Banff Transition

BLDGBLOG: Review of John McPhee’s book La Place de la Concorde Suisse, which describes how “the Swiss military has, in effect, wired the entire country to blow in the event of foreign invasion. To keep enemy armies out, bridges will be dynamited and, whenever possible, deliberately collapsed onto other roads and bridges below; hills have been weaponized to be activated as valley-sweeping artificial landslides; mountain tunnels will be sealed from within to act as nuclear-proof air raid shelters; and much more. “

Boing Boing: “It turns out that the Swiss Army specifies that bridges, hillsides, and tunnels need to be designed so that they can be remotely destroyed in the event of societal collapse, pan-European war, or invasion. Meanwhile, underground parking garages (and some tunnels) are designed to be sealed off as airtight nuclear bunkers.”

Purdue University: “Plants that are not normally considered as crops are consumed in times of famine. This botanical-humanistic subject has had little academic exposure, and provides insight to potential new food sources that ordinarily would not be considered.”

Modern Mechanix: “1947: HARVEST time is approaching on the Black River at Carthage, N. Y., where the New York Central Railroad still cuts an annual crop of natural ice. It will cool next summer’s milk cars, passengers’ drinking water, and be used in cabooses for the convenience of freight-train crews.”

Global Guerrillas: “I don’t have to spell out the implications of this.  I want to have my drone before the government makes them illegal.”

Calgary Herald: “A German pensioner who had kept a tub of lard in his cupboard for 64 years, took it to authorities who pronounced it very much fit for consumption – if a little tasteless.Retired chemist Hans Feldmeier, 87, told AFP he had received the pig fat as a student in 1948 near the northern city of Rostock as part of the post-war U.S. aid program…. Finally, after 64 years, he took it to food safety agents and was astonished at their appraisal.

“There is of course a slight lack of smell and taste,” sniffed Frerk Feldhusen, from the office of agriculture, food safety and fisheries in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Moreover, the lard was “of gritty consistency, difficult to dissolve and looked a bit old,” the officials added. However, “all in all, given its level of freshness and its material composition, the product is assessed as satisfactory,” Feldhusen said, adding it would stand up to today’s definition of being fit for the dinner table.

Casaubon’s Books: “So what do you eat when you are poor? Well, your friends are going to be beans, lentils and grains. They are nutritious, tasty, simple, accessible and store well. If there’s any way you can come up with the money, buy them in big bags in bulk – a minimum of 10 lbs, 50 is better – much cheaper per pound.”

The Archdruid Report: “It’s unquestionably inefficient in terms of your personal time and resources to dig up your back yard and turn it into a garden; that inefficiency, however, means that if anything happens to the hypercomplex system that provides you with your food – a process that reaches beyond growers, shippers and stores to the worlds of high finance, petroleum production, resource politics, and much more – you still get to eat”

Casaubon’s Book: “[S]udden evacuations tend to leave people hanging for a time, and during that time people need to eat. … For the very short term, there’s the bug-out bag. This is simply a light pack of urgent necessities – food (the kind that doesn’t require much, if any heat or cooking – this is the place for cup a soup, instant coffee, dried fruit and power bars), a change of clothing, essential documents, something to do with your hands and brain…, water, toilet paper, emergency supplies like matches, a space blanket, medications, small first aid kit… “