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Potential SHTF scenarios & tinfoil hat thread (Please read post 1)

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,121 ✭✭✭✭Grizzly 45


    Doc Ruby wrote: »
    There are two kinds of EMP discharges as I recall, one is solely from high altitude nuclear weapon bursts, thats the lad that fries all electronics, laptops, computers, anything plugged into the grid or attached to a short wire.

    The other one is the solar flare type EMP, which gives you the aurora borealis. The last time there was a major event like that was back in 1859:



    That would be quite serious these days, although property damage would be minimal, it would just knock out the substations. Major power losses but once they replaced the fried components everything would go basically back to normal, so anywhere between a couple of hours to a few months for the affected areas.

    What the book 1second after and the film[if ever released, Remnants] is based on.
    Only problem is;if the replacement equipment or circutry hasnt bee EMP protected as well!Or it is just so much junk too!Remember too we are now talking 99.9% of the World has no got some sort of micro chip in it.From your wristwatch to the computors monitoring our nuke power plants and jet aircraft.That is one I'd be pretty worried about suddenly mass air disasters occuring all over the place as dead jets start dropping out of the skies.Some of these new fly by wire jets are virtually stones once their electrics go out.Next mass die off ,anyone rigged up to a life support system.Followed I reckon by anyone on pacemakers?Next the non automation of the production of things like insulin,and other life supporting drugs will have a knock on die off.
    Bad news if this hits somplace that makes micro chips
    like silicon valley or wherever,cos guess what?They use computor assisted methods to produce the chips to replace the burnt circutry,etc,etc up the chain.

    This is one thing the US armed forces take very seriously and despite ploughing billions into thisin research are still not much better off in figuring out how to sort out.Short of stockpiling vital circutry and equipment in EMP proof containers there isnt much you can do to protect this.
    BTW dont be too reliant on valve and non micro circutry either.Apprently in the 1950s at the Bikini atoll H bomb tests,there was trouble with radio comms and radar back up as far as Hawaii!

    Guess it will depend on where it hits and what it is.If it is a solar flare there proably isnt thart much we can do about it.If it is an EMP bomb it depends where and when.Say in the UK region it could possibly knock out Ireland as well.

    "If you want to keep someone away from your house, Just fire the shotgun through the door."

    Vice President [and former lawyer] Joe Biden Field& Stream Magazine interview Feb 2013 "



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 351 ✭✭colonel-yum-yum


    In case anyone missed it, the link in this post shows how a guy made a faraday cage on the cheap. Not guaranteed against EMP, but definitely a step forward.
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=76491530&postcount=19


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 902 ✭✭✭baords dyslexic


    Grizzly 45 wrote: »
    BTW dont be too reliant on valve and non micro circutry either.Apprently in the 1950s at the Bikini atoll H bomb tests,there was trouble with radio comms and radar back up as far as Hawaii!

    You've reminded me I have an old Royal Navy WWII valve communications reciever in a shed somewhere and a complete set of spare valves for it. Must dig it out and see if it still works, I remember thinking that I should store the spare valves in a metal box to help protect them from EMP but as an EMP attack will knock out all the power lines I doubt if I will be able to get the 120V DC I need to run it so its probably not going to be a priority.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    Grizzly 45 wrote: »
    Guess it will depend on where it hits and what it is.If it is a solar flare there proably isnt thart much we can do about it.If it is an EMP bomb it depends where and when.Say in the UK region it could possibly knock out Ireland as well.
    A solar flare won't knock out all the electronics though, just the power networks. If its exceptionally powerful it might hit some plugged in systems, but not many. If something isn't plugged in its not in danger, and even then fuses and so on will prevent much damage. Long term blackouts are possible, but unlikely.

    A high altitude nuke on the other hand, thats the civilisation wrecker. Two different sorts of effects. More info here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse
    E1

    The E1 pulse is the very fast component of nuclear EMP. The E1 component is a very brief but intense electromagnetic field that can quickly induce very high voltages in electrical conductors. The E1 component causes most of its damage by causing electrical breakdown voltages to be exceeded. E1 is the component that can destroy computers and communications equipment and it changes too quickly for ordinary lightning protectors to provide effective protection against it.

    One (1) high level nuclear burst:
    508px-EMP_mechanism.GIF


    E3

    The E3 component is very different from the other two major components of nuclear EMP. The E3 component of the pulse is a very slow pulse, lasting tens to hundreds of seconds, that is caused by the nuclear detonation heaving the Earth's magnetic field out of the way, followed by the restoration of the magnetic field to its natural place. The E3 component has similarities to a geomagnetic storm caused by a very severe solar flare. Like a geomagnetic storm, E3 can produce geomagnetically induced currents in long electrical conductors, which can then damage components such as power line transformers.

    Because of the similarity between solar-induced geomagnetic storms and nuclear E3, it has become common to refer to solar-induced geomagnetic storms as "solar EMP." At ground level, however, "solar EMP" is not known to produce an E1 or E2 component.

    ...

    These 2 MeV gamma rays will normally produce an E1 pulse near ground level at moderately high latitudes that peaks at about 50,000 volts per metre. This is a peak power density of 6.6 megawatts per square metre.

    The process of the gamma rays knocking electrons out of the atoms in the mid-stratosphere causes this region of the atmosphere to become an electrical conductor due to ionization, a process which blocks the production of further electromagnetic signals and causes the field strength to saturate at about 50,000 volts per metre. The strength of the E1 pulse depends upon the number and intensity of the gamma rays produced by the weapon and upon the rapidity of the gamma ray burst from the weapon. The strength of the E1 pulse is also somewhat dependent upon the altitude of the detonation.

    There are reports of "super-EMP" nuclear weapons that are able to overcome the 50,000 volt per metre limit by the very nearly instantaneous release of a burst of gamma radiation of much higher energy levels than are known to be produced by second generation nuclear weapons. The reality and possible construction details of these weapons are classified, and therefore cannot be confirmed by scientists in the open scientific literature.

    EMP_areas.JPG
    There doesn't need to be anything special about the nukes either, which for my money is a big reason why Israel and the US are so worried about Iran getting them. That genuinely might be your Snake Plissken scenario.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 902 ✭✭✭baords dyslexic


    Take a look at Doc Ruby's map above and imagine the EMP attack a few hundred miles out from the east or west coast instead of the center. Is that a direct attack on the US?

    Just trying to point out that an EMP attack could initially be made to look like an accident and even if the government that got hit knew exactly who had done it would they tell the general public straight away?


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  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    Parts of Italy are currently experiencing food shortages and inflated prices due to a massive truck strike.

    http://www.euronews.net/2012/01/25/food-shortages-as-italian-truck-strike-bites/


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,121 ✭✭✭✭Grizzly 45


    Take a look at Doc Ruby's map above and imagine the EMP attack a few hundred miles out from the east or west coast instead of the center. Is that a direct attack on the US?

    Just trying to point out that an EMP attack could initially be made to look like an accident and even if the government that got hit knew exactly who had done it would they tell the general public straight away?

    Doubt that they would be telling anyone much as most of our comms would be fried.:(
    But the scenario has got its plausability.Launch a missile outside the CONUS terrorital waters and detonate it 480 plus Nautical miles up in the athmosphere.Doable more or less ,as there is a so called "40ft container rocket" ,made by Russia.Wether it could heave up a crude nuke is another question,as that is where Iran and N Korea have the problem.Their bombs are about the size and weight of the bombs used in Hiroshma or Nagasaki and somwhat less efficent. Until they can shrink them down to an efficent size and get a missile with an efficent payload to carry it a decent distance it will be a problem for them.

    Next problem is simply there is alot of radar and Early Warning systems now on both sides of CONUS,and it has geared up alot again since 911.
    An unidentified object suddenly apperaing on the horizion from the middle of the Pacific,is going to trigger off alot of very quick and very HOT response nowadays,and set the phone lines to white hot between The White House and the Kremlin again as this would scream sub launched ballistic missile.Wouldnt take long to back track the trajectory and possibly get real time sat pics of who or what launched this..God help that country then.True it would be a serious right hook into Americas jaw,but not enough to put it on the canvas.There is still much of a very US viable force out in the world to be able to retaliate within 12 hours of somthing like that going down.

    "If you want to keep someone away from your house, Just fire the shotgun through the door."

    Vice President [and former lawyer] Joe Biden Field& Stream Magazine interview Feb 2013 "



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,121 ✭✭✭✭Grizzly 45


    Tabnabs wrote: »
    Parts of Italy are currently experiencing food shortages and inflated prices due to a massive truck strike.

    http://www.euronews.net/2012/01/25/food-shortages-as-italian-truck-strike-bites/

    Coming to a street near you in Ireland soon too.:(

    "If you want to keep someone away from your house, Just fire the shotgun through the door."

    Vice President [and former lawyer] Joe Biden Field& Stream Magazine interview Feb 2013 "



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,635 ✭✭✭eth0


    Grizzly 45 wrote: »
    Bad news if this hits somplace that makes micro chips
    like silicon valley or wherever

    Worse news if it hits Shenzhen, or Leixlip.

    Feck all chips are made in Silicon valley these days. The lads working there are busy designing new chips while a bigger army of Chinese lads are much busier making the lads in Silicon valley obsolete


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    Three mushroom pickers lost six nights in the rugged forest of southwest Oregon with no food considered eating their dog, and used the screen on their dead cellphone and the blade of a sheath knife to flash a signal at the helicopter pilot who found them.

    Dan Conne said Sunday from his hospital bed in Gold Beach that he and his wife and son spent the nights huddled in a hollow log with nothing to eat, and considered sacrificing their pit bull, Jesse, for food.

    "She's that good a dog, she'd have done it, too," Conne said.

    A volunteer helicopter pilot looking outside the search area Saturday spotted Dan and Belinda Conne, both 47, along with 25-year-old Michael, on the edge of a deep ravine in tall timber. They were about 10 miles northeast of the town of Gold Beach, roughly 330 miles south-southwest of Portland.

    "The wife had the Blackberry and I had the knife," Dan Conne told The Associated Press. "I kept flashing. The wife said, 'You're blinding them.' But I wanted to make sure they seen us. I wasn't taking no chance."

    The three had given up hope and thought they were going to die when rescuers came.

    "None of us thought we were coming out of there," he said.

    While lost, the cold and hungry family could see search helicopters and airplanes flying low and slow overhead, but they couldn't get the pilots' attention through the thick, coastal forest vegetation.

    When they were found, the Connes were just five football fields from a road, and a mile from their Jeep.

    The three were airlifted to a Gold Beach hospital, where they stayed overnight.

    Dan Conne hurt his back, and Belinda Conne had hypothermia, said Curry County Sheriff John Bishop. All three were hungry, and enjoyed potato soup and sandwiches at the hospital.

    Belinda and Dan Conne were discharged Sunday. Their son, who suffered frostbite, hypothermia and a sprained ankle, remained in the hospital for more treatment.

    The family was spotted by Jackson County Commissioner John Rachor, spending his first day searching for them in his own helicopter with Curry County Sheriff's Lt. John Ward.

    Rachor had been up two hours and decided to go outside the search area, heading uphill from where the family parked their Jeep, instead of down.

    "We couldn't find anything in the obvious places, so we decide to go to the not-obvious places," he said. "I kind of think outside the box on these things sometimes, and it pays off."

    Rachor is the same pilot who found a San Francisco family lost in a snowstorm in 2006 just 35 miles from where he found the Connes. In 2006, Rachor flew Kati Kim and her two young daughters to safety after spotting them near their car. James Kim died of hypothermia trying to hike out for help.

    On Saturday, Rachor saw a movement on the edge of a deep ravine in tall timber. A man in tan bib overalls was waving his arms. Ward marked the spot on his GPS and called the Coast Guard for a helicopter to winch the family out. He also called a nearby ground team to give them immediate aid, then flew back to Gold Beach for fuel.

    "The searchers were with us within 20 minutes of the first copter that found us," Dan Conne said. "There must have been nine or 10 of them. They just kept coming out of that brush. It was just a real happy feeling, 'cause we knew we wasn't going to die out there."

    The Coast Guard lifted Michael and Dan Conne out first, then returned for Belinda. The dog walked out with searchers.

    Dan Conne said the three got lost Jan. 29 after going back for a second load of hedgehog and black trumpet mushrooms, which they sell to a local buyer. It was Belinda's day off from her motel maid job.

    They left their four Chihuahua dogs at the fifth-wheel trailer at the campground where they live, and drove to first one spot, then returned for peanut-butter sandwiches and went to a new spot they were not familiar with.

    In the heat of the afternoon, they left their jackets at the end of a gravel road. Their last meal was a peanut-butter sandwich each on Jan. 29.

    When they didn't come home the first night, the camp host alerted authorities. Searchers hit the ground last Monday. Wednesday, searchers found the Connes' Jeep.

    The Connes spent the first night in rain, sheltering under a pile of brush. The second day, they built a lean-to, but it fell down. Michael Conne hiked uphill to try to see where they were, but returned cold, wet and with no better idea where they were. Trying to find their way out downhill, they discovered a hollow log they could all squeeze into, and they stayed there, covering the opening with bark and hiking downhill to a creek to fill plastic bags with water. When it rained, they tried to plug the leaks with bits of wood.

    "It was pretty tight in there," Dan Conne said.

    They were never able to start a fire, having no matches or lighters.

    "Every other time we been out there, every one of us had lighters, except this time," Dan Conne said. "Rubbing sticks together? That don't work. Slamming rocks together? Only on TV.

    "There was a lot of debating, back and forth, whether to stay or go. Mikey couldn't walk. If we had to leave him, that wasn't an option. Belinda was down. I could barely walk. We just didn't know which way to go."

    Source


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,615 ✭✭✭kildare.17hmr


    Very luck people, just goes to show how easy things can go wrong and being unprepaired can be nearly fatal! Everytime i go for a walk in the mountains or the woods i have my hiking kit, even when i bring the woman and kids around glendalough ffs :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 563 ✭✭✭bonniebede


    Yep, it is amazing how quickly a situation can go from bad to worse.

    A friend of mine told me how a number of her school friends died walking in Wicklow when she was young.

    Sad to think how a couple of ounces of equipment in a small tin could be the difference between life and death.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,615 ✭✭✭kildare.17hmr


    bonniebede wrote: »
    Yep, it is amazing how quickly a situation can go from bad to worse.

    A friend of mine told me how a number of her school friends died walking in Wicklow when she was young.

    Sad to think how a couple of ounces of equipment in a small tin could be the difference between life and death.
    I remember as a teenager going camping with a load of mated from school, we hiked a bit into a forrest in wicklow where the liffey runs through. Myself and and anohter lad who were in the rdf got laughed at because we brought decent gear, boots, waterproofs and ponchos for tents the next morning we were cooking our breckfast, beans and sausages iirc, on our hexi cookers and mess tins all the butt of the jokes the night before and all the rest were soaked to the bone and freezing cold and walking off to the nearest town for breckfast rolls :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,121 ✭✭✭✭Grizzly 45


    GUBU situation!!
    By day six they want to eat the dog!!! What happenes by day ten??They drawing lots to see who of them is on the menu for tomrrow!:eek:
    Canditates for the Darwin awards 2012.

    "If you want to keep someone away from your house, Just fire the shotgun through the door."

    Vice President [and former lawyer] Joe Biden Field& Stream Magazine interview Feb 2013 "



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,341 ✭✭✭Fallschirmjager


    Hi,

    here is a great site on the coming problems,

    http://demonocracy.info/

    and this one on who 'exactly' loaned money to whom

    http://demonocracy.info/infographics/eu/debt_piigs/debt_piigs.html

    if that doesnt terrify, check out the US debt...

    http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/us_debt/us_debt.html

    and if that doesnt (you are a better man than me), go here

    http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/world_debt/world_debt.html


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 902 ✭✭✭baords dyslexic


    Was just outside using a LED torch to shut our chickens in and got thinking how good LEDs were and how much better than filiment bulbs when it struck me that they might be f$$$ all use after an EMP attack.

    OK so I'll hang onto those old everyready power beams after all :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,635 ✭✭✭eth0


    Was just outside using a LED torch to shut our chickens in and got thinking how good LEDs were and how much better than filiment bulbs when it struck me that they might be f$$$ all use after an EMP attack.

    OK so I'll hang onto those old everyready power beams after all :)

    That wouldnt be good for the high percentage of nerds among us. First priority will be finding enough valves (as used in old radios) just so we could build something that can be programmed. Worry about food later

    In the states they keep a few 1960's style computers going for this reason but i doubt your average EMP will kill every LED in existence


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    Was just outside using a LED torch to shut our chickens in and got thinking how good LEDs were and how much better than filiment bulbs when it struck me that they might be f$$$ all use after an EMP attack.

    OK so I'll hang onto those old everyready power beams after all :)
    Hmm, interesting one. As far as I'm aware the longer the wire the more damage the system will take, which is why power grids and anything plugged in are the most vulnerable infrastructure, and since LEDs have very short wires, they might be alright. "Smart" flashlights with circuits in them would be more open to damage. Taking out the batteries would also be a great idea.

    I'm also not convinced that old style lightbulbs would fare any better. In 1962 the United States detonated a 1.4 Megaton nuclear device in the upper atmosphere 250 miles above the earth's surface in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, about 900 miles from Hawaii. The EMP effects damaged about 300 street lights, and since this was the sixties, LEDs weren't in use.


  • Registered Users Posts: 563 ✭✭✭bonniebede


    Was just outside using a LED torch to shut our chickens in and got thinking how good LEDs were and how much better than filiment bulbs when it struck me that they might be f$$$ all use after an EMP attack.

    OK so I'll hang onto those old everyready power beams after all :)

    Think candles. Preferably tallow ones, aS you can also eat them if you have to.:pac:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,121 ✭✭✭✭Grizzly 45


    Doc Ruby wrote: »
    I'm also not convinced that old style lightbulbs would fare any better. In 1962 the United States detonated a 1.4 Megaton nuclear device in the upper atmosphere 250 miles above the earth's surface in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, about 900 miles from Hawaii. The EMP effects damaged about 300 street lights, and since this was the sixties, LEDs weren't in use.

    Yup,and the Bikini Atoll test blast apprently played havoc with radio and radar equipment as far away as Hawaii!..A few thousand sea miles away..
    So valves and non micro circutry is proably abit more resillient,but still vunerable.

    "If you want to keep someone away from your house, Just fire the shotgun through the door."

    Vice President [and former lawyer] Joe Biden Field& Stream Magazine interview Feb 2013 "



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  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    Health authorities have admitted to overreacting to a health scare at Auckland Airport but say it's better to be safe than sorry.

    They swung into action after it was suspected dozens of Japanese students who had just landed had contracted the flu.

    While ambulance staff were ready for the worst, the students at the centre of the scare came through the arrival gates, wondering what all the fuss was about.

    Their flight, NZ90 from Tokyo, was halted on the tarmac just after 9am this morning with 73 of the Japanese homestay students onboard suspected of carrying an unknown strain of influenza.

    One passenger on the flight, David Turner from Wellington, said there were air staff everywhere, all wearing masks, "just sort of shepherding us to different places".

    Passengers like Turner were left wondering why authorities took two hours to board the plane when they were told two hours before landing there was an issue.

    A woman passenger said it was "just confusion" and nobody knew what was happening.

    She said paramedics were uncoordinated in the way they were checking passengers' temperatures and pulses.

    "The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. It was a disaster," the woman said.

    Turner said even the captain kept coming on the intercom telling people how sorry he was that he had no idea what the situation was and when they could get off the plane.

    Turner said ground staff panicked when he told them he had "a bit of a cold" and he was put in a room where the sick students were brought.

    "I said 'I'm perfectly healthy, I've got a cold, I'm not going to be exposed to these guys.'"

    Turner said the sick students were then whisked to another room, but the whole situation was "a bit of a shambles".

    The Auckland Regional Public Health Service says it took time to deal with the alert.

    "It does take time and I know that can be frustrating. But it's important to get it right," said Dr Julia Peters of the Auckland Regional Public Health Service.

    The health service says passengers who were sitting in seats away from the student group were disembarked first and then assessed for signs of illness, provided with general health advice, and cleared to leave the airport and continue their journeys.

    Passengers travelling in the student group, or in seats close to this group, were separately assessed and approximately 40 students were found to have a mild respiratory illness with symptoms of coughs or runny noses, it said.

    None of the unwell passengers showed signs of influenza or had a feverish illness, and none required hospital assessment. These passengers were cleared to leave the airport at 12.38pm today, were provided with health advice and able to complete their journeys in New Zealand, the health service said.

    The man running the homestay trip, Stuart Cundy of Let's Homestay, told ONE News he understands only a few of the students showed visible flu like symptoms, and from that another passenger raised the alarm.

    "The whole group was actually vaccined back in November, leading into the Japanese winter. There's no influenza, there's no flu, and that's the official word from the authorities," Cundy said.

    The diagnosis was that a few boys in the group had mild viral illnesses - little more than the common cold.

    "In hindsight we overreacted to this. But that's much better than underreacting," said Dr Richard Hoskins of the Auckland Regional Public Health Service.

    Four hours after landing, the largely healthy students left for Tauranga, after what was an eventful start to their 10-day New Zealand holiday.

    source


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    "In hindsight we overreacted to this. But that's much better than underreacting," said Dr Richard Hoskins of the Auckland Regional Public Health Service.
    +1 million.


  • Registered Users Posts: 563 ✭✭✭bonniebede


    I'm trying to work this out. If this was a dangerous illness, which shouldn't be unleashed on the public, how long did they think the incubation period was? And on what evidence?

    They let the other passengers go after a few hours, then presumably they were thinking that if they had contracted it they would already be symptomatic. Even for flu that sounds a bit unlikely (not sure how long the flight was).

    Sounds to me like they either over reacted or under reacted... if there was a real threat releasing asymptomatic passengers would be a no-no, surely?

    Makes me think, with all due respects to the health officials around the world who really are doing their best to contain possible pandemics in the face of little recognition, if something really nasty does come along, we haven't a hope in hell of containing it. ANd I guess its not if but when.

    (I should note in the interests of full disclosure that I am working my way through the original 'survivors' series from the BBc thansk to it being flagged on the fav films thread (hat tip) so I might be a little sensitised to the subject)


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    bonniebede wrote: »
    if something really nasty does come along, we haven't a hope in hell of containing it. ANd I guess its not if but when.
    That's about the size of it sadly. The last time something similar happened was in 1918.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    Clever and interesting little story with some obvious lessons for us in Ireland in a SHTF scenario.
    A small town in northern Spain has decided to reintroduce the old Spanish currency - the peseta - alongside the euro to give the local economy a lift.

    Shopkeepers in Mugardos want anyone with forgotten stashes of the old cash at home to come and spend it.

    It is nine years since the peseta was official currency in Spain.

    But Spain's economic crisis has forced some to be inventive. The hard times have seen thousands of businesses close and more than two million jobs go.
    Forgotten coins

    More than 60 shops in Mugardos, a small fishing town in Galicia on Spain's northern coast, are accepting the peseta again for all purchases, alongside the euro.

    It is an attempt to get cash registers ringing - and help lift the town out of a long and painful economic slump.

    Shopkeepers were sceptical at first, but they now say the scheme is a great success.

    People are travelling into Mugardos from outside just to spend the old currency they never got round to converting.

    One man visited the local hardware store this week with a 10,000-peseta note he had found at home, and had no idea what to do with.

    He is now the happy owner of a sandwich toaster.

    The euro was introduced here in January 2002.

    Spaniards then had another three months to exchange their old currency at any bank.

    That cash can still be converted today, but only at the Bank of Spain itself, and it says a staggering 1.7bn euros ($2.4bn) of cash is still unaccounted for - stashed, perhaps, then forgotten; piles of coins that slipped down the backs of sofas; or even big notes kept by collectors.

    That is the reserve the shopkeepers of Mugardos are hoping to tap and give a desperately needed boost to business.

    Still, the Bank of Spain estimates that almost half the country's millions of missing pesetas will never be recovered - despite their value.

    It believes many left the country long ago, in the purses and pockets of tourists.
    source


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs



    Italy turns back culinary clock to ride out recession


    Italians facing a long, hard winter with less cash to spend in the supermarket owing to the economic crisis are being encouraged to rediscover the cheap, traditional recipes of their ancestors.

    Soups made with old bread and even pig's lungs are unlikely to appear on the menu of Michelin-starred Italian restaurants in London, New York or even Rome, but they are being touted as the nation's real cooking, made at a fraction of the price of many modern dishes.

    "Old recipes are a richness that Italy boasts, that were perfected during periods of poverty and are a way to come through the crisis eating well," said Carlo Petrini, the head of the slow food movement, which campaigns for traditional, sustainable foods.

    Petrini said the secret of Italy's low cost, old-style cuisine was the use of leftovers, from Tuscany's ribollita vegetable soup, made with stale bread, to le virtù – the virtues – a soup made in the town of Teramo with every winter vegetable left in the cupboard.

    "Nothing got wasted and the name of the soup is no coincidence. Young women once had to know how to make it before they got married," said Petrini. "Today food is a commodity. It needs its value back and to achieve that you cannot throw it away. Thanks to the crisis the young are rediscovering this and luckily their parents and grandparents are still around to teach them."

    In a roundup of nearly forgotten dishes, La Repubblica listed sbira soup, a Genoese speciality made with tripe, mushrooms, lard, bread, pine nuts and meat sauce that was favoured by policemen and prison guards and served as the traditional last meal to prisoners sentenced to death.

    Any talk of cutting out waste in Italian cooking inevitably revolves around making better use of the lesser known parts of animals including offal, which was a peasant staple for centuries, notably in Rome where prime cuts were reserved for the rich, leaving tripe as the city's signature dish.

    Arneo Nizzoli, 76, who runs a renowned restaurant in northern Italy near Mantua, said busloads of cookery students were now showing up to eat his maialata meals, where he uses as much of the pig as possible, from pig's lung soup to cotechino – a type of sausage – made with tongue, to pig's lard set with garlic, parsley and onion and spread over browned slices of polenta.

    "In this cold weather the TV is telling people to eat vegetables and fruit to resist. What is that about? What about lard?" he said.

    Pig's noses, cheek and feet, which all find use in Nizzoli's kitchen, cost half a euro a kilo, compared with over €20 for cured pig's ham or prosciutto.

    "Sometimes I feel like a culinary archaeologist, but doing it my way means spending less and raising fewer pigs," he said. "These dishes take hours to cook, but if people are out of work they may have that time."

    Nizzoli said children raised on plain plates of pasta with parmesan cheese were agog at his meals, particularly his risotto made with salami, although his son Dario admitted that sometimes diners were told they had eaten lung soup only after they had finished.

    Horsemeat was once fed to children as a key source of iron by Italian mothers but young customers were now reluctant to try his horse stew, which is slow cooked for hours, said Nizzoli. "Horses were traditionally eaten here when they died but kids today just aren't interested," he said.
    Recipes from Il Ristorante Nizzoli

    Horse stew

    Three kg horse shoulder, two carrots, two onions, two celery stalks, four garlic segments, two spoonfuls of tomato paste, red wine, salt and pepper.

    Bind the meat with string or a roasting net, roll it in white flour and seal in oil until it browns. Finely chop and saute the vegetables in a separate pan, then add the meat, red wine, salt and pepper and cook for about three hours, adding water or stock when the liquid reduces. Blend the liquid and the vegetables, serve with the sliced meat and polenta or potato puree.

    Lung soup

    One pig's lung, a complete celery, one onion, grated Grana cheese, butter, oil, salt, pepper, 'Grattoni' type small pasta.

    Saute the onion with oil and butter, add the celery cut in large pieces with water, salt and pepper and some stock if wanted. Cook for half an hour. Separately wash then boil the lung in slightly salted water, mince when cooked and add to the vegetables. Add the pasta, cook and serve with a touch of grated cheese.
    source


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,645 ✭✭✭krissovo


    ^^^^^^^
    Anyone from Cork should know of the tasty dish "Skirts and Kidney". We have it at least once a month, last time I tried to buy the skirts I had to order it in and reserve as its getting popular again.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,635 ✭✭✭eth0


    krissovo wrote: »
    ^^^^^^^
    Anyone from Cork should know of the tasty dish "Skirts and Kidney". We have it at least once a month, last time I tried to buy the skirts I had to order it in and reserve as its getting popular again.

    What about tripe and drisheen? Is there a waiting list for that too? Been meaning to try it but never got round


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,121 ✭✭✭✭Grizzly 45


    Horse meat eh??? Well THAT might sort out Limericks and Dublins wandering horse problem!!!:D:D.

    "If you want to keep someone away from your house, Just fire the shotgun through the door."

    Vice President [and former lawyer] Joe Biden Field& Stream Magazine interview Feb 2013 "



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  • Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    More bird flu fun and games
    Two studies showing how scientists mutated the H5N1 bird flu virus into a form that could cause a deadly human pandemic will be published only after experts fully assess the risks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

    Speaking after a high-level meeting of flu experts and U.S. security officials in Geneva, a WHO official said an deal had been reached in principle to keep details of the controversial work secret until deeper risk analyses could be carried out.

    HIGH FATALITY RATE

    The H5N1 virus, first detected in Hong Kong in 1997, is entrenched among poultry in many countries, mainly in Asia, but so far remains in a form that is hard for humans to catch.

    It is known to have infected nearly 600 people worldwide since 2003, killing half of them, a far higher death rate than the H1N1 swine flu which caused a flu pandemic in 2009/2010.

    Last year, two teams of scientists - one led by Ron Fouchier at Erasmus Medical Center and another led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin - said they had found that just a handful of mutations would allow H5N1 to spread like ordinary flu between mammals, and remain as deadly as it is now.

    In 1918 the Spanish flu spread across the globe for two years, ultimately infecting 27% of the world's population, killing anywhere from 50-100 million in the process. Thats a 3-6% mortality rate.

    This new strain has a 58% mortality rate. Extrapolating that directly, you'd get approximately 1.9 billion infected, 950 million dead, assuming infection rates remain the same. Personally I have my doubts - in the absence of a vaccine, people are more tightly packed together, use more public transport, and can move between continents more quickly. A more likely scenario these days would be 40-50% infection rates.

    This is a sample map of the spread of swine flu over the course of just under a year, to give you a good idea of epidemic vectors.

    The H1 series of viruses are particularly interesting because they tend to target the fit, strong and healthy over and above the old, weak and infirm, due to the cytokine storm mechanism, which turns the body's immune system against itself.

    Its not quite "The Stand" level of disease, but its out there folks, right now, in a lab, the bottled collapse of societies around the globe. Its worth noting that the process to create these strains is probably fairly simple as well, hence the need for secrecy, although many researchers have pointed out that since its so simple it may very well happen naturally anyway.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 902 ✭✭✭baords dyslexic


    Doc Ruby wrote: »
    Its not quite "The Stand" level of disease, but its out there folks, right now, in a lab, the bottled collapse of societies around the globe. Its worth noting that the process to create these strains is probably fairly simple as well, hence the need for secrecy, although many researchers have pointed out that since its so simple it may very well happen naturally anyway.

    Only good thing about the collapse of societies around the globe is that it will also reduce the ability of the suviviors to pass deseases around by reducing international travel.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    Only good thing about the collapse of societies around the globe is that it will also reduce the ability of the suviviors to pass deseases around by reducing international travel.
    Might be a case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, BD! :D I'd be very interested to know are there protocols for quarantining whole geographical areas like cities, countries and states, although I'm fairly sure Ireland hasn't got an emergency plan.

    Sounds like a situation where the oul food stocks and general survival skills might come in handy, with lots of isolated communities and trade routes falling apart.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 902 ✭✭✭baords dyslexic


    Doc Ruby wrote: »
    Might be a case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, BD! :D I'd be very interested to know are there protocols for quarantining whole geographical areas like cities, countries and states, although I'm fairly sure Ireland hasn't got an emergency plan.

    Sounds like a situation where the oul food stocks and general survival skills might come in handy, with lots of isolated communities and trade routes falling apart.


    I think they really have a "cunning plan" :pac:

    We keep chickens and all flocks should be registered (everyone we know with hens is) and were inspected to see that we had the basics if there was a bird flu epidemic, birds needed to have as a minimum covered runs or somewhere they could be housed under cover and all water had to be covered.

    So guess there must be more to the plan than just that ;)


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    So guess there must be more to the plan than just that ;)
    Possibly. I did a bit of digging and found two apparently contradictory accounts of Ireland's preparedness.
    In November 2005, Ireland conducted a national exercise to test its preparedness for an avian flu pandemic. The HSE and the Office of Emergency Planning (OEP) coordinated a plan which dealt with an outbreak of avian flu. The measures conceived consist of home quarantine, field hospitals and regional mass-vaccination centers to cope with a potential bird flu pandemic in Ireland.

    The National Virus Reference Laboratory (NVRL) also conducted an exercise to determine if it could detect the H5N1 avian flu virus. The NVRL managed to identify the H5N1 virus, among a batch of other flu samples, in less than seven hours.

    After reviewing the state’s exercise and avian influenza plan, Ms. Zsuzsanna Jakab, head of the European Centre for Disease Control, commented that Ireland appeared to be among “the best prepared countries” to deal with a pandemic. Ireland's pandemic preparedness strategy will likely allow Ireland to quarantine and cope with the initial phase of a pandemic.
    In 2003 the HSE was accused of failing Irish people by allowing a woman with a "probable" case of the deadly Sars disease to leave hospital.

    The Chinese woman was transferred to a hostel where she was handed a mask and told to stay away from other people.

    She was eventually given the all clear but senior health officials warned she could have infected "possibly hundreds of others she came into contact with over the weekend period".

    One health source said: "The handling of this woman's case was a shambles. When she presented herself to hospital on Good Friday she should have been taken seriously.

    "Instead she was allowed out for four days. As a result, we could have had a potential outbreak on our hands."

    The Government admitted its procedures for notification and control of the virus broke down over the Easter weekend period when the world was gripped by the outbreak.

    In 2006 the Irish Medical Organisation blasted the HSE bird flu response plans.

    President Christine O'Malley, said Ireland was "as unprepared for a bird flu outbreak as it was for Sars".

    She added: "If the hospital system can't cope now, what chance do we stand during a pandemic?"

    So which is the more accurate? Neither appears to be dated any later than five or six years ago. The main issue of course, and why the WHO didn't bother issuing travel restrictions last time round, is that by the time people become aware of the danger, they have already passed it on to everyone around them.

    As these diseases become more deadly and resistant to treatment the eventual effects of one breaking out will be all the more severe. It is in my opinion, only a matter of time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,560 ✭✭✭touts


    This is a civil service permanent government that utterly mishandled flooding and two cold snaps in the last 3 years creating national disasters out of very minor weather events by international standards. They were the ones that solved a liquidity problem in private banks by bankrupting the nation. They oversaw a flu vaccination programme that was one of the last in the world and they put themselves at the head of the queue. They have ransacked the country to pay back the german loan sharks but refused to take hits in pay or conditions themselves.

    You would be an absolute eegit to (a) believe anything they say about the national state of readiness and (b) to trust that they wont cut you off and look after their own when the **** hits the fan.

    Once a major national disaster hits and you are no longer useful to them (purely in terms of funding their lifestyle through the tax you pay) they will cut you off and all national efforts will be focused on the areas they live in. You need to either rely on your self or move into a leavy Dublin 4 street next door to a senior manager in a governmet department.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,635 ✭✭✭eth0


    touts wrote: »
    This is a civil service permanent government that utterly mishandled flooding and two cold snaps in the last 3 years creating national disasters out of very minor weather events by international standards. They were the ones that solved a liquidity problem in private banks by bankrupting the nation. They oversaw a flu vaccination programme that was one of the last in the world and they put themselves at the head of the queue. They have ransacked the country to pay back the german loan sharks but refused to take hits in pay or conditions themselves.

    In so many ways it would be better if they just said to everyone 'make sure you have enough food and fuel to last a cold snap' rather than trying to do anything about it, because before any civil servant even lifts a finger they've already spent 3 million on the problem and those 3 million and whatever else need to be recouped through tax. They'll be branded as essential services that we'll have to pay property tax for. All because some stupid eejit starved to death cause he couldn't make his daily shopping trip or died of a headache cause he couldn't get to the pharmacy for an aspirin.


    The flooding thing was codology - leaving Inniscara closed just so they could find some fecker who was long dead.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,121 ✭✭✭✭Grizzly 45


    Oh !! Is this the same Govt talking heads who had us so well prepared post 9/11 for any possible radiation leaks by delivering potassium iodide tablets to every household..THEN discovering they might as well have sent us a tube of Smarties for all the good they would have done if Sellafield had blown???
    For exellent planning and logical Govt thinking I suggest reading this!!
    Your tax euros at work!!
    Monthy Python couldnt have done better!!:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:


    Thursday September 27 2001
    IT WILL go down as one of the most bizarre interviews in RTE radio history and it led to calls for Joe Jacob's resignation. Mr Jacob began his interview with Marian Finucane yesterday morning by saying he found the events of the previous day "quite inexplicable".
    The junior minister was referring to Ms Finucane's show on Tuesday when researchers had major difficulty identifying the appropriate government department responsible for drawing up a response strategy to possible biological, chemical or nuclear attack.
    "Immediately I heard about it I had my officials contact you and yours to explain the situation and offer myself this morning to come in to you and talk to your readers," he said.
    "I'm grateful because I think it's important to reassure people and know that there is in place a national emergency plan for nuclear accidents."
    The minister said that "immediately in the aftermath of the atrocity of the 11 September, the Taoiseach put in place a co-ordinating committee involving a range of departments and they are meeting daily and dealing with that.
    "We are not in an emergency situation as we speak, and may it continue, but we must be prepared, so that is why my department has been preparing this plan, updating it, upgrading it, so we have what we have now.
    "The plan is complete and we will be doing in the next four weeks a test of that plan, based on assimilated incidents such as you talk about, and we will have in every home in Ireland, within weeks of that test, a fact sheet and that has been planned for two years."
    However, details of the emergency plan were lacking when the minister was questioned about what the nation should do immediately in the event of an instant attack.
    "A public awareness campaign, specifically what to do, would immediately be triggered off," he said.
    Discussing a hypothetical crisis, Marian Finucane asked: "Supposing it happened now, what do people do?" The minister replied: "First of all, the objective of the plan, it's designed to deal with the incident which you describe and it's overseen by a ministerial committee.
    Ms Finucane asked again: "But what would we do now?" The minister replied: "What we would do now is, first of all an early warning system would tell us and we have that early warning system set up at a number of stages. First of all in Ireland, we have our own network of radiation monitors around the country and they will tell us automatically that they have detected an increase in radiation in the air initially and in the water.
    "That will trigger off alarms and those are manned on a 24-hour basis. Before it arrives we have to make provision as well, so we have international warning agreements with international organisations, and countries that detect an emergency will alert us," he said.
    Later, he said: "First of all, Marian, I am very qualified to talk to you about nuclear issues and I have done so and I hope it has had the desired effect. I am not qualified to talk to you about what the question you have asked except to say that there is, in the aftermath, first of all it's highly unlikely and it was considered highly unlikely that as a small nuclear country Ireland would be targeted in such a way."
    Ms Finucane interjected: "I presume as a small neutral country."
    Mr Jacob: "I beg your pardon, I have got nuclear on the brain now, a small neutral country."
    Early warning to the Garda from international sources would take place in minutes and that information would be then passed to the public in a means described "on my fact sheet," Mr Jacob said.
    "In the event of this happening all kind of media information will be issued immediately, Marian, the minute it becomes available," he said. "Yeah, what advice?" she asked. We're eight minutes on now (from a test-run emergency) what should I have said to the listeners?"
    "Well, that information will issue based on the technical expertise or not that will assess the situation when it happens, the scale of the incident, the potential of the incident deteriorating or whatever," he said.
    Ms Finucane: "Well, suppose it's a bad situation say a plane crashed into Sellafield and the wind was blowing this way and it all happened eight minutes ago, what advice do we give to our citizens and what happens?"
    "I'm telling you that, if a plane crashed into Sellafield, we're talking about a very major accident there, something like a great power like the United States aren't geared to cope with last week. So we would tell people the situation and they would know from again this famous fact sheet that I'm talking about.
    "Well, tell me what to do," asked the presenter. "You're going to give me the fact sheet in a couple of weeks time and I'll read it but I'm talking now, it happened nine minutes ago."
    "I'll tell you," he said. "First of all, information through all means of communication." Interrupting him, the interviewer asked: "Do I tell those kids on a school bus to turn back home? Do I tell people to stay indoors?"
    "Alright, Marian, I'll tell you what you would do. We would say please remain indoors with your doors and windows closed. Switch off your ventilation systems. We want to minimise your levels of exposure to the levels of radiation that are now, God forbid, out of doors. Sheltering is most likely to be appropriate. The next thing is restriction of consumption of contaminated water or foods. Also bringing cattle indoors and using stored animal feeds."
    Non-radioactive iodine tablets that reduce the uptake of radio-active iodine following post-nuclear exposure will eventually be available from the Department of Health, he added.
    Asked how people could get hold of these, the minister said "That's one of the things that has to be tweaked in the coming weeks. That will be in the fact sheet when you get it. We mustn't be alarmistic."
    She said "The phones upstairs are going bananas. Minister, here we are now, we're 15 minutes into my warning and how do I get my iodine tablet? Tell me."
    "You'll get them from the Department of Health and Children and they will be maintaining stocks for that purpose.
    "As soon as you need them. You'll be told when we're in an emergency. We're not in an emergency. That is one of the finer points to be decided

    "If you want to keep someone away from your house, Just fire the shotgun through the door."

    Vice President [and former lawyer] Joe Biden Field& Stream Magazine interview Feb 2013 "



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    I'm developing a keen appreciation for the existence of the S&SS forum. So basically since 2007 or thereabouts, as far as we know, nothing has been done to enhance preparedness in this country.


  • Registered Users Posts: 563 ✭✭✭bonniebede


    Doc Ruby wrote: »
    I'm developing a keen appreciation for the existence of the S&SS forum. So basically since 2007 or thereabouts, as far as we know, nothing has been done to enhance preparedness in this country.

    Au contraire, I've got the porridge stashed.:D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,121 ✭✭✭✭Grizzly 45


    Any country/Govt that stated somthing like that fiasco from Joe Jacob,or belived and stated thru another politican in the 1970s that because Ireland would be neutral in a future world war.
    All radiation would halt at our coastline and at the border from Northern Ireland.:eek::eek:
    Add then to two catostrophic Winters[for Irish standards] with the minister for transport toasting his tootsies in Malta in one of them ,and mysteriously our all weather Govt jet cant pick him up to fly home to deal with the crisis.Or even do a internet conference with his dept with the ongoing crisis....
    Not to mind having the bright idea of building the [then ]Govt fallout shelter under a century plus old building in Athlone in the Custume barracks.
    TBH if anything happens here...You are on your own!!!
    And people wonder why I've been prepping and into survivalism since the 1980s.:rolleyes:

    "If you want to keep someone away from your house, Just fire the shotgun through the door."

    Vice President [and former lawyer] Joe Biden Field& Stream Magazine interview Feb 2013 "



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  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    Man-trapped-in-snowed-in--007.jpg

    A Swedish man who spent two months snowed inside his car as temperatures outside dropped to -30C is "awake and able to communicate", according to the hospital treating him, where stunned doctors believe he was kept alive by the "igloo effect" of his vehicle.

    The man, believed to be Peter Skyllberg, 44, who was found near the north-eastern town of Umeå on Friday by passers-by, told police he had been in the car since 19 December without food, surviving only by eating snow and staying inside his warm clothes and sleeping bag.

    Dr Ulf Segerberg, the chief medical officer at Noorland's University Hospital, said he had never seen a case like it. The man had probably been kept alive, he said, by the natural warming properties of his snowed-in car which would have acted as "the equivalent of an igloo".

    "This man obviously had good clothes; he's had a sleeping bag and he's been in a car that's been snowed over," said Segerberg. "Igloos usually have a temperature of a couple of degrees below 0C and if you have good clothes you would survive in those temperatures and be able to preserve your body temperature. Obviously he has managed to preserve his body temperature or he wouldn't have made it because us humans can't really stand being cooled down like reptiles, for instance, which can change the body temperature."

    Two months was at the "upper limit" of what a person would be able to survive without food, added Segerberg.

    Skyllberg was found emaciated and very weak by a pair of snowmobilers who thought they had found a crashed car. They dug down through about a metre of snow to see its driver lying on the back seat in his sleeping bag, according to Ebbe Nyberg, a local police officer.

    "They were amazed at what they found: a man in his mid-40s huddled inside in a sleeping bag, starving and barely able to move or speak," Nyberg, working in Vaesterbotten county, was quoted as saying.

    A rescuer told the local newspaper Västerbottens-Kuriren: "It's just incredible that he's alive considering that he had no food, but also since it's been really cold for some time after Christmas."

    Police said temperatures around Umeå had fallen to -30C. One doctor, Stefan Branth, said Skyllberg may have survived by going into hibernation mode. "A bit like a bear that hibernates. Humans can do that. He probably had a body temperature of around 31C which the body adjusted to. Due to the low temperature, not much energy was used up."

    But Segerberg said he was "sceptical" of this suggestion. "We can't lower body temperature very much. A little bit we can, but if we lower body temperatures more than just a little bit, we lose consciousness and go into a coma," he said, cautioning that it was not his area of expertise.

    Skyllberg is being treated in an ordinary ward in the University Hospital, where Segerberg said he was "feeling well". It was unclear how he had come to be stranded in the deserted lane.

    Segerberg said that, even in a part of the world where sub-zero temperatures and heavy snow are the norm, this case was unusual. "There have been cases of people caught out in the mountains, and if they can dig themselves down in the snow they are able to survive and be found. But there must be something special in this case."

    mat460.jpg
    source


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,635 ✭✭✭eth0


    Fecking hell Id feel fairly shoite after a day without food 2 months in there must have been awful for yer man. How come he didn't dig is way out?


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    eth0 wrote: »
    Fecking hell Id feel fairly shoite after a day without food 2 months in there must have been awful for yer man. How come he didn't dig is way out?
    I'd guess the car was completely covered in deep snow over the winter, you can see where its fallen off the sides there, maybe by the time he was able to climb out the window he didn't have the strength to get out.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,121 ✭✭✭✭Grizzly 45


    Looks like a Jeep Cherokee.If that is the case they are electric windows and if he ran the battery down they wont open.
    Begs the question then..
    IF he was coverd in this much snow for this length of time..Why didnt he suffocate??Or was poisioned by carbon monoxide from the exhaust fumes if he was running the engine to keep warm???Un openable windows,that high snow on the Jeep would make it pretty airtight...
    Even Igloos have an air vent as any Eskimo will tell you!!!
    Somthing fishy here!!:confused:

    "If you want to keep someone away from your house, Just fire the shotgun through the door."

    Vice President [and former lawyer] Joe Biden Field& Stream Magazine interview Feb 2013 "



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    Grizzly 45 wrote: »
    IF he was coverd in this much snow for this length of time..Why didnt he suffocate??Or was poisioned by carbon monoxide from the exhaust fumes if he was running the engine to keep warm???Un openable windows,that high snow on the Jeep would make it pretty airtight...
    He was eating snow so presumably a window was open to some degree.

    It's possible the snow wasn't actually that high above the vehicle but he decided that even if he dug himself out, he didn't have the clothing to survive a hike back in the ridiculously low temps, so stayed put instead. Then by the time conditions improved, he was too weak to do anything about it.

    19th December might be pushing it a little, the waste he'd produce in two months in such a cramped space would be a nightmare. Maybe he was out of it when talking to police.


  • Registered Users Posts: 563 ✭✭✭bonniebede


    seamus wrote: »
    He was eating snow so presumably a window was open to some degree.

    It's possible the snow wasn't actually that high above the vehicle but he decided that even if he dug himself out, he didn't have the clothing to survive a hike back in the ridiculously low temps, so stayed put instead. Then by the time conditions improved, he was too weak to do anything about it.

    19th December might be pushing it a little, the waste he'd produce in two months in such a cramped space would be a nightmare. Maybe he was out of it when talking to police.

    not much going in, not much coming out. I'll say no more


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,485 ✭✭✭✭Khannie


    seamus wrote: »
    the waste he'd produce in two months in such a cramped space would be a nightmare. Maybe he was out of it when talking to police.

    Well, you'd stop pooping very quickly. Nothing in = nothing out. Then you're just looking at pee, which you could put in a cup, then throw out the window presumably (or just pee on the floor - not pleasant, but it wont kill you).

    I wonder what his fat reserves were like starting out? Obviously if he was a bit fat he would have had a much better chance of lasting a decent amount of time. Still though....I'm somewhat sceptical.

    I remember hearing (and have just googled, here's a link to the study on pubmed) of a guy who lasted over a year with no food but with various mineral and vitamin supplements.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,121 ✭✭✭✭Grizzly 45


    Still doesnt work out...Even IF he just lived on water,his body fat reserves are depleting double quick to just keep him warm.52 days with out food...
    [Wasnt that how long Bobby Sands or one of the hunger strikers lasted in a hospital without eating before they died??]
    Even doing nothing,but ASFIK your body is breaking down really quick by day 14 plus??to the point of deliruim??
    Hmmm,looking at the pics of the interior,a few coke cans and other identifiable food wrappers??
    Another thing..Why isnt the inside of the Jeep ripped asunder?Like the seat coverings ripped up ?The carpet and roof liner and seat material stuffing?Wouldnt you consider the warmth factor of this material abit more important than the ...er ..good interior looks ??

    Folks I just think there is abit more to this story than is meeting the eye.. Not to mind it seems to have been dropped from the media that this guy was in serious financial difficulties and suicideal as well.Going by Sundays Euro and UK papers.

    "If you want to keep someone away from your house, Just fire the shotgun through the door."

    Vice President [and former lawyer] Joe Biden Field& Stream Magazine interview Feb 2013 "



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,560 ✭✭✭touts


    So the lesson from all this is the couple of bars, packet of crisps and bottle of water you have in the car isn't going to get you through 2 months trapped in your car unless it's -30c outside (and even then possibly not).

    I imagine around the world some lads sat down last weekend and tried to work out how to get two months food into their car emergency bag. Now there's a challenge....


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs


    The latest update on this remarkable story.
    The emaciated 44-year-old man, named in media reports as Peter Skyllberg, was pulled from a totally snow-covered car parked deep in the woods near the northern Swedish town of Umeå last Friday.

    He claimed he had not had access to food since December 19 and had survived on snow, according to local police.

    Starving and barely able to move or speak, the man himself, who has been hospitalized, has so far shed little light on the mystery of how and when he got into the unlikely situation.

    Police have only been able to say he must have been in the isolated spot since before the autumn snow-fall, as there were no tracks to or from the car.

    A shopkeeper in the nearby village of Saevar meanwhile told Monday's Aftonbladet daily that the man had come into his small petrol station and grocery store starting in the summer.

    "He drove here in the car. Sometimes he filled the tank, sometimes he bought sausages and coffee," Andreas Oestensson told the paper's online edition, adding:

    "He said he was living in the woods and was sleeping in a tent and sometimes the car."

    He said the man, who is from the central Swedish town of Örebro, had told him he had worked as a carpenter but had lost his job.

    The paper also quoted an unnamed person who knew him saying he had just taken off last May with debt collectors on his heels and had not been heard from since.

    While the claim he had survived for a full 60 days with no food and in temperatures down to minus 30 degrees Celsius has drawn scepticism, experts say it is theoretically possible.

    Tommy Cederholm, a professor of clinical nutrition at Uppsala University, pointed out to Aftonbladet that 60 days is considered the maximum period a human can survive without food, if water is available.

    He pointed to the case of Bobby Sands, a political prisoner in Northern Ireland who died in 1981 after 66 days on hunger strike.

    "Surviving more than 60 days is unlikely, but cold temperatures can mean the metabolism and energy use decline," he said.
    source


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