We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Powdered milk from America Our mother having made her final exit from it twelve days ago, the Visigothic sacking of her house by her children process has now gone into overdrive, and all sorts of odd objects have come to light.
My favourite discovery so far is this:
We wondered just how old that might be. Late forties? Maybe earlier? We quickly found a big clue on the lid:
Nothing says World War quite like a rusty tin of powdered milk, with a note on it from the government about metal conservation, not for reasons of environmental holiness but to make weapons! Truly, a vivid reminder of the ordeals that Mum’s generation endured. At that time, she was raising two young children. By 1947 she had four.
Are we now being plunged by our current idiot government into a similar state of austerity, and will more powdered milk from across the Atlantic soon be needed? If so, will America be either willing or able to provide it?
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
I for one, will be happy to send as much powdered milk as I can to England. As long as they are sending a hundreds Lancasters out every night to bomb National Socialist controlled Europe.
Never mind the powdered milk, will the Yanks be able to send us courgettes!
BTW Brian, best of luck with the house clearance. I know from experience that this can lead to some poignant discoveries.
My condolences Brian, I know it was expected but these things are never easy.
On a lighter note (or not): what a fascinating discovery!
Sorry powdered milk is off but you will get financial aid for abortion providers. One has to have one’s priorities after all.
A program on the Great Escape (probably on PBS) described how empty Klim cans, delivered to prisoners by the Red Cross, were used to dig the tunnels. Start digging.
There are no courgettes in America.
No rocket either, although argula prices were of much concern in the Obama houshold during the election.
Er, arugula
With the decline of American self-sufficiency proceeding nicely (and having shifted gears on the 20th of January), one would do well to make other plans for acquiring one’s powdered milk.
We’ll probably import the stuff ourselves. All hail Obama!
Hardkill out.
“our Government demands”. Some things never change, do they?
Oh wait, they actually had a valid reason back then. I guess some things do change.
Thomas D, yes indeed courgettes exist in America but they go by the name zucchini.
Thomas D, yes indeed courgettes exist in America but they go by the name zucchini.
Millie, are you trying to start an argula?
No melamine in that skimmed milk
What’s interesting to me is that they were using that annoying quotes to denote emphasis thing way back then.
American milk is full of HGH, the EU says. Better to have a policy all lined up on that issue. There’s plenty, though.
US private contributors sent a shipload of small arms in the early days of WWII, only to have the ship scuttled to keep the weapons out of civilian hands in Britain. Let’s straighten that one out too, lest there be another misunderstanding.
But we’ll send all the zucchini you can stomach. It’s a weed here. We leave it on neighbors’ porches for a prank, every 8 August.
I’d just bet that milk tin would move on eBay.
I stand by my initial assertion.
There are no courgettes in America.
Nor crisps either.
Well, we don’t have spanners either, but somehow we get our bolts turned. And our words are missing a lot of extraneous “u”s, but somehow we manage to communicate (gestures and grunts, mostly, but a few true words). So what’s your point?
Clearing my father-in-law’s effects I found a sheet of paper from the same period. giving instructions on how to maximise the use of a sheet of carbon paper.
“US private contributors sent a shipload of small arms in the early days of WWII, only to have the ship scuttled to keep the weapons out of civilian hands in Britain.”
Close, but no cigar. Small arms were indeed donated by individuals to Britain in 1940, and were distributed by local police forces, the new owners and serial numbers carefully noted (for their proper return after the war). In 1945, the Attlee government sent the police around to collect the guns (as the owners had been registered), and the guns were loaded on a ship.
The entire cargo was then dumped into the Atlantic many miles off the British coast.
On the original topic: KLIM would not pass EU health guidelines today — most modern American-made powdered milk wouldn’t, either — so you’ll have to be content with Twinkies and Big Macs.
Oh, wait: those make you fat, so the Health Nannies in the BritGov would probably nix the shipments.
Sorry, guys. You’re on your own this time, both for powdered milk and for guns.
My condolences on the death of your mother.
Late to this thread, sorry. I would not expect a whole lot of aid from the US in any form. I know that your PM managed to snag an audience with Hussein Pasha, and is expected to supplicate for shiploads of US cash to give your own government printing presses a break. But even our Vichy Republicans know that they could not support bailing out Britain’s economy without making the close acquaintance of a lamp post.
An interesting thing I have noted reference food supplies. Like many Americans, I garden. I have been looking at staple food crops that store over the winter, as I expect it to get ‘kinda hungry out’ in this country, fairly soon as the Democrats destroy the economy. I know of small businesses that began liquidating after the election so the owners would get some of the value rather than being driven into bankruptcy by the government. November had the largest one month job loss in 16 years, and a good part of it was apparently small businesses doing much the same thing.
As the other Samizdat-istas should have gathered from previous postings, I am somewhat conservative in orientation. My nic comes from that conservatism. There are members of my extended family who are not nearly as conservative as I. Over the extended holidays [Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Chinese New Years] we have found that we are all thinking the same thing …… about our gardens. We want staple survival crops. Even the Liberals in my family are figuring we are in for some really hard times.
Just for the record, both corn and wheat are too acreage and water intensive [Colorado is Alpine Desert]. We are looking at Peruvian Quinoa and amaranth. Quinoa can be cooked like rice, and made both into flour and pasta; and has an almost perfect protein balance. And it grows like a weed here. 100 lbs in the pantry may make winter a lot less hungry.
I have a feeling that there is going to be a lot less in the way of courgettes and arugula available for export. And wheat and corn as energy price increases reduce production and transportation of both.
Y’all may want to look to your own safety, as the US is not going to have either the will or ability to render aid.
Subotai Bahadur
I really like the phrase “Vichy Republicans”! I expect to appropriate it someday.
If you’d like to sell the KLIM can eventually, I’d be very interested.
Rob