The economy must be doing a lot better than all the wretched indexes (number of people no longer even trying to find work, number of people on the dole, etc.) indicate. Otherwise, GM would not have announced it is committed to developing a new electric car battery capable of moving a car 200 miles down the road . . . at a cost of only $30,000 per battery.
(News story here.)
No word about the cost of the car it will go in.
The good news is, this prospective wunderwagen will be cheaper than a Tesla, which has starting price of about $70,000 – about $100,000 for the version that can go 200 or so miles on a charge . . . if you don’t drive it very fast.
What I want to know is who the heck is buying these things? And how many of them can there possibly be?
$30,000 is a lot to pay for a battery pack. And $70,000 is a lot to pay for a car – any car.
So, I dug up some numbers.
Turns out the Tesla is the third best-selling high-end car in California (where it doesn’t get too cold, an important consideration for an electric car) just behind the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and the BMW 5.
Sounds good – and is touted that way by the moo-cows of the media. But how many cars did Tesla actually sell?
So far, about 4,714. Out of about 1.6 million cars sold in California annually.
And with regard to those 4,714 Teslas, “sold” is probably not quite the right word to describe a transaction that involves a $7,500 kickback from Uncle (who steals it from you and me first) plus another $5,000 kickback from the state of California, which of course has stolen it first from the poor fools out there who continue to buy Corollas and Camrys and so on at full-fare on their own nickle. California also throws in – courtesy of more of other people’s money – a “credit” for installing the high-voltage charging station the Tesla needs in order to take less than several hours to re-juice itself. The charging station costs a another couple thousand for the electrician and the necessary parts.
As per Chevy Chase in Fletch, send the bill to the Underhills.
So, each Tesla “sale” costs taxpayers at least $12,500 (not counting the recharge station) in direct wealth transfer to each Tesla owner. It might be more efficient to cut Tesla the company out of the equation entirely and simply give 4,714 people “free” Fiat 500s. There could be a lottery. A new Fiat 500 only costs about $16,000 – and though it only gets 40 MPG on the highway, it can travel an almost infinite distance on the highway – and be refueled in minutes rather than hours – which the electric-impaired Tesla cannot.
So, GM wants to get in on this action.
I am hitting myself on the forehead with my shoe, Muslim-style, as I ponder the madness of it all. A madness made possible only via the insanity of government. Absent government – and its Soviet (or NS Germany, take your pick) industrial policy of funneling other-people’s-money into “investments” it deems worthy but which the market has shown no interest in… well, there would be no Tesla. No Chevy Volt, either.
And no demented program to design a $30,000 battery.
The Volt program is a failure of Edselian epicness. The cars are literally being given away – $200 a month leases for two years, for a car with a sticker price of $39,145.
You do the math.
Yes, Tesla has found a few thousand well-heeled suckers for its Volt – but even they have to be seduced with financial inducements that amount to one of the most egregious person-to-person wealth transfers ever conjured. I marvel there isn’t more outrage erupting from the millions of people struggling to make their $300/month payments on Corollas and Camrys (and so on) who are fleeced so that a few thousand very affluent people can be given a pile of cash equivalent to the cost of a new economy car so that they can drive around in a $70,000 electric car. I mean, what’s next? Paying people to live in 8,000 square foot McMansions so as to prop up the builders thereof?
What it comes down to is politics – and payola.
Even though there is no real market for electric cars outside of in-city/fleet users and a few other extremely niche markets – and no market at all (properly speaking) for $70,000-plus electrics like the Tesla, if you removed all the wealth transfer subsidies and forced its builders to sell them for what they really cost to make – they continue to be made.
Why? 
For the same reason that Ford would have kept right on building Edsels . . . if Uncle Sam had paid Ford to build them – and paid people to buy them.
Tesla and GM know that their losses will be covered no matter what. That there is no downside to throwing money – other people’s money – at projects that would otherwise never have been more than the scribblings of a madman on the wall of his rubber room.
The chickens will come home to roost though, regardless. 
Tesla appears to be a success because unlike the Volt (and other electric Edsels) they are “selling” them. But not very many of them. And only courtesy of jaw-dropping direct wealth transfers. Even so, there are only so many people with the financial wherewithal to drop $57,500 on a car – electric or not. I expect the buyer pool is going to dry up pretty quickly, once the novelty factor has worn off – and once people find out about the car’s significant functional limitations. Pretty only goes so far – especially when the car can’t be driven very fast without severely limiting how far it will go.
And GM will join the party a day late and a dollar short.
Whereupon it will stick out its hand again and “ask” for more of your dollars.
Throw it in the Woods?
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“I am hitting myself on the forehead with my shoe, Muslim-style”
lol
A Tesla caught fire after something damaged its battery pack.
The Real Lesson From The Flaming Tesla Video
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/10/real-lesson-flaming-tesla-video
Hi George,
I saw that – the Tesla fire vid – and was tempted to write something about it, but elected not to. Reason? I don’t see it (battery fire) as a significant problem. Not as such, anyhow. Gasoline fires happen occasionally, too. To my knowledge, there have been very few problems with modern electric car batteries.
Now, back in the day, Ford fooled around with a sodium sulfur battery. It had to be maintained at a temperature of several hundred degrees – else it would “freeze” and become useless. Now that was a fire hazard!
My beef – the real beef, as I see it – is that the Tesla is absurd.
A car with a starting price of $70,000 is by definition absurd as an “economical” car.
A car with tremendous performance potential that cannot be used more than once or twice without severely depleting its batteries – and thus, dramatically reducing its range and forcing you to stop for a lengthy recharge session – is as absurd as a BMW M5 or Corvette that comes with a gas tank that only holds a gallon of fuel… which you must re-fill with a syringe.
Any $15,000 new economy car can be driven farther – at much higher speed – for much longer than the Tesla.
And for less than the same money Tesla charges for its Model S, you can buy any of several high-performance cars that will out-accelerate it repeatedly. That can be driven at high triple digit speeds for hours rather than minutes – and take minutes rather than hours to refuel.
California has also instituted another hairbrained rule – 15% of each car lot must be the green fantasy cars. No word yet on how 15% of the sales must be those cars, but I assume that is coming. In order to break even the car dealers will be forced to take a loss on each green fantasy car and raise the prices on all the other cars. I predict a mini-boom for border state car lots, until California raises taxes on out-of-state car purchases to subsidize these Edsels.
Back to the original post, it’s clear from the linked article the $30,000 figure was for the cost of the entire car, not just the battery pack (though presumably after the tax credit)
That would be a heck of a price breakthrough for an EV, whether Tesla or GM or someone else made it.
Was there an earlier version of the press release that implied the battery pack alone would cost $30,000?
Yeah, go ahead and moderate out my comments. But “Back to the original post, it’s clear from the linked article the $30,000 figure was for the cost of the entire car, not just the battery pack”. So basically the author of this post misread the linked article and should take this post down and quit misinforming people.
One wonders how we have a free market left at all. Why bother when our enlightened “betters” can figure out our life for us and bring us the best of everything?
“Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.”
— Henry David Thoreau
I suspect those who hate the free market (yes including JP Morgan and others who brought us the Federal Reserve) have certain characteristics. Either they are simply impatient, or they love control – either to control others, or to be controlled. I’ll bet they are also believers in magic. The magic of fascism will save us, never fear.
I don’t actually mind if people want to believe in magic, or fascism, or control, or if they are just impatient, wanting others to fix things for them. I’d just rather be left out of their schemes.
In 1866, when Tesla was 10 he invented the vane-less turbine. It would produce an unheard of 10hp per lb. Ergo, a 300hp engine would weigh 30lbs.
Yes, the black box on Tesla’s Packard is considered a myth, but then so is much of what Tesla did for the simple reason that we don’t know how he did it.
Had George Westinghouse not cheated Tesla out of his patent royalties on the ac generator the 21st century would’ve arrived early, very early. He was forced to waste much of his time raising money for his various projects when, with his patent royalties, he could’ve been a millionaire able to fund his own projects.
Yes, the turbine engine had a problem of hot exhaust. But large trucks use it. With advancements a turbine engine would be the engine of choice. Especially a Tesla vane-less turbine engine.
But the powers that be were afraid of Tesla. Upon his death all his papers were shipped to Yugoslavia even though Tesla was a naturalized American citizen.
At the moment we are at the mercy of foreign oil. Why? The Germans used coal gasification back in the 1930s. Coal is the most abundant resource in this country. Yet, it has never been used to make oil. We also have, in Alaska and in many mid-western states, more oil than is in all of the Middle East. We have vast oil deposits on federal lands that are deemed off limits for oil exploration. The list goes on and on.
It is obvious that the powers that be don’t want us to be oil independent.
You are full of Tesla myth. He was not cheated out of royalties. In a gentleman’s agreement he let Westinghouse out of paying them provided Westinghouse supported him from then on, and he did. When Westinghouse died, his heirs did not honor the bargain. When Tesla died, the US federal government took his papers, decades later releasing them to the museum. I could go on, but you’d do yourself some favors reading books on the man rather than repeating myths.
The USA is not at the mercy of foreign oil. Never has been. As you mention, the USA and the rest of the Americas have gobs and gobs of oil. Middle east oil is good for the establishment, at least it has been for quite some time. Cheap easy to extract oil where the american taxpayer pays the political/war costs. It’s all politics.
This is the popular misconception about Tesla-Westinghouse. What Westinghouse did was con Tesla out of his ac royalties by telling Tesla that he was a beginning company that was unable to afford the royalties.
Westinghouse did not pay Tesla’s expenses for the rest of his life. Late in Tesla’s life, Westinghouse gave him $50,000. This was after Westinghouse had made tens of millions of dollars off Tesla’s ac patent.
Very interesting Comrade Peters.
In 1912, Tesla ran his 1912 Packard with a mysterious black box mounted on the front bumper. How did it work? No one knows.
He was about to bring cheap, clean, free electrical energy to the planet when JP Morgan shut Tesla down. This energy came from the earth’s stratosphere. If Tesla, using 19th C technology could do it, why can’t we?
The elites don’t want it. There’s not enough money to be made.
In 1967, Andy Granatelli, CEO of STP, ran the first turbine powered car in the Indy 500. It was so fast that it was over three laps in the lead when a 25 cent washer broke and Parnelli Jones, the driver, was unable to shift out of neutral.
The powers that be placed limits on the car. It ran well the second time but not as well. So, they placed so many restrictions on it that it was barely able to run and retired.
Where would we be today if our cars were powered by turbine engines, which have an average life of 500,000 miles?
It’s clear that the powers that be don’t want clean, cheap, affordable energy.
Tesla’s car is a myth. It’s just a story. The details vary from story teller to story teller. I have concluded it never existed, even though I believe that eventually cutting edge physics will prove the basic ‘energy from the ether’ idea correct in a general concept sort of way one way or another. they are already getting there by using ‘dark energy’ to explain things.
Chrysler worked on the turbine car for decades but could not make it work for the masses. It simply isn’t suitable for a mass market product at the level of technology when they gave up on the concept in the 1980s. Doesn’t mean something since then can’t make it work now, but it wasn’t crushed because it would offer customers freedom from the status-quo.
Turbine cars are not suitable… for what, pray tell?
Please keep in mind, the M1A2 Abrams makes 42 MPH using a turbine engine – with a regulator. 60 MPH is possible without the governor, but damages the drivetrain. Its closest competitor was a deisel engine, IIRC, but only capable of about 30 MPH (Of note, reading Wikipedia – that’s what the GOVERNED cross-country speed is, which sort of makes one wonder WTF they kept the turbine engine – MUST be a reason, since the speed governor probably is more involved than a Bolt-On, and would likely require lots of work to remove – which of course means, if the tanks are getting damaged, you’re f*cked and can’t run away anway – so why would one bother with a more expensive power train. Maybe to keep the contract money flowing? Wikipedia had a good article on this tank, from a layman’s perspective.)
So, anyway – I think turbines would be great, give better pwoer, make more interesting vheicles, and could likely be produced for little more cost than the standard ICE – IF allowed to mature.
We just can’t allow Clover (In this case, meaning Civilians, and term is used by TPTB) to have THAT MUCH power under the hood, though.
Not suitable for the masses. AKA Mr. & Mrs. Clover.
Sure, someone with training and technical ability who understood machinery would be fine with a turbine car. Mr. and Mrs. Clover, not so much.
Jean, it’s the twin issues of flexibility and efficiency.
Turbines are fairly–not very–efficient at WOT, maximum output. I say “fairly” because they waste a shitload of heat in their exhaust. That’s not a problem for fixed installations where that heat is in turn used in co-gen solutions, bringing overall thermo efficiency up.
Next, they’re horribly inefficient at part-load conditions. Horribly.
Lastly, their high operational RPM’s mean they have very poor transient response; in essence, gigantic “turbo lag” as they spool up, and they make very little power or torque at low RPM.
All in all, there are plenty of very good reasons why IC engines rule in cars, which require good torque across the rev range, good transient response, and at least decent part-load efficiency.
Where I *could* see turbines excel is as generators for hybrid electric cars. Note that the turbine would still have a lower pure Carnot efficiency than a diesel; BUT diesel is expensive, as is the engine itself. A small, cheap turbine engine running on LNG or LPG wouldn’t need the redemption of co-gen to be overall cheaper to run…due to the cheaper fuel cost and weight savings.
meth, so viddy me this: If turbines are so non-responsive, why has the entire agriculture spray plane industry gone to using them…and not recently? A spray plane has to constantly adjust to a changing load as well as air currents, keeping the plane at a precise height only feet above the ground and then needing that plane to come up to full power immediately(and lots of power too)so they can turn and not waste time and space for their next pass. And it’s this feature pilots and owners care a great deal about since wasting time on a big turn is wasting money. Once coming out of that turn they have to ameliorate power since now being lined up they must greatly reduce power and once again hug the ground. Just listening to one operate you can hear huge differences and subtleties in power being used. They sound good too.
AHHH….
Thank you for the explanation, Methy. Makes a lot more sense, now. Flexibility is key in a car, I’d think – and probably important for a tank, as well. 😉
I can also see various “hybrid” applications for it – such as a flying car (cross the MAW with WIG and a properly-designed car body, maybe making it broad stub wings? Or maybe an autogyro set of blades on top, designed to fold into the body/roof? Pure speculation, pipe-dream stuff, but I’d love to have a go.)
@8-south–
I didn’t know about turbine crop dusters. BUT, I suspect they’re turboprops, not turbofans or turbojets, right?
In the case of a turboprop you get a nice bridging between piston-engine flexibility and turbine-engine high horsepower.
Why? The propellers allow control of the “torque”, much like the torque converter in an automatic transmission. You can keep the turbines spooled up and in their power band, while you vary the actual output by changing the propellers’ pitch.
I suspect the sound effects you’re hearing from those crop dusters is the propeller pitch changing; as it increases, the load on the turbine increases. Same RPM band, different load.
I suppose you could do something similar with a CVT in an automotive application. But the efficiency would suck.
On another note, a friend at work who’s keen on this stuff told me that freight trains are converting to turbine engines–really surprising, until you think about it.
The diesel engines are very efficient; two-stroke supercharged diesels with highly tuned intake/exhaust paths that resonate perfectly at their preferred power band. So why go turbine, with their lower efficiency? Probably because LNG/LPG are so much cheaper per BTU than diesel.
john bear, I was all over those turbine cars back when, was convinced they’d take over since they created power by spinning and not that old piston, rod, crankshaft thing. I wasn’t surprised Andy was blackballed though since Jim Hall had effectively had the same thing done for innovative features that put his cars in unreachable win positions. Elvis was awesome in that turbine powered Dodge too ha ha ha ha. Turbines are still very expensive but if everything had changed to turbine in the 60’s they’d be as cheap as reciprocal engines, maybe cheaper. No doubt we’d have had our work cut out for us to keep out dirt in west tx. but I’m sure it would be solvable, maybe just a huge air cleaner made into the hood.
A German bought a Tesla and drove it more than any other person. From the translated article he loved the ride but eventually had to stop driving it because of the battery life issue.
Failed
The Tesla electric sports car in the long-term test
http://www.welt.de/print/wams/motor/article109822065/Durchgefallen.html
The guy apparently drives top of the line German cars a lot. So if he approved of the ride that means something.
Hi George,
Yup.
The car looks great – and (according to what I’ve read) handles well, too. It has superb acceleration as well… once or twice.
But that’s the problem. It is like having a BMW M5 with no more than a gallon of gas in the tank – and which can only be refilled using a syringe.
Dear Eric,
That’s a hilarious description.
You should write their company brochure.
LOL.
My pleasure, Bevin!
Gotta laugh sometimes, too!
Dear George,
I read that Lotus consulted with Tesla on the chassis and suspension design. So there certainly ought to be no problems in that department.
The problem with the Tesla is the battery, not the rest of the vehicle. If they could solve the battery problem, then the Tesla would be a pretty good sports car.
But of course that’s a bit like saying that “If pigs had wings they could fly.”
The problem is that as of 2013, battery technology is simply inadequate for this purpose. It’s okay for golf carts, but not for automobiles that need to travel any distance. The means of storing electrical energy just isn’t there yet, and wishing (or coerced government subsidies) won’t make it so.
Only 4,714 Tesla cars sold in California????? Must be the ones counted for sale on AutoTrader.com.
Bevin,
That is probably one thing that helped make “All quiet … ” so strong in its antiwar message. Almost everyone (~90+%) from the class that went to fight in the great war died or received severe wounds.
War is brutal to those that must do the fighting and the dying. It only benefits a very small minority.
8…we’ve done business with this guy
***post didn’t stick/pass go. site thinks it did. see if this bit o’ addendum makes it legal….
http://www.customprobiotics.com
we did not have a born again experience, but not a lot of anti-b use in our house, either. check the testimonials. and the guy is happy to talk on the phone, helpful. fresh-made seems like it could be better than off the shelf.
you look like bruce willis, then? ☻
Anti-biotics? That shit’ll kill ya.
Have you read this info about garlic?:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/09/joseph-mercola/beat-back-colds-and-flu/
yeah, but some shit is ahead of the ab’s in the kill ya’ line. the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend-&-i-just-hope-i-can-take-out-my-new-friend-before-he-takes-out-me…have ya’ heard about fecal transplant therapy? i shit you not… ☻
Unfortunately, ozymandias, yes I have.
I think of it more as a horizontal line, instead of a vertical/linear line.
They’re all coming at you/us at once.
which is why when someone sez “once more into the breach, dear friends, once more” i broach all the other available directions…my first rifle was a breach-loader – but it was inanimate….
“…have ya’ heard about fecal transplant therapy? i shit you not… ”
I could have sworn there’s a pun in there somewhere.
Thanks for the info ozy. Naw, not Willis, Barry Corbin. I just need a great deal of inflammation stopped I’d guess. Not so bad after sowing wheat today. Good old Vit. D
well, barry woulda’ looked better with no hair, than he did in that scene. it was the scene, or barry. scene won.
we do the d, too. 50,000iu in one tiny capsule. kind of like going back to sun-soaked equatorial africa. minus the sunburn. gotta’ be sure to sidecar with k, at that dose. and get your response checked, about a month in. after that, its been set/forget, for us.
“sidecar with k” Heh, I like that.
I have someone close to me that is trying to reduce inflammation, as well.
Trying lots of vitamins and minerals, and..fish oil… seems to be helping some.
Now if that certain someone would just avoid coffee and cut way back on red meat. …That’s a tall order though.
I’ve read so much about the subject I have information leaking out my ears. It’s frustrating not having a solution, like say, for a knocking engine.
All the while, I wonder how big of a role Geo-engineering plays.
yeah. fish oil can be good for it. one of us swears by “zyflamend”. and those tobacco extracts have some good (& opposite) reviews (amazon).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatabine
Thanks for the input.
“zyflamend” has some good stuff in it, but it has what I see as three red flags going for it:
maltodextrin
sunflower oil
vegetable glycerine
The idea of Anatabloc seemed interesting, but the product I saw seemed to be chocked full of bad shit:
magnesium sterate, a.k.a. soap scum.
titanium dioxide
“natural” glaze?
polysorbate 80 – whoa.
methylparaben – whoa some more.
I stopped researching that product at that point.
For inflammation, look up and look into Anatabloc. It’s and over the counter, but expensive, medication that is from, I believe, the tobacco plant. If you do some searches and dig into the matter, you will likely find the information about it’s amazing ability to reduce inflammation and “inflammaging”…increasing inflammation that happens in people as they get older. I heard about it from a speech made by Patrick Cox at a financial conference.
Your move.
Dream, I’ll do just that. I recently came across the existence of this product and had forgotten it. This could be a good answer. I appreciate it….and to everyone with a suggestion also. I’ll see if Anatabloc is available without the bad stuff. When I buy a candle I look for the presence of magnesium stearate and don’t buy one with that in it. I certainly don’t want to consume it.
It’s not even subtle any more. I wouldn’t be against it if the monarchs, the handlers, the media-star-worshipping manipulated alters were all getting what they want, but I don’t think that’s the case. It’s lose-lose-lose, everyone is starving for anything of the slightest substance it seems.
The amazing thing is all music they don’t sell. They fill the airwaves with repetitive play that makes them little profit. They gain some kind of control by keeping us keeping us bored and starving through the droning monotony of overplayed songs year after year. Capitalism is dead, long live Monarchism.
I was watching Nikita, it was nice to hear Song 2 by Blur, hadn’t heard it in a long time. They tightly control each instance of songplay, when the PTB allow a remotely decent song to be heard, it’s a big deal.
The whole premise of the Nikita series looks to be to legitimate the CIAs latest self-appointed mission: stopping sex-traffickers and mercenaries. More cock-blocking heroes in the vein of St. Lincoln, what a lot of sinister snakes those J.-Edgar-Hoovering-Zeds all are.
Crazy Town – Butterfly
http://vimeo.com/34001754
Come my lady. Come come my lady. You’re my butterfly. Sugar. Baby.
I’ll make your legs shake. You make me go crazy.
Such a sexy,sexy pretty little thing. Fierce nipple pierce you got me sprung with your tongue ring. And I ain’t gonna lie cause your loving gets me high.
So to keep you by my side there’s nothing that I won’t try.
Butterflies in her eyes and looks to kill. Time is passing I’m asking could this be real. Cause I can’t sleep I can’t hold still. The only thing I really know is she got sex appeal.
I can feel too much is never enough. You’re always there to lift me up.
When these times get rough I was lost Now I’m found. Ever since you’ve been around. You’re the women that I want. So yo, I’m putting it down.
I don’t deserve you unless it’s some kind of hidden message to show me life is precious. Then I guess it’s true. But to tell truth, I really never knew. Til I met you. See I was lost and confused. Twisted and used up. Knew a better life existed but thought that I missed it.
My lifestyle’s wild I was living like a wild child. Trapped on a short leash paroled the police files. So yo. what’ s happening now? I see the sun breaking down into dark clouds. And a vision of you standing out in a crowd.
Hey sugar momma, come and dance with me. The smartest thing you ever did was take a chance with me. Whatever tickles your fancy. Girl it’s me and you like Sid and Nancy. So sexy. Almost evil talkin’ about butterflies in my head. I used to think that happy endings were only in the books I read. But
you made me feel alive when I was almost dead.
You filled that empty space with the love I used to chase. And as far as I can see it don’t get better than this. So butterfly, here is a song and it’s sealed with a kiss. And a thank you miss. Come and dance with me.
Blur – Song 2 – “Woo Hoo”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc18xt5wQnk
Ach! I’m dying Tor, you reminded me of my all-time favorite car commercial ever–the eponymous Guy Ritchie BMW M5 play on Madonna:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb32qhvZe7s
The music of course is Blur Song 2.
And yeah. The M5’ll do that.
Dear Tor,
“The whole premise of the Nikita series looks to be to legitimate the CIAs latest self-appointed mission: stopping sex-traffickers and mercenaries. More cock-blocking heroes in the vein of St. Lincoln, what a lot of sinister snakes those J.-Edgar-Hoovering-Zeds all are.”
I would be reluctant to argue with that.
I do think that many MSM shows actually achieve the opposite of what the PTB intend.
I forget who it was who said that it is almost impossible to make an anti-war movie. No matter how you shoot it, it winds up glamourizing war.
Something analogous, but in reverse, happens with contemporary “cop porn.” “Cops” for example, may mean to be “pro-cop.” But it unwittingly looks like clips from Pro Libertate instead.
For me at least, Nikita is an anti-authoritarian TV series. Can’t speak for sheeple, who might read the Rorschach inkblot differently.
Bevin,
Two anti-war films that do not glamorize war:
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
http://youtu.be/obUVbFdGepM
Paths of Glory (1957)
http://youtu.be/TggLQHVcV_U
Dear mith,
I agree!
Rare exceptions. Not easy to do.
One thing the writer or director of an anti-war film has to do, is avoid depicting the actual life or death struggle the soldiers must endure.
Paths of Glory did that pretty much. It focused on the REMFs who sent others off to become cannon fodder. The injustice visited upon the front line grunts who had to obey or be executed provoked outrage at those who conducted the war.
But… if one provides visuals of the front line grunts surviving despite being given orders to commit suicide, the net effect is to make their actions heroic, and to make them heroes worthy of emulation. Result? Your anti-war film has just backfired.
Weird irony.
Good morning Bevin. I agree whole-heartedly. I just began re-reading Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? by James J. Sheehan. It documents the transformation of modern Europe. In the prologue Sheehan points out on Fed. 15, 2003, the largest war protest of all time took place in London to protest the impending war in Iraq. I hope he’s writing a follow up book to this since Bushco and now BO have turned the world on its head and the war mantra is alive and growing.
Johnny Got His Gun is as anti-war as it gets. Disturbing to say the least.
MoT, a great flick, should be mandatory viewing if anything should be.
Agreed. Haunts one forever.
I really like the show, and human slavery, parents selling their children, the state’s custody of prisoners, and so forth is always valid ground to discuss philosophically.
Besides anti-authoritarian, I am also anti-orthodoxical. In a nut shell, even selling your own child is something a parent weighs the pros and cons of in each instance. There is no magical orthodox frame of reference that allows context dropping and brings dogmatic compliance.
The Films of Guy Ritchie
http://vimeo.com/28190360
Following the NAP does not mean self-immolation, the NAP is not more important than your own life and happiness. If once in 100,000 times the best outcome is for crack Mom to sell her crack baby on Craigslist, then that is the best outcome and should be respected and tolerated.
CIA Vision, Mission & Values
Vision
One Agency. One Community. An Agency unmatched in its core capabilities, functioning as one team, fully integrated into the Intelligence Community.
Mission
We are the nation’s first line of defense. We accomplish what others cannot accomplish and go where others cannot go. We carry out our mission by:
Collecting information that reveals the plans, intentions and capabilities of our adversaries and provides the basis for decision and action.
Producing timely analysis that provides insight, warning and opportunity to the President and decisionmakers charged with protecting and advancing America’s interests.
Conducting covert action at the direction of the President to preempt threats or achieve US policy objectives.
Core Values
Service. We put Country first and Agency before self. Quiet patriotism is our hallmark. We are dedicated to the mission, and we pride ourselves on our extraordinary responsiveness to the needs of our customers.
Integrity. We uphold the highest standards of conduct. We seek and speak the truth—to our colleagues and to our customers. We honor those Agency officers who have come before us and we honor the colleagues with whom we work today.
Excellence. We hold ourselves—and each other—to the highest standards. We embrace personal accountability. We reflect on our performance and learn from that reflection.
The Contra Story
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/cocaine/contra-story/intro.html
Sabotage – Perfecting the Art of Surprise
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2013-featured-story-archive/art-of-surprise.html
basis those lyrics, i should be getting royalties on my posts. my used handkerchiefs, even. where do i cash my checks?
Sorry Eric but I have to disagree with this whole article. I think its pure genius on the manufacturers part. They produce an electric car that meets government MPG standards but is too expensive or useful to purchase? Sounds like a HUGE tax right off and a nice bailout. You can also advertise that you are “Green” by going electric and all the simpletons line up to by your other products. AWESOME!
Corporations are going to go where the money is. Since there’s no money in the consumer space anymore, they’re going to get it from the government instead. If they weren’t playing around with batteries and electrics, the shareholders would be pissed.
There is a lot of money to be made in the consumer market, just not for big clunky corporations like GM. I used to like GM cars when everyone else didn’t, the problem is that everyone else seems to still not like them and I’m not fond either of their products since becoming government motors.
On another note this site sure seems to attract people with the name Eric. I guess it is to be expected since the site is ericpetersautos.com (smile).
I never knew so manys smart Erics in my life:
EricB
EricG
EricP
EricA
EricD
…
Grin
My response:
No, JoePA is right on that – it’s a GREAT scam.
Once you stop trying to play the game HONESTLY?
The old rules don’t apply, so it’s a question of CLAIMING more than you SPEND, getting the write-offs, meeting the quotas and fleet limits, and then pocketing the difference, and “apres moi, le deluge!” (After me, the flood.)
I say we treat them tot he same future they laid out for us: Work until you die, then DIE already. We’ll “help.”
After all, they’re not playing by the rules – why the hell should we?
The old rules don’t apply, so it’s a question of CLAIMING more than you SPEND, getting the write-offs, meeting the quotas and fleet limits, and then pocketing the difference, and “apres moi, le deluge!” (After me, the flood.)
Yep. The market for just about anything and everything is now so distorted by government interference that it’s just about impossible to measure actual demand by any traditional measure. This is also why it’s becoming more and more difficult to find large, established firms here in the UFSA that make quality products that real (i.e., non-government) consumers want at prices that they’re willing to pay
Heh – OT, but – speaking of “government interference” –
Looks like my time here (Work) is coming to an end one way or another.
They just decided they wouldn’t renew my co-contractor’s contract.
He indicated that means they’re renewing mine – but I know where this road goes.
Anyone know of good openings for (software) Performance Engineers used to working on web projects? I can do a few other tricks, too, but that’s been my primary for a while.
Good thing I saw the writing on the wall and updated my resume.
Let them go to India to find people willing to work this job for pennies on the dollar.
They can then go F*ck themselves when it doesn’t work out (it never does, and that’s not the fault of the Indian worlers, just a basic fact of Physics: You NEED to be able to talk to people, face-to-face. BTW, they were BOASTING just the other day at how good / profitable / cost-efficient the transtion to IBM support has been – and they won’t even buy us the ahrdware required to run Loadrunner. Wonder where all that PROFIT is going. )
Jean, interested in working in the patch? Texas? Oil companies and their support industry are trying to come up to speed. They’re changing their old way to work for newer, more streamlined specific software just for them. They’re catching on buying millions of dollars of generic software from big companies who have good sales staffs isn’t working for them.
EightSouth,
Thanks for the suggestion – I’d love to GTFO of the New England. And getting out of the Finances industry might be good, too.
Jean, I’ll ask an old buddy who has a software company and employs people to do this very thing if he has an opening or knows others who do. If you’ll give me some specifics on what you do I’ll send it along and if I get a positive response I’ll hook you up with these people.
@8-south:
Is your buddy down in Texas? I’m always looking for side gigs…and I’ve noticed the trend you’re talking about. Even the big players have figured out that the slick Ferrari-driving Oracle/Microsoft/IBM sales guy is driving a Ferrari for a reason–and it ain’t necessarily because the software’s so good!
I’ve heard so many nightmare stories of extremely highly paid SAP consultants draining the budget and leaving them with a crippled business. $300/hour to tell them they have to re-engineer their business process around the way SAP works…not the other way ’round.
Maybe we can ask Eric or Dom to send you, Jean, and me an email so we get each other’s contact info?
I know it’s kind of a PITA, but if ya’ll register here you can private message each other and create posts/threads/etc..
http://ericpetersautos.com/forum/register.php
Dom,
Thanks – Registered, need to confirm when I leave work. 🙂
Now, maybe we should talk more bout leaderless stuff. 😉
meth, most of the companies I know about are in Tx. My buddy’s company produces a monthly newsletter and earlier this year one of the longest involved software tailored to a company’s need and not generic, costly crap a company would be held up by constantly needing a contractor(s) to help them with it. I’m trying to get the details worked out to contact you and Jean directly. We’ve hit a temporary snag.
8-south, Jean,
I just PM’ed you both on the bulletin board.
Thanks Dom–kinda forgot about that, derpa-derpa-derpa day for me 🙂
Um, Dom, according to http://ericpetersautos.com/forum/forum.php, I’ve been banned.. Probably a glitch, but please let me know – steyraug96 -at- yahoo email.
Jean, does it say it after you log in? I have the forum locked down super tight. You have to sign in to see it.
“Maybe you should redirect your ire from Obama and his ‘thugs’ to George Bush and his ‘thugs’.”
Wake up LIVs (low information voters), they are all thugs.
I can solve most of our economic problems with two words — “term limits”.
Clay,
Term Limits aren’t enough.
Public executions must go hand-in-hand with them, and also – it is ESSENTIAL that these parasites have LIFE limits, as well.
Of note:
– Term limits: May server no more than twice in government (Thinking Fed; maybe local, too?)
– LIFE limits: May not occupy more than two offices in their lifetime, INCLUDING SCOTUS.
– Succession: No politician may succeed himself in office.
– HIGHER level of scrutiny than an average citizen; NO expectation of privacy, anywhere, ever. You are a public official: All you do MUST be presented to the Public, ON DEMAND.
I’d also suggest a sunset clause for SCOTUS, so that you cannot serve under certain conditions: Mental defect (alzheimers, schizophrenia, etc.); Conviction of a felony; disbarment; Age (Over 80, you’re out of touch. We have minimum ages for the same reason, essentially – though it’s “lack of wisdom” or Maturity.)
So the entire “Ruling Elite” concept falls apart immediately.
This means no capacity for Lobbyists to form close partnerships with liars, nor can the law-makers exempt themselves from their laws: They will have to have REAL jobs, and deal with all the problems any enacted law presents.
This means they look VERY carefully at laws, AND read them before voting on them.
Of note: ANYONE who says something as assinine as, “We need to pass it to find out what’s in it!” (or anything even remotely close to tossing aside discussion in favor of knee-jerk reaction/immediate vote) should be summarily executed for gross negligence and violation of the public trust. I’d suggest we resurrect cruel and unusual punishment for that, too: Tar and Feathers, or fire ants, or death of a thousand cuts. Painful and public. And disgrace to the family as well – they are to be shunned from society, denied admission to any quality universities, etc. Let them scrounge.
If pols are too stupid to save themselves, they’ll STILL save their families.
@Jean – “Of note: ANYONE who says something as assinine as, “We need to pass it to find out what’s in it!”
Whoa. And most just wheel home, pop a cold one, and crash in front of the one-eyed LED baby sitter. We have arrived at idiocracy haven’t we?
Well, at least we still have a separate toilet…
But – YES, we are at the point the lunatics are running the asylum.
@Jean
Me myself I don’t see anything that can be done to make good on the system except natural entropic decomposition. Sure we could get out the shovel and go bury it, but why when a little distance and maggots do a far better job cleaning it to the bones? Just stay out of its way while its thrashing and let economics take its course all by itself.
I’m personally open to bringing back the opium dens that were in China. I bet half these political control freak adrenaline motivated creatures would disappear in them to never be seen again by polite society. It might be the only government program I’m willing to support actually. I’d also bring back the Duel and offer a place for gangbangers to have at it.
HR
Hey HotRod–now THAT’S an idea I can get behind….
…feed the fuckers a little of their own “medicine”. They’ve been profiting off the poppy plant for hundreds of years both directly and through the enslavement it produces.
How is it that Afghanistan’s share of world opium production went from about 7% pre-American-invasion, to more than 90% since “our boys” have been there? Just a massive coincidence I bet.
But introduce the sociopaths to their own product? Delicious! I’d donate monthly for the poor dearies to enjoy their “cruel new mistress” (to quote a Bond film).
Actually didn’t a Rockefeller die of a heroin overdose in the 70’s? I believe it was Nelson’s reason for introducing the draconian mandatory sentencing in NY at the time.
I agree with allowing outlets for violence, including dueling. I’d insist on the classical rules for that, though – single-shot pistols. NO cover. No vests, either.
And maybe snipers so that the duelists ALWAYS hit their mark….
We can run out of worthless scumbags FAR earlier than we run out of bullets – or people willing to take the shot.
For some reason, people have an aversion to blood (myself included). I recognize it means there’s a problem; many people think it means the world is ending. Yet there are more fatalities from Boxing, or even WRESTLING, than the “brutal” cage matches of the UFC.
And there isn’t the brain damage, either.
for all practical purposes, termites are limitless….
Ebola is more efficient. 😀
Not really madness, it’s more like retardation.
Madness?
Can we separate GM from the government any longer? Can we separate GM from those who own the government?
The american ruling class creates an agenda. It is pushed through advertising, “news”, and “education”. Then it becomes the thing to do to look good socially. To advance one’s career. Then people carry it out.
Not madness at all. Quite logical and predictable.
Brent, purple, black, green, polka dot, at this point I don’t care.
All this financial misery is due to the 1988 “Global Warming” swindle that James Hansen from NASA GISS started. The IPCC are currently scrambling to explain the almost 20-year “pause” in global warming (Gorebull Warbling) as something OTHER than the oceans turning into their cold cycle and the Sun having as few sunspots in solar cycle 24 as the Little Ice Age which ended in 1850 – which is as far back as their charts will show to prove their lies.
The money coming from grabbermints for this fraud simply creates more “scientists” that toe the line and spew the grabbermint message. An excuse to tax us all for breathing and give the US EPA unlimited power.
Around a billion years ago the Earth had some 35% atmospheric CO2 and the wobble in the orbit (Milankovitch Cycles) caused by Jupiter and Saturn created a snowball Earth. So much for CO2 causing warming.
65 million years ago we had some 15x our current CO2 (now some piddling 400 parts per million) and there was never a runaway greenhouse – ever.
1000 years ago the Vikings were farming Greenland and grapes were grown in England. Those grapes can’t be grown now because it’s too cold and the Viking graves are now in permafrost which can’t be dug without hydraulics.
The proof of which can be seen in many London streets named after wineries.
The longer this scam continues, the more you’ll pay for EVERYTHING. It’s a simple fact. There’s no hard evidence available that shows CO2 does anything more than feed plants – and it’s been dangerously low for millions of years.
Oceans can’t become acidic because they always brush against alkaline rocks and, when they warm they outgas CO2. Try and open a warm bottle of soda water against a cold one. I’ve personally placed some eggshell (calcium carbonate – the thing that they all say dissolves in acid) in soda water for a month and nothing happened, considering the oceans will never become that CO2 saturated.
People have only a 20-year memory. They’ve been convinced there’s no such thing as photosynthesis. The very plants they rely on are under threat from policy. Sequestering CO2 is a bad idea and, turning food into biofuel is even worse, considering it makes food prices double in poor countries.
I’ve managed to live through some 19 “Doomed Earth” scenarios predicted by anti-human (eugenics) Paul Erlich (Royal Society) over the decades, none of which came to pass.
The IPCC will also have to explain how there’s a near 20 year pause in warming, in connection to Hansen and his team’s corruption of the real temperature data trying desperately to show there’s a warming:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/destroying-evidence-at-the-ministry-of-truth
The truth is here:
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/trend-211.png?w=640&h=480
Yes.. They’ve been lying to you. Study such things as “Climategate” and Anthony Watts’ excellent SurfaceStations Project:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf
Which shows how the vast majority of temp stations across the US aren’t reliable to begin with, let alone Hansen’s data corruption.
They’ve been changing their meme for decades, from Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) to Climate Change, Climate Corruption, Carbon Pollution etc. All in an effort to tax you more.
This planet suffers a deep ice age every 100,000 years thanks to Milankovitch Cycles:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Temperature_Interglacials.gif
CO2 rises some 800 years AFTER temperature does:
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/carbon-rises-800-years-after-temperatures
And, we are only heading for another ice age, not human-produced (animated GIF):
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim3.gif?w=640
“Piltdown Man” was a 40 year hoax. AGW is currently the largest and most expensive ($100 billion) scientific scam ever perpetrated on the people.
Windmills don’t create the energy they’re rated for, are subsidised by you in your electric bill and simply make money for the owner of the turbine and landowner and kill countless birds and bats.
Solar panels in Australia are heavily subsidised and paid for by you. If your neighbour has them then you’re paying for his power.
We already know most electric car batteries such as the Prius cost more in CO2 terms than they save. It’s all just plain evil.
I could continue my rant but I’ll leave it here. After all, studying this for the last 6 years simply makes one angry 🙂
Revolution, but it’s a GOOD kind of anger, the kind that keeps you warm so you’re ready when the action starts!
I love reading Steve Goddard’s site. Short, sweet pithy posts every day that just skewer roast and barbecue the meteorological morons.
It’s so much fun watching the global warming hoax falling apart day by day.
I love Goddard’s site too meth. Keeps me interested. We used to blame witches for bad weather in the 1300’s. Sadly we haven’t evolved since.
James Delingpole at The Guardian is good also.
Hansen is a state intellectual. He does what makes his career.
The CO2 based global warming scam comes from those who decide what will get a person ahead in their career. The CO2 scam specifically is far older. It’s been gradually introduced over decades, at least as early as the 1970s. That’s how it is done. Slowly make something a social belief, a cultural norm. Then the people who don’t believe in it are outcasts.
That said, the environmental scam, the scam that says ‘obey and pay us or nature will kill you’ is ancient. It goes back thousands of years. CO2 is just using state intellectuals, the current priesthood, to make it seem like science to people so they will adopt it as their belief.
Hey Brent –
I just cancelled our subscription to Scientific American. Three articles in the last issue peddling the AGW scam (including one urging kids in government schools be taught the urgency of imposing controls on the output of human activity-produced C02) pushed me over the edge. The mag is an organ now, not a “scientific” publication.
Dear Eric,
The mag is an organ now, not a “scientific” publication.
Right!
Consider this shining example of its “scientific” credentials.
Fahrenheit 2777
9/11 has generated the mother of all conspiracy theories
By Michael Shermer
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fahrenheit-2777&print=true
Temperature differentials of hundreds of degrees across single steel horizontal trusses caused them to sag–straining and then breaking the angle clips that held the beams to the vertical columns. Once one truss failed, others followed. When one floor collapsed onto the next floor below, that floor subsequently gave way, creating a pancaking effect that triggered each 500,000-ton structure to crumble.
Cough! “BULLSHIT!!!” Cough!
Bevin, also note that this article was in the 2005 archives. SA has been an organ for the collectivist apparatus for quite a while.
Yep. SA is part of the mainstream. It is about reinforcing what we are supposed to culturally believe. Or else.
Anyone with any engineering education or even a good natural sense of structure that takes one good look at the structural layout of the towers knows the government floor truss theory is absolute
Yep. SA is part of the mainstream. It is about reinforcing what we are supposed to culturally believe. Or else.
Anyone with any engineering education or even a good natural sense of structure that takes one good look at the structural layout of the towers knows the government floor truss theory is absolute bunk
Dear Ed, Brent,
Yeah. It’s really sad when “Scientific American” degenerates to the level of the bad old Cold War days of “Soviet Science.”
The allegation that a building can collapse at free fall velocity as a result of structural members failing sequentially, floor by floor, is an absurdity that even a high school science student should be able to see through.
Structural engineers know perfectly well that is categorically IMPOSSIBLE. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
That sort of failure requires TIME for each floor’s structural members to gradually fail, one after the other. That sort of failure simply cannot occur in mere seconds.
AE911 has demolished that nonsense repeatedly. Yet two categories of Americans keep the lie alive. The nomenklatura and the sheeple.
While it’ s indeed impossible for a building designed around a massive steel and concrete core to have collapsed in that fashion, it’s absurd to try to push the idea that two nearly identical buildings collapsed in identically the same way. SA ignores that the buildings didn’t crumble, they were explosively reduced to very fine powder (the concrete components) and relatively small sections of steel.
What’s even more absurd is to accept, as SA does, that three buildings could collapse into their own footprints, due to fire and airplane collision, when one of them (WTC#7) hadn’t even been struck by an airplane.
As to SA “degenerating” I can’t say. I never subscribed to it, not being much of a mainstream science devotee. Maybe they were better at one time, I don’t know.
Shermer’s argument is the standard shill pabulum…he even uses the catch-word “pancake”.
Have ya’ll seen some of the immediate post-strike “man in the street” interviews? They had crisis actors in-place promulgating the “pancake” theory instantly, before the dust had even settled.
But here’s the wonderful news–look at the comments! I just read the first ten, and every one is either firmly against Shermer or questions the official narrative.
Guys, we are winning. It’s up to us to push in every way against the leaning edifice of Ozymandias. Even something simple–go print some 8×11 signs, get them laminated, and stake them up near a busy intersection near you. I’ve put up a quick series, one after the other about six feet apart–“Government Lies To You”, “Government Spies On You”, “Sick Of It Yet?”, “Infowars.com, http://www.ae911truth.org”
Simple stuff. Who knows who it will touch? But if 1/100 respond to it–if it’s that 81st time they’ve questioned, and that 81st time sends them over the edge to awakening?
It’s going to collapse. And it’s going to be deeply ugly. But the martial law won’t work; we’re too well armed, and we’re too many awakened already.
Our job is to awaken as many as possible NOW–not to bring it down, but to bring it down faster and have a critical mass to rebuild a true Republic afterward.
I hope like hell we’re ready for a true anarcho-capitalist system, but I fear people still aren’t fully ready. But at the very least, we’ll be rebuilding small local institutions first…where the politicos are close enough to walk to their houses and “discuss matters” when needed.
Trick is, we need enough people after the collapse to avoid a Stalinesque Strong Man–put there by the exact same Elites–taking over.
methyl, this series is pretty great on 9/11 facts:
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr67.html
@Ed re: SA’s past
Indeed…when I was a kid in the early 80’s, I devoured Scientific American. It was chock-full of equations that were far above my math skills at the time…but backed with enough prose that I could digest the overall theme of the article.
It was truly an advanced layman’s scientific magazine.
No more. It’s worse than “Discover Kids” now; dumbed-down editorialized “science” bereft of even a hint of deep science.
Their new motto: “Math is Hard!”
The same reason I stopped subscribing to New Scientist–just another AGW shill publication.
BTW have ya’ll noticed the new “scientific” mantra–“there is no free will”? They’re trying everything they can to reinforce the publik skrewl teaching that we’re nothing but animals; smart monkeys; hairless apes.
B.F. Skinner is cackling in his maggot-filled grave; Aldous Huxley is masturbating in delight, his corpse no doubt mummified by the chemicals he ingested.
It’s vital to the “Elites” to convince us we’re soulless automatons, hateful animals to be herded and butchered at will.
Strangely, it’s their very evil–an evil so transcendent it boggles the mind, an evil that demands child sacrifice among other horrors–that’s slowly but surely convincing me that the new western “scientific” reductionist, materialist worldview is wrong…and that we’re more than bioelectrical computers in an organic spacesuit.
Let me summarize:
Scientist = Wear a white smock like a doctor. Buy some nerdy glasses as only smart people wear nerdy glasses. Let your hair grow out and look wild, everyone knows that smart people look like Einstein (long hair freaky hippie- who incidently was a fake) and that guy on Back to the Future. Pretend to care about the truth, while holding your hand out for money from big Gov. BTW I’m not against long hair freaky hippies, only ones who look that way to try to act smart that really aren’t.
American = Holding your hand out for money from big Gov when not placing it on heart for national anthem at football stadium. FoooootBall.
Scientific American = Parasite, Lying, Money Laundering, and Pretending to be smart when IQ is actually 100 or less.
The problem with the word “Science” is that its been detroyed and misused by Politicians and government to the point that we need a new euphemism just to make honest a group of people who actually still believe in pursuing the truth for the sake of it. Please people don’t take anyone serious that is in a white gown smock.
And yes I know I capitalize at all the wrong places. Sometimes I like to break the rules and like to get a little even with the wierd English teachers in my past. I’m actually thinking that the smock people that call themselves scientist are basically unemployed liberal arts, English, and history teachers that couldn’t find a job in their profession. Its the make shovel ready work, courtesy of the Feds saving our economy.
@ Methyl
“Indeed…when I was a kid in the early 80′s, I devoured Scientific American. It was chock-full of equations that were far above my math skills at the time…but backed with enough prose that I could digest the overall theme of the article.”
I remember one article in Scientific American about 1990’s that was about the Steiner shortest path algorithm. Spent some time trying to find a linear solution to solve the exponential growth of solving for more points. One day in my sleep it came to me that the reason the number of segments grew by s=2n-3 where n is the number of points and s the number of segments to form a short path network was because in essense the soap bubble computer (minimal path) was a truss. Actually I woke up from my dream and it became obvious how to solve the problem. I still have all the derivations in my garage somewhere that I thought of sending to the editor of the Scientific American back then. The real solution involves using calculus, statics and dynamics, and trigonometry to avoid the NP hard problem.
I bought quite a few SA magazines in the 90’s. Though I haven’t even considered it since the internet came full bloom. Why? I mean why not just do a google search for whatever interests you. That way you can connect up with other like minds on pioneering technology if that is what you so desire. SA has outlived its purpose and become a propaganda rag. I’m sure they still have a few brain teasers of some real science, but that is what they do is mix up the real shit with the fake stuff so no one can discriminate BS from truth. No need to depend on the editors of SA these day.
Hey Methyl how is consulting working out for you these days? Haven’t heard much from you on here for a while. Doing much drifting? You ought to bang out your own company, you seem up to the task if you haven’t already. Biz here is booming. Take care and stay righteous.
Regards,
HR
Hey methyl I meant to say that article was 1989 I believe. Heck I mix up the 80’s with the 90’s. I mean everyone so down on the 80’s techno by the 90’s, they were too busy with their asses hanging out of those big baggies listening to ill fated gang poetry sang as a stupid song, then calling the 80’s too retro. Well I still like cottage cheese on my ceiling, like the 80’s and even the 90’s grunge, and too me all these decades seem like a blur of the same old stupid. These days most them 90’s kids have filled those big baggies with their big butts, you know drinking slurpies does that. But also I find that the bigger your pants, belt and SUV the more a person just tries to fill a vacumn just like nature. Us 80’s guys and gals understood that nature abhors a vacumn so keep it small to start, heck rule of thumb to all youngsters is to pick a girl that is a rail thin, most likely everyone gets bigger with age. You can also look at mom for a few cues on the future. And most of all keep the same pant size from youth and don’t oversize….80’s were great and a bit more smart times.
HR
“Guys, we are winning. It’s up to us to push in every way against the leaning edifice of Ozymandias.”
meth…as taleb wrote in his little book of aphorisms, “there are two types of people: those who try to win & those who try to win arguments. they are never the same.”
the argument reiterated here, including by me, has echoed down centuries. it is the winning argument. it is not the win.
the pen is mightier than the sword? the words that win (including the rule proving, confirmation biasing, hope-springing exceptions…& many, perhaps all, of those are also fundamental attribution errors, with most of the credit for “meet the new boss” belonging to the internal contradiction leveler) are backed by swords…the s/word is mighty-mighty, 36-24-36, brick house…you know the tune.
saw “duck, you sucker” again, recently. james coburn / rod steiger spaghetti western from ’71:
Juan Miranda (steiger – as mexican bandit!): I know what I am talking about when I am talking about the revolutions. The people who read the books go to the people who can’t read the books, the poor people, and say, “We have to have a change.” So, the poor people make the change, ah? And then, the people who read the books, they all sit around the big polished tables, and they talk and talk and talk and eat and eat and eat, eh? But what has happened to the poor people? They’re dead! That’s your revolution. Shhh… So, please, don’t tell me about revolutions! And what happens afterwards? The same fucking thing starts all over again!
John H. Mallory (coburn, as irish revolutionary): [exhales] Whew. Hmmm.
[throws a book he was reading into the mud: Mikhael A. Bakunin, The Patriotism]
saw “killing them softly” the other night:
Barack Obama (on TV): …to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one…
Driver: You hear that line? Line’s for you.
Jackie Cogan (pitt, as irish hitman): Don’t make me laugh. One people. It’s a myth created by Thomas Jefferson.
Driver: Oh, so now you’re going to have a go at Jefferson, huh?
Jackie Cogan: My friend, Thomas Jefferson is an American saint because he wrote the words ‘All men are created equal’, words he clearly didn’t believe since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He’s a rich white snob who’s sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So, yeah, he writes some lovely words and aroused the rabble and they went and died for those words while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we’re living in a community? Don’t make me laugh. I’m living in America, and in America you’re on your own. America’s not a country. It’s just a business. Now fuckin’ pay me.
signed: some other, different, ozymandias
I want to bitch-slap Larry Silverstein and anyone who repeats his bullshit till I get tired and then use my double-bit axe on them, get me some good exercise with my gas mask on. HTF could anyone believe a building of any size, made from structural steel and concrete, built to NYC code(or not)could ever be pulled over? With what? Every damned D-10 that’s ever been produced hooked to what? It’s so preposterous any child should be able to examine it and say, Oh, you’re just pulling my leg. I get so bent considering it I just want to find some ass to whup ha ha ha ha, like Larry Silverstein.
Hi HR,
Yeah, I’ve been scarce here not by choice…my current contract is VERY interesting but keeps me “busier’n a one-legged cowboy in an ass-kickin contest.”
🙂
Tons of fun stuff. I’m doing logistical problems for boat/barge scheduling, so lots of directed acyclic graph theory. Tarjan and Dijkstra algorithms as far as the eye can see; it amazes me what those wily bastards dreamed up forty damn years ago! I took one graph resolution from a 17 second runtime, to a 47 millisecond runtime! Sometimes there is such a thing as a free lunch in computer science!
I am–against my own better judgement–starting a new company. Technically as a corp-to-corp contractor I’m already one. But this one has a product. I’ll share when I’ve got the prototype out–but basically it’s an NSA-proof communication service online.
Dear meth,
Always love your optimism. And in fact, it’s not at all unwarranted.
Jeff Berwick just interviewed Larken Rose. Great back and forth between two highly eloquent anacaps.
They agree with us. They are optimistic as well. Many of the scams that worked on us in the past have been exposed. More and more people are now getting it. They mention 9/11 and Sandy Hoax.
The self-appointed “Ruling Class” is getting desperate and moving to Stage Three (fighting us) because Stage One (ignoring us) and Stage Two (ridiculing us) no longer work.
But when the “Ruling Class” finds itself at Stage Three, it is already too late. It is already the beginning of the end.
By all means, check it out.
Anarchast Ep. 92 Larken Rose: A Leader In Modern Anarchist Thought
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIFTLqLnGdQ
People are catching on to the scam and thus there has been a lot of doubling down lately. The IPCC has been politically rewriting their latest report to keep the scam alive.
scientistic amerikan…
an organ…yeah. hypertrophic evolution, artificial (unnatural) selection – these dogs are bred for ferocity, bloodlust, the pit. voracious appetites. carnivorous, of course.
or, a multi-headed medusa. perseus ain’t got any more of a chance than this guy (tho “rob roy” fared better vis a vis “the wolves at lambing”…).
Ozy, I must agree. On the subject of armed revolution some call for, WTF do you think the US govt. does best? Damn right it’s kill people and it don’t make any diff who. Something else has to break, such as the entire friggin system so you can watch the cockaroachas in DC go running for their 10 year dugout that none of them will be able to stay in long enough to survive that long, Hell, they can’t do without their help and the help will just get tired of catering to their whiny asses. Could you guys run to the coast and get us some fresh shrimp so we can have some remoulade? Sure, congressman, we’ll get right on it.
8…yup
here it is, graphically (& for any that have seen the flick, you know the people in the caddy are thoroughly, completely beyond redemption…& yet, you feel something else when it gets to this scene…beware those emotional triggers):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOadx4ZICaQ
cipro? hope you’re taking a real probiotic alongside…those anti’s are as indiscriminate as feral unc sammy….
ozy, while I can’t watch video, I recognized that(thumbnail zoom plus)pic right off. How can you have any sympathy for those people? But just the same, when you see their opposition you can’t help but root for them a bit. I can watch that now and again. Somebody(Garysco, jean?)this morning was speaking of NM. Being a west Tx. guy I like NM too(the govt. sucks worse than tx.) I can watch those big vista scenes in No Country for Old Men over and over. Something about that part of the country speaks to me and I could see moving my old butt 300 miles west just to go outside and look across all that country. CJ likes it too but he’s paranoid somebody will mistake him for that red pit in the movie, the one you see dead in two scenes, the fiberglas dog. He knows all about it. I want to find a locket for his collar to put his 82.7 grains of lead removed from his chest. He walks around and growls when he hears certain people talking on the place next to us and I do too.
Post ending scene of The Grey, after the credits. Liam’s head rests on the injured alpha wolf.
“In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”
– Carl Jung, The Concept of the Collective Unconscious
Danielle Bradbery Before Her Monarchization
Zombie Danielle Bradbery At Butterfly Hollow With Her Universal Records Monarch Handlers
yeah, that’s what i mean. sympathy for the devil – the underdog devil. that movie was “this close” to being unwatchable, & then…hollywood pushes that button at the end. enjoy the fierce feelings, just recognize they’re being manufactured, for consumption & manipulation, so you can put then away after the credits roll.
i’m from further west. the sonoran. finally had my fill, tho. got myself higher. the rockies. and am eyeballin’ higher still. i like the high ground. 4 seasons are good, too.
82.7 grains…? what’d the other guy look like?
so, two dying alphas, tor? whose remains are to be gobbled by the rest of the pack? will the pack even wait for dying to get to dead? and how many deep are the alphas in the succession line?
to jung: i’m familiar with the first. not the second. but then, neither are you jung (sounds asian, doesn’t it ☻), or anybody else. one life to live. hope for the best if you like, or if you can’t help it (biologically imposed optimism) but plan for the other. archetypes? sure. but then, there are only so many possibilities, “categories” of preponderance. there is power in myth, cuz there’s madness in crowds (mackay, le bon, etc) but i ain’t eloping with joseph campbell…naomi campbell, maybe…lol
don’t know anything about danielle. never heard of her until now. but i have the sense that what you’re calling before/after “monarchization” is a lateral move, or at least the attempt, from a smaller to a larger pool…..
ozy, he looked just like the guy who moved his cattle off that place and I haven’t laid eyes on since I spoke to him. Every badged thug can no longer come in our house whenever they get a hankering so it’s a different ball game now. You know I think it’s being an ex-trucker that makes me not particularly want to live in the mountains….and now I’m old I don’t think altitude and my asthma is probably a good mix but I get why you like it for sure. You may have heard me speak of “that sound”. I know everybody thinks I hallucinate but at 4:29 CJ came highballing out from under the table and acted more bent and vicious than I’ve ever seen. Actually, I’ve never heard him growl like that. Kitties who think he’s the best thing since store bought butter were looking for a place to hide. I hadn’t moved, reacted or said a word but I heard it too. He ran from window to window and I thought somebody had pulled up in a Dodge diesel but nobody here.
Scientific American? There’s an oxymoron.
I’m sure TJ regrets having played the national sport of his day: “Are you ready for some sloootballl??!!”
Keeping a socially acceptable team of lower caste girls about, instead of costumed steroid addled eunuchs?
TJ’s probably sobbing on Susan B. Anthony’s broad shoulders right now, poor chap.
Australian Schafenkinder
Chelsea
Angel
– Audition today at you local area’s “Australia’s Got Monarch Handlers.” Your kids could be famous.
tor…..
zed & tj have everything in common, now. and their regrets went away – poof – with them….
8…”different ballgame”…seems like its just late, in the same old ballgame, to me. and after this one, comes the next game. then the next. etc.
bill hicks used to say, “it’s just a ride”. ok. not exactly what hicks meant, but… puttin’ as much space between me & those iffy-lookin’ carny ride operators, & their rickety machinery, as possible seems like a good idea. sit on the porch. drink coffee in the morning, wine in the evening, & watch the riders, from afar, way off in the distance, as centrifugal force does its inevitable entropic thing. the center will not hold. even the edges are probably gonna’ be messy. no country for old men, nor young, either…& didn’t ed tom bell’s pap tell him “nothing new. was always so.”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uo94DSTzdc
altitude…i pay something of a price. sinuses. seems like its even drier up here than it was down in the desert. no one ideal place. a diversified handful of places would be best. lifestyles of the nomadic & seasonal; the old way.
ozy, I’m a bit miffed. I clicked on your link and my monitor turned into a mirror, ceptin he’s got more hair color. And Zed is DEAD. Oh, I’m ordering colloidal silver and probiotics. Margaret Durst had a good article on probiotics and antibiotics a couple days ago.
colloidal silver….. don’t turn blue. 🙂
Dear Tor,
Man, those damned butterflies are everywhere aren’t they?
bevin…yes. & when the massed, migrating, monarchs, leave a place, they leave it just as it was before they arrived…that whole cyclical, wheel-thing. but i bet none of those pretty flappers ever say to themselves, “it’s different, this time…”.
Dear oz,
Yes.
At least they do not boast, as the PTB whom you astutely satirize with your pen name do,
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
8…we’ve done business with this guy
http://www.customprobiotics.com
bought a couple bottle of his everything + the kitchen sink (11 strains). we did not have a born again experience, but not a lot of anti-b use in our house, either. check the testimonials. and the guy is happy to talk on the phone, helpful.
fresh-made seems like it could be better than off the shelf.
you look like bruce willis, then? ☻
bevin….the mighty come to despair in their turns. but there’s a lot of not-mighty’s betwixt those spokes that meet it first, meet it more….let the wheel spin i say – it’s gonna’ do it anyway. not finding yourself under wheel, providing traction, is the main game….
@Bevin re: optimism
Thanks Bevin. I really try not to be a Pollyanna; but when the girl bagging my groceries knows Sandy Hoax was a scam two weeks after it happens–and quotes me the YouTube video–the “Elites” are in very deep shit indeed.
They have an extremely limited playbook, really, of mind-control tricks that work reliably. In fact I have, but have not yet watched, the movie put out by the makers of the excellent OK City bombing deconstruction “A Noble Lie”. Their new film is “State of Mind” and delves into mind-control techniques.
Back to the playbook: it’s really quite basic….
False Flag
Problem-Reaction-Solution (the Hegelian dialectic, thesis-antithesis-synthesis)
Overton Window
Traumatizing
Gaslighting
And a few other standard plays. Of all of them, False Flag and PRS form the synergistic backbone. Take those away…and the others take a lot longer to implement.
The Aurora shooting took a while; I’m putting it at six weeks or so, and not a very strong “immune response”, most people saw “wacko” and left it at that.
Sandy Hoax was thoroughly flipped within two weeks.
And the Boston Bombing? That fucker didn’t last a DAY before people were deconstructing it–before the dinosaur media had even gotten their talking points fax’ed to them. They had to flip the narrative on day 2 from “homegrown right-wing extremist” to the ol’ reliable “big bad Muslim”–and then had pesky Infowars reporters putting Horrible Scary Ugly Words like “false flag” into the public narrative. They actually had FBI guys instructing the press “Don’t look at any other photos, only look at these photos we gave you! Mmkay!” In other words, a total route.
And what happens after the Navy Yawn shooting? Sentiment for gun-control goes DOWN.
Yeah, they’re at Stage 3 alright. I just want to hurry up and get to the “…Then you WIN” part!
Dear meth,
Ditto. Also, not to sound Pollyanna-ish, but “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
I’m laughing at that one myself!
Back to the playbook: it’s really quite basic….
False Flag
Problem-Reaction-Solution (the Hegelian dialectic, thesis-antithesis-synthesis)
Overton Window
Traumatizing
Gaslighting
Thanks for this outline. I never actually thought to list all their scams this way.
Gonna have to run a search on “Overton Window.” The rest I’m mostly familiar with, but probably ought to dig deeper and educate myself on them more.
Ironic that more and more people I speak to look at The Baaahhhston Baaahming” as a complete joke. When the charades can’t continue then I’m only waiting for the sets to be struck, the actors sent home, and the nightsticks set to swinging on our skulls. They’re getting ready and so should we.
Nonsense. They still are grown in the open in parts of England, and you can in fact grow them straightforwardly as far north as southern Scotland in walled gardens, with hot beds and with mini-greenhouse type glass around the bunches of grapes. It’s just that they grow better and easier further south, so once trade got less disrupted it became easier to import wine. Adam Smith used people’s background knowledge of that to point out how trade made life easier, contrasting the ease of imports with the great trouble – not impossibility – of making wine in Scotland. People knew it could be and was being done, so he could use it in an example that spoke to them.
And those eggshells would have dissolved eventually (maybe in months or years) if they had had a steady supply of carbonated water flowing over them. Just sitting in it lets an equilibrium build up, and by then not much has dissolved in a fixed quantity.
Eric – you really have to stop thinking logically, it will just get you more aggravated.
USSA 2013 – Theater of the Absurd at its finest.
Roll with it….
I know… I know!
Well thank you Mr. Obama and your mob of Chicago thugs. You just stuffed us with a giveaway better than Solyndra. IMO, some amount of those $ guarantees and grants will end up buying something “GM” related (lithium mines & processing?) in good old China. Along with the typical multinational 15 year profitability guarantee backstop. Even GM execs aren’t that stupid.
And people laughed at the Edsel.
Maybe you should redirect your ire from Obama and his ‘thugs’ to George Bush and his ‘thugs’.
The electric car subsidies were contained in a bill signed by Bush in 2008…
Well, can’t we be irate at W and Obomber at once? Actually, other than signing bills Congress presents him, a president doesn’t have much to do with this kind of thing. I can see any difference between W and Obomber anyway.
@Herb – You have to get over it. Che is dead and “Blame it on Bush” is over 5 years old. “O” man has issued so many “P Orders” he would have stopped it if he wanted to. Just like his AG not arresting a single banker for the housing fraud.
For God’s sake, Herb. Can we dispense with the us and them bullshit for two seconds. Get a grip. There is no discernible difference between either puppet. No one here is defending Bush in a taste test against Obama. A turd is a turd. The state is the state.
Hi Herb,
We at EPautos favor neither Team Red nor Team Blue – because we know they’re the same team.
Remember that much of what a president does won’t truly impact us until long after he’s gone.
I’d buy an all-electric car in a second… if I lived in a city and didn’t have to drive 80 miles round trip to the grocery store, in cold Colorado winters.
The subsidies are there because no one on Wall St. is willing to invest in an alternative fuel. Of course that’s crazy. We all hate the oil companies and most of us, if given an alternative to shopping for gas would do so. Unfortunately thanks to the highly distorted market there’s no incentive for Tesla or Nissan or whoever to properly market their vehicles. Where are the partnerships with the electricity utilities (who are looking for a place to dump unreliable renewable energy produced off-peak)? Where are the ads showing how easy and convenient it is to recharge in your own garage instead of waiting in line at the gas station? How about highlighting the reduced maintenance (and overall) costs of a purely electric drivetrain? Green is a big selling point these days, why shouldn’t that also be played up?
The real answer is because if anyone in the oil industry perceived them as a threat they’d turn up the pumps and flood the world with $28 oil. It wasn’t that long ago that we enjoyed 99 cent gas and there’s really no reason why that can’t happen again.
The big problem is that no one has ever tried it. Instead they just show that you can get a tax break, and artificially low prices make it a “better deal.” They are second cars anyway, at a time most people really can’t afford one.
@Eric_G What happened to natural gas? I hear the Dakotas and Colorado has lots of the stuff for cheap.
Garysco, GM markets all sorts of light trucks with CNG, of course at a premium over other models. Still no word on mpg or cost of fuel. I looked at some on their website last year(13) since I suppose the 14’s are out now. When they sell a $40,000 electric one ton 4WD crew cab pickup with a 600 mile range I’ll be all over it, as will everyone else. I wonder how leaving the a/c on a few hours in the summer will work out though.
@8 – The Gov & their “save the world for the whales because we are destroying it” Igores are shoving this idiotic “electric” thing down our throats. Every time I do the “electric” math the results are that it sucks. Try putting that battery in a 737. All the ecology and economics falls apart badly. The Prius is a good but not cheap idea, big ships and locomotives use self-generated electric systems, but it won’t work in big truck yet. We are still stuck with liquid fuel to get us any distance reliably.
Coal or nuke or ??? fired electric plants, transmission line looses to get the magic electron to my house, (discounting the already crumbling infrastructure that cannot handle any real number of these setups) then the inherent efficiency loss & heat to charge a battery in my econobox. Makes no sense. IMHO natural gas, because there is a LOT of it, it is cheap, clean and there is no middle-east middleman and transportation pollution involved. Seems only logical that it should be the correct liquid / transportation fuel solution to me.
But why is it not promoted by our opinion makers? I wonder. Unless there is a political/ money agenda behind it.
@Gary all that cheap natgas will end up being burned for electricity instead of coal:
http://weakonomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/electricity-demand-by-sector-and-fuel-into-electricity-generation.png
Every “renewable” energy source is being supplemented by natural gas. It’s killing the nuclear industry (5 nuclear reactors shut down this year… never to be started again) because wind power operators are paying grid operators to take electricity from turbines producing when the power isn’t wanted.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/58047
Our power grid’s reliability is already only fair when compared to the rest of the developed world, but I can count on one hand the number of extended outages I’ve had in the last 10 years, and most of them were very localized events. The big reason is because energy generation is reliable and predictable. The renewables destroy that side of the equation.
As far as I can tell, it looks like the Obama energy plan (“all of the above, haha”) is just a photocopy of the top secret Bush/Cheney energy plan. Suck it out of holes in the ground until there ain’t no more. Secure the Persian Gulf and Americas from the Chiners (make them buy from the Russians) and kill off anything that can effectively compete.
The real sad thing is we could easily have reliable carbon-free electricity production today, saving natural gas for vehicles and other portable applications, if people who vote for idiots would wake up and realize that nuclear power is about the safest way to generate electricity ever, at least in terms of death and injury. Instead the idiots worry about things that are accounted for already, think The Simpsons is a documentary, and ignore facts in favor of FUD. We already lost 30 years because of one accident in Pennsylvania (that didn’t kill or hurt anyone), and another 13 because of electing people who were beholden to oil companies (not that Al Gore would have been a proponent of nuclear either, he’d just make us all do without).
Meanwhile the French have 200MPH trains, a “city of lights” and a carbon footprint 1/3 of the average person in the US. While we have “experts” like Alex Jones telling us to buy iodine pills and seeds because the Fukushima plant is poisoning the California coast. Just because something can be measured doesn’t mean it will hurt you.
Sorry for the rant.
I work on both the natural gas side and electric power side at a plant, I can simplify this a bit. Wind power in the US generally peaks at night. This runs counter to the demand curve for electricity, which peaks during the day. Natural gas turbines are the most flexible power generators due to the nature of the fuel, and thus take this swing. The problem is like cars, they have an efficiency curve, and they must also be kept idling if they are to be used on a daily basis, which consumes a significant chunk of their total fuel (25% or so at one cogen I know of).
And of course, we as consumers pay more for electricity because these wind generators, which would otherwise be losing money because of their crappy production curve, are subsidized at our expense by law.
phil, we live within 35 miles of Horse Hollow as well as 3 other large west Tx. wind farms. While we don’t have tv or local newspapers, every week or so we get a local “free” newspaper in the mail. There always seems to be an article of another wind turbine burning down. They evidently have a problem with bearings or brushes, some stator problem of some sort.I’ve been driving by and have seen these things burned and burning, what a plethora of noxious smoke they produce as well as mighty hot fires.
A Norway steel company that supplies steel for the shipping industry is building a steel producing plant in tx. right now. It will be nat gas fired, a new type of smelter and will save them more than half the cost of coal-fired smelting. I predict that soon nat gas prices will be steadily rising and eventually become a non-bargain. I recently read where coal is as cheap as $10/ton. Over the last 15 years a formerly Tx. power company has taken many gas-fired power plants offline and has now even gutted the plants in favor of Okla-Union electricity production. I’m glad I’m west and south by several hundred miles of that toxic, belching behemoth.
The irony is that earlier this year, in Midland no less, there were Turks here discussing a deal where CNG would be shipped to Turkey! Where I ask you is the savings to us if its so cheap to ship overseas but somehow mysteriously doesn’t lower my bills here? It stinks as usual to high heaven.
I’d consider an electric car, too (or any other form of getting from A to B) that cost me less and imposed no additional hassles on me.
None of the electric cars yet made can offer that.
I had a Volt last fall. Driving it into town – which for me is a 30-something mile trip, one way – the battery charge declined to the point that the internal gas engine came on (providing electric power to keep the car moving). So, while I made there without burning any gas (battery power) on the way back (gas engine running) I averaged low 30s. That means my total average MPGs for the round trip was about what I’d have gotten in a Prius – but the Prius costs $15,000 less. It also seats five (not four) and its range/function is not greatly affected by use of accessories such as the heater or AC.
The Volt’s is.
I can deal with some compromises if the car is really cheap. I did so in college. But then, my ’73 Beetle only cost me $700. I simply cannot get into the head of a person who willingly spends almost $40,000 on a car like the Volt when they could have had a loaded BMW 3 (or similar) for the same money. A quick, handsome car that can run 80-plus all day without needing to stop every 70 miles for a three-hour recharge.
Cue hitting forehead with shoe!
@Eric- If a new car to get us from A to B is what we are talking about – is there an overall better deal then the new Corolla? Considering resale, fuel economy, and ongoing cost of ownership.
The Corolla’s actually a better-than-good-enough choice. The new model is a damn nice car!
For basic – assuming you’re looking at new cars – you might want to check out something like the Nissan Versa, which is a solid runabout with more room than most cars in its class/price range.
And for a real cheapie, check out the new (2014) Mitsubishi Mirage… it’s the closest thing to a Geo Metro since the Metro!
OMG. Not a Metro :). The one I have I bought 3 or 4 years ago as a $1,000.00, 50 MPG whim joke. My problem is it just won’t die.
I had a Geo Metro. 🙂 Loved the little thing, getting 60 MPG. I was doing home health/hospice nursing then, driving 300+ miles a day, sometimes 7 days in the week. Then, when I went to working in the office instead, I bought a Chevy Prism, which I also loved. I gave the Geo to my youngest son and he wore it out delivering newspapers and pizza. A few years later he wiped out the Prism hitting a tree in the mountains.
Needless to say, he’s not getting his hands on the Saturn I have now.
And
No. “Sadiragh bi jasmu”, “I will hit you with my shoe”, is a grave insult among them (because of what they have trodden in); they do not do it to themselves.
“We all hate the oil companies…”
Don’t include me in your “we.” I don’t hate oil companies at all. I think they should all be perfectly free to compete for my business, just like everyone else.
The only real answer is the truly free market. Those things that “work” and solve real problems will be purchased, and those companies will prosper, grow and continue to produce ever new things. Things that don’t sell will vanish from the market place, just like whale oil lamps.
OK, hate may be too strong a word. But the oil market is anything but free. Perhaps there’s an illusion of free market pricing, but look at the subsidies given to the big vertical players, price fixing by OPEC countries (governments), and an out of control military so addicted to oil they’re happy to fight wars for it.
IF the market were truly free, which it isn’t, then it would be peachy. But even the oil companies, and I work for them, are as corrupt as the government. Mainly because they have this symbiotic relationship with DC much like Wall Street. A revolving door between the two. Heck! They’re essentially the same but for the smaller companies that support these crooks and I’m suspicious of even them.
MoT, you should be used to hearing the war drums. A huge conglomeration of the most radical doves(in their personal lives, we ain’t serving no matter what)/hawks(at work, ranting about invading everywhere). Self-serving hypocrites, the guys in charge of ground operations. Yep, I’ve had to work with them too. There are some small independents near you that have a different take. Many of these people serve on maneuvers on week-ends in their private militia, signing on to the NAP, just ready to deliver return fire, if things devolve there. Opposite sides of the coin.