department of Health officials in black jackets yesterday walked into a pro-early treatment doctor’s rooms and made off with patient files and appointment book. No warrant, no receipt for items taken. One of the patients whose files were taken was apparently Craig Kelly from the United Australia Party (one of the minor parties seeking to stand up to vaccine mandates and general Covid crazy). He sounded pretty ropeable in the video I saw. Link to video: https://www.ourfreedomtube.com/watch/2021-nov-10-vic-gov-gestapo-raids-doctors-office-he-refused-to-hand-over-patient-medical-records_mv7M9Pz5QUCtIwx.html.
@Oxy, I see you are a Man with a Plan. But yes, it is very sobering to realise that your government actively hates you and is at the least indifferent to your death, and so does a reasonably large proportion of your fellow citizens. Woolworths and Coles have gone to the dark side too, which is somewhat inconvenient though I have access to quite a few very large markets and have been madly planting seed potatoes in every neglected patch around town. I do get the feeling that the Powers That Be are warming up to push Aus and NZ off the lifeboat in preparation for a Greek/Italian style asset stripping and who knows what happens if the US situation goes up in flames.
Re meat sources: feral pig, goat, deer and rabbit also seem to be quite available in the hills around us with only a little effort to attract them in. I have been eyeing a couple of rabbit warrens on our property and wondering if I can tame down a feral goat for milking purposes (or maybe trap one which is about to kid). Pig is particularly attractive from a fat sources perspective, otherwise it’s very expensive olive oil from the farmers’ market.
@Oxy
Victorians (and NTers) are in a hideous situation. Are you close enough to the NSW border that you could manoeuvre yourself into the border bubble? Establish a ‘residence’ at a mate’s place or something and then cross into NSW based on that and set up a new base there? I realise that is very unpalatable from the point of view of being separated from your family and home base. However, might be better than living as a criminal or homeless and at least they could come to visit you.
Thank you for the Ode to Joy, I’ve always liked it but I felt like today was the first time I really understood all the different phases. Also, it made me cry a lot. Had not realised how much stress I was suppressing re jab effects and mandates/economy/oil etc but the catharthis felt good after.
I read about the food shortages in Shepparton. Not sure where in central vic. you are, but hope you’re doing ok.
Controversial and brave in the current climate, also fairly scathing (in polite, scientific language): “US COVID-19 Vaccines Proven to Cause More Harm than Good Based on Pivotal Clinical Trial Data Analyzed Using the Proper Scientific Endpoint, “All Cause Severe Morbidity”,” Journal of Trends in Internal Medicine
Well, I’m delurking to confirm that Canberra is indeed cold and miserable with an all but visable fog of depression hanging over the populace. People are generally snappy and on edge. However, I’m about to take receipt of 35kgs of seed potato and a half kilo each of cold and drought hardy corn and bean seeds, which I’m hoping to both substantially increase and naturalise over the coming year in between permaculturing the small bit of arable land available to me. Most likely, it will make no difference whatsoever in the long term. However, one does what one can and hopefully someone will get a feed out of the work.
Re the paper with the 138 Wuhan pneumonia cases/5% death rate. This paper has the same flaw for calculating death rates as the previous two (with 41 and 99 cases) – it only follows up patients for a short time after the end of the sample period. Therefore, the majority of the patients are still in hospital/ICU without a resolution either way. However, I did note that he reported a series of blood test results for 33 patients for which there was a full case history. Since the testing began on the first day symptoms developed, I’m presuming these 33 were part of the set of confirmed cases originating in the hospital, in order to have been picked up so quickly. Possibly they were even all staff. Anyways, out of this small more or less random sample of 33 resolved cases, 5 died. That’s approximately a 15% fatality rate of confirmed cases with pneumonia. I can’t interpret the blood test charts so I can’t assess how many of the 33 probably received ICU treatment (my indicator of the likely fatality rate in a true pandemic).
What is still missing is how many people from the same cohort tested positive but weren’t included in the study as they didn’t develop pneumonia, which would give a better idea of mortality overall once infected. Also, for whatever reason, the international mortality so far seems to be substantially less than in Wuhan. Thirdly, as noted in the comments above, medical staff with inadequate protection equipment may be getting super doses of infectious material and thus more likely to succumb. Probably lots of other factors.
