Preparedness for when

thriftwizard

MrsLW, I think I'd treat anything TPTB say about Russia with a very big pinch of salt just now. It really seems they are trying to big Russia up as Public Enemy No. 1 - probably because they now control access to most of the world's remaining oil & gas supplies - and they're trying to whip us up into a frame of mind where we'll be happy to see them attacked. But the re-annexation of Ukraine doesn't seem to have been quite what our press has treated it as; for a start, a large number of people living there are ethnic Russians and many of the Russian troops to be found in Ukraine actually live there and always have. It was part of Russia for most of recorded history, it's where Russia actually began, and Crimea asked to rejoin, it wasn't captured.

It's very hard to know where the truth (if any!) actually lies, and not easy to get at any real facts. But if you have your wits about you when listening to the news reports, you can't help but see that everything we hear is slanted one way, i.e. Putin's Russia = Evil-incarnate-in-a-State = we must destroy! Which reminds me somewhat of the weapons of mass destruction thing...

And I rather think the Russians may have somewhat more real firepower & resources than most middle-Eastern dictators, and may also be prepared to use them in self-defence, rather than grabbing the cash & bolting. I think we're poking a rather angry tiger, assuming that twitching its tail is all it's able to do...

MTSTM, I've been living in a small town for nearly 23 years now, and it took me about 15 of those to realise that most of the inhabitants are perfectly happy to let anyone who wants to take responsibility/power. They may moan & grumble if things aren't working out to their satisfaction or benefit, but they'd die rather than actually do anything about it. It's not the cream that rises, sadly; very often, it's the scum! I think it comes down to the classroom thing of never wanting to be the one to raise your hand & get it wrong...

GreyQueen

And we're always been at war with Eurasia........nothing as good as a bogeyman in a bogey country to distract us plebs from what's going on at home.

I blame the US grubbyment for a lot of the present woes around the world. They funded the insurgents which became the Taliban in order to fight the Russians when they had invaded Afghanistan. And that worked out so well, didn't it? Then they've funded insurgents in the M.E. and now they're poking the Russian Bear with a very big stick. They're also hand-in-glove with some of the world's vilest regimes.

The Russians are proud people and are they going to put up with the US trying to get Ukraine away from them? And the EU trying to run their remit all over the continent until they smack into Asia? I don't think so. They won't need to send the tanks in when they've got control of substantial amounts of gas and oil, pressing a few buttons on a few computers will shut down supplies and let the rest of the continent warm themselves by burning their furniture.

The US military get their a$$es handed to them constantly, despite their overweening power, the best they can get to is an ugly draw in most conflicts where they haven't actually lost. And no one has taken on Afghanistan successfully in millennia, it and also Armenia, are where empires go to be humiliated.

elaine241

Hello All

Still reading but not a lot done in the prepping sense to report. I am still keeping my stocks up, gaining new skills (bees!) growing veg, foraging etc but not seemed to have got my a r s e in gear over extra things I should have done.
I need to go over everything I have done and then write a list or things that I need, want or would like to do re prepping. Need being the obvious starting point for important things I should have already done ( copying documents, cloud storage etc).

On a lighter note preps came into their own this weekend. I'm not one for painting the town red or any other colour usually but ............. it was a friends birthday and I hadn't been out in a while. Sensible meal and a few drinks with the girls, well we started well meaning! It was a certain rugby match in Cardiff so the streets were heaving and a great party atmosphere as the Irish were over! Well we decided to join the party and to cut a long story short I got in after 4 am!!!
Preps include plenty of headache tablets, stomach settling meds, meals easily put together for the rest of the family whilst suffering from over indulgence, plenty of food and drink in so there were very few calls of "Muuuuuuuum!" I never say never again as it was good to let my hair down and dance as if no one was watching!! LOL

Frugalsod

At the moment there is a lot of propaganda coming from all sides about Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine was on the way to a failed state because of the corruption of its former President. The Russians probably engineered the coup to give them an excuse to seize Crimea and its warm water ports. The invasion by thousands of Russian military in the east was the other plan. To secure a route to Crimea whatever happened to the rest of the country.

There are thousands of ethinic Russians all over eastern Europe who were dumped their over the decades to secure the region for russia. If they decided to annex the remaining Baltic states they might just start with false flag attacks on ethnic Russians to justify their invasion. Russia should have been invited into Nato, even if only as an observer. They have been invaded twice from Europe and so are justifiably anxious.

Frugalsod

For the cat owners out there.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=08c_1426460625

GreyQueen

Frugalsod wrote: »

For the cat owners out there.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=08c_1426460625

I love it, that blur if the cat scooting up the stairs, blink and you miss it. Plenty good enough for him; you should never turn a cat off its chosen chair, they really don't like that. If necessary, you should sit on your own floor, the cat honestly won't mind you cluttering the place up.

BHB

Frugalsod wrote: »

For the cat owners out there.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=08c_1426460625

I spat my tea out then! Brilliant !

ivyleaf

Frugalsod wrote: »

For the cat owners out there.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=08c_1426460625

Ha! Served him right

Elaine Glad you enjoyed the weekend, if not the aftermath

greenbee

GreyQueen wrote: »

I love it, that blur if the cat scooting up the stairs, blink and you miss it. Plenty good enough for him; you should never turn a cat off its chosen chair, they really don't like that. If necessary, you should sit on your own floor, the cat honestly won't mind you cluttering the place up.

I liked the supportive commentary from the dog, off camera :cool:

chiram2015

With all the news about being able to cash in your pension I think the SHTF will really come home to roost in the UK 10 years down the line if everyone takes their money out. I worry about my finances a lot and I found a great online tool retireeasy.co.uk that helps me plan so hopefully I don't have a SHTF moment later on.


Brilliant cat video by the way.