My friend, Oilman2, has been looking at math in his “down time” out on his oil rig a couple of hundred out in the Gulf of Mexico. With the wife is ashore, the kids are mostly grown, and no local pub or your hydroponics to keep you busy, there’s not much to do, except pick up a pencil and paper and work on recreational math problems…
George,
Federal Employees – 3,000,000
Armed Forces (active) – 1,600,000
Armed Forces (reserve) – 1,000,000
Total – 5.6 million
US Population = 317,000,000
57 regular people for every federally paid employee
122 regular people for every soldier
3,794,000 sq mi = area of USA
every single soldier would be required to hold 1.45 sq mi of territory
every sq mi of territory would have 83 regular people
80% of the 83 people would have a gun, or 65 guns per sq mi
soldiers would EACH have approximately 120 people in their 1.45 sq mi control zone, including 90 armed with guns
If we pull out the support people (mechanics, drivers, cooks, logistics, etc) then the odds for the soldier types drop even faster, as it takes 2 support guys to field a soldier…
George, it is not us standard issue citizens who need be worried.
Their problem is very clear, using the simple math they are trying so desperately to deprive my grandkids of…
Oilman2
And me, being the business geek, I get to correct the math paper.
The first thing to note is that it’s really 56.6 persons for each federal employee. But you need to subtract the federal workers from the total control population, in order to see the correct ratio. So it’s really 5.6 million overseeing 311.4 million so the federals only have to worry about 55.6 freepersons per fed.
The next calculation swings the other way: It would be 194.6 persons per soldier. That’s because we can only count the current active armed forces. Oh, sure, the argument is that “reserves” could be called up, but not necessarily. Probably half of the real active military are overseas in delightful vacation spots like Afghanistan, or on cruise ships, cleverly disguised as aircraft carriers and the like. They’d miss the party if the crappola ever hit “the fan.”
Then there’s the attrition rate among reserves. Some number would not get the message, while others would simply choose to remain with the “free men.” So my guess is that the correct ratio would work out to something like 400 persons per soldier. Higher in event of EMP, since no reserves would get much of any message.
Even then, only one-third of the military could be “front line” on any theoretical National Upheaval Day (NUD). The number of military (front line) would likely be much less than the total 0.6 million “point of the spear.” And let’s say half are out of country…so that is how many trying to enforce their will on 311.4 million?
What’s missed in the calculation is the number of police officers (1.1 million) and even though only 765,000 are sworn *(arrest powers). But let’s say that there are 519,000 active military that could be activated. (Everyone takes the next plane home and reports for duty.) And suppose (being strong-armed by all the new “anti-terrorism: equipment all 765,000 cops and sheriffs joined in. (Ain’t going to happen.) That would put government forces on the ground at 1.284 million. Tops.
You see? We come down to each front-liner being responsible for keeping 242 people in line. Although there would be a hardware advantage to the militeers, the sheer numbers are impressively lopsided. My calculation puts each front-liner in charge of maintaining order over 2.95 square miles of countryside each.
On the per square mile basis, it would be 82 civilians in each one of them/
Alright, about here you’re wondering “Has George flipped out and joined some doomsday cult or anti-government movement?”
No, exactly the opposite.
One of the things we do around here is think the unthinkable as that’s how the enemies of America think. And, it’s also exactly why we need to be a nation of laws (just would be nice, but then football would have to pay taxes) and why we need to make sure government doesn’t lose the foundations upon which the Great Nation was founded.
I’m sure that somewhere in all the surveillance, there’s a plan by the militeers to round up people whose allegiance (to their vision) is in question. But, at the same time, the real problem is that the likely perps of any “next high crimes against America” will not be like participants in the system who vote for the wrong party, or demonstration against GMO foods. They will be the OTM’s – filtered into the heartland while we’ve been fixed at the cyber-threat level.
Which of course, is just at real, don’t get me wrong.
But the NUMBERS are something to think about when you make decisions for you and your family on issues like prepping, how much drinking water to have on hand, do you have a “neighborhood response plan? And things like that.
Because we just may need it, sooner than later.
Why to I think this way? At last, to the point: Reader Mark is a frequent flyer and he sends us this:
George,
I am an above average traveler and I noticed a huge change in TSA practices traveling this past weekend. We are no longer required to take off our shoes and coats…take laptops and tablets out of our carry on…no body checks and scans…and no longer have to take off belts and other metal items off of our person. I guess I was so used to the Homeland Security double checks that I thought the lack of security to be unsettling. There was more security getting into the Cotton Bowl where we had to empty our pockets and officials did full body scans with their metal detecting ” wands” to every one entering the stadium. Are we setting ourselves up for another breach in airline safety?
THAT is a dandy question. And it has to be one of the hardest to “put numbers to” by the people we have entrusted to hold the “thin blue line.”
But the “thin blue line” is getting very thin and very taut. So we ponder the simple strategic question that leaves “the powers that be” which have a terribly difficult task ahead of them: How do they take the most freedom-loving, most well-armed, most-inventive, and most-flexible collection of people on earth and convince them to submit to their authority. The plans for global government, a global tax system, and all those other megalomaniacal wet dreams afoot in the sick minds of the “too rich for their own, or our own, good?”
Would it be multiple mass-terror attacks on a single day, hoping to light off anarchy? Or, would it be through slow attrition: The “sex” war as I’ve termed it: Where America’s enemies simply out-populate us, become voters, and steal America’s foundations out from under us by genetically stuffing the ballot box?
These are difficult questions, but that’s what we do around here: Think the unthinkable, rationalize the irrational, and plan for the unplannable, discomforted by the fact that there are (on average) only about 3 people per square mile with the heart and brains to do the “right thing” for the other 79 people per square mile.
And yet there’s a full court press on, often against the wrong 3 people with right heart/right brain at this very moment. No-fly lists without appeal, and more. And that pisses me off.
It’s the kind of strategic “miss” that lead to events in France beginning in 1789. And the French powersthatbe enjoyed equal or better numbers than today’s powersthatbe.
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are bound to what? (CEO’s?)
Standing By for Alien Summer?
Of all the interpretations that accompanied last week’s short-lived crop circle out in California, we found the one suggesting that that Comet Ison was an alien spacecraft slowing down and contact with those aboard will come in July, one of the most clever of the bunch.
Oh, wait! Don’t skip a house payment: In case you missed it, video graphics producer NVidia has claimed that it was all just a publicity stunt.
Unfortunately, in the world of shadowy marketing, one can never be too sure. Was this just NVidia being clever, knowing that the source of crop circles is little balls of plasma of no known origin?
Oh! And are the off-worlders going to be pissed when they show up and find that someone has ripped off their greeting card?
Still, all those 192 references might point to a web-based promotion….this could take many evenings to sort through. But NVidia grabbing an unclaimed brand, even if the off-worlders show up – is just effing brillig.
Cool Words/Words for Cold
According to the winds that blow through the inbox we should spend one more day on the topics of cold world wording:
Your entertaining Monday column. (See, a compliment, you deserve it).
So at the end of Chill Monday you mention having some kind of contest about Cold statements. How about “Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey”. Then we can a) find out how many uninformed imbeciles are out there waiting to attack over a perceived journalistic wrong, (sexual innuendo perhaps). And, b) we can find out how many out there actually know the history and meaning of the phrase.
Could be fun.
A surprising number of people failed to take the bait on this one, I’m afraid.
“Freezing the balls off a brass monkey, as I’m sure everyone knows, the phrase not only applies to cold, but also to hot, as was used in the Herman Melville novel Omoo which dates to 1847:
It was so excessively hot in this still, brooding valley, shut out from the Trades, and only open toward the leeward side of the island, that labor in the sun was out of the question. To use a hyperbolical phrase of Shorty’s, “It was ‘ot enough to melt the nose h’off a brass monkey.”
The main thinking, among those purporting to have studied the lingo associated with sailing ships, is that the balls has something to do with the stacks of cannon shot what were stacked on old Men of War’s decks. (A obligatory “Arggh!” in passing, mate…).
Obviously, it’s too damn cold here in the Outback of East Texas this morning (17) for me to come up with some clear thinking on my own, so go read the whole discussion at this site and mark www.phrases.org.uk and one of the ultimate arbiters of life. With this resource, and Wikipedia, one can often pass for bright.
We did have a few entries to our “It was so cold that…..” contest. This one’s good, but regrettably, not true:
Best one I have ever heard –
It was so cold…The politicians were putting their hands in their OWN pockets for a change.
Herschell
Honestly, I am shocked at the lack of creativity around the point: I would have expected a flood of entries. In fact, when I can up with “Colder than an healthcare administrator’s heart,” I thought I might be onto something. “Colder than an insurance adjuster’s heart”?
“Aha!” Now we’re warming up to it: “Colder than a banker’s heart”
But turns out that other than witch appendages and well-digger backsides, it’s so cold that people aren’t thinking clearly. Although, in fairness, there’s damn little of that left around, even when temps are in the comfortable 70’s.
Hot Soup for Breakfast
My usual cup of coffee and handful of vitamins is being augmented this morning by a hot bowl of soup. It’s really amazing how even a can of soup with a 5-inch stack of saltines mushed up it in, served “burn-you-mouth hot” will keep you going until the heater kicks on in the office or car.
They don’t call it “comfort food” for nothing. I’m trying to tell myself all the additional sodium isn’t bad for blood pressure, but that’s a lie. The justification is simple enough, however. I envision it as being like “turning on the boost pumps.”
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Tomorrow: Peoplenomics readers can see my Solution to All Crime issues, as we continue our “shopping list for a super-country” thinking. Thursday morning you’ll get a short (couple of paragraphs version) of what the proposal is, along with the web site of the promotional platform for this unique crime fighting tool…
In addition on Thursday, we will pick up our sun-gazing discussions. However, for now?
Write when you break-even…
George george@ure.net