Fizzle

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eric
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If electric cars are The Future, why are so many automakers – quietly – backing away from them?EV lead

GM has decided against mass production of its Adam electric city-car. Audi has kiboshed the Tesla-esque electric R8 that had been scheduled for a launch sometime this year or next. Nissan has slashed the base price of its Leaf electric car from $35,200 to $28,800 – hoping to defibrillate flat-lining sales.

But the real canary in the coal mine is Toyota, which has dropped plans to mass-produce the electric eQ – stating it had “misread” market demand for such a vehicle. Maybe 100 of these things will ever see the light of day, according to the latest statements from Toyota. “The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge,” explained Toyota Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada. (Reuters news story here.)

Instead, the world-leader in hybrid cars will concentrate on bringing out … more hybrid cars. Twenty-one of them by 2015 – vs. one all-electric car (the electric version of the RAV4, which Toyota – optimistically – expects to sell about 2,600 of during calendar year 2013).

For some perspective, Toyota sold 37,000 Camry hybrids in a month (August, 2012).

Can you say, cut bait?EV hybrid

The future car is not an electric car – it is the internal combustion-engined car. The IC engine may be teamed up with electric motors and batteries (hybrids) or made more efficient via technologies such as direct gas injection (already becoming a de facto standard feature across the board, from inexpensive cars like the $13k Kia Rio I just tested to high-end luxury cars like the $75,000 Q56 Infiniti I had a few weeks prior) . . . but the IC engine itself is not going away anytime soon.

Gas-fired engines are getting smaller. But turbos are being added to make them bigger on-demand (a turbo temporarily increases an engine’s airflow capability – which is the same thing as having a larger engine, as far as power produced is concerned – but with the smaller engine’s smaller appetite for fuel when more power is not needed, as when idling in traffic or just cruising along in top gear). Turbos used to be almost exclusively used as power-adders for already-powerful engines. Now, turbos are being turned to as a way to maintain the power/performance level consumers expect from “everyday” engines – such as the engines in economy cars like the Chevy Sonic. And – in vehicles like the Ford F-series truck – to maintain V-8 levels of horsepower and torque with a smaller, less fuel-thirsty V-6 under the hood.

Many automakers are adding Auto-stop technology to their latest models (including the 2013 Rio I just reviewed; see here for that). When the car rolls to a stop, as at a red light, the system automatically shuts off the engine to save fuel – then restarts it when the driver takes his foot off the brake. Expect this to become as commonplace as AC and power windows within a year.EV Ecoboost

Similar fuel-saving technologies include electric-driven power steering, water pumps and even air conditioning compressors. Eight and nine-speed transmissions are also coming online. Many of the latest gas engines have very high (almost diesel-level) compression ratios – which makes them both more powerful and more fuel-efficient.

And down the road a couple of years, we will see some really radical stuff in new car showrooms – including hybrids with hydraulic motors driven by nitrogen gas, compressed by the process of regenerative braking (capturing and making use of inertia), electro-pneumatic valvetrain actuation and micro-engines such as VW’s less-than-one-liter two-cylinder engine, currently in development.

But underneath it all – and powering it all – is gasoline (or diesel) and internal combustion. Because it works. Because it’s the most efficient, least expensive way to get things done.

Electricity isn’t.

Yes, great strides have been made as far as improving the efficiency/output of batteries – and reducing their weight. They’re still nowhere near efficient enough – or light enough.

Yes, the range/performance of electric cars is much better than it was 20 years ago. But it’s still not better than the range/performance of the average gas-burning car of 60 years ago.

This, despite literally billions invested in R&D and decades of brain-sweat. No one can fault the engineers for not trying hard enough to make it work. They’ve been at it for generations.

It’s time to take a breather. Time to stop trying to force a square peg into a round hole – which is what Dear Leader Obama, et al, are demanding when they insist that “we” must have 1 million electric cars in circulation by 2015. Wishing – and demanding – isn’t going to make it happen.EV obama

Some EV advocates reference the Apollo Program to argue the opposite. That – yes – it can be done. True. When cost is no object, a man can indeed be put on the Moon. But when it comes to electric cars – to cars, period – cost is very much an object. The reason the Nissan Leaf isn’t selling is – Rocket Science Moment – very few people are going to pay nearly $30k (and that’s the price-slashed 2013 model) for an “economy” car because – Rocket Science Moment II – while it may be almost cost-free to drive it, you still have to buy it. Money spent is money spent – whether it’s at the pump or at the dealership. This is a difficult concept for Dear Leaders to understand.

Well, they kind of understand it – which is why they throw other people’s money at it. The Leaf (and other EVs.) are massively subsidized both at the manufacturing and the retail level.

Even then, they are far too expensive.EV cash

But it’s more than just dollars and cents. There is a psychological component, too. Subsidizing a not-yet-viable technology turns people off to the technology. No one likes a lemon. Much less being forced to help pay for it. Why should Jones down the road get a $7,000 check from the government – that is, from taxpayers – to drive a new electric car when I am still making payments on my five-year-old Corolla? The market distortions – and bad press – that flow from these subsidies and the boondoggles they create (e.g., Chevy Volt, the Tesla fiasco) will make it that much harder for a viable electric car to make it, if one ever does become viable.

The subsidy gravy train needs to be sidelined. The political fatwas must cease.

If an electric car can be built, it will be built. Not because of some government edict, not because of open-ended subsidies – but because someone figures out how to make it work without either of them.

It’s that hard – and that simple.

Related posts:
  1. Electric Lemon Aid
  2. Plug in – and pay up?
  3. The End of Buying Used?
  4. Goodbye, V-8s. Maybe This Time, For Good
  5. The Electric Car Albatross

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

342 COMMENTS

  2. Mankinds Closest Relatives – Chimps and Bonobos – Have Opposite Approaches to Conflict – Frans de Waal
    http://www.businessinsider.com/frans-de-waal-conflict-resolution-2013-4

    Moral Behavior In Animals – Frans de Waal
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Lm49XVkGQ

    The Feelings of Animals – Frans de Waal
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXNjoJtZU6U

    The two approaches are 1) war and murder or 2) orgy and female collective dominance (individually males are stronger, and are physically dominant over any single female, but over-all women exert most influence over group decision making)

    For now, the internet is most like an electronic orgy, i.e. “licentious revelry,” where there is superabundance and you can avail yourself of anything you want. It also seems fair to say any female(if seen as potentially “sexable” in the eye of a given beholder) on the internet, exerts a specie of dominance and control.

    orgy (n.)
    1560s, orgies (plural) “secret rites in the worship of certain Greek and Roman gods,” especially Dionysus, from Middle French orgies (c.1500, from Latin orgia), and directly from Greek orgia (plural) “secret rites,” especially those of Bacchus, from PIE root *werg- “to work” (see urge (v.)). The singular, orgy, was first used in English 1660s for the extended sense of “any licentious revelry.” OED says of the ancient rites that they were “celebrated with extravagant dancing, singing, drinking, etc.,” which gives “etc.” quite a workout.

    • And I thought that getting paid to drive with lots of different company logos all over your car was over the top.. How desperate (stupid) do ya have to be..?

  6. I don’t know if ya’ll are familiar with Cass Sunstein’s drive to dissipate, fracture, and counter the alternative media…but it’s very real.

    I suspect many of the online provocateurs are refining their technique; that is, if you can’t openly provocateur someone, just introduce dissension into the ranks. Failing that, just waste their time…hoping all along to draw someone out with your repetitive, circular, infuriating lack of logic.

    I see crude forms of this on Infowars.com all the time. VERY low-level provocateuring going on there; they seem to start the newbies there.

    But not all the clovers are Sunstein acolytes. There are plenty of psychologically damaged people who’ll beat themselves against a brick wall, desperate for affirmation they never get because of their very nature. Hell, I worked with one for years; highly competent technically, with a personality like a dead cat writhing with maggots…“uh, Bob, you don’t want to turn that over…ugh, my god would you look at THAT…”

    • “I don’t know if ya’ll are familiar with Cass Sunstein’s drive to dissipate, fracture, and counter the alternative media…but it’s very real”

      I didn’t know that asswipe was behind it, but that drive has been evident on the internet since Bubba Clinton was emperor. It went into overdrive once Flubya the Wonder Chimp ascended the throne and has remained in steady cruise mode with a seamless segue into Burlap O’ What’s his name’s reign.

      What we naively assumed, in the mid ’90s was just an increase in the number of trolls attracted by the anonymity of the ‘net, was actually a concerted effort to disrupt the free exchange of ideas. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Cass Sunstein worked for Clinton and Flubya as well.

      I swear before a sweet potato that the Clinton’s online ratfuckers changed their screen names and went on the attack in defense of the Chimp on all the online forum boards I used to frequent. I still spot some of them, defending Burlap nowadays, here and there, using the same signature misspellings, and malapropisms…..

      See you got me all stirred up, Methyl. Now I’m gonna hafta go lay down in the quiet room.

      • Do what I do Ed, go to your happy place!

        I surround myself with my guns and bibles; but I’m a bitter clinger after all 🙂

        Actually I seek solace here when I’ve had to deal with Moronus Amerikanus too much; read a few posts and realize again I’m far from alone.

  7. Tor, I fail to understand what you mean by this statement: And if there be a few here skilled at group retaliatory violence as minority resistors against majority tyrannical states, congratulations, but as for me “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”(John Galt – Atlas Shrugged) It’s the latter part “but as for me” I’m not sure I understand. How does not living for the sake of another man and the reverse of that play to the first part of the sentence? I’m just not sure I get your meaning and I value your input to a great degree.

    • Thanks for pointing that out, Eightsouthman. It’s definitely missing something.

      [Short Answer Attempt]
      I’m a great believer in “gather ye hemlock where ye may.”*

      But any kind of battle formationing and group tactics is anathema to me. If I go hunting or fishing with friends, it’s only to drink and celebrate. Work and survival activity is only a solitary activity for me.

      I have no temperament or inclination to “hang together” rather than “hang separately.” In my estimation of Franklin’s, he seems not to take his own excellent advice on many occasions. I take him to mean hang together, but in an individualist way to the very end.

      [Long Answer Attempt]
      The best way I can think to put it is: Being in a relationship of mutual dependence regarding a life-and-death situation is not something I have in my toolbox.

      It’s fundamentally irrational in my estimation. I can be dependent on some people, others can be dependent on me. But no one is my equal. Any system that claims parity will inevitably include mysticism and brutishness. It won’t be based on cost benefit or other reason-based calculation.

      While I value this blog highly, my default world-view is to see no-one here as my equal. Some our my betters and value-providers. Some are of lesser value, and may receive more value from me than I from them.

      In life or online, friendships and affection do occur for me, but based on my value-hierarchy, I forego or impede them at the start, so that the ones that do blossom are more likely to be healthy and

      *http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/improvement/lawn-garden/4331026

  8. One explanation of why freedom fizzles:

    We all loathe useful idiots, but what if something similarly destructive exists? Useful intelligentsia? Those who allow themselves to get ginned up into libertarian collectivist frenzies and march around holding signs, bumming around at rallies, and throwing their time and money into schemes that usually end up being only Libertarian Collectivist $Toilets, activists concerned with their own dwindling power and relevance, always waiting for a call from the Republocrats to “Split the Vote” and get paid?

    There are many overly academic LCTs filled with overzealous Rand, Rothbard, Mises, Rockwell, & Block groupees who woodenly claim education and awareness is all that’s needed. Men who invent new tyrannies of what it is that is precisely the best alternative to tyranny, as written in Chapter 3, Verse 7, of the gospel of the freedom apostle Ron Paul. Time flies by. Men pay lip service and memorized right answers from pocket constitutions, yet fail to apply things to their own lives. Fail to recognize that of course knowledge workers generate value, but those who live in Glass Think Tanks and Glass Universities will not throw stones at the builders and maintainers of institutional walls. After all, the maintenance of some walls is part and parcel to their method of making a living.

    Freeing your mind and body is the ultimate DIY project.

    Free Your Mind – Using English Prime – Robert Anton Wilson

    This is not to say my system of living the good times 70s’ degen lifestyle is the answer either. Certainly I enjoy immense freedom right now, but who is to say what the long-term consequences of all this carpe diem-ing will be for myself and my loved ones.

    Everybody gibs me a dolla, I’s about to need a detoxing from my dangerous addictions to freedoms!

    As far as the providers of this blog, and those wealthier, nobler, and more articulate than I. I’m wary to compliment too much, since I’m an odd duck and I don’t want it taken wrong:

    It’s obvious to me, being able to maintain a freedom site and community, being able to encourage free-thinking in others, having the mechanical aptitude to build things, having the mechanical ability to maintain things, being able to amass wealth without victims, and being able to live ethically and peacefully without state coercion or even the minor deceptions I engage in. Those are great things, and I commend you all.

    When the occasion calls. I’ve been a trickster, and a shortcutter, and its worked so far, and not without a price. Who know what loyalty my many “friends” in low places now slighty elevated will show if the SHTF, when none of us are as high as we’d ideally like to be. So far, I’ve never initiated violence against anyone, but I also don’t necessarily improve things for anyone but myself, I remain stuck in the moral middle as it were.

    Even so, I see myself miles above Meat & Potato Americans who are Evil Arrogant Aspies bring shitstorms onto everyone until finally onto themselves due to their own intolerance of Inter-Culturalism
    (I-C being let, Hispanics, Africans, Christians, Europeans, Asians, Socialists, each fly their own flag on whatever territory they control. Wait for them to ask you for help, don’t force your own visions onto them by force.

    And if there be a few here skilled at group retaliatory violence as minority resistors against majority tyrannical states, congratulations, but as for me “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”(John Galt – Atlas Shrugged)

    Ayn Rand’s Sense of Life & “White” Civilization
    http://www.toqonline.com/blog/a-sense-of-life-ayn-rand/

  9. You do not answer any of the questions as written. You read them, yes, but as you read thm you play over what I’ve written with your own interpretations. Is 1 less than 2 Eric? Is it true that if a business has the same amount of customers, but due to a recession or other such ideology, those same customers spend less, then the corporation is losing money and then will have a hard time explaining to its shareholders a need for expansion? Clover
    Please just let me know if those 2 questions, exactly as they are written are true or false?

    • “Please just let me know if those 2 questions, exactly as they are written are true or false?”

      Why does it matter? There’s another point that nobody has addressed:

      Taxes taken from individuals make up a small percentage of the money wasted by government. Without any tax payments from individuals at all, the beast doesn’t starve. It continues to grow.

      What is it that you want from the people you’re trying to badger here? Why do you care what anyone does? Mind your own business, son. You might enjoy life more.

      • because he answers questions not asked. if he wants to come with logic, then logic is predicated upon the fact that if a is correct and b is correct then so is c.
        without tax payments, they cannot assure loans from other countries, same as a business that is failing, with no collateral, they can get new investors.
        my dad has done plenty of cool things, from starting his own business to building a house with his bare hands, to writing a book on web site building to learning how to fly a plane, it still doesnt mean that from time to time he has lapses in his logic and basic understanding of how many things are interrelated.

        • Jim,

          Logic? Seriously?

          You pay taxes. More taxes than are “necessary” (your term). Ergo – by definition – you not only “support the regime” (your terminology) you do so in the same way and for the same reasons (e.g., you prefer to drive a nicer car, even though it costs more to feed – and thus, you choose to pay more in motor fuels taxes than absolutely necessary, etc.) as the people whom you mock and deride and try to provoke into saying or doing something idiotic, like stop paying federal taxes.

          You refuse to concede that you’ve been caught in a logical contradiction. Yet you accuse others of being illogical!

          It’s priceless.

          My finger is on the Clover button….

            • It’s not done lightly, Jim.

              We’ve responded to your posts with careful, reasoned rebuttals. Which you’ve dismissed with personal insults and non sequiturs.

              When a point is made – a factual point – to ignore it/deride it/evade is the mark of a Clover.

            • Non sequitur, Jim.

              For a person who claims to understand the concept of logic, you seem unable to apply it.

              It is irrelevant (as far as the discussion at hand) whether (and how often) you ride a bicycle.

              What is relevant is that you own a vehicle that entails paying more to own/operate than “necessary.” Ergo, you have chosen to pay more – to “fund the regime” – just as I have chosen to pay more by owning my home rather than renting a small apartment. Just as others have made similar choices.

              No one here is faulting you for owning a Jaguar.

              What we are calling you on is your imperious – and utterly arbitrary – declarations that our choices are illegitimate while yours are not.

            • Jim,

              I responded – at great length – to every one.

              In logic, any exception is sufficient to prove a universal statement false. The degree is irrelevant.

              You criticize others for “choosing” to live in such a way that their tax liability is higher than “necessary.”

              I observe that you do the same thing – whether to a lesser degree or not being irrelevant.

              Your logic is faulty. Your statements are arbitrary and subjective.

              I’m not going over this with you again.

          • You see, you are like the Michael Jordan of blog writing. You surround yourself with a bunch of YES men who bow at the alter of Eric peters, and never offer you any criticism, and then when you get any, you spout your non sequiturs, your made up definitions of logic, (which ask David Gordon who teaches logic at Mises if your definition is anywhere near correct), and you think you are helping people understand liberty?
            You did write an article about people who speak in “we’s and us” does it not apply to you? Or were you just giving people a guide?

            Clover

            • Jim,

              You’re being absurd.

              Read the posts on this site. People routinely disagree – or elaborate a point from a different perspective. I welcome such. I acknowledge it when someone makes a factual point that contradicts something I wrote or said. I certainly don’t get my back up – or take offense to facts, to logical points.

              What I find tiresome is your poorly constructed, illogical ranting. Your subjectivism. Your fatuous moralizing about other people’s “routines” and their (supposed) complicity insofar as “funding the regime” – vis-a-viz your superior way of life.

              PS: Based on your last several posts, it’s clear you don’t even understand what the term non sequitur means.

          • CloverSure plenty of people disagree, just not with you, and when they do you label them a clover. I may not “understand” non sequitur but check your understanding of logic. Like I said run it by David Gordon. Tell him his use of logic is cloverish.Clover

            • Jesus Christ, Jim!

              If, on the one hand, you argue it is choosing to “fund the regime” to live in such a way that you pay more in taxes other than those essentially unavoidable on “necessary” items, then tell us you have chosen to own a high-end car that uses more gas and so costs more to own and operate than “necessary” – and which therefore amounts to choosing to “fund the regime” – you have contradicted yourself. You have obviated any such criticism of others for doing the same damn thing you do.

              Capisce?

              The amount of money involved is irrelevant insofar as the principle being discussed is concerned. Just as it is irrelevant whether a woman is eight months’ pregnant – or just beginning to show – or only four weeks’ pregnant. She is pregnant.

              That’s logic, Jim.

              And: You accuse me of ideological intolerance, yet take extreme exception to anyone who doesn’t see and accept the superior way of life you advocate. I advocate live – and let live. You demand – live as I do. Or be guilty of complicity, by “funding the regime” … of being a moral and intellectual slave to “routine” … and so on.

              It would be amusing, if it weren’t so very sad.

          • “You surround yourself with a bunch of YES men who bow at the alter of Eric peters, and never offer you any criticism”

            Jim, we only gravitate here because we agree largely with Eric because of our own personal experiences. However, we don’t always agree on certain points because every one of us is different and can perceive anything opposingly.

            We understand that and simply agree to disagree for the most part.

            But we don’t need to argue at such length and without batting an eye change the subject and ask another question completely unrelated to the discussion or previous post. It just carries a multitude of arguments further unnecessarily.

            Ergo – non-sequitur – “it doesn’t follow”.

          • Jim, I have had a number of drawn out disagreements with Eric usually on principles or at least defining rules of interaction. However what you are doing is arguing degree. You’re saying that what you choose for yourself is the line. That’s what clovers do. They think their way is the way for everyone. Not only in principle, but degree. They do this and its fine for them and it should be fine for everyone else. The end.

            You say live your life with minimal taxation. That degree, that minimum is defined by your choices. There are people who get by paying even less than you. But that’s not a viable lifestyle for you so you don’t go that far. Yet you are critical of everyone who doesn’t go as far as you.

            It’s arguing how many angels are on the head of a pin. You do your thing. I’ll do mine.

          • I’m just a gov snitch trying to set y’all up. I did not go buy a new jag recently, nor was it given to me recently, I have had the damn thing for at least 20 years!! I don’t come on here to state I’m a big baller, hauling around in my big jaguar spending moneys, doing drugs or the like. Fuck. I merely made a statement, way earlier in the writing, about there being a different way of looking at things.
            I never said to anybody to say specifically they don’t pay taxes to incriminate anyone, I just had said look at things like the fact that paying taxes supports terrorism, following a routine (which all y’all do, I do it) is the most difficult habit to break, and there are other ways of looking at your job rather than working for a w-2 or 1099. I don’t have the answers how, I just said look at it. And then I also said everything is set up in like manner so that it is hard for you all to break free, myself included, as I don’t know how to grow my own food yet. I merely said look at it. Y’all are the ones who jumped down my back about prison. I said just try it… You don’t have to tell me if you do it, I don’t care.
            Talking with y’all is like watching my mom stand up for my sister between her and her boyfriend…she’s a big girl, she can handle her own problems. So I believe is Eric. Non sequitur whatever, you wrote about people who use the “we” terminology when expressing their nationality, yet you use it when talking of you and your crew on here. You are still speaking for others which is the same behavior.
            Then you got just as many people ragging me out, which you condemned me for telling them to fuck off, which they can, especially Jacob.
            It seems to me that you make logic “fit” however you want the logic to fit your view, hitch has nothing to do with logic or freedom, its how politicians act and cops.
            Explain how you came about your ideas of logic, through careful study and examination, because in real logic, you are incorrect in postulating that “any exception is sufficient to prove a universal statement false.” If this was the case, TRUE libertarians such as Henry Hazlitt wouldn’t have supported the study of logic, wm Jevon’s elementary lessons in logic to be specific , as a way to see through the falsity that was being propagandized through the new deal and Keynesian economics. Real logic is at the center of Austrian economics, not your capricious logic. Real logic is about defining all of your terms BEFORE using them with others, so you all understand exactly what you are talking about. That is why libertarianism is so jumbled right now, as everyone has twisted its meaning to mean all kinds of things.
            I never said you must do this my way, I merely pointed out that if one is a practicing libertarian, then paying taxes conflicts with that foundation. If you pay taxes and already live in a metaphysical “prison” of laws and theft and murder where the stronger wins, then what is the fear of going to an actual prison, IF that even happens, for what you believe in. I believe you all do not want that to happen because you do not have an un breakable foundation, but rather like your things nd your comforts and your routine.
            A clover is someone who answers questions without thinking of the question, someone who talks of himself in the plural (nationalists), someone who “follows the law exactly as it is written out,” because the CONSEQUENCES scare him, and he wants to be a part of the greater good, a part of, the god of everyone, Society.
            No one “leaves anyone alone” in this society because it is an interventionist world man. The libertarian philosophy is to defend yourself when attacked. I will stand by you all, regardless of our differences, I just believe that it is too soon, obviously for you all to make that jump. And like I DID say, when will enough be enough for y’all?

          • eric, just went by one of your previous posts re: Jesus Christ Jim, I’m still laughing. Just wanted you to know I’m now having to sign in every time I respond(this is the second time). The first time after I got my email in the avatar popped up but not this time. The first time, I got a WordPres error, not signed in. Just wanted to let you know, not bothering me except for losing my avatar. Oh, and I’m also having to check again for followup comments.

        • I hear ya Jim 😉

          Just relax your standards a bit and avoid demanding answers to every nuance of the conversation, as it could continue ad-infinitum.

          I’ve talked with many differing types of people and you’re no exception, but your dead-eye focus down the sights of a barrel to quarrel out a fitting rebuttal and then suddenly switching midstream to another target simply makes it a shooting gallery of ideals full of holes.

          Just take a step back and enjoy the view for a bit. We’ve all chosen different forks in the road to end up where we’re at in life, some of them were good for us, others sucked badly. We all started as something else and, our capacity to change that is entirely our own making that can’t be rectified by demand.

          • Relaxing standards is how this country, this world reached this point. Pursue perfection permanently, define all things beforehand, eliminate fear and routine, and take care to know the self and the world can get back to the only responsibilities that matter, personal and fiscal.
            And I love when I finally break down for Eric what and how all this came about, and I define everything properly, and that is when he doesn’t answer.

            • Jim,

              “And I love when I finally break down for Eric what and how all this came about, and I define everything properly, and that is when he doesn’t answer.”

              You’re back to the low-rent personal attacks. Final warning. You didn’t “break down” anything; you just regurgitated your previous unintelligible, self-referential spiel.

    • Your reasoning seems a variant of the Thomas Aquinas/Karl Marx labor theory of value.

      You know the one that the says an American made $200 “sustainable screwdriver” is superior to an identical $1 Lucky Dragon screwdriver made by Chinese orphans.

      Logic commands one to admit “blood diamonds” are in truth, no different than other diamonds. Likewise, a free society built with the money of plantationers, bootleggers, and stripminers, is no different than a free society built upon millions of gallons of blood from heroic idealistic patriots straight out of V For Vendetta.

      How many scores of authorities would have to be killed and thwarted to get similar results to this blog?

      Eric has given his “answers” with the all his blog entries. With his two published books. With his growing archives of columns in mainstream and alternate publications. With farm produce. With machines brought back into useful existence at his own hands.

      The alleged nobleness of freedom fighters and refuseniks who never eat shit is irrelevant. What matters is the tangible values they create and the quantifiable results they obtain.

      The quantity of comments here are a measure of value. I’ve made a lot of corrections on the basis of what I’ve read here. I’ve read your blog entries, and I congratulate you for having comments. That is itself a great accomplisment.

      Why not post your challenges to Lew Rockwell, Eric Peters and others on your blog? Put up links to their articles, and add a link to your comments here? I don’t meant to serve as another old guy gatekeeper, Buddha knows, there are plenty already.

      I was actually thinking of submitting an outside the box article to your site. Just as Eric goes further than Lew, perhaps you will go further than Eric.

      The article is Pervert’s Island to you. [The premise is Why not let the Pederast Rapist PTB do their nasties outside the United Civilizations, and beyond the laws of Mere Mundanes in the hopes that they’ll leave us be, and stop having all these wars to indulge their machiavellian appetites? I bet it has little effect on their already abisymal behavior, but only dials down the tension to Defcon 5, when they cavort taxfree and footloose in perfect anonymity and peace.]

      No one is afraid of constructive criticism here, often commentors are mistaken. But to demand specific performance of a blog author or top tier commentor seems like a play from the Clover playbook to me.

      Herbert the Pervert – Hmmmmmmm! – Family Guy

  10. No I will not. Email your more respected “libertarians.” For someone so well read on libertarian principles, starving leviathan is the crux of Chodorovs argument in income tax the root of all evil, Robert Higgs makes mention of it in Crises and Leviathan, seriously, ask Lew Rockwell.
    A little bit pregnant? I don’t think that is an equal comparison to dealing with starving a monster that creates laws, stockpiles weapons, murders people, based upon how much income it rakes in. The only equal comparison is the one I gave, comparing the gov to a corporation with lessened gross income.
    Come on man? Really? You are this incapable of seeing that 1<2?

    • Jim,

      I’ve pointed out that, in principle, you’re no different than anyone else. We’re all victims.

      And: In practice, I see no advantage in impoverishing myself to a greater extent than I am already impoverished by the government. Not only that (my own personal “selfish” motives, if you like) it is also a fact that I accomplish more for the cause by writing and helping to give air to ideas related to liberty than I would by quitting my work in order to “starve the beast” as you advocate (but only practice to a lesser extent).

    • Hey I thought you’d given up on us retarded libertarians, Jim?

      Dammit Jim. I’m a doctor, not an engineer; 1<2 seems a bit like high-falutin' math-uh-mattics to this old country boy.

      • meth, you must live half way around the world from me. I notice your post is May 7, 2013 12:24 am. 7:35 pm May 6th for me. Not the first time I’ve noticed one of these things but I finally had to ask. BTW, I live in Texas.

        • I live in Houston! Where are you 8south?

          I appreciate Texas more every day…at least when I watch those benighted NE states getting ass-raped then chanting like a bunch of mindless baboons “USA! USA! USA!”

          I think they’re using UTC (Universal Time Code), so when I post at 7 it shows as midnight on the server.

          We’re on CDT, which is UTC -5 hours.

          • “USA! USA! USA!” huh.. what.. oooh..

            I tried setting the time right, but I screwed up the comment ordering in “What’s Happening.” I’ll mess with it on a Friday night late.

          • meth, I’m in no man’s land between Abilene and Lubbock. I did have the advantage of not being able to see a neighbor till a couple years ago when this big double wide appears on the hill 1/2 mile away, pointed at us lowlifes in the valley. I considered murder but realized someone else would just buy it, 2 acres on top of a hill in the middle of a plowed field but SOMEBODY will buy it since it’s for sale now.

  11. I didn’t buy a jag, it’s an old one given to me. I never said anything about my routine, check it, I said look at your routine, and see where it can cause mistakes, because of its ease.
    And my point on the taxes is true. Reread what I wrote. It’s in line with rothbard and mises. Check it yourself. They both say, any taxes that can be avoided is crucial to the decay of leviathan. Email Walter block, lew Rockwell, David Gordon…all will tell you the same thing.

    • So, someone gave you the Jag. It still uses more gas than necessary to get from A to B. Therefore, you are choosing (like the rest of us) to pay taxes “that can be avoided.”

      Are you still going to quibble over being a little bit pregnant? Or will you at last concede the point?

    • “any taxes that can be avoided is crucial to the decay of leviathan.”

      My thought, for what it’s worth:

      Why the heck aren’t you driving a donkey then instead of a Jag?

      I ask myself that somewhat frequently.

      Are you growing your own grain and making your own cereal to pay less taxes?

      As if it makes any difference really, the goberment is funded by funny Fed money, not by taxes, it’s all a scam. There-fing-fore; an income tax revolt of any kind is kind of meaningless. No?

      Also, if you’re genuine, I think perhaps you need to lighten up when dealing with your fellow Freedomista’s. As they say, don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.

  12. Eric, routine man. Like do you have a routine, a daily routine, and I’m sure you do( no offense), and if it is possible that your mind too has a routine on how it comes to answers? Basic psychology says yes. That is what I am looking for, and it is what life is made up of. Unless we analyze our routines, physical and mental it makes changing them difficult.
    My jag is not a necessity. As I said before, I accomplish 99% of my activities via bicycle.
    Eric, come on though on the taxation? If more money in taxes are spent by someone, then the degree is of significance. It’s basic mathematics that if the state all of a sudden had its tax revenues cut in half it would be in trouble. The same as with a corporation, which the state is. If a corporation loses half it’s revenue, even though the consumers still shop there, albeit they spend half as much money as they used to, the corp is in trouble. Basic mathematics.
    I am not here to waste your alls time. I’m only offering a differing pov. I have seen the world from your pov before, and it is one that does not work for me. All I have asked is that you have an open enough mind, to see things my way. As for everyone being equal, and my tone, well here’s how I see it: is Michael Jordan equal to Marcus Teague? No, michael Jordan works his butt off, is blessed with athletic ability, and has a killer instinct. You are able to see that physically this is possible. Well, the mind is a muscle as well, and the more it is worked, the more it is allowed to understand its failures, as well as see the benefit of how it deals with those failures, and works at refining skillful behaviors, the further along it goes against others who do not develop their skills accordance with the mind. Aristotle, the Jordan of the mind, said there is only one way to hit a bullseye, but plenty ways to miss. I strive towards the bullseye everytime by analyzing the cause of my actions.
    I do Not mean to cause anyone to thinking AMA cop, a handjob, or any other negative idea. I merely offer up a mirror for y’all’s viewpoints. As well though, I see your double standard when it comes to my profanity vs others Eric, and I don’t know what that’s about? Looks like playing favorites which is a non libertarian view I would think?
    Freedom is the concept that has no limitations against it, hence free-dom, without restraint.
    I wish you all the best, really, in talking things up and not having anyone to challenge your way of thinking and really push you toward new developments. And good luck convincing the government through non-violence, at the height of its lust for active violence, that it is wrong. Sometime, dire straits call for dire actions.
    And one more thing: “sometimes the things you own, end up owning you.”

    • Jim,

      The way it comes across is that my “routine,” as you style it = stultification, both mental and otherwise. That I’m somehow trapped by the life I lead – while you (somehow) are free of such “routine” and therefore, more “free.”

      It’s silly – and tiresome.

      Also, your continued defense of your logically inconsistent position on paying taxes. Again: Unless you live as a hermit or a Richard Kimble, you pay taxes. You have admitted this (that you do pay taxes). Yet you talk down to me – and others – who (in your view) pay “too much” and deride us for “supporting the regime.”

      You’ve tried to argue that you only pay “necessary” taxes, those that cannot be avoided. I point out that buying a Jaguar – a high-end luxury car – involves choosing to pay more taxes – fact that cannot be argued. Yet you will not acknowledge that you’ve once again contradicted yourself.

      To be very clear: I am glad you own a Jaguar (I myself drive an old truck that’s probably not worth $4,000) and if you can earn a good living (not hand to mouth) in cash – well, bully for you, too.

      But, please – don’t posture as morally superior or more intellectually evolved.

      You’ve chosen a course of action (a “routine”) that seems best in your eyes – for you. Godspeed. But that doesn’t mean the choices of others are illegitimate, much less cowardly and complacent (as you constantly imply).

    • Actually Jim, I’m grateful to you.

      In forcing me to enumerate what I’ve done while paying Leviathan, I’m convinced the compromise thus far has been a worthy one.

      If I accumulate enough capital, or if the theft becomes too onerous, I might adapt differently later.

      But for now, building up supplies and accumulating REAL wealth–that is, Au and Ag in-hand not in some fantasy paper world–is the most effective use I can put my skills to after the kids are seen to.

      I salute your resolution to starve the Beast. We can all keep hacking away at it in our own best efforts.

    • Love the videos!

      I just wish people wouldn’t insert the goddamn peddler ads into them. Huge turnoff. I will immediately close any video that starts with a strumming guitar and a fucking 16 second ad for some shitty product I have no interest in hearing Thing One about.

      • I here you. A lot of videos have those mandatory ads now. They’re never straightforward either. Their main purpose seems to be inflicting brain damage to make us fearful consumers of things we don’t need. Oftentimes, there’s no way of determining what it is they’re supposedly selling.

        I always mute the ads and look elsewhere. The types of ads we’re subjected to is definitely a type of force and fraud, and not all compliant with NAP.

        Advertising Is Brain Damage
        http://www.adbusters.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/adbusters_advertising_brain_damage.jpg?itok=uTU8pnp3

        • Yeah… I reached my critical mass/can’t-take-it-anymore threshold several years ago.

          Now, I have to choke back the urge to smash something when I hear “sponsored content” and “learn more about…”

          It’s always couched in this oily touchy-feely lingua franca of the shyster class. No, it’s not “sponsored content.” It’s a god-damned ad. You’re not sponsoring anything. You’re selling something.

          I’m not “learning” something. I’m being sales-pitched.

          Argh!

          • Yeh. It’s awful. In Australia they say “We’ll be back after this short break/We’re going to take a break now”, but in the US it seems more common to say “.. a word from our sponsors”.

            When I was a kid watching a US show, I always wondered why the difference. Its probably more prevalent now to use the word “break” in the US as well.

            But it’s all fear-mongering snake-oil crap anyway. Especially those life insurance ads.

            Over here, when they advertise what’s happening in the next episode of some stupid drama show, they ask questions I couldn’t care less about the answer for, such as “what will she do next?” or “who’s hiding the truth?”.

            They’re better substituted with “Who gives a turd?”.

            • Yeah – the faux/mewling “caring” meme is especially noxious. It’s characteristic of the drug ads.

              “Ask your doctor about Nemenba…” as concerned-looking young female doctor gently converses with older guy.

              It makes me berserk.

          • Now now eric. My older sister and I learned to get a good laugh from those old 60’s commercials. My mother would be watching them and say “Hmm, that looks pretty good, maybe I should get one, I’ll have to look at them”. And we sit there and snicker and say, Yeah, she can put that crap with all that other crap she doesn’t use and cusses because it takes up so much space.

            • Morning, Eight!

              I didn’t mind those commercials, either!

              What’s changed is they’re no longer just a sideshow. They’re the main show. They are in your face, all the time – everywhere.

              One of the reasons we threw the TeeVee in the woods was because each show was constantly interrupted by a barrage of obnoxious – often serially repetitive – commercials. How many times can one endure the same Arbys ad in 30 minutes? Sometimes, the same damn ad would recur within the same block of commercials. Shove it down their throats! It may annoy the hell out of them, but they’ll remember the “message.” And these “messages” often consumed 20-plus minutes of any 60 minute show. I got tired of paying to “learn more” about their “message.”

              Fuck ’em and feed ’em fish heads!

          • also eric, my internet has been really slow lately and it’s in the day, like right now, super slow. I have seen a page I have never seen before on this site though that says Failure to Connect to the Database on a blank page after trying for a long time. I have slow dialup which is most of the problem as well as slow internet lately but I’ve never seen a page such as that before. It does it only on your site but the loading gets really slow on everything. I don’t have a clue as you well know. I can keep trying that page and all of a sudden it will act nominally normal. Oh, hate to mention this but I’ve been really pissed but have remained sorta calm since the little woman brought me some ibuprofen….and it worked to some degree. Did you see where the fools on the hill passed that damned internet tax? I was so friggin mad I stomped through the house on my four legs cussing those sumbitches. No, They’ll never need to use ebay, just send an aide down for whatever they want and somebody will buy it for them. ARGH, also.

          • “Failure to Connect to the Database” I got that yesterday too. 505. This website has been slow for me too. Especially if I right click the comment box links and try and open one up in a new window. If the next comment I click is on that same page it’s fast, but not if I click to a different EPA article.

            When I first open EPA, in the background at the top, a photo of the Range Rover pops up for awhile then disappears. If that helps any.

            Also, RE: ibuprofen.

            Some say that’s bad bad stuff, here’s some alternatives:

            http://lewrockwell.com/spl4/ibuprofen-alternatives.html

          • “What does it say at the bottom left of your browser when it’s loading, or taking long?”

            Reads.ytmg.com <- for the longest time.and then this for a bit: Read14.ytmg.com

            When I click to go away from EPA the other page loads slowly too. I was thinking it was my computer?

          • Downshift, thanks for the info. I think I have some St. Johns Wart. Wish it were regular basil, have some hanging. As for the page that comes up, it’s just as you say and everything loads very slowly after that. I too thought it was my browser and then thought the internet very slow(and that could be part of the problem)but now you show the same things I see and the same problems I’m starting to think it’s the server. Like I said, I could get that, close it, keep getting it and then it would load as normal but only sometimes. Other times I’d just keep getting that bad page. I’m using FF Beta 20 V.5. I didn’t load Beta, my computer guy did after I had some problems. I don’t use Beta anything because of dialup.

        • “A lot of videos have those mandatory ads now.”

          I read an article a few months ago that explains the youtube ads. It was a deal struck to stop the complaints of copyright infringement. Instead of removing anything that a copyright holder claimed violated his IP rights, the holder of the copyright could have ad space that he could sell to any willing buyer. The condition placed on the ads were that they could be opted out of at a certain point if the viewer chose.

          Actually, from what I see, relatively few youtube vids contain the ads. I learned to live withg them once I realized that without them, lots of music and film clips would be unavailable.

          Has anyone noticed a script that hangs up in your browser since the migration? I’ve been having a problem with the page taking too long to load, and it affects all my computers and both my ISPs. I use Firefox on all 3 computers, but they are different versions.

          Wonder what it is?

          • What does it say at the bottom left of your browser when it’s loading, or taking long? I’m having some issues too from time to time. It’s the ads. As far as youtube video ads, there is an option in the settings where the owner can “Monetize” the video. They offer all sorts of options to Monetize.

            • “Monetize” – everyone’s becoming a whore for the corporatocracy!

              These ad-laden personal videos – stuff made by regular people, I mean – not produced shows – are the modern equivalent of having a goddam Pepsi ad on the Polaroids of your summer vacation.

              learn more about …!

          • Dom, it’s the changing message of “tranferring data form EPA you tube, google” etc. Ordinarily on any other site, it loads too quickly for me to even see any message at all. For instance on LRC or Antiwar, the messaage “transferring data from …” will flash very briefly, too fast to read.

            Here it displays a “tranferring data” message for every script that loads. That’s how it is when using my verizon 3G modem. On my slower satellite modem in the shop, the page stays blank for 30 seconds to a minute before either loading or displaying the “cannot connect to server” firefox message.

            Hope that helps you figure it out.

          • Also, when the script is hung up on one of the youtube “tranferring” messages, I can’t navigate away from the page or do anything else. It even freezes my inbox. The youtube imbeds probably run a script to display an image and the server isn’t allowing the bandwidth on demand.

            I thought it was just my desktop in the home office until the same problem showed up on my laptop and on the desktop in the shop, which is on a different ISP than the other two.

            BTW, it’s only on EPA, no other site.

          • I don’t like – but accept – the ads that appear in videos of, say, TV shows or a movie or some other thing that cost a lot of money to make.

            I’d prefer to pay a small fee and just watch the thing without a preamble of sales pitches or several interruptions during the show. YouTube does allow this for some programming – “pay per view” shows, etc.

            My bet is a lot of people would like to cut commercials out their lives via the above. I believe there is a potential fortune to be made piping in programming on an entirely pay-per-view basis, without any goddamn commercials. Imagine it: Instead of having to buy “packages” – and 30-40 percent commercial content – from your cable/satellite company, you paid for only the specific shows (or channels) you wanted – not fucking 15 channels of ESPN fuuuhhhhhhhtttttttball in order to also get the Science channel – and every show piped in without a single vile commercial, on a pay-per-view basis. Why not? We aren’t (yet) compelled to buy three McRibs at the Evil Clown Palace in order to get the QP w/c we actually want. It is technically doable – and would make life vastly more pleasant.

            I’d get the TeeVee back from out in the woods….

            Now, the other thing:

            People who put ads in their personal home videos/clips are tools. For one, you’re not going to make any money; all you’re doing is spreading your legs for the corporatocracy. Not everything in this life needs to be – much less ought to be – “monetized.” For two, it’s a super turn-off. I will not watch your damn clip if I first have to “learn more” about whatever the hell it is.

            What’s next? Is everyone going to “monetize” their foreheads, too?

            Lots of ad space there! Shame to not make good use of it…

    • Tor I’m DYING at the penguin video.

      Sent it to my criminal-defense-lawyer friend; he and I take the same karate class and the sparring is, um, spirited. As in, bruised from head to toe, broken toes, sprained joints, etc.

      So he emails back:

      “Huh. Looks like you in karate class.”

      Asshole. But he’s a great friend 🙂

        • Ha ha love it, “Why do p’lice guys beat on peace guys?”

          I’m just starting to get into old country and folk music. I used to hate it; but funny thing happened, I turned 40 a while back and damned if that stuff isn’t starting to sound good.

          Christ.

          By the time I’m fifty I’m going to be that stereotypical Texan guy with a beat-up old pick’en-’em-up truck, a gun rack, a chaw of baccy in my mouth wearing a wife-beater and flying a confederate flag.

          Yep.

          • yeah meth, just put fishing rods in the gun rack and ditch the wife beater, old denim shirts with snaps so you don’t forget how hot the sun really is in Texas. The worst thing to ever happen to Texas was to get into that non-contest and Sam Houston tried to tell everyone for which he was run off. Get a Dimmitt’s Goliad Bloody Arm flag and find a lot of friends quickly. Too bad they’ll all be my age or older. The only good thing about getting old as I’m sure you’ve realized by now is a much larger list of “I won’t do that again”‘s.

  14. Ed, on the WW11 bombers, it was the truth for those involved. Not a small amount of people were imprisoned and killed for speaking to the truth during WW11. The entire media didn’t dare print anything except what they were given. It would have been hard to find out what was really going on such was the state of the country at that time in relation to media. Innocent men who could never have dreamed they were being led to slaughter became heroes for what “they perceived, what the country saw”. At that point people weren’t speaking too loudly if they didn’t swallow the big lie just like after the Shrub got into office and started his wars. If you told anyone that you had been getting the reports from the IAEA and you got good intel from respected sources as how it was all a lie, you immediately got shouted down or someone said “And where did you find this information, the internet? Shit, come on, you can find all sorts of lies there”. What they didn’t realize was the degree of complicity the MSM has with whatever PTB is in office. Hell, the MSM even reported what the IAEA team had said they’d found, nothing, but it was overshadowed by all those lies told non-stop that finally made them “the truth”. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were easily seen through but you didn’t read it in the paper or hear it on tv.

    • Yeah, that’s true up to a point. Still, some people claim that truth is in the eye of the beholder. I differ with that idea. I think that truth is truth despite the perception of it by different people.

      I take the view of TV news that I do because I’ve caught them in too many lies to bother trying to believe them about anything. Broken trust can’t be fixed. Once it’s broken, it just doesn’t exist anymore.

      Anyway, when I’m around TV addicts who are all worked up over what the TV news is saying, I just go “Hmmm! Ain’t THAT somethin’ “. That way I don’t have to hear much more about it. There’s a saying: “When everybody is telling the same story, it’s bound to be a lie”.

      I remember that saying when someone is flipping from one network news channel to the next and they’re all saying the same thing in the same words, and coming to the same conclusions.

  15. Beginners Intro To Homebrew
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDPrl50RxeU

    Making 26% Alcohol

    Making A Simple Water & Alcohol Distiller

    – Right now we have SHTFlite. Part and parcel with the great depression was the great prohibition and the great fiat centralization. Ponerologists’ screws will keep turning to make bad situations worse, in order to force more and more poneys* to join their psyop and act as force multipliers to get the greater herd to do what they want. (get in the corral, die, whatever it really is)

    *ponerologists – (scientific psychopaths)
    *poneys – Bloombergs, Gates, Napolitanos, Feinsteins (potentially industrious people who join the dark side, political animals elevated into martial dark arts masters of political action)

    • “*poneys – Bloombergs, Gates, Napolitanos, Feinsteins (potentially industrious people who join the dark side, political animals elevated into martial dark arts masters of political action)”

      Ah yes, that reminds me of one of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels.. The PA system at Auschwitz would carry the announcement: “lichtentrager zu wach” (corpse carriers to the guard house). Those who respond to the call find that their first task is to load the bodies of those they are replacing into the ovens.

      I wonder if the poneys have ever read about that.

      • Kurt Vonnegut:
        “It was a movie about American bombers in World War II and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this: American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
        The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers , and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans though and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
        When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again. The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby.”

          • Mutter Nacht: Eine Geschichte von wenn die Scheiße traf den Lüfter.

            “This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don’t think it’s a marvelous moral, I simply happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we
            pretend to be.

            After a while the war came, and I was in it, and I was captured. I got to go to a
            city, which was Dresden, and to see the people and the things they did. It was supposedly an “open” city, not to be attacked since there were no troop concentrations or war industries there.

            But high explosives were dropped on Dresden by American and British planes on the night of February 13, 1945, just about twenty-one years ago, as I now write. There were no particular targets for the bombs. The hope was that they would create a lot of kindling and drive firemen underground. And then hundreds of thousands of tiny incendiaries were scattered over the kindling, like seeds
            on freshly turned loam. More bombs were dropped to keep firemen in their holes, and all the little fires grew, joined one another, and became one apocalyptic flame. Hey presto: fire storm.

            It was the largest massacre in European history, by the way. And so what? We didn’t get to see the fire storm. We were in a cool meat-locker under a slaughterhouse with our six guards and ranks and ranks of dressed cadavers of cattle, pigs, horses, and sheep. We heard
            the bombs walking around up there. Now and then there would be a gentle shower of calcimine. If we had gone above to take a look, we would have been turned into artefacts Characteristic of fire storms: seeming pieces of charred firewood two or three feet long ridiculously small human beings, or jumbo fried grasshoppers, if you will. The malt syrup factory was gone. Everything was gone but the cellars where 135,000 Hansels and Gretels had been baked like gingerbread men. So we were put to work as corpse miners, breaking into shelters, bringing bodies out. And I got to see many German types of all ages as death had
            found them, usually with valuables in their laps. Sometimes relatives would come to watch us dig. They were interesting, too.”

            http://www.pauladaunt.com/books/vonnegut/Kurt%20Vonnegut%20-%20Mother%20Night.pdf

        • Tor, a bit more on WW11 bombers that just arrived to me.
          A final toast for the Doolittle Raiders
          It’s the cup of brandy that no one wants to drink.
          On Tuesday, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the surviving Doolittle Raiders gathered publicly for the last time.
          They once were among the most universally admired and revered men in the United States. There were 80 of the Raiders in April 1942, when they carried out one of the most courageous and heart-stirring military operations in this nation’s history. The mere mention of their unit’s name, in those years, would bring tears to the eyes of grateful Americans.

          Now only four survive.
          After Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, with the United States reeling and wounded, something dramatic was needed to turn the war effort around.
          Even though there were no friendly airfields close enough to Japan for the United States to launch a retaliation, a daring plan was devised. Sixteen B-25s were modified so that they could take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier. This had never before been tried — sending such big, heavy bombers from a carrier.

          The 16 five-man crews, under the command of Lt. Col. James Doolittle, who himself flew the lead plane off the USS Hornet, knew that they would not be able to return to the carrier. They would have to hit Japan and then hope to make it to China for a safe landing.
          But on the day of the raid, the Japanese military caught wind of the plan. The Raiders were told that they would have to take off from much farther out in the Pacific Ocean than they had counted on. They were told that because of this they would not have enough fuel to make it to safety.

          And those men went anyway.
          They bombed Tokyo, and then flew as far as they could. Four planes crash-landed; 11 more crews bailed out, and three of the Raiders died. Eight more were captured; three were executed. Another died of starvation in a Japanese prison camp. One crew made it to Russia.

          The Doolittle Raid sent a message from the United States to its enemies, and to the rest of the world:
          We will fight.
          And, no matter what it takes, we will win.

          Of the 80 Raiders, 62 survived the war. They were celebrated as national heroes, models of bravery. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a motion picture based on the raid; “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson, was a patriotic and emotional box-office hit, and the phrase became part of the national lexicon. In the movie-theater previews for the film, MGM proclaimed that it was presenting the story “with supreme pride.”

          Beginning in 1946, the surviving Raiders have held a reunion each April, to commemorate the mission. The reunion is in a different city each year. In 1959, the city of Tucson, Arizona, as a gesture of respect and gratitude, presented the Doolittle Raiders with a set of 80 silver goblets. Each goblet was engraved with the name of a Raider.
          Every year, a wooden display case bearing all 80 goblets is transported to the reunion city. Each time a Raider passes away, his goblet is turned upside down in the case at the next reunion, as his old friends bear solemn witness.

          Also in the wooden case is a bottle of 1896 Hennessy Very Special cognac. The year is not happenstance: 1896 was when Jimmy Doolittle was born.
          There has always been a plan: When there are only two surviving Raiders, they would open the bottle, at last drink from it, and toast their comrades who preceded them in death.

          As 2013 began, there were five living Raiders; then, in February, Tom Griffin passed away at age 96.
          What a man he was. After bailing out of his plane over a mountainous Chinese forest after the Tokyo raid, he became ill with malaria, and almost died. When he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions. He was shot down, captured, and spent 22 months in a German prisoner of war camp.

          The selflessness of these men, the sheer guts … there was a passage in the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Mr. Griffin that, on the surface, had nothing to do with the war, but that emblematizes the depth of his sense of duty and devotion:
          “When his wife became ill and needed to go into a nursing home, he visited her every day. He walked from his house to the nursing home, fed his wife and at the end of the day brought home her clothes. At night, he washed and ironed her clothes. Then he walked them up to her room the next morning. He did that for three years until her death in 2005.”

          So now, out of the original 80, only four Raiders remain: Dick Cole (Doolittle’s co-pilot on the Tokyo raid), Robert Hite, Edward Saylor and David Thatcher. All are in their 90s. They have decided that there are too few of them for the public reunions to continue.

          The events in Fort Walton Beach this week will mark the end. It has come full circle; Florida’s nearby Eglin Field was where the Raiders trained in secrecy for the Tokyo mission.
          The town is planning to do all it can to honor the men: a six-day celebration of their valor, including luncheons, a dinner and a parade.

          Do the men ever wonder if those of us for whom they helped save the country have tended to it in a way that is worthy of their sacrifice? They don’t talk about that, at least not around other people. But if you find yourself near Fort Walton Beach this week, and if you should encounter any of the Raiders, you might want to offer them a word of thanks. I can tell you from firsthand observation that they appreciate hearing that they are remembered.

          The men have decided that after this final public reunion they will wait until a later date — some time this year — to get together once more, informally and in absolute privacy. That is when they will open the bottle of brandy. The years are flowing by too swiftly now; they are not going to wait until there are only two of them.

          They will fill the four remaining upturned goblets.
          And raise them in a toast to those who are gone.
          =

          • “Do the men ever wonder if those of us for whom they helped save the country have tended to it in a way that is worthy of their sacrifice?”

            Well, the writer apparently thinks that his statement that some bomber crews “helped save the country” is irrefutable. It’s actually wild hyperbole from a statist propagandist.

            I wonder what he thinks we should have done to tend to the country? I’d like to know. I mean, after all, some old guys helped save the country somehow by bombing civilians, so I guess I’d better get busy tending something.

            Yeah, whatever.

        • Yes, “Mother Night”, with his comparison of marriage to forming “das reich du zwei”. Vonnegut had to use his novels as vehicles for telling the story of the Dresden firebombing. Anyone trying to tell about that in the US (before it was admitted and became common knowlegde, commonly ignored, of course) was shouted down and accused of being a liar, a lunatic or worse.

          • There’s a movie version, too – top drawer, in my opinion – with an excellent performance by Nick Nolte as Howard W. Campbell (the Lord Haw Haw character). Here’s a clip:

          • Ed, by this time those bombing runs had over 1,000 planes dropping nearly 4,000 tons of mainly pyrotechnics. The Brits would do one and then the Yanks, back and forth. They razed countless cities that had no worth. Something people in this country have never understood is that all wars are carried out on civilians. The media was so highly censored then very few people knew what was really going on. We have one advantage now, the internet although it’s debatable how long it will continue unabated, not that it’s not censored now, just not like what TPTB are calling for immediately. A side note, seems like there were 8 bombers lost on that Dresden run. There was virtually no defense of the town since it had no value and was supposedly and “open” city. I realize you know all this but thought not everybody would know there were almost no planes lost. Amazing. Look at all the great things war brings, mustard gas, “sticky” gasoline, really neat stuff.

  16. As Eric has pointed out many times in the past, all those govt regulations have also ruined what could have been a drive for more efficient IC engines and automobile systems, by burdening them with ever more requirements of airbags, etc etc etc.

    Thank Crom I still can choose to ride a motorcycle, and get out from underneath most of the bureaucratic spew of those who regulate us “for our own good”.

    • Given the power of modern motorcycle engines, without all the regulations there could be some real interesting small/micro cars.

      • Morning, Brent!

        One of my bikes has a 1200 CC DOHC four that produces appx. 145 hp. Put that engine in a 400 pound frame/chassis -and you’ve got a machine that is capable of getting to 60 in less than 3 seconds, through the quarter mile in 10 seconds and on from there to 170-plus MPH… that also gets 40-45 MPG when you’re just toodling along.

        Now imagine that engine – perhaps cammed & set up more for torque/economy than high RPM hp – in a 1,000-1,200 pound car chassis.

        Viola – a car that’d still be very quick, yet also very fuel efficient.

        Too bad we’re not allowed to have them.

  17. I’ve been driving subcompact hatchbacks for decades, and gas works just fine for me, thank you. Right now I drive a Toyota Yaris hatchback that I bought new 6 years ago. If the Elio comes to market next year (ElioMotors.com) – and I hope it does – I will buy one, and get their claimed 84 mpg highway, on gas, and be quite happy and contented doing so.

  18. Taylor Wilson – was 14 when he built a nuclear fusion reactor. Plan for small nuclear fission reactors.

    Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors – Explained in 5 minutes

    DIY Collecting Nuclear Material – From Smoke Detectors, Etc.

    • Tor, the thorium fuel cycle is totally brilliant, and could very well lead us to the next age of prosperity.

      It’s no wonder it’s being suppressed actively.

      Everything this video says and more is true. It’s extremely safe. It doesn’t lead to enriched fissile material–one reason governments hate it.

      It’s relatively abundant–BTW I did not know uranium was as precious as silver, that’s stunning.

      And it’s incredibly efficient.

      A real win-win technology. In the next cycle of humanity, we’ll laugh at energy scarcity!

      I’ve been advocating it for years but TPTB want scarcity–all the better to herd you with, my dearie!

        • Energy freedom IS true freedom from the present day slave masters. Why else would they continuously suppress or bury any alternatives to those systems that are now tied to a “meter”.

          • MoT, I read that Nikola Tesla’s philosophy was exactly that, his energy producing inventions were aimed at empowering everyone to live in freedom.

            He was sure that he could transmit electrical energy over long distances without wires, so that electrical energy could be made so cheaply and easily available that it would radically change human lives to the point that there would be no more war.

            Eliminating war would be, as I see it, the end result of empowering people at the expense of the state. The state would be superfluous, in other words.

            I think he kind of lost that thread somehow and ended up trying to make all governments equally capable of defending themselves, kind of a back door wrong way of eliminating war in my view.

            I could be wrong, because I’ve read several conflicting accounts of his life and work.

      • In regards to thorium reactor see what I wrote to methyl in previous post. How many of you guys heard about the farnsworth fustor reactor? I’m thinking it would be a nice on off generator of neutrons to drive the thorium reactors.

        Also Eric wrote in this article about gasoline (Otto engines) reaching near the same compression ratios as diesel. I think that is awesome because he is right that would actually be more efficient than diesel engines. The key question is how they developed the fuel to not pre-ignite before the spark?

        Maybe its possible that the they are using something like a diesel injector but only adding the fuel right after TDC? Then spark? That seems like the best way to get the Otto engine to work at high compressions to me. As the special fuel idea wouldn’t be too conducive to reduced gas prices.

        Hot Rod

        • No, fusors wouldn’t help with getting energy out of thorium apart from an unlikely special case (see below), and certainly not in any on-off way.

          There are two ways of using thorium for power that would work in theory, i.e. in which the numbers work out:-

          – An “energy multiplier”. This uses energy going into particle accelerators to smash thorium apart by brute force (or uranium, come to that), either hitting the atoms directly with charged particles or indirectly with neutrons made by hitting something else like beryllium with the charged particles (you can’t accelerate neutrons in accelerators, because neutrons are neutral). That releases energy. With enough energetic neutrons, the numbers allow you to beat break even. This is almost something you could do with a fusor, but it doesn’t produce enough neutrons that are energetic enough to yield break even power, what with its own inherent energy losses through bremstrahlung (other accelerator methods have lower losses in this application).

          – A thorium breeder reactor. This uses neutrons made in the usual reactor way to bake the thorium into something that can be re-used for fission. However, that’s not instantaneous; the treated thorium has to be removed from the reactor for weeks to finish the change without being exposed to more neutrons while it does it (the ease of doing that is one of the claimed advantages of molten salt thorium reactors over fuel rod ones), or you get poor neutron economy – break even with the neutrons. You could do this with a fusor, if you didn’t have enough fissile material to start the reactor with, but it wouldn’t be on-off, it would be slow, and it would take a vast amount of energy to get a starter stock of fissile material for a reactor. It would only be worth it if you just wanted trace amounts, say to study its chemistry. Curiously, as thorium is used for high temperature materials like heated cathodes, there’s a good chance that the first fusors actually did some of that by accident.

          • Actually a Farnsworth Fusor is a particle accelerator. It does produce neutrons a whole hell of alot of them so I think it would work. Its probably the most efficient and compact particle accelerator and produces a glowing little sun in the center of its coencentric sphere wire grids. It was nearly at break even at fusion energy production according to online sources with a couple of latter models built by Farnsworth.

          • The Farnsworth is not only a particle accelerator its probably the most efficient way to produce a sun on earth. In fact done on a budget as Tor has provided can be done in anyone’s home for a few 100 bucks. The fact that when the compactor is filled with Deuteurium and that the particle smashing feature of it at its center creates fusion. The fusion then releases huge amounts of neutrons. That could then be used as a breeder I suppose or as a modulator for Thorium reaction. The fact that Mr. Farnsworth nearly acheived parity with fusion using his reactor says that if used to indirectly drive as a neutron source for a fission reaction would probably generate a net positive energy release.

            HR

          • Yes, I know a fusor is a particle accelerator. The point I was trying to bring out was that it has too many losses for the purpose of driving an energy multiplier device, compared with the dedicated linear accelerators I have seen proposed for that purpose, and the fact that it does not release enough particles that are energetic enough even to do it short of break even anyway.

            The issue is bremstrahlung radiation. The particles oscillating back and forth in a fusor are sending out energy that can’t be captured (proposed developments for fusor power are hoped to reduce this enough to allow break even). That sort of happens in linear accelerators too, only that energy isn’t escaping; it’s happening within the electrodes that are supplying power to accelerate the particles, and it shows up within the power drain itself, so it isn’t a loss but the load on the power supply.

            Yes, a fusor is the most practical small scale way to get fusion – effective temperatures like that in stars – but that doesn’t translate into efficiently generating the sort of high energy particles needed by an energy multiplier. For that, you need to get the kind of forced fission that happens in the final part of an H-bomb (of the fission-fusion-fission sort), when the high energy particles from the fusion explosion pour through the surrounding layers of depleted uranium. That releases energy, but not in a chain reaction way; it doesn’t release enough new high energy particles to make yet other depleted uranium atoms do the same, since the driving particles have to have much higher energies than fission gives them – or that an ordinary fusor would give them. In an energy multiplier, the idea is to recycle the surplus energy from that kind of brute force fission through a separate particle accelerator and keep releasing more energy that way, not through a chain reaction using particles as in a conventional nuclear reactor – a process that uses lower energy particles hitting atoms of the more sensitive isotopes, i.e. the fissile ones. The numbers work out that this should be possible, but not if there are too many losses in the various stages of the whole process.

          • Short version: the particles produced by a fusor, even the neutrons, aren’t energetic enough to fission thorium or non-fissile uranium but only to get absorbed by it, and even if you had a more developed fusor that could make high enough energy particles for fission, you still wouldn’t get break even on the energy because of the bremstrahlung losses until you had minimised those to the point that it was past break even just on fusion anyway – which would be easier if you weren’t trying for high energy product particles as well as fusion. That does mean that an ordinary fusor could make a tiny trickle of fissile material using those absorptions, though, once various radioactive changes had worked through.

          • @P.M.–

            First off, kudos to you sir! You’re a fount of knowledge; where did you learn this?

            Second, isn’t this:

            That does mean that an ordinary fusor could make a tiny trickle of fissile material…

            The technique that the boyscout used? I believe he was using Americium as an alpha source against an aluminum or beryllium target to yield neutrons, bombarding a thorium mass…
            Anyway the kid was a frikkin’ genius. He got the Americium from smoke detectors, and the thorium from white-gas camping lantern wicks! Got-damn genius, as Ed would say.

            I find that nuclear chemistry totally fascinating. Sure, carbon chemistry is fun and practical; but that we, mere puny humans, can manipulate the nucleus of an atom predictably is…take a step back and think about it. It’s amazing.

            We’re pretty special creatures; the Elites want us to believe we’re just animals. But a nobler animal I’ve not seen.

          • @Lawrence

            “Short version: the particles produced by a fusor, even the neutrons, aren’t energetic enough to fission thorium or non-fissile uranium but only to get absorbed by it”

            Slower neutrons are much more absorbable in fission. Breeder reactors use water to absorb and slow down the neutrons. So your statement that slow neutrons can’t be utilized for breeder reactors is mute.

            “The issue is bremstrahlung radiation.”

            Yes accelerating charges produce radiation. The point is that the Farnsworth fusor after recombination loss and all other losses including bremstrahlung radiation was nearly at break even. So used with fission as a hybrid (or energy multiplier as you put it) it would produce probably more heat than source energy. This could be used to produce steam and then power to continue the reaction plus extra.

            For you to pick on one particular form of loss and say that loss meant Farnsworth wasn’t able to nearly reach break even is rather odd. And bremstrahlung radiation wasn’t even the largest particular loss of the farnsworth fusor neither. Its grid or screen recombination that kept the Fusor from getting better efficiencies not bremstrahlung radiation. Further bremstrahlung radiation wouldn’t even be considered a larger loss if it can be captured in the form of heat and be used for steam generation. And the frequencies of the fusors electrons oscillation and thus acceleration/deceleration are not X-Rays but RF so that energy can be absorbed as heat and again be used to power the steam generation. Further bremstrahlung radiation is a function of of acceleration and deceleration. In the farnsworth fusor the both of these are basically a derivative of something nearly sinusoidal not brick wall decel/accel. The beauty of the fusor is its electrons are slowed as they pass the outer grids and then like a swing return from further outside potential energy (outside position) to maxium kinectic energy (cenerter position). The amount of bremstrahlung radiation isn’t that much a factor because the protons have to gradually slow to zero velocity.

            “if you didn’t have enough fissile material to start the reactor with, but it wouldn’t be on-off, it would be slow, and it would take a vast amount of energy to get a starter stock of fissile material for a reactor. ”

            How do you define slow? 1000 years to warm up or 10 minutes. Because I can tell you that in fission one absorbed neutron kicks off 10 more. Its an exponential chain reaction. U238 deplete uranium has plent of atoms to create such a cascade. I think you are simply projecting your opinion here and though you are smart I doubt that you have any kind of empirical or theoretical (as in engineering of a fusor or fission absorbtion) kind of knowledge.

            I’d have no problem with what you’re saying but you make it sound like you have authority on the subject when to me it appears you are very intelligent but also fairly opinionated on things you haven’t spent much time on.

          • @Lawrence

            I plan not to build a fusor nor thorium nor uranium reactor. Under normal consideration when people tell me something won’t work that usually intiates me to to build it, but not in this case.

            I’d say I have a pretty nasty reputation of being right on exotic ideas as I used to make a living off doing it. I’m not a person who gets into big debates about brainstorming ideas, rather if challenged I usually just build the damn thing and the proof is sitting right there with no need to debate any further.

            Usually what can be conceived can be achieved, its not like I haven’t studied the issues or say its easy as pie but I do believe they can be overcome quite nicely actually, and the proof in the pudding is that Farnsworth was nearly able to get break strictly with fusion so any additional energy released from a fission hyrbid would probably be enough.

            Best Regards,
            HR

          • Wait a minute, guys–we keep talking about bremstrahlung.

            But bremstrahlung is “braking radiation”–the same phenomenon used to produce extremely intense, focused X-rays in cyclotrons for purposes of atomic imaging, like X-ray crystallography.

            And it’s responsible for losses in circular particle accelerators; as the particles are accelerated around the curved track, they radiate EM energy.

            But the particles must be *charged*, don’t they? It’s the acceleration of *charged* particles that leads to braking radiation.

            Neutrons are neutral.

            Am I missing something?

          • @Methyl
            “But bremstrahlung is “braking radiation”–the same phenomenon used to produce extremely intense, focused X-rays in cyclotrons for purposes of atomic imaging, like X-ray crystallography.”

            Correct any kind of acceleration or deceleration of a charged particle will produce the radiation we are talking about. The faster the accel/deceleration rate the higher energy form of EM emitted. Obviously this is related to frequency of photon by E=hf so the more energetic the decel rate the higher the frequency. X-rays are generated by slamming an electron from an electron accelerator into a dense metal like lead as an example. Ideally the farnsworth fusor has a grid used for accleration. If the particles slam into this metal grid instead of miss and go to the center for nuclear fusion collison then some X-rays will be emitted. Also when two hydrogen particles hit from opposite direct which is ideal the particle will create fusion. The deceleration of the particles coming opposite 180 degrees would create the radiation we are talking about. But again if they hit and fuse then that is the desired goal. If the electrons miss colliding in the center the goal of the Farnworth fusor is that they move away from the center back outwards toward the outer grid. Slowly decelerate until they reach maximum potential energy against the electric field. Like a swing at maximu potential energy when at its peak posiition upwards and zero velocity, the charged particle then begins accelerating again toward center for another try at collison and thus fusion. It was actually quite brilliant but the major loss was grid recombination, which means electrons hitting the wire grids instead of missing and going to the center.

            HR

          • When I say electrons I mean charged particles. As the fusor had two differnet modes one of acclerating electrons and another of accelerating charge ions of the positve or (proton) hydrogen atom. Both modes had created fusion but both had drawbacks. The idea worked the same though in terms of the compactor design only the outer versus inner grid changed polarity. Also later models would create the ions external to the grids, kind of a linear particle accelerator in a farnsworth particle compactor.

          • Thanks, methylamine.

            In general, I have picked up a lot around and about, and I stretch its impact further by not going out on a limb in areas where I’m not on top of things. If it looks as though I know everything, that’s only from keeping quiet and switching back to listening when other topics come up, e.g. sport, music, etc. Of course, that trick is still too difficult for many people, who end up talking themselves into a corner (naming no names). In this particular case, I kept myself abreast of energy independence options for Australia, where I am, and a bit over a year ago someone asked me to give a talk on nuclear power, so I spent the week before refreshing my knowledge of the details.

            Yes, I think that boy scout was trying to do the alpha particle source plus beryllium thing to get neutrons, and I did hear that he was cannibalising smoke detectors as part of it, so your description sounds about right.

            Some technical stuff… The only stable isotope of beryllium is the equivalent of two alpha particles (helium nuclei) plus one neutron to hold them together, surrounded by the matching electrons. Helium is very stable, and there aren’t enough “magic number” effects to hold beryllium together well (unlike carbon, where the most common isotope is the equivalent of three heliums joined together), so it doesn’t take much to split beryllium up and release the additional neutron. Being hit with an energetic neutron, alpha particle or gamma ray will do it. In fact, the early researchers checked out if that would give a chain reaction, but it doesn’t because, even though one energetic neutron going in will release two surplus neutrons and two alpha particles, and one energetic alpha particle going in will release one surplus neutron and three alpha particles, the particles coming out have less energy and it will all grind to a halt.

            On the bremstrahlung thing in a fusor, yes, neutrons are neutral and not subject to it, but that’s not what’s going on there. Fusors work using charged particles, and one useful thing they can already do is generate neutrons. If you put energy in, you can get neutrons out, but you can’t put energy in and get net energy out – not with current approaches, unless and until other techniques can be developed and applied.

          • Hot Rod, you are confusing very different things. Even though you are actually quoting me, you have completely missed the point that I was telling you very different things about energy amplifiers and about thorium breeder reactors, precisely in order to show how different everything was. You can’t turn around and make out that what I told you about energy amplifiers is refuted by how a thorium breeder reactor works or vice versa.

            Yes, slower neutrons are much more absorbable in fission (by and large) – but only by fissile material. When other material absorbs neutrons, e.g. fertile material, that does not give you fission at all unless the neutrons had so much energy of their own that they did it by brute force. (Slower neutrons are less absorbable by the non-fissile isotope of uranium, which is why self sustaining uranium breeder reactors are fast breeders with little slowing down and why non-breeding reactors like the CANDU can still work even with unenriched fuel because they use a lot of moderation, among other things.) No, breeder reactors do not “use water to absorb and slow down the neutrons”; they use that (in some kinds) just to slow those down, and as much as possible they avoid having the water absorb any at all. That’s for the neutron economy, so that neutrons get absorbed by fissile material to drive an energy releasing chain reaction and by fertile material to get more fissile material. For neutron economy reasons, you can’t make a thorium breeder reactor work with a light water moderator at all.

            But, guess what? None of that has anything to do with the process I was describing in what you quoted. There, I was telling you what happens in an energy multiplier. In that, you have to hit the non fissile material very hard to get brute force fission, and even if you get that you don’t get neutrons out that are energetic enough to repeat the trick, so there is no chain reaction. If you don’t hit the material that hard, yes, it is easier to get it to absorb neutrons, down to very low energies with thorium and somewhat higher energies with non-fissile uranium, but… drum roll… doing that won’t get you fission, just absorption, followed by decay processes that give you fissile stuff days or weeks later (depending on which fertile material you were using).

            Briefly, you are completely imagining things in “So your statement that slow neutrons can’t be utilized for breeder reactors is mute [sic]”. I made no such statement. I told you that they can’t be used in an energy multiplier. Readers, go and check.

            You have a leap in logic between “… the Farnsworth fusor … was nearly at break even …” and the part that follows, “So used with fission as a hybrid (or energy multiplier as you put it) it would produce probably more heat than source energy. This could be used to produce steam and then power to continue the reaction plus extra.”

            The first part is at best only loosely accurate, in that “nearly at break even” isn’t just a matter of only having to catch up a little. The sources of energy loss are of a nature that makes them fundamentally insuperable when using that approach, i.e. a standard fusor, no matter how much you reduce them; they are always bound to beat you. That does not make variations hopeless, which is why the descendant polywell approach may work one day, so let’s be charitable and pretend you meant something like that.

            The second part is complete nonsense, because you get too much loss converting heat energy to other forms. To put it another way, long before you could get break even with that approach:-

            – you could get break even on a fusion only fusor (which is actually impossible for other reasons), or more likely a polywell descendant; and

            – you could get break even driving an energy multiplier with a special purpose particle accelerator that recycled its energy losses directly rather than through lossy heat pathways.

            “And bremstrahlung radiation wasn’t even the largest particular loss of the farnsworth fusor neither. Its grid or screen recombination that kept the Fusor from getting better efficiencies not bremstrahlung radiation.”

            There is a fundamental misunderstanding here, over and above not realising that the collision losses are also covered under the heading of bremstrahlung radiation. It is irrelevant that current fusors lose more energy through electrode collisions than through radiation as they oscillate back and forth. The collision losses can be reduced to arbitrarily small levels, and in fact that is what polywell development is trying to do. No, the problem isn’t the largest source of loss at the moment, the problem is the kind of loss that can’t be got rid of that would still beat break even. Suppose you had an incurable cancer and also a bad cold; right then, the cold would be troubling you more, and it might even be what you tried to treat first, but it wouldn’t kill you. Similarly, once polywells beat the largest but easiest kind of loss to deal with, further work may allow them to recover, recycle or retain the more tricky kind of loss, or it may not, but the real breakthrough will have to be there. (You’re half right in emphasising that the losses are radio frequency, but dead wrong in thinking that a heat pathway could recycle them – at any rate, with materials that could stand up to the temperatures implied.)

            You are seriously off in your comments on my “…if you didn’t have enough fissile material to start the reactor with, but it wouldn’t be on-off, it would be slow, and it would take a vast amount of energy to get a starter stock of fissile material for a reactor”.

            When I tell you it would be slow, I mean that you couldn’t practically operate enough fusors to get many neutrons for the thorium to absorb. It would be like digging a ditch with a tea spoon. The rest of your remarks are wildly off, thus:-

            – “Because I can tell you that in fission one absorbed neutron kicks off 10 more” is codswallop, and even if it were true it would be irrelevant. In the thorium cycle, one neutron is absorbed by a thorium nucleus and eventually produces an atom of uranium-233, which absorbs another neutron, fissions and releases on average about 2.1 neutrons – for two neutrons in, overall, and not allowing for other losses. With uranium-235 and no breeding, one neutron in gives you nearer 2.3 out, and breeding and fissioning uranium via plutonium gives you about the same for two neutrons in. The reason it’s irrelevant, of course, is that we aren’t talking about operating a breeder reactor. That passage of mine is about operating a separate neutron source to breed a starter stock of fissile material large enough to get a breeder reactor going. Even if you really did get ten neutrons out for every one in during a chain reaction, that still wouldn’t help you create the material needed for that to happen because you need a certain amount of already created material to run all that (the easiest way is to borrow someone else’s reactor, even a non-breeding one – using a fusor is utterly impractical, just not theoretically impossible).

            – “U238 deplete uranium has plent of atoms to create such a cascade” is also codswallop. You can’t get it to fission at all, short of hitting it with high energy particles, and when you do that you still don’t get a chain reaction because the particles coming out don’t have enough energy to repeat the trick.

            – “I think you are simply projecting your opinion here and though you are smart I doubt that you have any kind of empirical or theoretical (as in engineering of a fusor or fission absorbtion) kind of knowledge”. Yet you are perfectly willing to take your own opinion on these matters? Even accusing me of that is an ad hominem based on opinion. Feel free to… drum roll… go and check what I am telling you. This is a blog. Neither you nor I needed to treat this as a thesis with references, and if I don’t that doesn’t mean that your version stands. You came out with some statements that happen to be off, and since I have more and better background I told you and other readers. If you have doubts, go and look. Oh, and where you misdescribe what I put, I don’t need any outside sources at all, I only need to tell readers that they can cross check what I really did write, right here.

            – “I’d have no problem with what you’re saying but you make it sound like you have authority on the subject when to me it appears you are very intelligent but also fairly opinionated on things you haven’t spent much time on”. Ah… so it seems to you that I am opinionated, and that I haven’t spent much time on the area. Well, you are definitely wrong on the latter, but I don’t have to prove it; anyone can see that you are holding that as an opinion yourself, and it should be plain on its face that what counts isn’t that but whether I am telling the truth. On that, the only way to tell is for you and other readers to go and see for yourselves, but calling me opinionated and insinuating that I don’t know what I am talking about has no bearing on that, one way or the other.

          • @Lawrence

            Alot of what you have said I still disagree, but there is one conclusion that you made that probably still holds that the idea of using a farnsworth fusor would probably not create enough fissile material in say depleted U-238 to sustain the reaction and would create only trace amounts of fissile material. Upon further introspection of the half lifes of U238 to U239 to 239Pu could occur in 2.35 days. At 239Pu though has a half life of thousands of years. Also nowhere in the short decay of days from U239 to 239Pu would any additional neutrons be created to sustain more conversion. In order for neutrons to be emitted and short half life reaction to occur that same converted atom of 239Pu would have to be hit and absorbed by a second neutron by the Fusor. Then about 62% to 73% of the time when Pu-239 captures a neutron it undergoes fission (desired) the other 38% to 27% it changes to Pu-240 which also has a half life of thousnad of years. However, the free neutrons emitted when through fission for the 62% to 73% of converted pU-239 would induce more neutrons to be emitted. Which would exponentially increase the conversion. Overall the incidence of conversion by random strikes of neutrons from a fusor would be fairly unlikely. If the neutrons could be more directed to strike a small targets area (made more dense in surface volume) more repetitively so that the same atom could absorb more than one neutron then maybe a fusor type of neutron would be statistically able to breed fuel in short times. Since neturons are neutral typical forms of steering and directing them would be nearly unfathomabe though. I haven’t even studied the thorium absorbtion and fissile cycle but I suppose its the same as U-238.

            As far as fast and slow neutrons I really don’t think it necessary to distinguish them as absorbtion is all that is necessary to calculate the spontaneous breakdown products and half life. If you are trying to say high speed neutrons are able to produce more fissile products like when going through Pu-239+neutron to higher % fissile breakdown then ok. But again the worst case is multiple pure absorption of slow and another slow neutron, then making them happen twice or more to the same atom. If I had any patience for the subject I’d calculate based on Avogadro’s number and MW and density the number of atoms of U238 in a given volume. Then I’d calculate the emitted density of neutrons per that volume given the Farnsworth Fusor emission, and try to calculate the likely hood of a single neutron conversion much less a secondary absorbtion. I’m not interested in actually building a nuclear reactor though so I’ll forfeit the excercise.

            I’ll agree that from first appraisal the creation of fissile material after bombardment given all the seemingly unlikely probabilites added together. Maybe, but I also descent as I’ve done no calculation of Farnsworth fusor neutron emission rate. Further it might be that exponential growth of same strike and consquent fissile material might make the breeding of U238 happen much quicker than first appraisal for something like a farnsworth fusor given the exponential rate of increasing breeding material. Though it wouldn’t be days as in my first speculation. I’m still not totally on board with your appraisal and I think I’d be a total believer if I built one and learned I couldn’t do much to improve the same atom absorbtion of multiple neutrons from the fusor, all fast and slow neutrons aside.

            Other than that Bremstralung radiation isn’t the big loss you prophesized of the fusor. Nor do I agree with anything you said about break even. I’ll give you good rhetoric on redirecting the energy of bremstralung in a way steam recovery couldn’t.

            Reluctantly I more agree with your original assertions that the fusor seems unlikely as a breeder much less a modulator for Thorium, but I find most of your latter arguments lacking except in good rhetoric and deflection. Anyway I never accused you of lacking intelligence but rather being opinionated. Nothing wrong with that statement. I’m rather opinionated myself.

            Best Regards,
            HR

          • From Farnswoth Fusor:

            Fusion of deuterium atoms (D + D) results in the formation of a He-3 ion and a neutron with a kinetic energy of approximately 2.5 MeV. On the other hand (D + T) Deuterium plus Tritium nulear fusion in a fusor creates energy He-4 ion and a neutron with a kinetic energy of approximately 14.1 MeV. A farnsworth fusor can burn either D+D or D+T so either energy neutron can be generated. The ranking of temperature of neutron is:

            E: 0.0 ev – 0.025 ev –> Cold neutrons
            E: 0.025 ev –> Thermal neutrons
            E: 0.025 ev – 0.4 ev –> Epithermal neutrons
            E: 0.4 ev – 0.6 ev –> Cadmium neutrons
            E: 0.6 ev – 1 ev –> EpiCadmium neutrons
            E: 1 ev – 10 ev –> Slow neutrons
            E: 10 ev – 300 ev –> Resonance neutrons
            E: 300 ev – 1 Mev –> Intermediate neutrons
            E: 1 Mev – 20 Mev –> Fast neutrons
            E: E> 20 Mev –> Relativistic neutrons

            Therefore both the D+D reaction and the D+T reaction are fast neutrons. A fast neutron reactor or simply a fast reactor is a category of nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons. But the point I’ll make once again that proves my point that lower kinectic energy of neutrons is what is desired for a breeder reactors is ” This happens more easily with lower Kinetic Energy (as U-238 fission activation is 6.6MeV).” from literature courtesy Wiki. The fusion of D+T or D+D produces neutrons in the ranges of 2.5MeV to 14.1MeV based on which one you choose as fuel for the fusor. Therefore, its not a question of whether the neutrons are fast enough to be used as a breeder. Its a question of whether depleted uranium atom can absorb more than one neutron to go fissile in the first place. The point that if an atom of some element absorbs a neutron its atomic weight increases by one neutron but its proton count stays the same, this makes for what is called an isotope of the element. Unstable isotopes will usually decay to more stable forms of elements and isotopes with some emission of radiation and or charge particles/neutral energetic particles. When a particular element with a given isotope is fissile the material is one that is capable of sustaining a chain reaction of nuclear fission. In fission this requires that material when dividing to produce multiple neutrons, that they too can cause fission of the fissile material in a chain reaciton under critical mass or controlled critical mass.

            Therefore the point is not whether D+D or D+T farnsworth reactor produces neutrons of enough energy, its a question of whether there is enough of them in a small enough volume to convert U238 a non-fissile material into a fissile material PU239. First U238 absorbs one neutron this converts it to U239. That U239 then breaks down to PU239. The exact process is ” U-239 then rapidly undergoes two beta decays. After the 238U absorbs a neutron to become 239U it then emits an electron and an anti-neutrino (\bar{\nu}_e) by β− decay to become Neptunium-239 (239Np) and then emits another electron and anti-neutrino by a second β− decay to become 239Pu.” This happens in a matter of days. The U239 has a half life of 23.45 mins (very short). Neptunium 239 has a half life of 2.45 days. This means that we are talking no more than a week for a non-fissile material U238 to convert to a fissile PU239 after absorbtion of one fusor neutron. The problem is the even though PU239 is fissile its also stable if not exposed to another neutron. Upon exposure to one more neutron either from surrounding radioactive material or fresh fusor neutron emission it can undergo fission. Which releases even more neutrons that can be absorbed by U238 to make more fissile material.

            Now as far as break even energy goes. Let me put it simple as I can? If you have a heater in your house, its a 1000W heater. You plug it in and you get 1000W of heat out. But if I had a fusor heater and it uses 1000W and creates 100W of additional energy, you’d be game right? Even if this fusor created only 10W of extra energy and the original energy was still available for heating your house you’d still be happy. I mean who can refuse even a modest free 10% or 1% extra energy if our heater was generating the extra by burning hydrogen? Energy doesn’t disappear it only changes form (conservation of energy) so if the fusor uses electric energy 1000W but creates an additional 100W that is bonus that can’t be refused in heating. But what if you couldn’t capture all the intiial 1000W and because of the fusor it leaked this energy out in terms of say neutrons into free space. So in our house and heater, we consider the extra and initial energy stuck in the room or adiabatic (meaning no heat loss). But any energy lost that can’t be captured due to poor insulation means that you might not even get the principle 1000W back, that would be bad? And lets carry this further. How about temperature in the house which is a measure of the air molecules in our houses internal energy? Would it suprise anyone that I could get ever hotter house if I simply could hold all the heat in the house from ever leaving and I supplied a meager 10W of incoming power over a that time? I mean its not hard to see temperature of a firebox is a function of how adiabatic the system (inuslation) as a perfect thermos will keep building up internal energy (temperature) if there are zero losses with a trickle of incoming power. And then we have Carnot efficiency which states that to convert Temperatures into usuable work energy the efficientcy of the conversion is a function between the sink temperature (outside temperature) and the firebox (temperature inside). But again if I can make the system perfectly adiabatic and insulative the temperature will just keep rising in the firebox and so the efficiency could be quite large after letting the temperature inside the firebox before tapping it off to do work. Therefore you see all losses and even efficiency to convert that energy to usuable work are basically a function of how much energy I can keep inside a volume of space. And one of the problems with the fusor is that much of the energetic particles that have no charge like neutrons can pass through any absorbing and insulative shielding.

            I think what is really cool now that I think more about my idea of using the neutrons from the farnsworth fusor with a U238 outer spherical shell is that neutrons kinetic energy that would normally go out as unusable energy would instead get absorbed by the skin shell of U238. This releases massive amounts of charged energy (usable energy) just in the U238->U239->Np239->Pu239. Because the energy is now electrons, and positrons and other charged elements of moving kinectic energy is more absorbable in matter. Nor does this energy liberation require the PU239 undergo fission. In other words it doesn’t matter and may even be desirable if the PU239 trace elements don’t go to fission as then you’re talking about something that is fairly long half life without neutron absorbtion or critical mass requirements. Heck, take this reactor and put a water jacket around it and generate steam. Therefore I think actually as a energy generator even without pure fission it would probably boost the power of the farnworth significantly while making that energy more available as useful and absorbable work.

  19. Hi Eric,

    One of the Japanese manufacturers is working on a 2-cylinder, head-breathing 2-stroke engine (no ports) of 750-c.c. displacement, 75 mm bore by 90 mm stroke. With direct fuel injection, it could operate on the ‘Atkinson-cycle’ (compress air over 50 mm and deliver power over 90 mm).

    Let us recall that the world’s most thermally efficient diesel engine is the 2-Stroke Wartsila-Sulzer marine engine (38-in bore by 98-in stroke)

    Several years ago, a group called RODI developed a modified version of the Detroit Diesel 2-stroke diesel truck engine . . . the converted the exhaust valves into inlet valves and the inlet ports into exhaust ports. The achieved a longer equivalent power down stroke and also achieved 4-stroke engine efficiency.

    With regard to variable inlet valve timing, that was standard equipment on the old steam-powered railway locomotives . . . the driver had both the steam throttle and a ‘Johnson Bar’ to reset the valve inlet timing. Best efficiency achieved at short inlets.

    Harry

    • Harry, do you know which engine it was? I loved the old 2 cycle DD’s. They’d just keep on keeping on. I had a couple trucks with 6-70’s. My uncle who was a great tractor mechanic walked up one day while I had my hood open. I pulled the dipstick and he asked if I’d just changed the oil. I said it had been a few days. He was amazed it wasn’t black like a 4 cycle diesel oil would be after just a few minutes of running. I ran those DD’s like there was no tomorrow and never had one overheat or do much of anything wrong.

  20. The electric RAV4 is ONLY sold in California and is produced ONLY to satisfy that state’s new EPA requirements and their corresponding fines. Toyota ONLY produces the minimum amount of vehicles required by the law to avoid fines. But Toyota has already announced the death of the electric RAV4 and will probably start eating the fines or find another way around them. They didn’t even update the electric RAV4 to match the all new 2013 RAV4.

    • Hi RJG,

      Yup –

      And, in addition to the stuff you mentioned, there is also the issue of CA being EV-friendly in that it has a temperate year-round climate (most of the major population centers, anyhow). EVs in winter = epic debacle.

      • Venturing into deep subjects of metaphysics and metalibertarianism?

        metaphysics: 1 what exists? 2 what is it like?

        metalibertarianism: 1 what remnant of freemen exist? 2 what are they like – how do they survive?

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_(metaphysics)

        One Way Street – Early Aerosmith – 1973

        – humans should be aerosmiths. breath in air and exhale shaped sounds with cogent perceivable meaning. but most can only shout. every word staccato deaftone capslock. its ends up having no discernible meaning to me.

        zombies repetitive eaters shouters. the walking dead, driven by primal commands their head’s are like a one way street, and i gotta be going the other way

        “Hey lookee yonder, what’s that I see
        Ain’t that Old Bogus Honey, comin’ after me

        I thought you told her I was out of town
        I wonder how she knowed I was hangin’ around

        Say, listen babe, don’t go wastin’ your time
        You keep a comin’ down, you’ll hear the same line

        You got a thousand boys, you say you need ’em
        You take what’s good for you, and I’ll take my freedom

        ‘Cause lately it’s been so hard, to make ends meet yeah
        And honey, your head’s a one Way Street
        And I’m giving you the other way

        I thought I knew her, my cagey lady
        How could my sunshine, be so damn shady
        She’ll say she love to talk, A conversation
        But I’m the one who makes my situation

        This one way city ummm and I thought I knew
        It’s such a pity, honey I’m dancing for you
        Because lately it’s been so hard to make ends meet yea hey hey
        And honey, yeow head’s a One Way Street yeh
        And I’m going on the other way

        There’s nothing over here, I never showed you
        I made it pretty clear, I’m glad to have known you

        You know your brother Spike, he’s on the level
        But you always lookin’ like, you’re mad at the devil

        Don’t say I copped a ‘tude, It’s all forgotten
        Now you’re much too rude, your fruits are rotten

        You know I work so hard, to keep it alive
        Now all I hear from you, is nothing but jive

        Lately it’s been so hard, now to make ends meet
        And honey, your head’s a One Way Street
        And I’m gotta be goin’ the other way, Yes I do!

        And lately it’s been so hard To make ends meet
        And honey, you’re headin’ down a One Way Street
        And I really do feel That I got to be movin’ on

        You’re headin’ down a one way street You’re foolin’ everybody you meet
        I said, you’re headin’ down a one way street You’re foolin’ everybody but me
        I said, you’re headin’ down a one way street You’re foolin’ everybody you meet
        I said, you’re headin’ down a one way street You’re foolin’ everybody but me…
        You got to get yourself back on your feet”

        More Commonly Called The Theory of Five Needs

        SURVIVAL –Air –Food –Water
        –Body Functions –Shelter –Health
        –Exercise –Sex

        LOVE/BELONGING
        *Friendship *Cooperation *Involvement
        *Caring *Relationships *Connected
        *Companionship *Intimacy *Collaboration

        POWER
        *Importance *Competition *Recognition
        *Achievement *Competence *Attention
        *Respect *Skills *Being Heard
        *Impact *Pride *Significance

        FREEDOM
        *Choices *Independence *Options
        *Liberty *Autonomy *Moving Around
        *Physical *Psychological

        FUN
        *Enjoyment *Pleasure *Learning
        *Relaxation *Laughter

  23. I think it’s only natural for our leaders to actually lead. Let’s see all of congress, their staffs, all the heads of all the Admin’s departments, and the president all drive around in electric cars.

    If it’s good enough for all them, I’ll reconsider. 🙂

  24. Another technology is coming up on the outside, thermo-photoelectric generation, so the internal combustion engine may yet be competitively displaced for cars. It still burns fuel,though, but at least it can use a wider variety of fuel.

    • I read the blog post.

      Big deal Jim.

      Here, I’ll make it real:

      Approximately how much do you make?
      a) 5-10K/yr
      b) 10-30K/yr
      c) 30-100K/yr
      d) over 100K/yr

      Now, what was the last time you paid income tax; I’m assuming you’re a private contractor. If you’re not, which of the several tricks do you use to avoid withholding?

      Because I’ll be totally fucking amazed at your answers.

      • Right. Your “big deal,” is that you do not take the time to think through those things. You have been conditioned to justify your position. Do not worry about me. Concern yourself with what you do. Don’t respond with more justifications.
        http://rathbonezvizionz.wordpress.com/

        Learn to define your existence with terms of responsibility and build a foundation that is un breakable, even by those closest to you. Because if you what you make is what causes you to “have” to give it away, then maybe try making less.

        • I’ve thought it through very, very carefully Jim.

          We all have options:
          1) Make as much as possible while having 1/3 to 1/2 stolen
          2) Reduce income ’till they’re not taking any–but they still do*
          3) Leave
          4) Stop paying it

          I’m not justifying it; it’s fucking theft, gunpoint robbery, enslavement. It’s odious, morally bankrupt, hideous.

          And it has a purpose. It’s designed to suck the profit off a society, ensuring that the people never achieve a level of wealth and free time sufficient to pull out and threaten the Elites who designed the system.

          Inflation is tuned to almost exactly the rate of increase in productivity, ensuring the society advances slowly if at all; the endgame is to return to feudalism and absolutely impoverish everyone.

          Poor, starving peasants are easier to control.

          I refuse to be a poor, starving peasant. Instead, I make enough to generously support Gun Owners of America, the NRA, Alex Jones, and Ron Paul. I maxed out mine and my wife’s contributions to the latter–money well spent, considering how effective he was educationally.**

          And I can keep my kids out of the government indoctrination centers.

          Faustian bargain? I think of it as feeding myself well, until I can expel the tapeworm. It does me no good to fight the tax battle head-on, when I can fight so many other ways.

          You still haven’t answered the question: when was the last time you filed or paid?

          * no matter how low your income, you’re STILL paying. Think you’re not? Every dollar you have, they take at least 10 cents every year by inflation

          ** I know; Benton and his ilk screwed it up. But there’s no denying Ron Paul awakened millions.

          • You can email me more and I will answer more. I just that you are fine with what you do, but it still doesn’t make any sense to give the guy who’s beating you up more brand new boxing gloves every day. It all is rationalization if the only answer is to not submit.

            • Jim,

              I sympathize with your position, but it’s also a little glib to just say, “don’t submit.” I assume you have a job – and pay taxes, like the rest of us? Maybe you’re very young – and can get away with not working. Or with “off the books” work. Which only works if you live hand to mouth – no bank accounts, no home – nothing they can cross reference and use to prove you didn’t pay what you “owe.”

              Most of us here have no choice – or rather, we have the same choice facing the convict who is given the choice of being hanged – or shot.

              I don’t like being told what to do – much less compelled to hand over a third or more of my earnings to them. But what shall I do?

              It’s either cease working and divest myself of material possessions – or risk prison. That’s the choice.

              What you advocate amounts to blaming the victim. We have no control over what is done to us. So, we do what we can, within the limits of what’s feasible and reasonable. Cost-benefit analysis. That simple.

              Meanwhile, we (or at least, I) labor to win the intellectual-ethical war that is the sine qua non of our struggle. Absent a critical mass that understands the fundamental immorality of living by force, there is no hope.

              So, we hope to change minds.

              The rest, follows.

          • Eric, I highly respect you, you have a great audience, and you approach this catastrophe that is Amerika from a logical perspective, meaning you knw what is going on. But (I know), what was written on rathbonezvizionz , was about facing your fears. Why do you believe you will go to prison? Why is that so scary to not be pushed around and bullied? Is it honestly the libertarian thing to do to fund terrorism? Which is essentially what you all are doing, is giving money to the biggest terrorist organization in the world ( http://rathbonezvizionz.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/who-are-the-real-cowards-and-terrorists-understanding-defintions-of-terror/ )
            If not international terrorism, then at least funding the police-state that everyone on here complains constantly about.
            I used to be scared of the diving board when I was younger, after I had smashed my head open in a horrible accident. I thought the impact of a dive off the 12 footer would cause water to bust through my scar ( I was 11), and my mom told me not to do it, but I had to find out if my fears were justified. The fear was over in a millisecond as my head penetrated the water like a dart. It was a false fear. But I could have gone on being scared unless I had blocked out what my PRE-conceived notions were and what everybody else said to do. Let go of the fear, and quit giving terrorists and cops your money, your time-when all they deserve is death and their mothers and wives raped and destroyed so they will have no more socialist unthinking terrorist babies.
            http://rathbonezvizionz.wordpress.com/

            • Well, let’s see.

              If I resist being pushed around by the IRS, et al, I get pushed around by prison guards. Plus, I’m in a literal prison. How is this an improvement?

              This has nothing to do with “facing my fears.” It is simply a matter of acknowledging existential realities.

              You did not answer my questions. Do you work? Do you own a home? Are you married? Do you have a family?

              I’m not ready – yet – to live as an outlaw. Or in the proverbial van by the river – which is the only other realistic option.

              Advocacy of violence is only playing into their hands, as I see it.

          • How is advocacy of violence playing into bygone hands? The non-aggression principle simply stated from Murray Rothbard:
            No one may threaten or commit violence (‘aggress’) against another man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory.” – War, Peace, and the State.
            How is that advocating violence? That is simple cause and effect.
            And how many people do you know have gone to prison for not paying taxes?
            But what is any different than down the line if the state says you must cut your hair, suck their dick, eat poop, or you will go to jail?
            Your fear is having your “liberty” taken away. So it is Entirely about “facing your fears.”
            I sell drugs to drug reps at a seriously marked down price, as I have some impressive ins. I do not own a home. I drive an old jaguar, you’d be impressed, and am not married with no kids. But I did all of those with purpose and calculation, because why bring a kid into a prison dystopia, and raise him her to be a tax cow like their father? Why get a state-sanctioned marriage? For the tax-break? Ha!

            • Jim,

              I agree with you ethically/philosophically that a man has every right to resist every assault upon his rights. But until enough people agree – and are willing to support one another in such an effort – to “go to the mattresses” will only result in your personal ruin, perhaps even the end of your life. They win. You lose.

              The calculation is that simple.

              Consider that the same dilemma faced anti-authoritarian colonists. Anyone who acted before 1775 was doomed. Or, a better analogy: prison. They’ve got you – and their power over you is overwhelming. To resist – or even give them reason to suspect you might resist – would be utterly idiotic. You’ve shown your hand – and it’s a very weak hand.

              They win – you lose.

              To feign compliance/bide your time/make your move when it has a chance of succeeding… now that’s smart.

              Timing is everything.

              I have no desire to serve as a Milch Cow for the state; to fund my own oppression. But neither am I suicidal or desirous of martyrdom. Unlike you, I do not have the luxury – the ability – to earn my living “off the books.” I do own a home. And I have a wife.

              I suspect, based on your posts, that you are a younger guy. Were I a younger guy – in my early 20s rather than my mid 40s – I would be inclined to live (and work) off the grid, to own nothing substantive (e.g., a home, vehicles, etc.) that could be seized and – so on. Probably, I’d avoid getting married.

              But that option is simply not a realistic option for me at this point. Not because of “fear.” Because of cost-benefit analysis. By way of analogy: I don’t “fear” buying a new car; I just don’t regard doing so as worth the cost vs. the benefit – so I don’t buy a new car. Etc.

          • meth, you are so correct. HJim, ever been in jail? It’s really not a good place for anything except to lose weight very unhealthily or to get killed or a bad disease. I know this from experience and would never suggest anyone break a law. You Will break laws, many federal laws each of us breaks every day(yes, it’s that bad)without knowing it. The laws are there so if you come up on the radar and aren’t doing anything wrong, they can use those laws to attack you anyway. meth, you’re correct about RP and eric, some day we may all be able to rise up simultaneously as in days of old but the system has been built, and especially since the Shrub’s evil cabal got into power to make this police state so secure that revolt is not possible. I’d bet everyone has noticed things have not been getting better. This may not be directly on the subject here but I read this article yesterday and a great many things became clear to me and to a private forum I sent it to. If I had not had so much positive feedback I wouldn’t place it here but it’s information I believe everyone here will find enlightening. http://www.theamericanconservatives.com/articles/our-american-pravada/

            • Larken Rose spent (IIRC) about a year in federal prison for not paying what he “owed.”

              For me, such an event would mean The End of my career as a car journalist – not even getting into spending a year of my life in a cage. The car companies don’t loan cars to convicted felons.

              We’d lose our house.

              All my bikes; the Trans-Am.

              Handsome Jim is in an entirely different position. He’s “free” in the sense that he has less to lose.

              But having less incurs its own losses, too.

              Jim doesn’t own a house or land; that means he has a place to live – and not much more – and only so long as he makes each month’s rent. I may have to pay my annual property tax – but because the house and land are mine (fully paid off) the annual cost (about $150/month, spread over the year) is more an annoyance than anything that requires me to work like a coolie just to keep a roof over my head. For that $150 month in property taxes, I get to live on 16 acres and in a nice house. I wonder what sort of house Jim lives in – and what he pays every month to rent?

              Jim has one car. Which they’ll seize if they ever catch up with him and he fails to pay what they claim he “owes” in taxes. I’ve got three – plus six motorcycles. Because I don’t rent, I can have as many vehicles on my land as I want.

              In sum, he lives a materially impoverished and peripatetic life. Which is fine, if that’s what he wants. But he’s wrong to condemn others for throwing away the lives they’ve built to live the life he’s living.

          • And I forget when I said I ever made a sacrifice, either in productivity or financially by not working for a corporation or a taxable profession? Because I choose to work a cash-based profession that makes me less productive? Again, yourflawedlogic is beyond me. But again, if I made 100 thou, and had to pay30 thou taxes, why not make 70 thou n not pay taxes? If by doing that how does that make anyone less productive? The only one who is left out in that equation is the state? Are they going to make money off me in a superficial sense, yes, OCCASSIONALLY, but they are not going to get the big pay day.
            In a mathematical sense, if everyone pays taxes of 140 billion a year, including peripheral taxes, and we can cut out 60 billion by not writing those massive end of year checks, that seems like a win scenario for people, maybe not in your Keynesian mathematics sense, but in a fully Austrian sense, yes it does.

          • Jim, if you working cash only your horizons are extremely limited unless you’re in an illegal business of some sort.

          • Jim,
            My point is that I am not forcing my way on you nor even being critical of your way, yet you seem to be ridiculing me and others for our chosen ways.

            Your way is the best way for you. I can’t do what I want to do if I go your route. There are certain things I won’t let the government take from me, but you let it take them from you. Probably because they are things you don’t care about. That’s why your way works for you and not for me.

        • Naturally Methyl I have to vote for #3. This isn’t without fault as no country is perfect, but with a little hearing out Doug Casey I have to say it makes sense to move around globally to minimize your tax footprint.

          You are absolutely correct that the sytem is made to impoverish anyone not politcally connected. My guess is the new elite in the U.S to become nobles will be the police both regional as well as federal.

          Jim represents a truly idealistic and good viewpoint. I like pure anarchism as an ideal to try to achieve but anarchism like no taxes is basically just that an ideal. I’ve often thought about floating islands free of national jurisdiction of nation states. It would work for a while and sooner or later though there would be the same shit that would happen already to the U.S. Doesn’t mean I don’t advocate the ideal or idea though. Its just that most humans are cainnites and its so cleaved into all our genetics that you could wipe out all but he best of us and two of the three offspring would be evil again. Try the modern day noah in your own family as an example. Try the idea of America as the people who left there and compare to their offspring today.

          This is going to be a choking and freedom fight forever. The question is how many people can be turned onto our side, the freedom and enlightened ones? And the better question is how many of those that are on our side are really enlightened to use their brains and skills to pose the most individual resistance? I’ve said it before I’d rather have the 4% that can do 64% of something of value then the remainder 96% on my side. Though there is certainly a gift to being a majority too.

          As far as cheating the tax system in evasion I don’t advocate that for the same reason as Eric. They’ll lock you away man and you been warned. Further though I find Jim’s view altruistic I think its fair to say that unless one keeps doing the #1 that methyl has advocated then you’ll never become rich. Rich people get rich by helping the most people possible. Its the law of the marketplace rewards based on the amount of value you provide to it. Living downwards to avoid a tax is basically giving them exactly what they want. YOu being a poor serf forever.

          My opinion is to do as much legal tax avoidance as possible. Build your company in the USA, keep the natural reinvestment of your profits back into the company so that your tax bill is lessened. Keep expanding and investing until that fateful day that you’re tax bill is so large it makes more sense to be a Doug Casey on the move internationally. Then again embrace any technology that keeps the government from being able to monitor your every move. And finally if you have the capability donate your time to the development of ideas and freedom technology.

          Hot Rod

          • @HotRod:

            Keep expanding and investing until that fateful day that you’re tax bill is so large it makes more sense to be a Doug Casey on the move internationally.

            Exactly. Doug, Jeff Berwick, Simon Black; I don’t have that kind of capital yet.

            And to some extent, they’re living on borrowed time.

            The NWO is playing for keeps; why else are all the countries adopting the same draconian laws at the same time–capital controls, drug laws, tax laws? Chile and Argentina might be peaceful and prosperous for now; because the Eye of Sauron is upon its greatest resistance, America.

            If America falls, those little Hobbit-Shires will fall very soon after.

            @Handsome Jim:

            Eric said it–risk-reward ratios. My kids will never be statists; they’ll be competent marksmen, carpenters, auto mechanics, programmers. Auto-didacts steeped in Enlightenment thinking, free thinkers.

            They’ll be none of those things if I’m in prison…and people DO go to prison for threatening the State lifeline, taxes. Look at Irwin Schiff et al.

            I’m delighted you refuse it. I can’t; not right now. It disgusts me, it offends every fiber of my being; for as you correctly say, I’m paying for the largest terrorist organization the world has ever seen. It rips my guts out when I see pictures of dead Iraqi children, or those maimed by birth defects caused by the DU rounds MY MONEY paid for.

            So I use as much of what’s left to fight the part that was stolen.

            Kind of sick, isn’t it?

            But I’m not fooled; I know that’s how it works, until we can resist effectively.

            And that time is coming, rapidly.

            We are at a period of upheaval greater even than the Reformation, when the world-ruling Church–equivalent to the State today even in demanding the same degree of worship–fell.

            And when the State falls–and I mean falls completely, the illusion shattered–humanity will enter a new phase that will hurl us past our Enlightenment achievements.

          • Eric, again, no offense, to any of you all, but do ANY of you all ACTUALLY know of someone who has been put in jail for failure to pay taxes? Wesley Snipes and Willie Nelson do not count. I say this because I do not know anyone. Anyone i know does not know anyone, and i know a lot of people. NOw this is probably because of only two reasons. A, the fear tactic that is spread has achieved its goal, and that is to SCARE people that if they do not pay, then they will go to prison (mere rhetoric); or B, that those few that do not like to give away their money, do not in fact make their presence known to such a degree to have to deal with big bad guys actually putting them in prison.
            I see where you are coming from, no doubt–but when is the timing ever going to be right? You are an individual, so you cannot make “group” decisions. If you make a “group” decision then you are no different than any of the clovers that are dismissed on here. What one must be is a leader and make individual choices. isnt that what the libertarian movement is upposed to be about? By making the individual choice, hopefully those around you with the following mentality will be persuaded by your strength. If you are waiting for your neighbor to stop paying his “share,” and he is waiting for you to stop paying your “share,” then the game will continue on infinitely. Someone must make the first move in all courses of actions.
            But I believe fear is at the root of your cost-effective analysis, regardless of how you choose to justify it. Are you scared of going to jail or not? if so, then trust me it is the analysis. But, fear cannot play into your decisions. Strength of action only comes through action. There is such a thing as over-thinking the whole situation to where no-action is the action, which is the result of remaining in the status quo. Along with your 1775 analogy…but someone had to fire the first shot, right Eric?
            there was an atmosphere of rebellion, already in the air, it just so happens that nowadays, as you keep giving them money, they will keep stockpiling tanks, thus making the day of reckoning that much more impossible. I believe your kids and wives would look up to you a lot more knowing that you died ridding the world of tyrrany.
            As for Hot Rod, i think your idea of a civilization on an island is a bit too Lord of the Flies for me. True, there could happen what you say, but this island would have the benefit of no coercion to cause people to act. People would be learning what true freedom was all about. And that is what the philosphy of thought is meant to convey, to educate people in that there are different ways to behave and find meaning, but this island, continent is about freedom. And isnt that what this planet was supposed to be about. COntinent A is the freedom continent, continent b is the socialist continent, continent c is the farming continent, continent d is the communist continent, etc…Who wants a world that is the same everywhere…I mean, its hard to get o another planet, right?
            Living downwards what not was I was advocating, I was advocating basic mathematics man. If I make 100,000 a year, and I consider that too much money to not pay taxes with, then I have to give the government 31,000$, thus giving me a net year of 69,000$. But with that 31,000$ I have funded a new police vehicle. But if I consider 70,000 a salray that i can move around a little easier, and pay no taxes, then I have not given any money to my slave masters, and I make 1,000$ more on my net.
            So its easy, sell your house, rent a place under your wifes name, have her get a part time job that can cover basic expenses, have her pay a little tax bill there, and then you keep what you make, which is greater than before. Sure, are things a bit more complicated, yeah, but in order to beat the system, you have to do a little bit of work guys. Are you still going to “own” a house? No. But you dont OWN the fucking thing anyways, you pay taxes on it, and if they want, they can take and fuck your wife if they want. If you all want liberty, then act like it, please.

            • Jim,

              No, I don’t. And you point is…?

              I don’t know anyone who’s been sent to prison for the crime of murder, either. Or anyone who’s in prison for any reason.

              It’s a non sequitur.

              You are advising – urging – people to put themselves in real peril of life-changing consequences. This isn’t a game – it isn’t theory. You stop filing returns, they will do something about it. First, letters. Then – if you persist – men with guns. Who will take you away. Who will seize your bank accounts. Who will seize your home and everything in it.

              You don’t own a home; you apparently don’t have much in the way of tangible assets. You work under the table. It is easy for you to be glib about fucking with the IRS. It’s not easy for those of us who do have tangible assets – who have no choice but to work on-grid. Who have wives and families we’re responsible for.

              You call this fear. I call it prudence.

              I don’t go to the ghetto and provoke fights with guys who I know can kick my ass. I don’t try to fly airplanes I don’t how to fly, either.

              Am I fearful? Or just not reckless – and stupid?

              I’m curious: How old are you?

              Do you plan to live “on the go” in perpetuity? No interest in having a stable home/family? That’s entirely your choice, either way. But take care not to condemn others for having chosen a different path – who are differently situated than you – and who may have no real choice (for now) but to play the game. A game they were born into, over which they have little if any real control.

              But who are doing what they reasonably can, within the parameters set down by the nature of the game. And working to change the parameters – without losing the game in the process.

          • Well, my point is that your fear is based upon speculation. I know people that are in actual jail for murder, death row murder. I know people who are in prison for drugs, dealing, using, parole violations, probation violations, what not. So i know those things are real. I know that if one is to murder another person, and be stupid about it, he will get caught.
            But for the tax thing, I do not know anyone who has actually gone to prison. So I do not know it is real. Its like the fucking boogie man, who knows he may live under my bed, people talk it about it all the time, but I go to sleep every nightm, with the lights off and the door closed and I wake up a, ok.
            Im in my early 40s.
            You are not forced to live ON THE GRID. you choose to live on the grid. You chose to have a house. You choose to play the game. And that is not disrespectful, it is meant to call a spade a spade. it is defining effectively.
            I just gave you some options on how to effectively limit your tax footprint. What was wrong with any of those choices?
            Why do you get soo worked up over this?
            Is it impossible for you to sell your house and rent?
            did my scenarios seem so far-fetched? does it not make sense?

            • Speculation?

              C’mon!

              Here’s reality: I am self-employed; so I file quarterly. Trust me – believe me – they pay close attention to my returns. Perhaps you’d like to ask my lawyer about this?

              If I failed to file returns, a very predictable chain of events would then be set in motion. First, the letters. If I ignore the letters, more threatening letters. Then, they put a lock on my bank accounts. Then they will come for my assets – home, vehicles, equipment. If you have these things, they’re going to come for those things. If you resist, then it’ll be your turn. Prison. They win – you lose.

              In re “not forced to live on the grid”:

              Oh, sure. I could quit my career (and start over, living hand-to-mouth) and sell my house (at a big loss, in this economy) and live as you apparently do.

              And this improves my situation how, exactly?

              Granted, I have to pay taxes to stay on “my” land. But it is still mine in a way that’s not possible if you rent. I can cut down trees; I can re-do the basement. I can shoot guns in my backyard.

              Granted, I am compelled to pay “x” percent of my income to them. But I like my work – and I earn a good living (on my terms, mostly) doing it. Throwing that away to start anew in some other line of “off the books” cash-only work – work that’s not in my chosen profession and which would probably earn me less, even though taxes would be a non factor – holds little appeal for me

              What annoys me is your “face your fear” stuff. Because it’s nonsense. Just as it would be nonsense for me to suggest that you should “face your fear” of, say, having a wife/family. Or buying a house – rather than renting.

          • Well, are you scared to go to jail? Just answer that. I am not scared to get married, I have a girlfriend, but I don’t need to get a state-approved marriage in order to prove my love. Nor am I going to buy a house in a country where there are no private property laws exempt from the state, and make me accountable to “tax thieves.” I rent in the country, I can shoot guns, I don’t know what chopping down a tree would do unless I needed to though?
            If I have something that by having it, people want to take part of it, or by having something different they won’t think to take it, doesn’t option b sound more logical?
            I like options man, that’s why I do what I do.

            • Jim,

              The answer is: No one wants to go to jail. It is a thing to be avoided.

              “Fear” is not the issue.

              I don’t fear rattlesnakes, either. But I know better than to pick one up and play with it. Because I do not want to be bitten.

              You assume a lot. You don’t know what’s in other people’s heads. Whether they are acting as they do out of fear or for some other reason.

              Again, I agree with you in principle. But the real world is what it is – and we each have to accommodate ourselves to it – and to aspects of it we don’t like.

              The important thing is understanding in your heart and mind that it’s wrong to use force against other people except in self-defense – and to try to get that across to as as many other people as you can.

              In the meanwhile, we sometimes have to zip it, hold our tongues – and play their game.

          • @Jim–

            Yes–I choose to live on-grid, for the reasons I outlined. I couldn’t give 2500 bucks to Ron Paul on the off chance he’d educate a couple million people, nor stock up on survival supplies, ammo, guns, gold and silver…

            …if I went the buy-a-farmhouse-for-cash, homeschool, earn less than the minimum taxable route.

            It’s a choice. And having made it, I with disgust send my tribute to Massa.

            I’d rather take it out in 1-dollar bills, make it into a papier mache raised-middle-finger hand, and burn the fucking thing in front of the IRS office.

            But then, who would raise my kids?

          • Jim expresses the age old vow of poverty to be a pure libertarian. It’s something I have grown tired of hearing. It’s also a typical argument of statist. The statist proclaims the state isn’t so bad, you can go live in a cave with no money if you don’t like the state they say.

            If we don’t go live in the cave then they claim we aren’t living up to our ideals and thus should be ignored. Same with the libertarian purists. Only in poverty can we be of pure of heart.

            Rubbish.

          • Rubbish? A fact is a fact. I never said I don’t make a lot of money. Not once.
            Y’all give your money to your jailers, your slave owners. So they can make your bondage worse.

            • Well, Jim, unless you’re living exclusively on barter-trade, you’re still “giving money to your jailers,” too. In fact, even if you do live by barter-trade, the cost to you of those items (in terms of what people are willing to exchange) also reflects the built-in taxes that are literally inescapable.

              So, now we’re down to arguing about how much “giving money to your jailers” is acceptable.

              But the fact is, we all “give money to our jailers.” Unless you live in a cave, and obtain everything you need to live by hunting/trapping/growing without any outside input whatsoever.

              Consider that – before you post another condemnation of us tax cows. Because you’re a tax cow, too.

              The other issue Brent already summarized nicely. You’re offering to replace one form of torment (paying taxes, etc.) for another (living like Richard Kimble from The Fugitive). What’s the upside? For folks like me – who, despite all the taxes, still manage to live pretty pleasant lives? Instead of paying say 40 percent of my income in taxes, I should lose 75 percent of my income in order to avoid paying some (but by no means all) taxes?

              How does that make sense?

              PS: I assume you operate your vehicle on “public” roads – that is, roads built by our slavemasters with money extorted from us? If yes, why don’t you “face your fears” and deny them the satisfaction… by walking?

          • Jim, living the life of Richard Kimble after his wife was murdered by the one armed man is not something most people aspire to. There is a certain simplicity of drifting from town to town working odd jobs but it takes a certain kind of person to enjoy living like that.

            Being a drifter would be far more tormenting to me than what the state does to me at present. Plus it is not like the state leaves drifters alone either. Trading one torment for another is all you’re offering.

          • “Trading one torment for another”

            That’s what I gathered from the responses from the guy I met one night as I threw my trash in the apartmet complex dumpster years ago.

            I asked him why he was digging through the trash. He said he didn’t want to get a social security number and he couldn’t get a job without one.

            I told him, “There’s Got to be a better way than that.”

            I couldn’t do anything for him, and neither of us could think of a solution on the spot, so we parted.
            He was ok with his choice and he wasn’t doing me any harm. He certainly wasn’t advancing the Empire in a direct way.

            On the flip side, I do see how those who make the most money and pay the most taxes have a greater (for lack of a better word) shame for supporting the system. I wonder how they are any different from those who work in government?

            The goberment works hard to turn what one loves against them.

            Some of the rednecks I’ve met know this too. They seem content as tax avoiding carpenters, engine builders and trappers. I would never fault them, as it appears some here are doing.

            AnYway,… was that a tactical nuke exploding in the distance over your left shoulder?:

            “… UPDATE: Did Israel nuke Syria?”

            • “Some of the rednecks I’ve met know this too. They seem content as tax avoiding carpenters, engine builders and trappers. I would never fault them, as it appears some here are doing.”

              To be very clear: I’m not faulting such people at all; I admire them, in fact. I know several such. I wish I could do as they do, but it’s just not possible – not without changing careers and probably not without giving up most of what I’ve spent the past 25 years working to attain.

              So, I’m a tax cow. I don’t like it; I hope someday it can be changed (for all of us). But I – like many others – do the best I can with the tools Ive got, so to speak.

              What got my back up in re Handsome Jim was his faulting us tax cows. Accusing us of “not facing our fears” – because we continue to pay the taxes the system says we “owe.”

          • “Those in government work hard to turn what you love against them.” This is precisely what you are incapable of seeing. The government knows that you love having your own land, sitting down at your table to eat with your wife and kids, gazing out at the stars on a beautiful evening on “your” land, drinking a few beers with your buddies on your birthday, or being able to drive all those cars your write about. It knows this. They have meetings filled with 20 guys with committee after committee understanding what it is exactly that the common man loves. How is the common man comfortable? And they attack your comforts. It isn’t really rocket science. What my question, my only question has been, is when, based upon your accepted comforts that you have come to regard as inseparable from your life,will you be able to make a stand? Only after others make a stand? Only when the vice is too tight around your neck, that’s when it is enough? When your tax rates reach 50%? When inflation has reached 39%? When they have taken your land anyways? What about after they take your children? Or does none of that stuff sound plausible? Isn’t it best to attack now while they have not secured everywhere upon this land, before they have you in shackles and have come door to door at gunpoint and have taken your weapons? Isn’t the best thing during a hostile situation to REDEFiNE comfort?
            I don’t live my life eating out of dumpsters, but according to how some of you all talk, that its all about “surviving for another day,” why would that seem so far-fetched a scenario?
            Maybe I buy all my food from a farmers club, where I have access to raw milk, grass fed beef, and that I do ride my bike everywhere to do my deliveries, and that my girlfriend sews most of clothes, and I do not smoke or drink, so my tax footprint, is infinitesimal, compared to those who also buy gas, shop at a grocery, drink alcohol (unless they make their own), as well as write out a tax check at the end of the year.
            I spend a lot of time thinking about this. I do not live like Richard Kimble. But just read what is written, answer the questions, and it should be relieving to know that you can offer yourself more choices, which is what life is about.
            Cause and effect. Analyze he effects of your actions, and then see if there is a different effect you can achieve with a different action?
            You’re a VERY intelligent guy Eric, I think if pushed hard enough you be successful in any realm of writing, leading, if you could no longer write about cars. I know it.

          • Jim,

            Those atop this system prefer and work towards putting people like ourselves into a state of impoverishment. What you’re saying is to cut out their profit along the way by reducing ourselves to that state voluntarily. That’s even better for them. That we do it to ourselves.

            You say you don’t live like Richard Kimble nor in a cave. This would mean you have some sort of regular residence. That means you’re paying taxes directly or indirectly. It means you pay all sorts of taxes to purchase the things you need.

            We live under a state that does not even leave mountain men alone. (property taxes for one) The way to live without the state taking from you is to live out in a remote corner of a national park hiding from the rangers living off the land. That’s your choice if you want to avoid paying government. Other than that you’re arguing degree, not principle.

            It’s what your opinion of a balance point at that point. Nothing more.

          • BrentP, you did not answer on single question asked. Nor I’d you read hat I wrote. There is. Huge degree between me paying a total tax of 600$ per year on essential goods, vs y’all who pay tax of 12000$ on essential goods plus actually having to write a check out at the end of the year, and specifically give that to your captors. So all in all taxation is the root of the problems y’all discuss, as well as the fact that y’all don’t want your comfortable life to be interrupted for a little bit of “freedom,” so much so, y’all will pay off your captors in any way possible so that you will not have to experience any of the inconveniences that accompany te difficult task of fighting for what this is about, getting rid of leviathan. What is sounds like to me is that y’all have a hard time imaging yourselves with a new routine in your life. The routine you have now is so perfect that you will defend it all costs.

            • Jim,

              “Huge degree between me paying a total tax of 600$ per year on essential goods, vs y’all who pay tax of 12000$ on essential goods plus actually having to write a check out at the end of the year, and specifically give that to your captors.”

              This is not unlike arguing about what constitutes a little bit pregnant.

              You’ve done nothing more than arbitrarily decree that the amount you pay in taxes is ok – but the amount others pay is not. That your $600 (and I assume this was just an example for purposes of discussion; because probably you pay a great deal more than this every year – in motor fuels taxes alone, for openers) is harmless insofar as “paying your captors” – but Hot Rod’s (or my) “contributions” cross some objective line in the sand, and can be characterized as harmful.

              This makes no sense to me at all.

              Your position would be more credible if you literally paid them nothing – having found some way to escape any infringement upon your natural rights. If so – if such a thing were realistic – then, bravo. And – shame on us for not doing so ourselves.

              Alas, such a course is not realistic.

              We all have to live under this regime, accepting – up to a point – infringements of our rights we know to be wrong, but which we accept because to not accept them would incur consequences even worse than accepting them.

              For example: I assume you have state-issued license plates on your car – and a valid registration? A driver’s “permission slip”? Etc.

              Just making a point….

              Most of us here do what we reasonably can to minimize the state’s assaults. For example, I don’t buy new cars, in part because of Virginia’s odious (and exorbitant) annual “personal property” taxes, which can easily amount to $700 a year or more for the first several years of ownership. I also “forget” to renew the registrations for several of my little-used vehicles. I speed – routinely. I turn right on red. Etc.

              But, overall, I do comply. Not because I like it – not because I think it’s right. But because to not comply does not serve my interests.

              That said, I – like most here – will not accept some things. Or rather, things that cross a certain line.

              I will not, for example, accept being told I must hand over my guns. Or that I must allow government thugs to barge into my home. If it comes to such a pass, then, yes, I will do what I must – because the consequences (at this point) of not acting will be worse than the consequences of acting.

              Cost-benefit analysis, Jim.

              Simple as that.

          • Hence, other than changing your alls behavior, which you seem unwilling and incapable of doing, I do not understand the articles written on here about the freedoms being invaded by the police state, except just an enumeration of the freedoms being lost, like some sort of listing of who died. And then all the comments basically are summed up with, “man that sucks, I hope they don’t take more of the stuff we like, but if they I we will cope.”

            • Jim,

              Before behavior (actions) change, the mind must be changed. Most of the people here are well-aware of such things as the NAP and logical-ethical problems such as accepting as legitimate theft when it is done by or on behalf of a collective – but regarded as wrong when an individual does it.

              However, most people out there have never entertained such thoughts – to a great extent (my opinion) as a result of systematic and highly effective social conditioning, and the suppression of critical (conceptual) thinking.

              It is this conditioning that must be undone – by questioning it. By calling attention to its contradictions – and its evils. By ridicule. By appealing to people’s natural sense of justice.

              All great societal changes have been preceded by intellectual-ethical revolutions. Sometimes, these subsequent revolutions are physical and entail violence; other times, they occur relatively peacefully.

              But the relevant point as regards our discussion is that changing the consensus (by changing minds) is everything.

              Your going off-grid and denying the system some tax revenue (even though you still pay into the system in myriad ways like it or not – as we all do) accomplishes little other than further impoverishing you. It does not change the system.

              You may respond that if I (and millions of others) did the same, then things would change. Perhaps. But only if the minds of these people changed first. They must embrace – intellectually and ethically – the NAP and all that flows from it. Otherwise, they’re serving other masters, even if they withdraw from the system as you suggest people should do. A parallel here being the OWS folks. They revile the government – but not government. They would replace the corrupt authoritarian-corporatist system that exists now with what they would consider a “pure” (good) authoritarian state. One that would really “help” the poor – and so on.

              Again, the strategic battle is an intellectual one. Having won it, the tactical battle which may be necessary will amount to a mopping up operation.

          • “y’all will pay off your captors in any way possible so that you will not have to experience any of the inconveniences that accompany te difficult task of fighting for what this is about, getting rid of leviathan. ”

            I’ll pay you $5 to hush. This is getting monotonous.

            • No sweat, Jim!

              A civil, intelligent discussion is always enjoyable.

              That’s why I’ll ask you to refrain from telling others to “f” off.

              I understand the urge – I have it, too (with regard to other things/other people). But I do my best to respond using arguments, not ad hominem.

              I hope you’ll try to do the same.

          • “As for Ed and Dom. fuck off.”

            Why thank you, Hand Job. Same to you, and have a nice time talking to yourself at rathbonez jackoff parlor and interstellar blog.

          • Jim, you rent a place rather than living in a cave or in a van down by the river, correct? If so you’re paying your landlord’s property taxes. You’re paying his income taxes too. Just because you don’t write a check directly to the government doesn’t mean you aren’t paying. I presume you work odd jobs for cash only to avoid withholding and social security taxes, correct?

            So you’ve taken a vow of poverty for your beliefs. Good for you. However that is not a necessity to believe in liberty or fight for it. If you had an actual way to implement the schemes of the super wealthy to avoid taxation on a regular person’s income that would be wonderful, however you’re not offering that. You’re telling us we are bad people because we don’t accept impoverishment to be ‘free’.

            You’re not free. You can’t afford to fight should government really want to mess with you. You just try to make yourself not worth their time by impoverishing yourself. Do you not think they benefit by both the choices their system presents? You didn’t get one over on the system. You just did the equivalent of choosing democrat instead of republican.

            Great, you’re freer because you have less stuff and are less productive. You lack social protections. Wonderful. Now you’re of absolutely no economic or political threat to them. Just the way they like it.

          • And I forget when I said I ever made a sacrifice, either in productivity or financially by not working for a corporation or a taxable profession? Because I choose to work a cash-based profession that makes me less productive? Again, yourflawedlogic is beyond me. But again, if I made 100 thou, and had to pay30 thou taxes, why not make 70 thou n not pay taxes? If by doing that how does that make anyone less productive? The only one who is left out in that equation is the state? Are they going to make money off me in a superficial sense, yes, OCCASSIONALLY, but they are not going to get the big pay day.
            In a mathematical sense, if everyone pays taxes of 140 billion a year, including peripheral taxes, and we can cut out 60 billion by not writing those massive end of year checks, that seems like a win scenario for people, maybe not in your Keynesian mathematics sense, but in a fully Austrian sense, yes it does.

            • Jim,

              For people working in the professions, white-collar and even skilled blue collar, working on a cash-only (or even mostly) basis is simply not possible.

              In my case, for instance – the magazines and so on that pay me do not – will not – pay cash. Google Adsense does not pay cash. You get paid by check – or by direct deposit into a bank (which means providing a SS number and DL and knowing the government knows – or can know, at a moment’s notice – what’s in your account, where it came from, etc.). And will pursue you – after first seizing your account – if you don’t file taxes.

              If you’re not self-employed, your employer will either withhold FICA or 1099/W2 you.

              If you’ve figured some way to work off the books and get paid exclusively or almost exclusively in cash – and earn a decent living – and keep said cash in a mattress or some other way so as to avoid banks – and do so without living the Richard Kimble life, I’d be very interested to know how.

              And, we return to the original problem: You still pay taxes, just like everyone else. Less, perhaps, than some. But more than others. The point, though, being – you pay. We all pay. We’re all victims. To the extent we can each reduce our victimhood without also victimizing ourselves in other ways (such as living a transient type of life), hey, great.

    • We Have Hypocrisy Not Democracy – Mundanes R Negros – Malcolm X

      Our History Was Destroyed By Slavery – Malcolm X

      Obama Is A House Negro – Malcolm X

    • ” Now all we need to do is get rid of about 4.2 billion people and we can get on with driving old cars made of solid steel. ”

      There’s no need to get rid of anybody to do that. Nobody has to die for all of us to live as we want to. Some things may have to change in order for people to be free of arbitrary restrictions, but it won’t take killing off 4.2 billion people or even 1 person.

      That’s where some writers go wrong. The guy who wrote “Unintended Consequences” under the pen name ‘John Ross’ based his whole novel on the idea that bureaucrats, politicians and police would have to be killed in order for Americans to live free. That’s not just wrong, it’s so far past wrong that you couldn’t get a bus from where that premise lies back to being merely wrong.

      I don’t think there’s anything going on right now that couldn’t be made worse by starting to shoot people over it. This is my view, but it goes against my grain to try to make anyone else do anything that wasn’t their own idea to start with.

      For instance, methylamine and I have such different lives that we just have to agree on points we agree on and leave the rest out, or we couldn’t even have a conversation on here. The same is true in regard to me and eric, or me and 8pointssouth, or me and Hotrod, or Jacob, or dom or…..

      Here’s my point: I live the way I want to. My online acquaintances live by their own ideas. I don’t care how someone else lives, and I don’t want them to do what I say. I’d also much rather they don’t see things exactly the same as I do or it would be boring as shit talking to them.

      Anyway, if you want to resist the IRS, do it. Why worry if nobody else does it at the same time you do? Also, if I decide to do this or that, I ain’t about to tip my hand online where anyone can see what I’m doing. I keep my own counsel on a lot of things. It’s better for me that way.

      • Well-said, Ed.

        And with that attitude–and same goes for just about all the regulars on this board–you’d all make fine neighbors.

        We’d get along just fine, following the principle of “live and let live”. You do your thing, I do mine; maybe we all go shooting some time because that’s something we all share.

        Why is it so hard for the control freaks to get that through their mushy heads?

        More and more, I think the lessons from the book Political Ponerology are 100% correct; that 2-4% of people are innately sociopaths, but about 20% can be recruited to the authoritarian, control-freak mode of thinking.

        They’re weak, easily led; poor self-image, frustrated, lusting for a little bit of power and dying to exercise it in the most petty ways possible.

        In other words, your garden-variety bureaucrate.

      • I guess you are incapable of seeing that the 4.2 billion people i was talking about are mass minds (at least that many), not making any choices at all of their own, because they have not had to make any choices, because all their responses are conditioned responses. You do not understand psychology, nor do you understand how individualism actually arises.
        I can imagine that you think eating a grilled chicken sandwich at mcdonalds is healthier than eating the burger?
        all of your logic arises from a surface mentality, where there is no depth to any problem whatsoever. The depth of the problem arises from the types of people that populate a given place. If 7 billion people are allowed to survive on this planet, which is more than just concrete, trees, people and an economy, but is in fact an ecosystem, that needs more than just trees and people and water and sunlight to survive. Hence, the extra 4 billion people that are here merely use up the valuable resources on this planet for no other reason than to be space fillers…they are not offering any value as organisms, they kill everything else in order to live.
        There exist gradations among the species that are humans…not all equal, its just that the bottom feeders are permitted to exist for the sake of their non-questioning, docile attitude which allows those who rule to rule more firmly.
        In order to change, one must first begin with himself–and I dont see a whole lot of people on here willing to make any changes in order to bring about more freedom. In order to “live and let live,” one must be cognizant of the idea of living, the truly personal meaning inherent in life, and how to go about finding it.

        • HandJ, you have a strange view of the world. Bottom feeders are what make the world go round. I’m a bottom feeder I suppose since I don’t eat food from restaurants or fast food. But let’s speak of those people of countless tribes that live as they have for millenia. Now how do they use up anything? They’re not the ones chopping down the rain forests or polluting the GOM or Prudhome Bay. They don’t use electricity at all in countless numbers.
          NAFTA made the US the handout govt. that is now is simply because there are so few jobs available at any amount of education. Other countries have up and coming segments of their population because they now have our old jobs. Are they bottom feeders? Now they want more electricity, cars, nice clothes, electronics, etc. Does that make them better now……or worse? The US has 5% of the population of the word and uses 25% of the produced energy, previously #1 using fossil fuels but China passed us in 2012 with their huge population of “bottom feeders”. I can never understand why Americans think themselves better than everyone else when they are merely corporate pawns who sell their soul for the latest ipod. The US stands about 50th now in terms of education so we’re not taking any kudos on that front. Bottom feeders. Define that term. Mass minds, that’s us.

          • “HandJ, you have a strange view of the world. ”

            Dag, that’s funny, Eight. ‘HandJ’ Now just add a few more letters and a space…Hand Job! ahaha

        • ” guess you are incapable of seeing ”

          Incapable’s ass. Go jack off on your dead little blog and quit talking down to everyone. If I wrote as poorly as you, I wouldn’t inflict my views on others.

        • “Hence, the extra 4 billion people that are here merely use up the valuable resources on this planet for no other reason than to be space filler..”

          Dangerous ground, Jim.

          Who gets to decide which people are “space fillers” who “merely use up the valuable resources”? You? Me?

          Are you aware that the people running this planet – the ones who have their hands on the levers of government and corporate power – share these sentiments, but include you and I among the “space fillers”?

          This sentiment is another manifestation of collectivism. Of summarily categorizing people under the rubric of a mass – the “space fillers,” as you call them.

          If you expect – insist – upon your rights as an individual, how can you deny the same to any of the 7 billion other people on this earth?

          Certainly, there are bad (and worthless) people. But they must be given the opportunity to define themselves as either worthless – or worth something – as individuals, based on their individual actions.

          Consider yourself. Surely, you were not always “awake” – and held erroneous, perhaps even evil opinions? I know I did – and that I was not always “awake.” When I was in college, for instance, I would have characterized myself as a conservative – and generally supportive of Republican polices. I now realize how wrong I was about that – and many things. And, that my knowledge today is far from perfect.

          Don’t other people deserve the same opportunity to grow in consciousness? To develop their faculties? To have a chance, too?

          • “This sentiment is another manifestation of collectivism. Of summarily categorizing people under the rubric of a mass – the “space fillers,” as you call them.”

            I agree. What follows is that the sentiment “these people are useless”, coupled with the statement “all we have to do is kill off 4.2 billion” is the work of a profoundly disturbed mind.

            Of course, that’s just my take on it. Others may disagree.

          • It comes down to use of the mind. Man is defined as a what he is not compared to other animals. What separates him is his use of his brain. If he does not use his brain, then merely an animal, that is only here to work and reinforce the system that is over us now. The mind becomes incapable of any sort of drastic change sometime after the age of 40, where only slight changes to action, but of no real substance occur. Like I said, what you all are merely telling me is that you prefer your routine right now, over changing that routine. Call it what you will, comfort, security, whatever, what you all “choose” to do has nothing to do with freedom, nor does any of the actions the mass perform have anything to do with freedom. I would say if this was a purely socialist world, and that man could find actual meaning through having others take responsibility for him, I would say those “extra” mindless zombies have a place. But you know as well as I, that they, are not destined nor are willing to change their destiny at all toward the hemisphere of enlightenment.
            Ed, what are you in the second grade?
            How I see it is that y’all are incapable of self-reflective thought and criticism. Quit taking these comments as disastrous put-downs and instead look at them as found gold, where all you have to do is polish the ideas and use them as a currency to apply toward the purchase of a new routine and change for the betterment of your self….
            What I am saying is the essence of liberty, the essence of change that is the only constant of this world….

            • Jim,

              “Like I said, what you all are merely telling me is that you prefer your routine right now, over changing that routine. ”

              You are making assumptions about me – nothing more. What is my “routine,” exactly? We don’t even know one another. I certainly don’t know what your “routine” is – and would never presume to lecture you about its merits or lack thereof. To do so would be incredibly presumptuous.

              “..what you all ‘choose’ to do has nothing to do with freedom…”

              Really? Says who? Your definition of “freedom” is … what, exactly? You’re forced to play by the rules, too. You pay taxes, too. Does the fact that you may pay less make you more free? Well, I am more free in that sense than, say, Warren Buffet. Do you suppose he would like to change places with me? In order to be more “free”? No? Well, for exactly the same reason, I do not wish to change places with a hypothetical someone who lives hand-to-mouth, doesn’t own anything of much value and who, accordingly, is much less free than I am – in spite of all the taxes, in spite of all the government-corporate shit I have to deal with.

              On the rest:

              I’ve asked you to please quit spewing personal attacks. It adds nothing – and only makes you look bad.

              You are dealing with some of the brightest, well-read, thoughtful people I’ve ever had the good fortune to come to know. That is the “gold” you’re overlooking with your puerile put-downs and condescension.

          • But I also never said I insisted or expected any rights. I only believe in and expect what I can fight for nd receive. I don’t believe in free rides compadre.

            • Well, Jim, you either have rights – as such, innately – or you do not. The same goes for other people. If not, then – as you imply – force is all that matters. What an old-time Greek dude called “the advantage of the stronger.” That’s also the social Darwinian view – which is a view that’s the philosophical antipode of Libertarianism/anarchism.

              Take away the concept of rights – and that they must be respected, not because you are “the stronger” but because it’s right to respect them – and you have accepted a worldview that is bleak, cruel and animal.

              Perhaps that is the sort of world you’d like to see realized. Not me. I am working for its antipodal opposite. A world in which using force for any reason except in self defense is not merely regarded as wrong and illegitimate but despicable – on the order of molesting children.

          • Jim, you think I’ve never thought of the idea of freedom through poverty or other means of having much much less, you’d be very very wrong. You’ll note I do not insult your choice. I simply ask that you accept that others have made a different one.

            Furthermore, by putting up with the system a smart person can still amass enough capital to get to the ‘f-u’ point and be able to walk out of their job without fear. That is the best feeling. There’s numerous ways to play in the system we have to deal with. Your way is the right way for you, not me.

          • Really? So you do not have a routine to your life? Everyday is different, you arise at a different time, you walk your dog at different times, one day you are reading Mises, the next arguing Keynesian points of view, one day you enjoy the comforts of your down comforter bed, the next on the ground in a tent on your sprawling 16 acres. What is your definition of thoughtful and intelligent? Best read? I have a doctorate in English rhetoric and Greek philosophy, and I have read everything by Mises, Rothbard, Higgs, de jouvenal, Aristotle,js mill, Nietzsche and Ellul, as well as Darwin’s entire origin of species, of which I wrote one of my earliest theories on expanding the theory of evolution to include de-evolution as well if directed through mass phenomena and social pressures.
            And no, paying less taxes doesn’t necessarily make me more free, but morally it does mean that I do not support the regime.
            From ancient Greeks: “I know that withholding of payment of taxes is one of the quickest methods of overthrowing a government. I am equally sure that we have not yet evolved that degree of strength and discipline which are necessary for conducting a successful campaign of non-payment of taxes. . . Non-payment of taxes without the necessary discipline will be an act of unpardonable madness.”1d THUCYDIDES
            And here’s one from a peaceful guy:
            “He or she who supports a state organized in a military way-whether directly or indirectly-participates in sin. Each man takes part in the sin by contributing to the maintenance of the state by paying taxes.” GANDHi
            And yes taxes that are paid by check directly to the government, are far different than taxes paid upon a box of cereal. Because of the reasoning that you cannot refuse to pay the tax on goods, but you can on your income.
            As for rights, I do not expect anything to be given to me at birth, but if I did, I am still in the same situation. Of having to depend upon others for having to enforce said “rights,” hence making them not my rights unless they are solely my responsibility to protect, and if that is the case then it is the same as me fighting for my own rights, especially since the whole of libertarian and freedom is personal responsibility. I would expect from people “so well read,” to at least understand that concept? And in what way are you working toward achieving this peaceful goal. Are you working with hope? Because you see how well that is working for everyone right now. The police will kill you and not give a shit dude. It’s time your actions and meaning started including at least that reference, as well as your anti-strategy to their way of thinking, as in, learning to speak their language so that when they stepto your door you all can have a real dialogue

            • Jim,

              You’d do a better job demonstrating that you’re bright by arguing with precision and logic. So far, you have not done so.

              For example, you write:

              “And no, paying less taxes doesn’t necessarily make me more free, but morally it does mean that I do not support the regime.”

              (Italics added.)

              But – and I have already explained this at length – you do “support the regime.” You pay taxes, too. Both directly (sales, motor vehicle fuels taxes, etc.) as well as indirectly (your rent includes the landlord’s taxes, etc.). The only difference between me and you is the degree to which we are forced to “support the regime.” But the essential point remains: You pay taxes; therefore, “you support the regime.” *

              QED.

              This is elementary logic. That you won’t concede the point – and continue to mock people who (by your strange and entirely subjective standard) “support the regime” even as you yourself also “support the regime” is… bizarre.

              You write:

              “And yes taxes that are paid by check directly to the government, are far different than taxes paid upon a box of cereal. ”

              Really? How so?

              This is another example of your habit of confusing your subjective, arbitrary opinions with objective fact.

              Take any consumer item. There are myriad taxes folded into its retail price – including the income taxes paid by the company that produced it as well as the workers who were involved in transporting it and selling it. This is not debatable.

              So, when you buy a box of cereal – or a car – or anything else – you are paying taxes.

              Including income taxes.

              Whether you sign a separate check or not is entirely irrelevant. The tax is paid – period.

              Even when you are paid in cash for your work, the person paying you is factoring in the taxes he pays. So, you pay.

              You may quibble about amounts – but we’ve been over that ground already. You either pay taxes – or you don’t. Period. Like being pregnant – or not pregnant. Either you are – or you are not.

              So: If you pay taxes, you have no ethical basis for condemning others for paying taxes.

              This is basic rhetoric.

              On rights:

              They are not “given.” They are inherent, by dint of our existence as human beings.

              You’re all over the place, Jim.

              * I don’t like your phraseology because it implies active complicity rather than victimhood. You can’t help being victimized by the government; neither can I – neither can anyone else. We are in exactly the same position as a person facing an armed street thug. You comply because you have to comply. You are not complying because you wish to comply, of your own free will.

          • @Jim–

            It’s poor form to whip out doctorates; it doesn’t bolster the strength of your argument. We could then debate the merits of our respective degrees, graduate school, undergraduate, high school, awards ad infinitum ’till we swallow our tails Oroboros-style.

            Pointless.

            In analyzing the back-and-forth with you here, I note you’ve taken a distinctly haughty tone–and it chafes.

            Not because your factual argument is weak, but because you assume none of us have considered the alternatives.

            We have. I certainly have. I’ve “done the math”, literally. Your comments indicate you consider any choice but yours cowardice. Far from it. I’m more of a target than you, because they have more to fear from me.

            And the choice I’ve made is to be able to afford survival supplies not just for my immediate family, but my deluded brother-in-law and sister…and others too. Weapons sufficient for them, too, when the time comes. Spares. Education for my children, at a trusted, vetted school I attended.

            I take the excess and put it into gold and silver, further undermining Leviathan…and enriching my future.

            Then I take what’s left and pour it into division-of-labor, by donating to LewRockwell, Ron Paul, Alex Jones, Gun Owners of America–anyone I think is highly effective in promoting the ideas that make us free…because they do it better than I can.

            You’ve made your choice; but don’t pretend it’s more moral, or more fully-realized-libertarian than mine. Did my donations to Ron Paul create enough converts to offset your low tax contribution? We can’t know. Will my weapons in the hands of competent patriots defend liberty more effectively than the same weapons I paid for in taxes to be used against those patriots?

            Interesting question.

            Meanwhile, I live as fully as a fellow slave can–and watch the subversion grow, personally and by extension through my donations.

            Ultimately the greatest subversion is our own flourishing–essentially, the best revenge is living well.

            Telling the statists to fuck off in the most economical, least risky ways…adjusted to one’s own level of comfort with risk vs. reward.

            And as millions of us pursue that happiness, we grind them into dust–the dustbin of history.

            We’re re-living the 1500’s, as the authority of the Church collapsed. It led to a conscience-changing of humanity–and this era will, too.

          • Jim, you’ve taken my side on previous issues, and I’m seeing straight through that.

            You work for the government.

            At the very least, you’re trying to.

            You’re a snitch. A dumbass who thinks they’re outsmarting others by getting the others to incriminate themselves.

            You can type out all the shit you want about how many laws you blatantly break, but the second any of “us” do the same I’ll bet our doors will be getting kicked down by the faggots whose dicks you desperately are trying to suck.

            You drive a Jaguar and don’t pay income taxes? Holy shit, I wish I was as super cool as you! Go fuck yourself, you fake ass snitch.

          • What Jacob.? I’m pretty sure the cops are not going to kick down your guys’ door for speeding a bit and yelling clovers at a few passer by motorists, nor do I believe is gov agent is trolling this site looking for a few tax cheats.
            Eric, come on man?
            I will go over this one more time. You have two types of tax bills. One on necessities, one on income. You are an independent contractor, so you must write a check at the end of the year probably in a large amount. Then of course there is the the indirect taxes, food, gas etc, where the tax is already compounded into the price. It is far different if one pays both taxes, vs someone who pays one, ie the indirect. Like I said, if everyone cut their tax bill in half, with or without altering their job, it cuts leviathans gross taxes received in half.
            You didn’t answer the routine question either Eric?
            Do you or do you not follow a general routine that you are comfortable with?
            No one factors in taxes when they pay me. I make the prices. I charge them.
            Amounts of course are way different. The warren buffet analogy too is gross and misleading, as he loves the state, and invests a huge portion of his money in Boeing, the ultimate war corp.
            Y’all can have all the gold and guns and bomb shelters in the world, but with no effective action behind them toward your masters, then they are useless.
            However, and I’m sure on a brighter note for y’all, I won’t be bothering you all anymore. Your idea of liberty far conflicts with mine. Thank you all for the jumbled logic, unanswered questions, and mis defined terms, but I will let you get back to clovers.
            Adios.

            • Jim,

              Is your Jaguar a necessity?

              How much tax did you pay on it – vs. say a Tercel or Metro?

              Aren’t you paying more in motor fuels taxes than you might? Choosing to do so? “Supporting the regime”?

              I could go on, but won’t bother. I hope the point has been made. For the fourth or fifth time now.

              You arbitrarily posit your notions of morally acceptable levels of tax-compliance. Your level is ok – mine and others, not. Based on nothing more than your personal feelings.

              As far as my “routine” –

              I’m not even sure what you mean by this. But I assume you mean my manner of earning a living, where I live, my recreations and so on constitute my “routine.” Well, yes. So? And your objection is…?

              I’d still love to know how you make your off-the-books living. If you’re an itinerant laborer, ok. If you sell drugs, sure.

              But otherwise? I’m not buying it, Jim.

              Because it does not compute.

          • Here’s hoping Jim’s bosses are spanking him right now for not gaining “our” trust. He and his ilk will forever lurk trying to find the easy target to either set up as he next Boston bomber or just simply rat out someone else they know might not be paying taxes.

            Although I’m preaching to the choir here, we should read through some of his previous comments to soak in what a real snitch sounds like on the internet.

            Real people show emotion and make mistakes. Snitches do as they’re told and argue dead points in the hopes a real person will blow up and, in their clouded judgement of emotion, say something on the internet that would allow for either this website to get shutdown or their IP address to get tracked so that their home can be raided to “make an example” out of them to the rest of the people who are simply trying to live an honest life without trusting the obviously corrupt government.

            Jaguars are for mid-life crises. The real people who own Jaguars and hate the government, aren’t bragging on the internet about how they don’t pay taxes but have real cool toys like Jaguars. It’s a snitch thing. Promise the snitch they can live some fake gradiose lifestyle, as long as they snitch out at least one or two other people trying to do the same then they have “earned” their right to bend the systems rules.

            Snitches can get away with doing illegal drugs, taking advantage of others, not paying taxes, and live a very luxurious life with “protection” for doing what the government tells them. Real people work for a living, and get fucked by the system.

            The motto is “snitches get stitches” but that’s a pipe dream. Snitches DESERVE stitches but most likely won’t get them, because they’re weasel pieces of shit who are able to get out of dodge when the going gets tough. All thanks to the government.

            Amen.

            • Morning, Jacob!

              Yup on HJ.

              He presents an incredible (literally, not credible) scenario: I pay virtually no taxes, without consequences, yet I also drive a Jaguar and lead a financially comfortable (not Richard Kimble-esque) life … then derides others for not believing him and emulating him; implies they are cowards who “support the regime,” who are stuck in their “routine.”

              When the contradictions and inconsistencies of his position are pointed out, he responds elliptically or with non sequiturs, then repeats his mocking mantras.

              This is of a piece with Clover and Gil’s methods. The similarities are striking.

          • “I won’t be bothering you all anymore. Your idea of liberty far conflicts with mine.”

            Well, thanks for not bothering “you all” anymore. I owe you $5.

            I guess you’re partly right. If you had an idea of liberty, it would probably “far conflict” with mine.

            Try to learn how to write intelligibly and how to recognize social cues in online discussions. That would give you a little help in establishing a blog that would actually attract a few readers.

            Adios, handjob. Don’t let the doorknob hit you where the good lord split you.

  27. There is a possibility that hydrogen power cars could become common but there would first have to be massive nuclear power in place. There is also the fact that there are quadrillions of barrels of liquid hydrocarbons in the earth so political terrorism against Hydrocarbons via what that the terrorist call (gun-and-jail-backed) “Energy Policy” would have to greatly increase in order to make hydrogen power viable.

  28. “We” apparently went to the moon in 1969. If my super scientific memory is serving me correctly that is a round trip of about 400,000 miles, through insane conditions such as entering and exiting the atmosphere, all done (apparently) with hydrogen powered rockets….and yet this many years later “they” are trying to tell “us” that hydrogen powered cars can’t be made safely? …..BULLSHIT!

    Well, hydrogen power is either complete bullshit or “too convenient” for us mundanes to harness.

    Fuck the government.
    -Jacob

    • Correction:

      Hydrogen power is either complete bullshit (***as in, we never went to the moon***), or it is too convenient for us mundanes to harness.

      I would also like to add that creating hydrogen is as easy as this:

      Take an empty wine bottle and fill it half way with vinegar.

      Take some tin foil and tear it into strips about 2″x2″ (two inches by two inches) and roll the balls into circles (you’ll need about 10 of them) and toss them in the wine bottle.

      Quickly take a balloon and attach it over the top of the wine bottle as if the wine bottle was going to inflate the balloon.

      The aluminum will react with the vinegar and create hydrogen gas. Once the balloon is full (and before it pops) take it off the wine bottle and close it off by knotting off the end.

      You now have a balloon filled with crude hydrogen gas.

      Conclusion: Hydrogen gas is extremely easy to make, the government is a bunch of technology suppressing faggots. Fuck them.

      • Also:

        I’m glad electrically powered cars are failing.

        Low RPM high torque is the only way my testicles allow me to travel. (Let me hear that engine roar at me. Like a T-rex, where my subwoofers almost tear themselves out of the speaker box, not some faggot high pitched shit like the old school Godzilla movie screams)…. Electric power is high RPM low torque, and would require castration for me to harness properly. Conveniently enough, the government is putting chemicals in the water and food to make my balls shrink and therefore allow my brain to comprehend such faggotry as the high pitched whizzing noise of electrically powered cars.

        • Hybrids are Rube Goldberg devices that take you around the block to cross the street.

          Rather than build a 1,500 car with a simple 1.2 liter (or so) gas engine that would be capable of achieving 60-plus MPG – that could be sold (at a reasonable profit) for $10,000 or less…. we have 3,200 lb. gas-electric hybrids that max out at 50-something MPG that sell for $24,000.

          But, of course, the hybrids are saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafe!

        • Jacob, electric motors produce 100% torque as soon as they begin to turn. The EV1 was a torque monster. Camry hybrids run like stink and not just because of their little 4 bangers.

      • Hi Jacob,

        That is interesting! I will try the experiment this weekend…

        One thing: Easy on the faggot stuff, please. Gays – as such – are not the enemy. What people do as far as sex is no one else’s business – so long as it’s consenting adults. Remember the NAP. Don’t fall into the trap of allowing yourself to hate people who haven’t done anything to you.

        Most of the assholes – the control freak power lusters – in DC are quite heterosexual. The fact that they stick their dick in the “right” place doesn’t make them decent people.

        And, the reverse.

          • I can’t view that video at the moment and I will watch how I type more carefully but I mean no offense to homosexuals when I use the word “faggot”. I am just a fan of offensive speech, keeps the politically correct people spinning.

          • I would also like to add that I work with a handful of homosexuals and they are a great audience for me to vent my thoughts about the government to. They know the government is a bunch of douchebags, like the in the closet officials who publically stand against gay marriage; or cops who harass the patrons of the gay bars some of them go to. Although some of them have fallen in the “democrats are good” trap, they all enjoy hearing what I think of the Republicans and neocons (who I argue are all secretly in the closet, as is made obvious by their ugly wives that no real heterosexual would be able to screw without the help of medication like antidepressants and Viagra. Haha)

          • I just watched that video and that is EXACTLY how I use the word “faggot” in my every day vocabulary. Also, Louis CK is an amazingly talented comedian. Love his work.

            All that said, I will respect Eric’s request to easy up on my usage of it here.

        • Not saying that hydrogen technology can’t be done. But that being said I personally don’t know of a cost effective way to do electrolysis on H20 without the use of electricity, an acid, and a metal conductor that doesn’t dissolve in that acid/electric potential which I believe is usually platinum and isn’t cheap. The problem with the Aluminum and acid reaction production of H2 or hydrogen gas is that Aluminum is extremely energy intensive in its production. So while it may make sense to convert a few old pop cans into a bag full of hydrogen gas that wouldn’t be a feasible energy process for a main energy source. As it would take more energy to create the Aluminum from the start. There is one method I heard about where RF an osicllating EM energy along with a catalyst can be used to dissociate water into Hydrogen and Oxygen directly. Some guy was trying to patent the process he supposedly found using this process.

          If true then its possible maybe even sunglight could also direclty dissassociate water into its basic components of oxygen and hydrogen. Still the problem with such a process is that pure electrolysis seperates the oxygen from the hydrogen gas at opposite charged conductors, thus the risk of the disassociated byproducts spontaneously burning as in explosion are minimal. An RF or oscillating EM field to direct disassociation would probably not seperate the oxidizer and reducer gases and could spotaneously re-combust.

          Not saying all hydrogen stuff isn’t possible but I think its fairly reasonable to say that even with all the disassociation problem there would still be the compressing and distribution problem of hydrogen gas which would be identical to that of CNG. So basically using CNG first could lay the infrastructure later if there is ever a way to actually harness say the sun to directly dissassociate water to hyrogen and oxygen later.

          • ” I personally don’t know of a cost effective way to do electrolysis on H20 without the use of electricity, an acid, and a metal conductor that doesn’t dissolve in that acid/electric potential ”

            The electrolysis rig I built doesn’t use acid and won’t degrade the ferrous metal anode very quickly. The electrolyte is washing soda (sodium carbonate) and water.

            The anode is plates of stainless steel from a restaurant supply fab shop. The cathode is a piece of cast iron cookware I want to remove rust and/or carbonized grease from to restore it to cleanliness.

            It’s the same principle as a plating tank, but without acid. The current is supplied by a battery charger or DC welder. The hydrogen gas is produced as the current flows through the electrolyte solution.

            I don’t know how it could be used as fuel, and that part doesn’t even interest me. The whole idea that burning petroleum is going to kill the earth seems retarded to me.

            The green weenies just get all excited about the fossil fuel thing. They’re not quite normal. I think there’s something wrong with them.

          • You’re right a base such as sodium bicarbonate or sodium hydroxide can also be used. I like the fact that as you stated they have no need to use the platinum conductors. But if I remember right the efficiency of acid electrolysis is better than the base electrolyte? Something to do with Faradays law of charge carriers in electrolysis I believe. I don’t know for sure but yeah thanks for the excellent point. I also agree that green weenies really don’t understand that everything comes at a cost, you can’t avoid entropy.

            Regards,
            Hot Rod

          • “But if I remember right the efficiency of acid electrolysis is better than the base electrolyte”

            Yeah, if the purpose of the process is plating, you’d use a lower ph solution. If the purpose is simply stripping carbon and converting rust, the base solution is better.

            That’s as far as my knowledge goes. For use as a fuel, methane gas beats the shit out of hydrogen anyway, don’tcha think? 😉

          • The cheap ways of making hydrogen don’t use electricity at all, because there are too many losses on the way from the energy source (thermodynamic inefficiencies and transmission losses in power stations, etc., so that only ever makes sense with cheap hydroelectricity – but that’s only ever cheap when it’s stranded and therefore not much use for hydrogen supplies either). No, they use steam reforming with fossil fuels, e.g. rocket fuel was made according to the equation CH4 + 2H2O = CO2 + 4H2 (leaving out intermediate stages). That approach was used by the British a century ago, to fill gasometers to resupply blimps, only that used steam passed over hot coke mixed in with a large excess of quicklime to mop up the carbon dioxide and make the whole process generate net heat to keep it going (it was lit with kindling and a forced draught of air before switching over to steam).

      • “I would also like to add that creating hydrogen is as easy as this”

        Yes it is. I built an electrolysis tank for removing surface rust and crud from cast iron cookware. It has to be operated outside because it gives off hydrogen gas as a by-product of the process, and could be a fire hazard in an enclosed space.

        At least the production of the hydrogen gas is simple, though I don’t know anything about the process used in a hydrogen cell of the type proposed for car fuel systems.

        • Ed, maybe we should make a car that uses RV batteries since I found out how much hydrogen they produce. I had my boat batteries on the breezeway and had just built a new handrail for the porch. The old side grinder was doing a fine job of smoothing a weld when one of those batteries blew up. I thought I was dead at first but later found out the only bad casualty was the battery. It didn’t ruin it per se, just cracked the housing so it wouldn’t seal up again, not much fun leaking acid.

          • Yeah, I had heard of batteries blowing up while people were jump starting a vehicle.

            Instead of building a car that runs on batteries, I’d rather build a hot rod from a Henry J sedan delivery with a cadillac 455 w/ the caddy 3 speed automatic and a 55 studebaker station wagon rear end.

            The only hydrogen involved in that thing would be the outgassing of the battery after you crank that 455.

            Buuudden, buuuuudden….screeeeeeeech. Get out da way, porky 😉

        • I had a science teacher tell me that platinum, in very thin strands, has the ability to absorb hydrogen under pressure. He explained that if I had a small high pressure tank full of platinum strands it would hold the hydrogen safely. I’ve never looked up any more info on the subject.

          • Platinum is easily spoiled with impurities. The amount of hydrogen that platinum could hold would probably be nearly negligible as a way to hold viable hydrogen gas. The idea of platinum holding hydrogen gas was the basis of 1989 Fleischmann–Pons claims of nuclear fusion at room temperature. The idea that platinum was able to get the hydrogen proton close enough that nuclear fusion would occur. The claims were later rejected. But still the idea that platinum could hold more volume of hydrogen than its own molecular weights seem highly unlikely.

            Also see my problem with disassociation issues. Many people are enamored by hydrogen powered cars like they are with solar cells. They fail to understand it really is the carriage without a horse. The horse in this case is that some expendable energy source has to be used to generate the hydrogen gas. That could be fossil fuels but why waste perfectly good fossil fuels generating electric to generate hydrogen gas when you could pump those same fuels into an internal or external combustion engine and generate the same power direct. Remember each process of conversion is a process of loss or entropy so you get less and less real output power every conversion you do.

            This is why I said that if the solar energy can be direcly used to convert water directly into hydrogen gas then you’d have something really great in economical scale. In this case the sun puts about 1KWhr per square meter, if that could strike a certain portion of water body and disassociate water into hyrogen then we are talking now because solar radiation is nearly free.

            And as I said that the reason that solar cells are also miscontrued by novices as a solution to all our energy problems is for the same reason. The energy required to produce the silicon in solar cells is immense. But a solar cell is basically a silcon diode junction. Its usually doped with Arsenic and phosporus to make the n and p junctions, the doping is done by temperature and diffusion. The diffusion like osmosis takes the Arsenic from the surface of the silicon where its highest concentration into the depth of lesser concentration of the silcon body. However, the diffusion doesn’t stop it continues to happen even after the doping oven. So over time the solar cell (and UV and heat) will slowly continue migrating the Arsenic and Phosporus until there is no longer any discernable diode junction working. This translates into the Solar cell becoming less and less efficeint at converting solar energy into electricity. If you sum up all the energy that could be converted over the cells usefull lifetime and compare it with the energy of its creation you have not an energy producer but energy consumer. So while solar cells are great for remote power, for satellites, for all kind of applications they so far are not net energy producers. Maybe one day the efficiency of cells will be improved where this is no longer the case.

            Again when you talk about the Germans using hydrogen for rockets or maybe going to the moon with rockets where something can be exotic but not energy practical to that of something making economic sense for Joe and Jill that is totally seperate.

            I’m not a naysayer on anything being possible but many common people don’t understand the tradeoffs and think everything is easily achievable when in fact usually there are vast tradeoffs to technologies.

          • “Again when you talk about the Germans using hydrogen for rockets”

            As I remember it, the German rockets used hydrogen peroxide as fuel. The Russian space rockets were mostly h2o2 fueled as well. H2O2 at a concentration of 90% or more is a monofuel for rocket propulsion. Other liquid rocket fuels are mixtures.

            It’s rocket science, of course, and it’s way over my head.

          • @Methyl

            “Here’s what I’m excited about though: thorium fuel cycle reactors.”

            Very interesting Methyl. I’d think with the byproducts having a half life of only 100 years would make the thorium reactor a much better fissle reactor. I’m not that fond of nuclear energy myself. I would like to live to 200 years old and nuclear charge ions going through my cells won’t allow that to happen. I also don’t use microwave cell phones much either. They may say its ok, they are dead wrong though.

            By change have you ever studied the Farnsworth fusor reactor? For those who don’t know about Farnsworth he was basically the father of the CRT TV design, basically the first electronic scanning TV. He also developed a means of intitiating a nuclear fusion using coecentric spherical and charged grids. It worked much better than any Toroid fusion reactor design, but he still could not reach break even. Sadly, like Tesla Mr. Farnsworth was F’ed by the Cainnites. But, the fusor reactor he invented was being patented because it produced so many neutrons without an active fissile source, that they were planning on using it to detect nuclear fissile material on say cargo ships. The idea that the fusor reactor would be turned on to emit neutrons that when striking a fissile material would then emit charged particles that would be detected.

            Anyway, to combine this with the Thorium reactor would be pretty cool. One of my concerns was that it seems that these farnsworth reactors could be used as a breeder reactor to turn docile U238 to plutonium. Why it would really suck if those Iraqis somehow took all the depleted Uranium bullets we shot at them and made a nuclear fissile material from them. The whole idea that U238 is safe to shoot around seems bizarre to me. Hell I even thought about buying a block of it before they make it illegal and I’m sure they will. Not to make a nuclear bomb or anything but just to say I had it the docile stuff in my hand. Some physics teacher in my college years had a big block of the shit as door stopper. Like I said breeder reactor pretty scarry stuff.

            Hot Rod

    • Hydrogen has not taken off for various reasons, the primary one being long term storage issues. You simply cannot store hydrogen for extended periods because the molecule is so small and it tends to leak out or any container.

      • I am convinced that because hydrogen power for the masses would put big oil out of business, it is being suppressed. With how easy hydrogen is to create, it makes me wonder if storing it in an automobile would be an issue, if you had the equipment an material to create it on board with you in the automobile.

        • Sorry to burst the bubble guys–hydrogen is a sure loser.

          It requires energy input–it is not a source of energy. It is a carrier of energy.

          On small scales, it’s created by water electrolysis which is at best about 80% efficient, usually 60%. For large industrial purposes, it’s stripped off hydrocarbons.

          Since it’s less than 100% efficient, you put more energy into producing it than you get out of it.

          Then there’s the storage problem; we’ve had this debate on this site before, I just can’t remember where.

          Storage is a huge problem. Hydrogen is so small it leaks through metal, rendering it extremely brittle in the process.

          Cryogenic storage requires unbelievably low temperatures; compression storage requires unbelievably high pressures.

          Adsorption storage, while promising, has nowhere near the capacity of cryogenic…and requires rare metals and controlled, fairly high (400 degrees) temperatures to release the hydrogen.

          Hydrogen, in other words, has all the problems of electric cars plus some.

          Someone in another comment wondered how you could produce it by electrolysis in a moving car; short answer, you can’t. Well, I take that back; here’s how you could do it:

          Attach a trailer with a diesel generator that produces about twice as much horsepower as you use to cruise at 60mph, or whatever your desired top speed is. On that trailer, mount an industrial-size electrolysis plant. Also, a supply of water sufficient for your desired trip length. Oh–and the diesel to run the generator.

          Now run the (roughly) fifty horsepower generator, to electrolytically split the water; run the resulting hydrogen through your car’s engine.

          So yeah; you can do it. But it’s Rube Goldberg at its worst…

          Thermodynamics are a bitch, guys, and thermo hates hydrogen especially.

          • If what you’re saying about hydrogen is true (and I’m not trying to debunk you), than “we” most certainly never went to the moon.

            It’s too bad the mainstream media can’t have a debate about these topics. (understatement of the millennium)

          • @Jacob–

            I’m still not sure on that one–going to the moon, that is. I haven’t studied it nearly as much as 9/11 (which I hope you agree was absolutely a false flag).

            But the technology–hydrogen/oxygen rockets–is certainly feasible.

            I’m not saying hydrogen’s a bad fuel; it’s not. It’s just incredibly impractical. They make it work for rockets because it’s the best propellant; it’s just hella expensive and a hassle to boot.

            But as an automotive fuel, it’s a total loser in every respect–efficiency, portability, storage, specific energy.

            The most realistic proposals have been the “reforming fuel cells”–systems that store hydrogen bound chemically, perhaps as methanol or a borohydride like NaBH4 (borax, sodium borohydride).

            But the challenges are formidable, and the costs astronomical.

            • On the Moon thing:

              It’s important to take the money issue off the table. Apollo (and Gemini and Mercury) had an open spigot of virtually limitless taxpayer-financed support. The amount spent to put a man on the moon was enormous. On the order of $100 billion in today’s FRNs.

              I hydrogen-powered car is technically feasible. But is it economically viable? That is the real issue.

          • I am no expert or even novice when it comes to hydrogen…as far as 9/11 goes it was absolutely a false flag. I personally believe it was Isreal’s doing but that’s a whole other can of worms.

            Fuck the government. Fuck the powers that be. All I want to do is live my life peacefully, with my eyes/mind open. Fuck electric cars too, haha.

            • I need to bone up on hydrogen, too.

              I’ve (briefly) driven a couple of the prototypes – around a parking lot. That’s it.

              Maybe it has a future; I dunno.

              What I do know – and what aggravates me endlessly – is that we could have 60-plus MPG conventional “a to b” economy cars tomorrow, without elaborate technology, that cost $10,000 or so brand-new. But the government won’t allow it.

          • ‘moonlanding was faked’ crowd is just plain wrong. Their ‘proof’ doesn’t hold up when one realizes that moon dust is black/dark in color. But like all things government there was probably a good deal of lying going on. I really dislike the natural human tendency to jump from discovering a lie to then jumping to conjecture.

            It’s like that ancient aliens show…. they realize conventional archeology is BS on something and then they jump to aliens. Arg.

          • ” ‘moonlanding was faked’ crowd is just plain wrong.”

            Brent, Jacob wasn’t engaging in that argument, he was repeating one of his earlier comments about the hydrogen compound fuel used in the Apollo moonshots.

            But, since you bring it up, I have seen some very good points made by the moon landing deniers (for lack of a better term for them). The way they go at it is kind of tedious, but I think they’re right to question the imagery in the holy “official record”.

            Even if the moon landings were real, the imagery used to show us all what it looked like is just hokey and comical as all hell. My brother and I laughed our asses off at it, seeing it on TV. When they showed the dudes in their little spacesuits jumping around, I was rolling around on the floor, holding my aching sides. It looked like bullshit then and it still does.

            Dad got pissed off about it and I don’t think he ever forgave us. We ruined his enjoyment of watching it on TV. Really, though, that shit was so fucking weak that I just couldn’t believe how impressed everybody was with it.

            If you look at those TV images now, don’t you think it looks fake as shit? Now, I’m not trying to be insulting, so bear that in mind. No offense intended, OK?

          • the threading of this system isn’t very good so when I saw moon landing and 911 inside job together I naturally thought….

            I have not heard a single convincing argument by the fake moon landing crowd. Most people are going to look rather silly wearing those suits and even more silly where the gravity isn’t what they are used to.

          • BrentP wrote: “I have not heard a single convincing argument by the fake moon landing crowd.”

            Whoa! You mean you read All the comments and All the articles on the subject at The Daily Bell?

            Wow. … Myself, I’m not convinced either way, but I’ve only read some of the stuff, not All of it.

            The Van Allen radiation belts was … inconclusive, to say the least.

          • As Eric and I discussed there are artifacts on the moon like a reflectometer that seem to indicate that we got there.

            Lets see the official photos show lunar tire prints when the lunar module hadn’t been removed from its wrapper on the LEM.

            Shadows not leading to a common convergence or vanishing point. I downloaded the official NASA pictures used GIMP for .jpg modification, changed the contrast and brightness as the deniers encourage and just like on the deniers website I verified a light bulb in the so called picture of the sun from the moon.

            Do the same thing for black background of space of moon and crane shows up just like deniers proclaimed. Do the same thing with the earth in the black background and square paper outline of earth image shows up. After that I started to assume the burden of proof landed on NASA. The deniers who I soon became one of showed that NASA has been busy beavers updating the pictures so that they agree with reality. So if you want the truth for yourself by downloading pictures from NASA you should do it now and it may already be too late. I did it about two years ago and most the stuff the deniers website pointed out culd be verified using nothing more than freebie GIMP.

            Some things that have changed in NASA archive that the denier website says was recently update and computer edited (and I believe them). Like tires all of sudden have light being cast through them as should be correctly shown for the tires wire frame. Previous pictures of the same scene show no light transmitted through the tires.

            There are crazy things like why the moon rover would drive through the middle of big crater when it could of went around. Like wouldn’t it been kind of risky to drive one tire thorugh a big crater and another on the outside in case of high grounding the rover? And why would anyone put themselves at that risk that way in the middle of a moon landing I mean no ambulences if you rip your suit open. The deniers show same scene of astranaut jumping taken from two different cameras. One clearly showing a plume of dust below his feet and another showing absolutely no dust.

            Then take a look at the LEM and you see something comical as its held together with Kapton tape and foil. Add to this no dust being moved below the engines. And never having a successful landing on earth but a near perfect landing on the moon. I won’t even go into the reflection on the visor of the astraunatu taking the picture missing life support system. Yeah I couldn’t verify that one because NASA didn’t have the photos to download.

            There are points of perspective that are totally wrong like a hill/mountain that gets larger as the astraunatu moves further away from it.

            Add it all together and I now do not believe the offical story of the lunar landing. It was nice while the fairy tale lasted for me, but I can only handle getting kicked in the teeth so many times and when a 14 year old kid is right and I’m arguing that the moon landing actually happened (him waking me up) how embarassing do you think that is?

            I can now say I’m a moon landing denier and I do think they went there but not with the technology shown to us. I have an idea how but that must be another thought.

            Regards,
            HR

          • Since when does the phrase, “I haven’t heard” me I’ve been exposed to every ‘the moon landing didn’t happen’ argument that’s ever been uttered?

          • BrentP wrote, “Since when does the phrase, “I haven’t heard” me…”

            Oh, my mistake then. I thought you were referencing the link I posted.

            If you have the time and the desire, check them out. You’ll likely be unable to say, “I have not heard a single convincing argument by the fake moon landing crowd.” after that.

          • “The Daily Bell has some good articles”

            Thanks Downshift. The “Wagging the Moondoggie” article is a good read. Particularly this:

            “To briefly recap then, in the twenty-first century, utilizing the most cutting-edge modern technology, the best manned spaceship the U.S. can build will only reach an altitude of 200 miles. But in the 1960s, we built a half-dozen of them that flew almost 1,200 times further into space. And then flew back. And they were able to do that despite the fact that the Saturn V rockets that powered the Apollo flights weighed in at a paltry 3,000 tons, about .004% of the size that the principal designer of those very same Saturn rockets had previously said would be required to actually get to the Moon and back (primarily due to the unfathomably large load of fuel that would be required).

            To put that into more Earthly terms, U.S. astronauts today travel no further into space than the distance between the San Fernando Valley and Fresno. The Apollo astronauts, on the other hand, traveled a distance equivalent to circumnavigating the planet around the equator nine-and-a-half times! And they did it with roughly the same amount of fuel that it now takes to make that 200 mile journey, which is why I want NASA to build my next car for me. I figure I’ll only have to fill up the tank once and it should last me for the rest of my life.”

            Oh, yeah. 234,000 miles on one tank of gas. That is indeed “one giant fuggin’ leap for mankind”.

            Brent, you might indeed like reading this:

            http://davesweb.cnchost.com/Apollo1.html

          • Ed,
            The quote at the beginning of the link turned me off. Why? Because I have an old aviation article where someone goes through the calculations that show 500mph is not achievable.

            Why should a space program not be subject to the same decay that everything government touches ends up having? Besides the real space program went or always was black.

            In the UFO community there have been people who claimed to work in area 51 or for contractors on various black space craft projects. They proved by taking people out into the desert and having the “UFOs” show up at the predicted time with military precision and regularity.

            The government lies to us. It lies to us all the time about everything. The thing to do is not jump to conclusions that an event didn’t happen or everything was fake because some lies show up.

            Yes, NASA looks pathetic compared to its past. But its now in the ‘safety’ culture. The moon landing was done by people who could tolerate very high risks to themselves. Projecting today’s safety culture back in time is a big error of those who think the moon landing didn’t happen. If NASA got its balls back it could do ballsy things again.

            Government is lying about two primary things in my opinion:
            1) Anti-gravity flight. Why? Because the technology would disrupt the status quo severely.
            2) What is on the moon. I believe something was found there that was disturbing to the state there. There are many theories.

            I think they found evidence of man on the moon. Not aliens. Man. But that’s just my jump of faith and it is as valid as that of anyone else. 🙂

          • “Why should a space program not be subject to the same decay that everything government touches ends up having? Besides the real space program went or always was black”

            Yeah, I would expect NASA to have gotten more incompetent in 40+ years, just as all such agencies have. Further on in the series, the author makes the same observation about the black budget nature of NASA and how its huge profile receded dramatically with the end of the Vietnam war.

            You and he come to similar conclusions in those areas. I like the guy’s writing style and the way he presents what he regards as important points.

            The series of articles has been interesting to me. I;m going to continue reading more tomorrow.

          • @BrentP

            “Government is lying about two primary things in my opinion:
            1) Anti-gravity flight. Why? Because the technology would disrupt the status quo severely.”

            Correct and many 1960s articles mention this technology being developed by no less than Hughes Aircraft.

            Bits and pieces are all there in terms of the knowledge of what gravity and the complete unified theory, just enough for the average engineer to get his assignment done. At this point the theory is not only understood at the macro level but as applied at the subabtomic level as well. Hence the technology has since been developed to actually use pertubations in the nuclear structure to produce something very similar to permanent magnetism say residual magnetism in Nickel or Iron but instead in various types of nuclear excitation. Again the forces are observed though very simply at the macroscopic level despite what people allude.

            I’m speculating that Nevada still has a majority of development on this theory.

            I suppose its still possible that rocket technology could have been used go to the moon, but obviously what we are seeing in the official photos (like the LEM) was never functional or real. Someday the truth will have to come out because someday going to space will be something ordinary people will be doing. How will the official story hold up when people can see all the equipment themselves? Its all speculation how we went but given that there is another technology not discussed in mainstream its most likely that is what was used instead of rockets.

            Rockets are plain ineffcient at energy to get to escape earths gravity. Heres an intellectual case to prove the point. Take a hot air ballon, how come it floats? Answer by Arichimedes principle. The fact that if you put a bowl in water and it floats. Mark the water line on the outside. Then fill the inside of the bowl with water to this line. Then take the water and measure its weight on a scale. It will exactly weight the weight of the bowl. Therefore to float the bowl must displace water equal to its weight.

            Analogy to the most perfect baloon? Take a imaginary surface, one that can assume a rigid shape despite a vacuum on one side and atmospheric pressure on the other. Now suck all the air out of this Volume, You’ll be able to lift a human being with no more volume say 10x10x10 feet. Why? Because you have displaced air in the imaginary volume equal to the weight of a human being. Now this ideal vacuum baloon does work. You can play with steel syringes in a bathtube and plug the one end where the needle connects. Pull a vacuum an the syringe will float. Release the syringe vacuum and it will sink.

            Do you get the process here suppose I make a underwater ferris wheel of a vacuum syringe. On the ferris wheel instead of buckets I have my vacuum syringes. And I decide to pull a vacuum on one have the syirnges on one side, and release a vacuum syringe on the other. Naturally the ferris wheel will spin? You now got a vacuum underwater motor, so what do you bet the amount of work to pull the syringes vacuums equals the amount of work coming out of the shaft of the ferris wheel? Conservation of Energy?

            And so now you take a vacuum baloon that doesn’t displace water but instead of air. Our wonderwoman vehicle. It so turns out the amount of work required to suck a vacuum to lift a human body (I say 10x10x10feet) isn’t that much work. And once done it doesn’t continue to require energy to stay afloat. And if this isn’t enough if you do the integral of the Newton’s law of gravitation and sum all the energy to escape earths gravity (integrate to infinity) it turns out that the amount of energy exactly equals the amount to suck a vacuum baloon. So therefore nothing is free but a rocket or even propeller aimed downwards that continues to consume energy to stay at the same position is not even close to a baloon or antigravity device to escape earths gravity. The latter being able to send humans into space on energy budgets.

            HR

            HR

          • Actually I forget the actual dimensions of a vacuum baloon to pick an average human beings weight up but I thinks its anywhere from 10ft^3 to 20 ft^3. Not a huge amount of space and not a huge amount of energy to create such a vacuum at atmospheric pressure. Remember once again the amount of energy to create this perfect vacuum is exactly equal to the energy to escape earths gravity. So this should give you all hope that in fact going to space isn’t going to be impossible, just impossible with rockets.

          • @Hot Rod:
            Fascinating analysis, the last part–that it takes as much energy to evacuate a 10ft^3 as it does to launch a man–very interesting. I’ll take your word for it as I haven’t done the math.

            @Eric re: Hunt for Zero Point, LOL! As usual Great Minds Think Alike…I just finished reading that myself!

            It’s definitely intriguing. The Krauts had a very different take on quantum; and I believe the current ructions in the physics community battling between the Copenhagen interpretation and Hugh Everett’s multiverse theory are symptomatic of the deeply flawed current model.

            Our understanding of quantum works, empirically. But it’s a failure at explaining the nature of reality.

            And it’s that failure that keeps me humbly thinking there might be more to this universe than we’ve conceived yet.

          • @Eric

            “Ever read Hunt for Zero Point by Janes Defense writer Nick Cook?”

            Can’t say I have read it but in the teaser leads. Most of my belief in these things is thought experiments using EM theory of my discipline. Followed with empirical experiments. What I do know is that the theory is self explanatory and that many have came across it doing exactly what I have done.

            I speculate the Germans did come across the theory many decades ago. Though I doubt it was a mistake like portrayed by the “Hunt for Zero Point”. Whoever came across it first was very much knowledgeable what they were doing and led the experiments not the other way around in my humble opinion. This was not Edison inventation but rather Tesla visualization leading to the final conclusion. The primary being observational and empirical while the latter being theoretical and visionary. BTW Tesla was involved in the theory which I imagine even sounds more bizarre and eccentric to lay people who see him as a magician and not as a mathematical and scientific genius.

            Further, the technology has been monopolized by our government and though I can’t say other countries don’t know about it I can say the U.S does know of it and actively researched/researches it.

            Tidbits of the technology have leaked out. But damage control is always done by disinformation. The beauty about the average idiot, is they can easily be made to laugh at exotic things they have no understanding about. I can’t remember what recreational drug I read about that they said that when you come back from the high, that life seems irreparably unreal. That is what is called getting stupid folks and a large percentage of society has a monopoly on this train of thought, like U.S. government has on antigravity research.

        • “the threading of this system isn’t very good so when I saw moon landing and 911 inside job together I naturally thought”

          I know what you mean, Brent. I haven’t mastered the threading on the siteware, either. This comment might not appear in the part of the thread I intended it for, but anyways…..

        • “I can now say I’m a moon landing denier and I do think they went there but not with the technology shown to us. ”

          Yeah, I’m more of a “moonlanding ROTFLMFAO’er”, but I have been impressed with the deniers’ points. When the scenes were shown on TV, it was just so laughably hokey, that all I could do was ……laugh.

          I was 17 at the time, and my brother was 15, I think. We were both in that “aw, bullshit” phase of teenagers, and I was probably toked up and prone to laughing fits that day.

          Anyway, my brother and I are the old men now, and our old man is long gone. No telling what the youngsters in the family think about what I choose to believe.

          I can easily picture my nephews laughing their asses off at something I take seriously. Getting old is kind of a humbling thang.

          • Ed, I realize you can’t believe everything you see or hear but that story played out so long people never considered they might be seeing a fake…..and I don’t believe it was. I remember being in the TT SUB and watching the entire take-off. There were friends who had HAM radios and had made their own recordings of the trip from signals they listened to the entire time. I think most of this stems from the pics that were made afterward in Hollywood that looked exactly like the originals. My cousin gathered some up and we compared them with a few other people. Then we all began to wonder….a little bit…..but since we all witnessed it and my cousin worked at Lockheed and had a lot of info most people didn’t, he seemed to think the photos were uncanny but it wasn’t enough to change anyone’s mind. And we may all be wrong and we were deceived but they did a lot of things to fill in every tiny detail if that was the case and I don’t think anyone devoted that much time to make a fake. I think just the opposite it true, that we found way more on the moon than was ever admitted.

          • Yeah, Eight, but I was talking about what was shown on TV. If that was some Hollywood crap, as you referred to, then it was pretty poor, and shouldn’t have been shown on TV in place of NASA’s real stuff.

            At the time, I just couldn’t stand TV news and anything they showed, I dismissed as bullshit. Here I am, almost 44 years later, still laughing at their 4th rate bullshit, so nothing has changed in that respect.

            Their recent “Bin Laden Raid” was no more believable and used even less in the way of props. Here’s my take on TV: everything on there is fiction, especially what they try to present as the truth.

          • Ed, the OBL thing was a poor attempt and deserves nothing but contempt. No telling how many people were eventually killed in order to keep the truth secret. I’ll believe what they have on tv when I see the helicopter land by my house on my tv and the guys jump out so I can look back and forth to see if it’s bs. Of course, how often do they post real time video on tv? Never? Maybe if it’s a big fire or something similar.

          • I know it, Eight. Me too. I’ll start believing their guff when I get to where somebody has to wheel me around from breakfast to the showers. 😉

          • Ed I think you and I are pretty much the closest on wavelength in here. The point is that I don’t fault anyone who disagrees with the deniers. I’ve kept an open enough mind to assume that its all conjecture at this point. There is plenty of evidence we went there but the official photos are a joke in my humble opinion. Anyone who disagrees with my assertions and has honestly looked over the facts then I’m ok with. Even I can see that some of the photos that he deniers present could in fact be proof of a lunar landing with the official photos. I think Jack was the first name of the guy to collect all the denier on an information site? If you want to look over a bulk of the presentation try to find his website.

            Again I believed in the lunar landing for a majority of my life and 98% of my adult life so I find it incredulous that even I have a hard time believing it happened at this point, but as far as I’m concerned the deniers layed out the evidence and NASA provided the bullets to shoot themselves with.

            As far as the clovers who want to kick dirt in the face of someone who is an engineer and looked at the facts logically so be it. That is a liberal or even neocon for you. Fact of the matter is that I was never concerned what the majority thought about anything in my careeer. If i had listened to them I’d be a professional ditch digger or worse yet a soldier in one those government propaganda wars.

            911, Gulf of Tonkin, the USS maine, Kennedy assasination, Operation Northwoods are just the beginning of the rabbit hole. Once you see the truth and acknowledge what these great deceivers are capable of you will be set free. The truths sets one free and again the reason for the lies of war are the same as 911 as the same as a fake moon landing they need to keep you in bondage. Keep you in fear of arguing that the world isn’t the center of the universe because someone might think you crazy. Everyone thought Tesla was crazy, in fact no great man has never been thought not crazy by the averages so if you see an untruth be truthful even if it causes you ridicule.

            As a final note for the regligious scholars I know you think U.S. isn’t mentioned in revelations. May I offer that your great U.S. is possibly the Mystery Babylon. You know the one who gets fire and judgement before the rest? With that said let it be known I’m not a fateful person, I believe in free will and have a hard time with revelations. But if the shoe fits…

          • Again I want to make clear that I don’t deny we went to the moon, just not with the technology and pictures shown to the public.

          • “The point is that I don’t fault anyone who disagrees with the deniers”

            I’m with you there Hotrod. I know myself well enough to know that I can look at the same thing someone else is looking at and miss something that they are seeing.

            I remember, though, that from the very first landing, there were people who doubted the whole thing. There was a movie made sometime in the 70’s (I think) that presented a story about a moonshot that went bad, and the whole shitaree just blew up before it cleared the atmosphere. Naturally, it was a great tragedy, and the astronauts were being mourned, but….

            They were still alive, and had been at the stage set where they were going to put on their space suits and jump around like fleas. They were fucked, y’know? They didn’t want to be dead and so the government tricksters had to try to shut them up or kill them.

            Anyway, There have been deniers from the earliest days of the “one small step for man, one giant fuggin’ leap for mankind” thing.

            At this stage in my life, I almost give a shit whether they managed to somehow send men to the moon. It turned out not be any giant leap of anything for anybody. Nowadays, it’s really just kind of beside the point.

            I can’t work up much of a feeling about it one way or the other, but the deniers are more entertaining to me than the NASA historians and all the rest.

            The way I see it, is that whoever believes the official version has every right to do so. The people who don’t believe it have a right to their view as well.

          • I purchased a book called ‘full moon’. It’s a large format book with photos from the moon missions. These are photos taken on film with a Hasselblad camera. At that size and resolution they do not look fake at all to me. They look like they were taken on a planet with rock dust black ‘soil’ and no atmosphere.

          • First of all, every one is welcome that I changed the subject from electric cars to a discussion about going to the moon.

            Secondly, the comment from BrentP about “us” possibly finding evidence of past men on the moon blows my mind, because I think that’s exactly what happened (if we’ve been there).

            Eric has pointed this out in past comments, but just imagine if we had a total collapse scenario and went back to the dark ages… how much of today’s society would remain 10,000 years from now? The greenie weenies tell us that styrofoam and ziplock bags take 2,000 years to decompose…multiply that times 5 and you’ve got 10,000 years later of cave men who had no idea what previous generations/societies accomplished. Let alone the fact the earth is BILLIONS of years old…how many times has this all happened?

            To quote one of my favorite lines in tv history (Battlestar Gallactica) “This has all happened before and it will happen again, and again, and again…”
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bOy3RNyWME

            Deep stuff.

            • This idea – that there have been high technology civilizations on earth in the very distant past – fascinates me. Not just because it’s a neat idea, but because it’s entirely possible.

              The Greeks were the first to record the notion that man is the measure of all things. Thus, we conceive of the passage of time in a very human way, in terms of the span of a human life. A very long human life is 100 years. Ten such lives – ten generations – 1,000 years. It is nothing in the scale of geologic time. The earth is – appx. 4.5 billion years old. It is an almost inconceivable number; a mathematical abstraction that is very hard to put in terms we can really understand in the same way that we understand 100 years.

              “History” – what we know about our own civilization is encompassed by a mere (appx.) 10,000 years, with 80 percent of it going back from the current era to appx. 3,000 BC – or about half of the 10,000.

              5,000 or so years. That’s it.

              What might have happened here say 50,000 years ago?

              How about 200,000 years ago?

  29. And this is where I can’t understand why they don’t push for more CNG convesions. With the price of natural gas so low it doesn’t make sense not to. With that we have the energy independence they constantly yack about while at the same time running cleaner and cheaper than either a pure electric or hybrid with those toxic batteries to deal with.

    • I’ve wondered about that also. Perhaps because it works?

      Seriously.

      Back in the mid-’90s, I attended several “ride and drive’ events put on by the car companies – GM & Ford were (apparently) very interested in CNG at the time. It looked as though they were going to roll out production CNG cars. Then it just… went away.

      IIRC, the conversion cost was about $3,000 – so comparable to the cost of “buying in” to a hybrid (vs. an otherwise similar car) and much less than the electric car “buy in.”

      Even better, you can have a large, V-8 powered car – and that, perhaps is why this alternative fuel has been sidelined.

      • In the early 1990s the SAE had a natural gas truck student competition with GM pick-up trucks. This where I became familiar with CNG vehicles. Eventually our truck was made dual fueled. It was a big pain to get it refueled with CNG and we were in Chicago.

        I believe it got sidelined because of the chicken and egg problem of refueling.

        CNG requires of course special equipment to refuel. The challenges of having the average american being able to refuel safely probably could have been overcome, but the places to invest in the infrastructure to refuel weren’t happening. Home natural gas service couldn’t easily be used to refuel either thanks to the compressed part. Electrics it is as simple as putting in a circuit for an electric dryer or stove or if you want to wait much longer nothing at all. A slow compressor might have been doable for home use but with much greater liability issues.

        That said government didn’t throw billions at it like they have with electrics. The refueling issue could have likely been solved for a tiny fraction of that.

        The cars themselves had one of the same problem as electrics, space for the fuel, but other than that no drawbacks of any serious nature. People were concerned about collisions but I don’t see that being more serious than with Li-Ion Batteries. The tanks were pretty damn strong and had to be because they were pressure vessels. Some sort of simple safety valve to shut if the lines were severed would probably be all that would be required other than good placement in the vehicle.

        • Yeah, I recall that, also.

          But as you note, the main infrastructure already exists (CNG lines, including to homes) and developing safe home refueling systems ought to be economically and otherwise doable.

          The “fast chargers” for EVs are not cheap, either.

          But the chief advantage of CNG is that the refueling issue is the only real issue.

          A CNG car doesn’t need hours to refuel. It can be made to run on CNG fairly cheaply. CNG is itself very cheap (and “clean”). Performance is excellent. Durability is outstanding.

          I’d much rather have one of the mid-’90s era CNG Crown Vics I drove back in the day than a brand-new Prius!

          • Oh there is indeed one very good reason for the political classes to dislike CNG.

            When anyone can run a compressor at home and refuel their tank at home, it is difficult to tax the CNG separately as “road fuel”.

            Perceived loss of fuel tax revenue (electric or CNG) is the impetus behind all those “tax per mile driven” proposals being floated by the parasites/political classes lately.

            The parasites are always looking to increase their take.

      • Here in southern Oz our taxis and many private cars run on either LPG or LPG/ petrol setup. Comparable economy and performance at half the price of petrol. This has been going on for at least 30 years here. Our petrol is quite cheap to extract, but it’s the gubbernmnt taxes that make it so expensive. LPG is taxed at a different rate than petrol. The LPG system costs about $2500 to $3000 to install, and is safer than petrol as the LPG tanks are made of thicker metal.

    • “why they don’t push for more CNG convesions.”

      Ahem….. why don’t they just quit pushing for anything? I hate being pushed.

      “With the price of natural gas so low it doesn’t make sense not to.” Converted autos use LP (propane). The price of propane is horrendous compared to what it was in the late ’90s. One of Clinton’s farewell gifts to his beloved subjects was an Indonesian gas deal that tripled the price of propane. It was costing me $800 a year to heat, cook and provide hot water in ’98. Now it’s over $3,000 a year after I dumped the propane water heater to save on fuel.

      It’s a fucking nightmare to fill those bottles. The little one you use on your gas grill won’t get me into the city and back, so I’d need the bigger one like you use for a gas fireplace and range. that’s too big for a car and too big to swap out every 400 miles.

      I don’t want to be pushed any more. Let the control freaks push each other off a cliff.

      Gasoline or diesel engines for me,and no more being pushed into using anything I don’t want to use.

      How ’bout a little of that?

      • It’s something of a rhetorical question. I agree that we shouldn’t be forced to buy anything. But since when have they NOT forced us?

      • Oh, and there again, who says it has to be the Feds who opt to “push” an efficient vehicle. The industry could do it without letting the Feds clobber them over the head with more mandates. Innovate and make them shut the hell up.

        • “The industry could do it without letting the Feds clobber them over the head with more mandates. ”

          I know it, MoT. I always wondered why industrial corporations didn’t just ignore federal mandates. None of these ridiculous things like the low-flow shower heads, 1gpf toilets or “water saver” washing machines would exist if not for the manufacturers caving in to federal regulatory demands.

          Speakman, a Delaware company which produced those great old ‘Health Club’ showerheads from the 1920s up until the EPA mandated low-flow, refused to sell me a gasket kit for mine. I bought one from an architectural salvage firm in Richmond and wanted to restore it with new gaskets and screws and called Speakman to order what I needed. Their salesguy said he had them in stock, but couldn’t sell me one because of the EPA reg.

          Ridiculous. Anyway, I made a gasket myself from sheet material and got the stainless screws from a fastener company I found online.

          • Ed, way to go. I do stuff like that on a regular basis. One side of my SS kitchen sink began to leak. I had some plumbers putty but that’s what had just failed. I looked around and spied a tube of Permatex High Temp RTV Silicone that I proceeded to put on both drains and that’s been 15 years ago. You can grab those drains underneath and try to wiggle them and only make the sink flex. It will outlive me.

      • Propane made its big jump when the Shrub got into office. But propane(I use it too at my house)is not CNG. While I haven’t priced CNG, it should be cheaper since there’s such a surplus and we’re exporting it but we import LPG. I paid $2.35/gal for propane last fill up….. a long ways from the $.48 I paid during the 80’s and 90’s. I have one tank with a wet line so I fill all my smaller tanks with it and save big.

  30. This is good news. Long live the combustion engine!! I’d take a hybrid over an EV if I HAD to…

    Related news: Coda went bankrupt.

    Any way I can get that Ford ad bigger?

    • Amen, Brandon!

      The truly sick/sad thing is we could have 60-plus MPG cars – gas burning cars – that cost less than $10,000 – tomorrow… if the thug scrum in DC would allow it.

      Instead, we get $18,000 cars that maybe get 40 MPG.

      But they’re saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafe!

  31. Bwahaha! Check this out E.P. a hot rod Trabant. Page is in Czech.

    http://fousaty.cz/trabant/

    My favorite ‘shitbox’ was my ol’ 86 Toyota MR2 and the 44 miles per gallon. Another goodie is the Datsun 280z, we have had probably four of those and wrecked a couple on icy roads. Once I came close to wrecking but somehow came to stop in the breakdown lane.

    • Pitiful, ain’t it. Before there was a soviet union to inflict such atrocities on Europe, the Czechs developed this massively cool, fast and reliable highway machine:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_87

      I spotted one in a Czech film and had to look it up. Awesome car, and the designers are the ones who developed the engine that was pirated by German designers and used in the volkswagen.

      Killer cars, those Tatras.

        • I knew that Tatra makes trucks and military vehicles. Pretty amazing stuff. I’ve also had the “real” Czech Budweiser while in Dresden. Yummy!

          • ” I’ve also had the “real” Czech Budweiser while in Dresden”

            I’ve never been there, but I heard that Dresden is right down the road, so to speak, from Prague. My wife loves Pilsner Urquell. Bet she’d love it even more if she could drink it fresh in Prague.

            • I’m off beer for awhile (so as to lose the gut I got over the winter) but I really like Chimay – “trappist ale” – comes in these big brown bottles and they’re a meal in one, I tell ya!

      • The Czechs also produced a very good (for its time) light tank, the 38(t). Ironically, these were well-used by the Germans in the Battle of France in 1940 and Barbarossa in 1941. Once it was “outgrown” (it’s turret ring was too narrow to fit a turret holding the KwK 40 75 mm gun, the chassis were used for a variety of tank destroyers and self-propelled howitzers, finally resulting in a little, squat tank destroyer called the Hetzer. The Czechs continued production of the Hetzer following WWII and found customers, including the Swiss who used them until 1971.

        • I saw one of them (Hetzer) at a re-enactment here in Texas 10-15 years ago. Former Swiss Hetzer. Pretty cool little tank destroyer.

    • I test drove the MR2 when it first hit the local dealership. I loved it! But then again I also once owned a 914 so small wonder there.

  32. I still say converting to hydrogen has to be the way to go. Every IC engine out there can easily be converted with a small timing change. All that’s left is to find a way for people to produce, store, and transfer it inexpensively.

    • “All that’s left is to find a way for people to produce, store, and transfer it inexpensively.”

      Probably, that could happen once all the barriers to invention and development are out of the way. The climate in the US for inventors is a drag. ‘Course it’s a drag on everybody, even the people working the most menial jobs.

      • One guy figured it all out, battled with the feds, everything… But the rare earth materials needed (which should be pretty inexpensive) are only being produced by China and they will not sell it to us cheap.

        I watch his page all the time for updates, haven’t been any for a while though. 🙁

        • And… I spoke too soon!

          http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/

          BREAKING NEWS
          April 18th, 2013:

          “We are looking into ways to reduce the cost of the system to make it affordable. The system uses very unique materials and their supply is very limited and currently expensive. We are looking into producing these materials our self or possibly just leasing systems as opposed to outright purchases. We are now focusing on the updated version of our Hydrogen generator that uses readily available materials – as opposed to our original generator design which required components that are now either too expensive, or too difficult to obtain.”

        • There are now mines looking to kick into gear here in the US that will provide those rare earth minerals that the Chinese have pretty much locked up. I went to a meeting in Boise and found out about one such mine going into operation.

          • Good work there SM. A utility tried to build a new power plant in CA recently. It started out as coal fired, then went to gas, then to renewables. The green groups all were opposed to any solution as they finally told the utility company they were opposed to ANY power plant being built. Check out the green groups and you will find they want to end the middle class lifestyle because they say it’s not “sustainable”. Note they have no opposition to the rich lifestyle, or the poor lifestyle. Poor people degrade the environment much more than wealthier people. My name for environmental groups is “the new communists”. These groups are such people haters. I wish they would all commit suicide and leave us alone.

          • joeellen,

            You might look at Delingpole’s book “Watermelons”–because that’s what these people are…green on the outside, red on the inside.

      • The cost and amount of electicity to hydrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen is more than the amount of power available in the final end product. Not to mention the explosive power of hydrogen that would need to be contained in a car crash. I do not expect to see H2 ever used in motor vehicles.

        • Good thing we have nice safe, non-flammable gasoline engines now, eh?

          There are other ways to obtain H2 vice electrolysis of water. There are other ways to store it vice high-pressure containers. Really cheap electricity would go a long way to fixing your first point. It’s the cost balance not the energy balance that needs to be addressed.

          Aluminum used to be very expensive too – until cheap electric power became available. Now we put soda pop in it and throw it on the side of the road when finished. Technology changes and what seemed “impossible” yesterday is in common use today.

          No one is expecting to drive down the road in the Hindenberg. Any future hydrogen powered cars will be at least as safe to drive as today’s gasoline or diesel fueled vehicles. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are already on the road, particularly in Norway and I haven’t heard of any gigantic explosions related to their use. Of course, this isn’t a hydrogen ICE, but still involves driving around in a vehicle with hydrogen gas on board.

  33. What Tesla fiasco?
    also…
    Exhaust driven superchargers do NOTHING to ” an engine’s airflow capability “, that’s a constant like the speed of light; it’s engineered into the engine.

  35. “The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge”

    Can someone translate this statement into Moron so that the Oval Office Sock Puppet, the criminal slime in both houses on Crapitol Hill, and the Tree-Hugging Envirotards can clearly understand absorb its message?

    • “Can someone translate this statement into Moron ”

      Hmmmmm, lemmesee……

      ‘Lectric cars are bad for the ‘virement and the ‘comony.

      / idiocracyspeak

      There. Even Burlap Obutthead can understand that.

    • I try not to refer to our dear leaders as morons. They are working from a different point of view in their own best interests. When I look at things from their POV their actions make perfect sense time and time again.

      • “When I look at things from their POV their actions make perfect sense time and time again.”

        I tried to look at thing from their point of view, but I couldn’t manage to get my head up my ass. Wonder how they do that? 😉

        • Amusing, but I find it counter productive to blame stupidity when what is at play is self interest. These dumb politicians with their heads up their asses keep coming out of this system wealthy. Stupid people usually end up poor even if they have a talent that made them wealthy.

          • Ah, but it isn’t counterproductive at all to ridicule politicians. That’s one of the things for which they have no defense and it can bring them down.

            I’m not saying that their intent isn’t selfish, I’m pointing out that they are asshats. There’s a difference.

        • Ed, I’d like to address that question. My theory is they’re born with no sense of direction(I have personally known a couple), no sense of smell but with an instilled sense of self worth only other people like them could instill(parents, grandparents, family of some sort), hence from one generation to the next. They use those senses and lack thereof to keep nose inserted wherever the smell of money and power is the greatest, hence, change of party to accommodate the greatest chance of personal gain. The more generations there are behind one, the better their chances. I give you the Bush family. Really, I give them to you. Don’t tell me what you have done with them,don’t want to know. It appears we’re going to have a new generation of Bush next election in Texas. Hoo boy, now we’re steppin’ in high cotton again…..or steppin in something.

  36. Something I noticed: The politically pushed technologies in recent decades have been limiting. That is they work to limit people’s freedom and independence. They are usually technologies that have little chance of success. If they have success they start moving from the ‘good’ list to the ‘evil’ list.

    • I’ve noticed that, too. Weird, eh?

      But then, you factor in the motives of the PTB – and it all makes sense.

      The end-goal of everything is to transfer power from us to them. What they seek is absolute, pervasive power – over every last detail of our lives. To achieve this, they must degrade us psychologically, materially and morally. They must turn us into children – but not merely children. Traumatized children. Damaged children.

      An entire nation built on this idea.

      • Pretty much.

        It’s the company town. I don’t know why people don’t see it. Family wise I was brought up hearing about the evils of a certain industrialist’s company town. The moralizing control freakish nature of it, the financial bondage of the systems, etc and so on. Yet my older relatives don’t see the government being used to implement the same damn thing for the same kind of people.

        • A Clover is confused upon meeting an Alien too evolved to say “Take Me To Your Leader”

          Explaining Why Men Self-Castrate In Service Of The Cult Of Government To An Alien

          [Larken Rose & Graham Wright]

          Explaining The Founders’ Piece of Paper That Legitimizes Thieves & Bullies To An Alien

  37. I’ll add a few more specific problems that have yet to be overcome.

    1. Battery size/weight/capacity – One of the primary challenges to electric cars is, of course, storing sufficient electricity to make the thing have any kind of usable range. We’ve been promised “breakthrough battery technology” for decades now, and we are barely further along now than we were 30 years ago in terms of battery storage capacity and weight/size. Pound for pound, gasoline carries vastly more energy than even the most advanced batteries available (made mostly of unobtainium). What’s more, the car gets lighter as you use up gasoline/diesel, whereas you’re stuck lugging around heavy dead batteries after they’ve discharged.

    Proposed “super capacitors” have also not materialized as a viable option. The theory is that a vast amount of electrical power can be stored in a really tightly rolled tube of metal that keeps the anode and cathode sides very close together (like a micron apart) but not touching. This permits very high voltage differences to be maintained, thus permitting very high storage capacities. Problem is, this gap has to be maintained or you will get a sudden discharge of all that power, like shorting out a circuit. There’s absolutely no way to safely do this in a mobile piece of technology like a car that runs the risk of having a wreck at a combined closing speed of over 100mph. It’s effectively like driving around an electrical explosion waiting to happen.

    If you actually look at mobile electronics evolution, longer battery life in notebooks and cell phones, and smaller size, is not primarily due to improved battery technology. It is due mostly to electrical components using vastly less power to accomplish the same task. And this was done all without government mandates or intervention, at dramatically falling prices and increasing capability. All thanks to relatively free market practices, consumer demand, and competition.

    2. Safety – Setting aside super capacitor light shows, batteries are problematic from a safety standpoint. Just look at all the problems Chevy had with the Volt’s batteries. Look at the Fisker Karmas that lit up like a meth lab in a New Jersey trailer park after Hurricane Sandy. Heck, just look at Boeing’s Zippo-lighter 787 Dreamliner battery fiasco.

    While it’s true that gasoline is flammable, nearly all the kinks have been worked out of that one over decades of improvements in fuel tank design and safety. It’s not perfect, either, but it’s 100 years more advanced than automotive batteries.

    3. Environmental Impact – It’s pretty well known that building a Prius is vastly more harmful to the environment than driving even the most inefficient, oil burning, 1970 clunker muscle car. This is because the manufacture of batteries requires large amounts of rare and highly toxic chemicals to be produced. The manufacture of these requires even larger amounts of intermediate products and generates large amounts of chemical waste. Then there’s no easy way to deal with the disposal of these batteries once the car is no longer serviceable (e.g., after a wreck, a flood, or it wears out). You may get 10-15mpg better than a comparably sized IC powered economy car, but that won’t amount to a hill of beans next to the mountains of toxic waste generated in producing the car and disposing of them later.

    4. Where do we get the electricity? – This is one that I hardly ever see mentioned. By shifting to electric, or plug-in-hybrid, cars you are merely shifting the location of the combustion process from inside the car itself to down the road at the power plant. This does provide a benefit, because the power plant is more efficient at burning fossil fuels and turning it into electricity than an IC engine is (considerably more so). However, if we shift the energy demand onto the electrical system and off the petroleum system, where wil the excess electricity come from?

    In most cases, at least pre-financial collapse of 2007-08, power plants were running pretty much at peak. No new power plants had been built in a very long time, and every time someone wanted to build another, it was a major battle against the local “not in my backyard” crowd. Ridiculous EPA regulations and eco-Nazi protests make it prohibitively expensive to built a modern, efficient, power plant. We’re stuck with coal and oil burning plants, too, due to those industries carrying “favored special interest” status with the past several presidential administrations. Nuclear is effectively dead after Fukushima, even though it was government regs that caused that nightmare, not an inherent fault with nuclear power itself.

    So you end up with an interesting scenario of environmental nutjobs forcing everyone to move towards electric cars on the one hand and environmental nutjobs preventing the building of power plants to provide that increased electrical demand on the other. It really is as if they wish to reverse society back to the stone age. Regressives is probably a better moniker than progressives.

    In a free market, power generation companies would be free to develop more efficient and cheaper sources of power but, at the same time, their feet would actually be held to the fire to be environmentally responsible and be held accountable for the total cost, and risk, of any corner-cutting actions that led to a failure of their system and harm to others. Imagine if TEPCO were privately owned and actually held accountable for the damage caused, and still being caused? Imagine if BP were held accountable BEFORE the accident rather than being permitted to operate under industry-written and sponsored regulations from captured regulators.

    But who am I kidding…

    • “It really is as if they wish to reverse society back to the stone age.”

      SJ, that is precisely their goal. Looking beyond the useful idiots who form the middle-management tier of this tyranny, are the real Elites–the globalist banksters who’ve conspired for at least 300 years to dominate the world.

      Their agenda is eugenics, mass depopulation (aka murder, democide), and neo-feudalism.

      We’re 80% of the way there.

  38. How about a solar/steam powered hybrid?

    Or nuclear energy…? Works real good for our submarines. Was good enough to power the First Generation Flux Capacitor in Marty McFly’s De Lorean Temporal Displacement Device. And it got up to 88mph pretty damn fast.

    By “Back To The Future II,” the Professor had upgraded that flux capacitor to run on…….Bio degradable trash products. 😉

    • Hi Mike,

      Solar has so proved unworkable outside of flyweight/composite/almost-bicycle machines; steam, on the other hand, is too cumbersome/heavy – and then you’ve got the issue of the high-pressures involved.

      Nukes? Fuggedaboutit!

      PS: You probably noticed the Kia review and a bunch of posts got lost. We moved EPautos to a new server and that’s why. I’ll be re-booting the review, but unfortunately, I don’t have copies of all the individual posts.

      Hopefully, this move will fix the monster problems we were having with the previous server.

          • Yes, a VERY SMART move indeed. I vowed never to have anything whatsoever to do with that company once I heard that they were supporting the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and that they refused to host the Rate My Cop website that was seeking to hold rogue cops accountable for their behavior. All in all, godaddy appears to be far too willing to engage in state-sanctioned censorship of the Internet.

            Oh, and I also understand from several acquaintances who’ve dealt with them in the past that their web hosting service just plain SUCKS.

      • eric, yesterday I read an article about the kid who built a nuke reactor when he was 14 and he’s now 19(what a memory, can’t recall his name today)about to start a company that builds reactors on a much smaller scale, presumably for anything where an ICE is now employed. They are supposed to be scalable via all parts being sized the same so as to use more or less for differing power needs. No doubt big oil via the govt. will never let one see the light of day in an automobile. Remember the Toyota/GM disaster that resulted in all electric cars from those two automakers being chopped up(illegally)on the Ca. coast as they were being loaded on a ship bound for China. GM bought the company that made the battery for the EV1, a mom and pop outfit that had just unveiled a new battery technology said to make the EV1 have the range of a regular car. They immediately shut the doors and destroyed all prototypes(or at least confiscated them)and did away with everything having to do with the company. I can’t remember the year, maybe 2007-8. That’s one way to keep battery technology OLD.

    • In spite of the wonders of the plutonium-fuled flux capacitor in Doc Brown’s time machine (later replaced by Mr. Fusion), the motive power to get the vehicle up to 88 mph was the Renault-supplied V6 (which put out a paltry 130 horses in CA), running on gasoline. Hence why when Marty went “back” to 1885 to rescue the Doc, and was set upon by annoyed Native Americans upset at his trespassing on their hunting grounds with his horseless carriage, rupturing the fuel line (and losing ALL the gas?), the car was moribund until they figured out how to arrange to hijack a steam train and get the locomotive up to the required speed.

    • I just saw one of those pathetic little shitboxes in an accident the other day. A total loss. Nothing but a hunk of twisted metal and powdered glass. I have no idea what kind of injuries the driver/passenger sustained (and not sure I WANT to know), but given the size and material with which those things are built, I’m not giving great odds of either survival or mere minor injuries to either one.

      Of course this is the sort of thing that the kept media won’t talk about…

    • Ditto that, Zil!

      Now, I’m not opposed to small shitboxes as such – I’ve owned several over the years and they met my needs at the time. What gets my back up is being told I will drive a shitbox. Or any other kind of car – or told I will do anything, except behave decently and not do violence to other people or their things.

      It’s such a simple thing. I own me – you own you. None of us own anyone else. Therefore, leave other people the hell alone!

  40. That’s a great article! And then there are the differences in climate across the country that make an electric car even more useless – in the south air conditioning is a virtual must unless one dares to leave it off and risk a heat stroke and in the north a powerful heating system has to cope with 20 below temperatures and worse, like 40 below, to keep the windshield clear and a driver from succumbing to hypothermia.

    • Hi Werner,

      Thanks – and, absolutely in re AC in summer (and heat in winter). These are serious issues – which is why EVs have often been limited to California and other mild areas. In my area, such a car would be useless for 3-4 months every year.

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