--9-11 is quite an involved subject. There's no way to address it in a simple post other than on a very basic level. This is what I have gathered so far. It's random and off the top of my head, has some data and opinions mixed.
most of al queda are cannon fodder, ie, "useful idiots". Quite literally goat herders.
The intel services have interacted , made use of, trained and supported with materiel and cash al queda and affiliated groups on an on-going basis for a long time
illegal drugs are a tremendous motivation for illegal activity--reference, history of the KLA and support for same with again, domestic intel groups (factions within, the compartmentalisation I referenced). KLA and al-queda are vitually indistinguisable in members.
9-11 was known about in advance. Trial runs of this technique were conducted in the phillipines, and again, all this was known to the intel community, well in advance of 9-11
It is undeniable that oil resources are now, along with water resources, the top sought after commodity, nothing else comes close, even uranium or gold doesn't approach it
"The hunt for terrorists" has always been here. the deal is, and this is more than verifiable, that lower level federal police in various agencies had extremely good intel on these groups. time after time, once the investigations started looking good, the trail appeared to have some off-trails that were heading towards what I call "white guys in suits". When those subtrails were noted to these lower level police agents superiors, they were immediately taken off those cases, in some instances, not only removed, but ordered to not talk about it, and ordered to "forget about it". See my final note at bottom of this post.
Governmental agencies are not the only ones with advanced intelligence services, both the oil industry and the insurance industry and the banking industry have their own private intelligence services, and they are *not* all that incompetent. Also, there is a lot of cross referencing and cooperation involved, as most if not all of the private intel services have as their directors and top level employees retired (?) governmental officers.
In US recent history, large scheduled airliners or large private planes with flight plans are monitored. Deviations from flight path, if not immediately rectified over radio communications, are met with immediate scrambling of the nearest available fighter planes. The lag time for this to happen on 9-11, with FOUR (earliest reports were 5 planes, the existence of the 5th is still controversial) was an extreme aberration. it in no way resembles any similar incident, and there are reports of planes that could have been scrambled as routine, but were ordered to stand down for a critical short time period. No credible explanation has ever been offered for this seemingly large "lapse in judgement" considering multiples of planes like this going off course severely would tell anyone past a room temperature IQ that something rather strange and probably "not good" was occurring.
The buildings themselves, the two towers specifically, suffered again, some rather strange engineering phenomena in order to collapse. Fuel tanks and the fuel contained therein inside the planes, travelling at roughly 500 MPH, smashing into large buildings, would have resulted in the bulk of the fuel being vaporized, and as a vapor or at a minimum highly dropletised, would have almost immediately burnt, not leaked slowly down through one hundred stories of a building. This can be verified by merely watching the video of the second hit, the fuel did all burn up on impact. By other accounts, firefighters were reporting easy access until the moment the building really collapsed, said collapse giving more appearance of a controlled demolition than anything else. In particular, building 7, which had no plane impact, collapsed identically to any number of other recorded previously controlled implosions. No suitable and credible explanation for building 7s collapse and destruction has ever occurred, yet it did happen. In addition, "fire" in and of itself has never prviously resulted in any modern high rise to collapse in such a straight down manner. This is supposedly now two engineering defying occurrences happening within a short period of time. Odds of that occurring naturally are tremendously against those events happening.
Ties, both direct business and indirect obfuscated daisy chained corporate,between high level governmental personages and various "wahabist" oriented governments and individuals, including very wealthy individuals. The only two nations that are(were) primarily wahabist are afghanistan and saudi arabia. All the names and business ties are well known.
In large scale economics, global scale, double and triple crossing is not an unusual occurrence. When you are talking of not billions but trillions of dollars, this should always be taken into consideration.
In considering a crime, the primary focus for determining guilt is to consider the question of "who profits?"
Temporary alliances can be made, for very different reasons, as long as the results achieve a conclusion that profits each of the allies in the alliance. The profitable reasons can be quite varied, they need not be the same reason. The classic example of this would be something like the JFK assassination. There were many credible reasons why a variety of groups/factions would have wanted kennedy "gone". The oil depletion allowance tax law, the elimination of the federal reserve and the "interest" payments to them, and a return ot offical treasury "money", the loss of cuba, the loss (to some) of the upcoming southeast asia games,the renewed interest at actually combatting the mafia under rfks leadership in opposition to j edgars ignoring of same, etc, are all interconnected time-wise events that resulted in any number of high level and powerful "connected ones" becoming *most annoyed* with JFK. So, he gets whacked, this is not rocket science here. Cooperation in this occurring, and using cutouts, patsys, plausible deniability, etc are according to most researchers the "who,why and how" the assassination occurred. Very few if any mainstream researchers at this point in historical time consider oswald to be a lone nut who did it. The consensus, and even after the second official government investigation, is that there were at least two shooters, ie, "a conspiracy" and not a random lone nut. In the immediate time frame though, popular public opinion and official governmental pronouncements were all "the lone nut theory". Double emphasis on "official". Make that triple. Records are sealed until the year--whatever, I forget but it's a long time from now. Basically forever for people now on the planet. 20-something big number.
9-11, being a similar styled event-an event that can be classed as "world class-paradigm and reality shifting" should be viewed similar, with a critical eye towards "official" pronouncements. The old adage applies, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me". Also reference "the SURPRISE attack at pearl harbor, and the 'gulf of tonkin' attack" among others.
Various new governmental initiatives, in particular, patriot act 1, patriot act 2 (first denied it even existed, vehemently denied), homeland security, model states health powers emergency act, and some others, can be considered a total re-work of the government of the united states. Any blief they are less than that is naieve and shows lack of actually reading the documents. Their full implementations completely change our society and government, and it hardly has started yet. The traditional "fine print" inspections, like any contract, provide the details. It is equivalent to a complete re write of the constitution, without an "official" re write, as a constitutional convention would be 'by law" required. But the results are the same, especially if you-you being "the controllers in charge of giving orders"- implement them because you are merely strong enough, ie, "by force" and coercion, and label anyone in opposition as "being with the terrorists". That statement should NEVER be forgotten about. We also have the rather strange pronouncemnts of the clerk in chief saying 'we should never harbor any strange conspiracy theories about who did 9-11" without any sort of public investigation as to who really did it. It was pronounced who did it, hmm, rather quickly and arbitraily. That statement also puts people on record to "don't go there, don't look-or else" which is a direct threat. A direct threat to not look, dont investigate-or else. After considerable time,and public outcry, an "investigation" was ordered, with such a "trustworthy" soul as Henry Kissinger set up as first pick to head the investigation. I would term that so ridiculous as to be worthy of any second rate vegas stand up comedian. That tells me again, it backs up the supposition that no true "investigation" is wanted, that in fact, it is clear indications of an advanced "coverup" effort.
Back to "who profits?" IMO, many, primarily based on money, power, strategic georgraphical interests. Anyone who thinks "oil" doesn't enter the picture can stop reading, skip this post, and don't even bother replying. Oil is definetly with no shadow of a doubt involved in this. Hundreds of billions a year of black market profits in illegal drugs are involved as well. Hundreds of billions in advanced technology sales and service is involved. Geographical "threats" represented by some nations in the immediate area of iraq and other neighbors are involved. The main cast of characters are inclusive of, but not restricted to, kuwait, iran, saudi arabia, the gulf states, syria, turkey, and israel. The "western" countries involved must be viewed in a totality of economic and strategic interests, not just pick and choose what level or what area to look at.
The concept of "the big lie" is well documented and understood historically. Any attempt at a really BIG big lie has to by practicality concerns be initiated at a level able to pull this off, that leaves one choice only, Governmental, sub section, a faction inside the "governmental" realm, and probably with "allies". Again, compartmentalisation.
No other single entity has the resources necessary, nor the already established compartmentalisation of it's resources that would be needed to both promote the big lie, pull it off, and carry it through to completion, and to most importantly, obfuscate most of what would be neede to be hidden to accomplis the "big lie's" goals.
My conclusion is that 9-11 attack was allowed to occur. The hijackers were mere underlings, basically manipulated and brainwashed into being retarded patsys. The reasons are numerous, plain vanilla old human greed reasons of command, control, power, authority, money, wealth, etc.
The side issues of Iraq is that it is a long running example of something that has occurred in the past. For an example, Noriega in panama, ostensibly an "ally", once his usefulness ended and he started demanding "more profits" from serious high level smuggling, he was removed using "official" military resources because of the complexity of his removal. Saddam is similar. Equally bad, equally connected, no longer useful for the various high level factions. Double crossed quite clearly in gulf war 1. The ties between saddam/iraq and the wahabists represented by osama bin laden are neglibile at best. All credible reports going way back indicate they were enemies, not allies. Saddam has always been a secularist. For all practical purposes, the two "things" represented by the WTC attacks and iraq are nebulous at best, into the ludicrous level. but we have the strange ocurrence of a concerted effort to blend these two things into peoples belief systems. It's more or less successful as well. I maiontain it's part of the total "big lie".
For some more relevations indicating official governmental prior knowledge and involvement in this reichstagg event of 9-11, there will be a guest on alex jones tonight. the guest is the lawyer who actuallyrepresents some of the lower level police who were ordered off the terrorism trail case prior to 9-11. that's really the best place to crack reality open, to show how dangerous the course the US is on officially. This is not a joke, and we won't be able to reset the game on this one.
infowars.com, for info on schedules and feeds, etc. His show goes on starting at 9pm central time. gcnlive.com has the full list of affiliate am/fm/sw stations, etc as well.
--you shouldn't have to skip reading the posts themselves, that is pretty "wrong". Sorry you have to do that. I don't have a good answer either, other than doing what other forums do, start banning trolls, and making the distinction of what a troll really is, ie, chronically abusive and vulgur as a good starting point. And the only way to do that effectively is by using a registration system that only allows registered users to post, and they have to use a "real" email addy instead of a throw away. Even that is spoofable, but it cuts down the signal to noise ratio immensely in places where it's been adopted.
Besides that I find the moderation system a little confusing. I tend to try and use my 1 point optional thing up and down as required, like this post I won't take it as it is pretty off topic to the main thread. But I have no problem leaving it on if the topic is more or less there, even if some of the comments I might make are tangential, because that's how human speech works, one thing leads to another, etc.
One of the best shows on PBS that I used to enjoy, the series called "connections". I think it was good because it clearly showed this point, and what interesting areas you could find in the "connect the dots" search. It's like the arguments for the "pro" side for "pure science", you never know what gems might turn up when you are looking for something completely different.
--hey, thanks! One of the few posts in at least three threads on this subject that provided some information about sco that went beyond "no one buys their stuff". I wasn't aware of their products being used in industries like that.
--I'm just amazed all the time when I read you "need" a 1 gig or larger mghz rating to be cool or something. I'm runnin linux just great on an old 200PP machine, the only real thing I had to do was stick some more ram in it. For workers/clerks in an office? No massive full upgrade or new computer is needed I would think. And even if they *think* it's needed they should milk those older machines dry, this is the age of cutting costs and getting efficient. Innovation is great-where it's REALLY needed. The OS upgrade to linux? Yep, I think it stands a good chance of being a smooth move for them. But the hardware? Unless there's a specific graphic need or some other exotic task, there's no real need.
..I'm really guessing(have not read the article yet either) but, I would imagine that retraining really only means in this instance learning a new similar app, perhaps three of them, and that's it. They'll have some office-like app, their database/accounting, and whatever email thing they will use. And coming from 95, I bet most of them would be looking forward to something new, which might make it easier, enthusiasm tends to do that.
--ya, I always thought that was strange too. Sorry! Best advice I got is just pick one out-really, send him or her your opinion. Unless they specificallty ask, "don't ask-don't tell". It's not like you are committing fraud, I frequently email different congress people to express a view, usually because of committes they are on. Committes are the best place to get bogus legislation squashed, IMO. Hmm, don't you have a non voting rep? Oh well, best you can do is be active in your municipal government then.
Puerto rico, ya, I'd like to see the colonies gone, either make it a state, or let them go be their own country. This special status is too strange. Of course, I am a real old fashioned states rights guy, I think we REALLY did have the option to break away from the union and make different alliances. The "states" were originally setup way more as independent nations, with "the union" being more of what the UN tries to be, sort of anyway. Oh well, next time...
I think part of the problem with the artifically constructed DC area is it was never intended to be come a full time year round governmental center. Not at the scale it is now anyway. I *think* originally congress was supposed to be part time, with "civilian" representatives who came, met, did some work, then went home to their real job. The rise of the professional politician class, the usurping of power by two private organizations who now run the government like they own it, and the lobbyist/campaign contributions merry go round is extremely destructive, IMO.
I would actually like to see a cap on government service as well, something like 10 years max, then back to the private sector. No pensions,no lifetime employmment, etc. Fair pay while in, but that's it. And I mean not just elected people, basically the entire governmental workforce.
--I only got one serious beef with the various distros I've tried. I want ALL the apps installed on the machine to show up in the GUI menu system. I don't care if it's a little dragon or a little fat guys foot, when I click on that thing down in the corner I want the menu to be complete. I got stuff on here I don't even know what I got. No idea where it even is. That was my first impression of Linux, I KNEW I had a lot more apps then what showed up.
The only other useability beef is dialout, I had dismal luck at first getting a normal over the old fashioned telephone wires internet connection, MAN that was annoying. I have yet to get kppp on mandrake to work,but I did get redhats dialer and front end to work in the 7 series, and not even gonna attempt to do it with "tweaking files" ever, ME tweaking files is an invitation to mass FUBAR, this is just *so true* it ain't funny. I love that that option is there, sometimes I fool with it, but NOT with my inet connection, that's the primary reason I own a computer.
Besides that, it's a pretty nifty system, if the developers can integrate, more power to them! I'd love to see it. The concepts for GUI are fairly easy, you have to be able to look at what's there, and it should make sense and do what it's told. If it can't, then it won't get used or people will get frustrated. GUI it appears can be made more complex, but then you have to ask "why do that?"
--I've read some about some promising units. One I am familiar with is called the "solar trough" method, where they use long half cylinders aimed at the sun, the curved surfaces focus the heat to the collector. Supposedly once it's actually tuned and set correctly it has the best cost/benefit ratio.
You could also use perhaps on a home made system a used large satellite dish, really designed well for projects like that, focal point, integrated tracker, etc. Also they have really a large setup which is termed a "heliostat" out in cal I believe. That one actually makes some serious power.
I have no experience with stirling engines, so no idea how cheap they might be for any practical size. Aware of them, that's it, I've seen the small toy sized units.
I have an aquantaince who is in the steam business, builds and sells home sized and up units they provide hot water and electricity. I could see a blend of the technology being pretty doable. The problems as compared to PV are, PV is pretty much boner proof once it's setup, it really is. Steam projects require some more sophistication and hands on tweaking and watching. Pressure can be dangerous obviously. Perhaps if decent sized sterling units become cheap and easy to use-then I'll give it a good maybe on that.
I've help work on a few solar heat projects, hmm, first one was helping my dad build a solar water heater for our swimming pool in 68, that one worked well. I built a single room sized passive solar collector that was just a thermosiphon, I wanted to make it active with some integrated pv cells and a fan, but I sold the unit, went and installed it passive, as far as I last knew it was still in operation at this guy's house. Another project I helped work on was an active solar heated greenhouse that was attached to a community food co-op building. They used their used 5 gallon tins that some food products like oils and honey came in, cleaned them oit, painted black, refilled with just clean water and sealed, that was the heat sink stacked up on the wall opposite the glazing they pulled hot air from. That worked prtty well. And in the 80's I sold some commercially built residential solar water heaters, they worked pretty well and sold well while the federal tax credits were available. Shoot, for most peolle they were completel;y *free*. My hardest sells were always engineering types who said "I can build that cheaper" although they never did, and even with the credits making it free would not sign, so no free hotwater for them! pretty funnty really, my first sale was to an actual bean counter, an accountant, I cicn't even get to do my sales rap, he just said 'this is a good deal, free stuyff, where do I sign and how fast you guys get it installed?" hahaha! The more engineering/techie guys I approached would rather argue with people, something I KNOW the slashdot crowd has to admit is "true facts". more HAHAHA!
I have a solar water distiller here that is great at making hot water but ceased transferring the droplets of collected steam downhill into the collection trough. Had a nice thread on it here on slashdot before, waiting until warmer weather to attempt some repairs and mods to it to make it work better.
Here's a design I think is neat for a home made project, collect an old hot water heater,one that doesn't leak but the heating element is shot like a 40 gallon size. Should be beyond easy to find one or more or those most anyplace. Strip off the outer white sheetmetal casing and insulation, revealing the inner black iron core. It's already plumbed for water, so that's a plus, can't beat it with a stick, got an in AND an out, heh.. Repaint flat black, paint interior of scrounged old refrigerator flat black as well. The refrigerator is used becauses it's already a nice moddable box that is pretty well insulated, and again, free for the hauling off. Install the hot water tank inside, use the refrigerator door hinges and make a tempered glass door somehow, then just tilt the thing to approproiate angle and collect the hot water, use it stand alone or as a pre-heater for the existing hot water heater that uses fuel or electricity. the glass part for the front might be the hardest to scrounge and fit, that part is you just got to look hard. Scratched glass is sometimes scroungeable, but would still be perfectly adequate for the task. Must be tempered though, good quality obviously. maybe old car glass? Back flat glass from an older pickup? something like that anyway. I would think that would be the easiest and cheapest way to go for solar thermal, all the components mostly are premade and available free for the scrounging. Here we have an even simpler system for summer use, I just added on a few hundred feet old garden hose, "drinking water" quality, we use that for some washing in the summer, it just lays out in the grass and we can get around 7 gallons pretty hot from it easily before it runs cold. If you really wanted to do that, the way to go would be a one piece roll of high temp black water pipe, comes in 500 foot rools pretty cheap. But I still like the water heater/refrigerator idea. Maybe a little slower to heat and less surface area, but for being pre built almost completely, it's sorta neat.
Another project I worked on was amazingly simple and gave gobs of hot water. We ran a couple hundred feet of hose inside a pile of woodchips, a big pile. I mean that was it, the entire concept is dogsquat simple. That interior temp got pretty hot, and the length of the hose gave some good hot water, and if you ran it real slow it's was perpetual, day and night, no solar nothing required, just the slow composting was doing it. Next place we move I'm doing that one again, it just worked WAY too good to ignore, as the side benefit of the good black compost for the garden you get eventually is a definite plus. And really, it just "looks" like a pile of wood chips, doesn't even look "hippy" or anything as you can hide the hose well if you want to, even bury it and insulate it a few different ways, and if the pile is situated correctly, ie downhill of where you want to USE the heat, it can be a closed loop system that uses thermosiphon to pump itself uphill to where you radiate the heat back out. I can see something like a heated concrete floor or baseboard radiators using that technique, keep your whole house warm passively.
The main proble malternate energy isn't used more isn't that the tech doesn't exsist, it DOES, in profuse directions and angles, the main problem is that "they" have to do it. Joe blow don't want anything unless it comes preinstalled on his house,it's exactly like 'windows come with the computer so that's it, windows is the only way to do computing" mindset. Joe homeowner just accepts and pays out the wazzoo for really crappy levels of insulation, old fashioned normal furnaces and electrical grid connection, energy hog appliances, etc, just because it's "normal" and NO way will the big companies seek to really change that, it's a generations running long cash cow that is worth quadzillions tto them. Just using decent levels of insulation in homes would offet a huge percentage of the domestic US energy requirments, but we still see stick frame homes with only 3.5 inch thick walls and roll insulation with R-18 and cracks and leaky walls all over. Brand new homes selling for hundreds of thousands are still being built, mortgaged, "inspected" by governmental officials and passed as "cool" with tech so crappy we HAVE an energy crisis. Amazing to me, but there ya go. "Alternate energy" has been HERE for at least a century, it's just not used, it's cheaper for people to think (or be forced to think) in terms of "gotta pay my utility bill, and why don't THEY do something about it! Gonna write my congress weasel! THEY need to fix this!" While joe homeowner will gladly pop for a 20 or 30 year note that is serious folding money, pay more attention to the lovely foyer and simply enchanting bay windows, and not give thought one to the actual insulation values or how the home actually "works", they are in essence buying in effect a facade of a well designed home, nothing really special about it, ancient tech with shiny paint and neon blinkenlights and curb feelers.
Banks and utility companies and conventional energy companies love that stuff, makes them bundles of cash.
It's just intellectual and physical laziness and inertia now, so much alternate energy tech exists and is proven, that that's the only real answer why it's not used more, IMO. Waiting for this "they" guy to do it. Your contractor won't do it unless you insist on it, tell him R-55, planned air in, planned air out, tight construction. Just that if it was universally adopted in construction and mandated by "building code" like they mandate so much other stuff that no one really cares about would save so much "energy" every year we could probably cross one entire opec nation off the cash exported-to list. It's not sexy, it's just... more insulation, a LOT more.. that's it, no hybrid basement fusion photon reactors needed, you can even keep the same old crappy energy hog appliances for heating and cooling, they just won't need to be used as much. I've worked on a few 'superinsulated' dwellings, you tell people you've worked on a normal looking house where in 90 degree heat the aircondo don't kick in for three days they call you a liar, but I've seen it with me own eyeballs. They got houses up north now just the light bulbs and cooking and the humans inside provide most of the heat in ther winter, the furnace hardly ever comes on. Joe bigenergy co is NEVER gonna push anything like that, NEVER, cost them so much money it would hurt them bad. They'll call R-22 just the best there is, give it a "good cents" stamp of approval with their monthly corporate propaganda sheets they ship you tucked in with the monthly bill. Their tame politicians who are also energy sellers will not push anything but something THEY can make bundles on, simple stuff that works they'll call "junk science" or "it's not cost effective" or some other drivel, they'll trot out their tame 'scientists" to put it down, seen it over and over again. It's why we HAVE an energy "crisis" it's on purpose to keep sucking in the cash. It's really that simple. It's easy to fake people out if you control the government and the big companies and the media. Real easy, beyond easy.
Phooie. Tons of solutions out there, the basic default is,as joe homeowner who finally "gets it" and wants to take charge of their own energy "stuff",not wait for government or their corporate masters to do it, these are the two basic steps- you add in---> to your own energy pile from one end,various ways, you reduce --- needs from the other, keep working at it, eventually those two lines cross, you become "energy independent". Can be your electricity, your heating, your cooling, eventually your transportation. A homeowner can do it, a nation can do it. We could be energy independent within a few years in this nation pretty easily if everyone really wanted it and stopped being faked out by big corporate megaprofits BS.
For joe homeowner it ain't even rocket science, and you can chunk the projects up to manageable sizes, do it at your own speed and economic level.
--mine was literally as you put it, cobbled together with parts onsite, a proof of concept. I used a 55 gallon drum, a washtub, a used and stretched and discarded milking teat from the dairy, some hose, and collected the gas in bags. The batches lasted for several weeks once they had started cooking. They would easily fill up a garbage bag or two a day.
Anyway, were it me, a few years ago a literal goldmine in huge tanks hit the market as older gas tanks had to be pulled from underground and scrapped. You can get these cheap if you look around. large steel tanks, weldable. I'd start with something like that for the slurry tank. Maybe anyway. We got one here on the estate I caretake that got skids welded to it, added some flanges and now it's the diesel tank. Only about 1/10th even with the welding that a similar size "new" fuel tank would run. That's an example of out of the box thinking, and every situation is unique. If you got a dairy I will assume you got a gutter system in the freestall barn, so there's your initial collection point. Then it really depends where it's more cost effective, use it for heating, or use it for electrical generation? You probably already got a farm sized genny, most likely a PTO model, so there ya go, adapting that will require a donkey engine of some kind, probably something like a small 4 cylinder jap truck motor be the ticket. Need reduction gearing, they got the torgue if ya gear it right and you need to hit your sweet spot on the genny RPMs. That's something you'll need to tinker with. the propane carbs will work, they are in your area I'm sure. Storable pressure I'm of two minds, I like solid stuff, but the bladder concept is sound, maybe a army surplus fuel bladder or water buffalo might work. that's your collection and dispersal container for the gas, and it should stand up to the corrosion. Smaller scale they use the float method, the drum inside a drum with water as the seal, but you'll need "more". I wouldn't try to compress it unless you can get guidance from some pro propane guys on this, I think it's too dangerous and requires too much equipment and you'll lose efficiency, that's why I like a flexible bladder.
Commercial designs exist for various operations, and you certainly sound familiar enough with the processes to have found them. maybe find some guys who have done it, like these guys in the article, give ema call on yor nickle and some emails, see what they ran into and what they would do different now. Yes, probably expensive to start, but your alternative is? Keep doing what you are doing, slowly go broke, wait until federal price supports evaporate? You know they stopped and slowed down stockpiling. Well,maybe it'll get worse, maybe it won't, I'll admit I don't know, but tell ya, according to the TV talking heads everyone in the US should be multimillionaires by now if you believed them 4 or 5 years ago. Hmm, didn't happen, so maybe their ideas suck too. Just a thought.
Hey, as an aside, some guys with enough total windy days have found a couple/few of the commercial sized large wind gennys are actually pretty decent. Might be something there as well, 'farm" the wind blowing by, sell into the grid or maybe direct to as local manufacturing plant, after you use what you need? that would require VC but 'energy" is sexy now, might be possible.
It's funny but that was one of the few honest efforts that enron did, that division, their large wind turbines. GE bought them at pennies on the buck I think. google will find that info. There's even better designs out there now, a company outside cheyenne wyoming has one I've seen, forgotten the name now though.
Anyway, keep following their lead on the TV and in the industry rags, or do something different. That's the question. That's the question for all US ag. rural america really, because "rural ethnic cleansing" is a reality. Grain exporters are even seeing it, traditionally our number one ag export, that ratio is shrinking, foreign growers can beat the prices now, just like in manufacturing.
Cheap dollar will help a smidgen there, but hurt the rest of the economy so I don't see the FED or gov wanting that too much, not right now anyway.
I think it's short sighted,dangerous for our national security,I think that the US needs to be a diversified economy, full manufacturing, vertically, full agriculture, mining, energy development, etc. Deal is, we are being forced into competing when there's little more to be done to be "more efficient" following the approved models. If you are following a more restrictive model than the foreign trading nations follow, but they can use the same tech and reduced labor, makes it kinda hard to do. We can watch as family farms disappear within one more generation for all practical purposes, or go for it, do something different. manufacturing is poofing daily, I mean daily you can read yet another big company, layoffs, move to china.
Anyway, me, grew up working on farms locally but my father didn't own one, but that was it around where I lived. He drove into town and was a mainframe computer guy. Worked on them off and on into my 30's, now in my 50's I find myself back living rural, back to work on farms, they (farmers I see) are mostly older now, just a general impression,but nothing much has changed near as I can see. Locally I'm trying to push(casually, this is just fun for me really, and I would like to help people) sprouted grains as an alternative to milled feed, or at least partially. Basically I am not going to push it much longer, they read my lit, look at the batches I make for comparison,get impressed, then walk away saying "the co op" won't allow it " or "why aren't THEY doing it?" I had one guy just with a few stock critters interested, but he couldn't be bothered to follow up on it past just talk, and I sure as heck ain't gonna buy the gear and the grains and build it for him for free!
I can't answer those questions other than some "they" people are doing these things, but mostly like a lot of things in society, money controls what happens and what people are TOLD to do. Ha! I remember my dad being the electronics guy, we had the FIRST tv in the neighborhood. he was that "they" guy who was "doing it" when it came to something new. Someone has to be the "they" guy in every area, or it just don't get done. I have seen a LOT of complaining, but the nanosecond you SUGGEST something else, you can't hardly finish your sentence and they tell you it won't work, can't be done, impossible, etc, every negative you can think of. It's an immediate reaction, like preprogrammed. Plus the "us" versus "them" deal, rural america versus the "enviros". No one can see the other guys point of view, both sides make some points, but extremism on BOTH sides has been the norm forever. the globalist goons love it, it's the classic divide and conquer routine, get people faked out who their 'enemeies" are, get them to stop looking further at that man behind the curtain. Pretty funy if it wasn't so serious. Lately the "enviros" are winning, but if you look w-a-a-a-ay to the tippy top of that "movement" above the grassroots folks who just like the "idea" level, at the true stratosphere of it, you'll see guess who?
Same guys making all their money off the true wealth creation that agriculture is and farmers are. Now gee, wonder why this is happening? Long range strategic planning to eventually OWN quadzillions of square miles of prime real estate? Combos of nutso laws passed by bribed politicos and economic manipulation? Anyway, I call that a clue. I also call it mass brainwashing because it's happened. That's an OPINION, and I do NOT care who's feelings get hurt, either side of the issue.
For what it's worth I feel the same away about manufacturing jobs, shipping them offshore only accomplished-what? Several million middle class guys with families out of work with little replacement jobs or income? Same with IT work now, you can see that starting to go buh bye. Jobs they can't ship offshore they ship in serf labor. That's a biggee for me, because I can SEE how fast a local area can change, and tell ya, it ain't looking good. The proof is in the auctions and bankruptcies and for sale signs and rising property taxes and governments locally going broke despite it, with a few local fatcats making all the cream. Same guys I see in the paper listed as the largest campaign donors to these various pol weasels. Amazing coincidence I guess you'd call it. And if THAT ain't enough nothing else I can say will offer much. Fug it. I'm buying my own land shortly,been looking for a couple months now for the best deals, something I should have done years ago but got trapped into urban living. Finally broke myself of that,girlfriend conming home telling me she couldn't fill up the tank on her car from dodging the crack heads and winos hanging around the quick store stations was about it for me, that and losing contracts steadily until I bidded myself so low I couldn't afford replacement tools anymore. Fug it. O I remember the stories my grandmas and great aunts told me about the depression, I REMEMBER them stories and they made an impression on me. they told about how all the people got tricked, then they lost their money, all that money moved upstram several levels. the goons are doing it again, it worked so good last time for them.
Our "leaders" insist on it, it's happening. So, moved back rural, got two jobs, both of which are phasing out soon, one ended today actually, but I'll go full self employed then, and here I stay. Small, cheap, but what profits I make will be mine, and I'll have food onsite, water, fuel, and etc. Won't be forced back into the approved mega cities so we can have "wildlands corridors and heritage sites", and sure as heck not going to any of this new global deal fascist camps they are talking about. That's another subject but it ties in. These globalists are some scary insane people, but oh well.
Small scale farming, a little of this, a little of that, I'll work on my own markets. Already talked to two of four local grocery stores, they'll take all the organic produce I can show up with in crates, no one will supply them even though they get asked for it by customers all the time. Another clue. And I WON'T botrrow money from the bank to do it. For the land, sure, got to live someplace, but for the rest, nope, I'll pay cash as you go or just not do it. I am king of the scroungers and cob jobbers, I take pride in few things but that is one of them, if I need a tool I'll make it just as fast as buying it. I just have that sort of philosphy. I detest the "system" because I think it's corrupt,our government is corrupt, the money/banking system is corrupt, the stock market is corrupt, and the fatcats at the top destroying the US middle class on purpose so they can become larger fatcats and create a two class master/serf modern technofuedalistic system is insane. Just check out their golden boy poster child nation red china. That's their little darling. Look CLOSE at the chinese model because that is what's coming here soon. They want that setup HERE and all these large corporations are going along with it, so that's clue #4.
And rather than just complain I offer solutions and do solutions myself, at the scale I can afford. That's the best I can do.
Hope you enjoyed the rant, and best of luck to you and if you detail whatever rig you build I'd like to see the specs. And we share something, when it gets late my fingers hurt, too. I want one of them startrek talking computers, much more nifty.
--you hit on several of my points and did it well. What happened to farming with corporate monoculture is it switched from really being a diversified local farmer to monoculture corporate "agribiz". Look at their soil, they lost the entir3e idea of what soil really is, it's an ALIVE thing, it's not just someplatform for the roots to hang out at. They take out of the soil season after season after season upwards of 80 micronutrients besides the carbon. Not ever is the same amount of carbon put back, even with tilling stubble and cover crops, so that is a net loss. Then they add back 3 to 5 nutrients in powder or liquid form, and that is supposed to make up for the 80 micronutrients they take out, that's where the quality is lost. Lather rinse repeat, for years and years, maybe only do 2 crops in rotation, and never do a traditional "jubilee" one season fallow cycle. Now it's getting into the frankenstein absurd levels with what's grown, some of the gene recombinant schemes being proposed are just slap dangerous, and also not very economical in the long run when you can't even save your own seed, getting tied into some whopper international company's product, and even if you don't want to as their plan is to introduce as much air pollinated GM seed as possible so eventually everything on the planet is contaminated with their patented stuff. Already one case in canada were some guy had a lot of money seized from him in a lawsuit with monsanto canola blew into his rapeseed fields, now monsanto "owns" his crop, he "violated" their patent. and look at starlink corn what a disaster that was and now the BT stuff? are they kidding? a wide ranging larvacide, just in everything? Built right into the FOOD? Oh yas, that will REALLY make for some healthy chow, might as well call it "Dr.s new mercedes payment" brand seed.
I tell you, having a global monopoly on food is a *bad idea*. Too bad it's happening. I read one report, some third world nations, a bare subsistence farmer, once it becomes impossible for him to save seed, is projected to be forced to spend roughly 1/3 his yearly gross on just the seed! and THAT is supposed to endear all these third world guys to something they associate with the "US"? such a deal for them-not! And it WON'T be a deal once what I call "crack" seed is universally used by commercial farmers and the price mu=ysteriously goes up, the sprays they "need" now go up, along with thei fuel costs and equipment costs and they try to trade in a "global market", working in DIRECT competition with second world nations that have huge corporate farms run by the SAME corporations that sell to them in the US now. Like, is this hard to project what is going to happen economically? Who's fooling who here now?
Like your parent poster said, it's debt, but the HOW and WHY the debt started happening reads almost like a mystery novel. It didn't happen overnight, it just gradually changed into it. There really aren't that many independents left, not when you work for the bank and 6 or so large international corporations. And they don't care! What happens is they get the larger farmers sucked in, they follow all the normal rules, eventually they lose out, have to sell, and guess who is waiting and has the buckets of cash to buy "distressed" land and equipment at auction? Add in the scammed enviro "willing seller" conservancy trust scams, we got a serious crisis almost right here. These international guys go down to south america and whatnot and can seriously undercut the US now, because they use the same tech at much reduced material cost and greatly reduced labor. There's NO way to compete with that EXCEPT for working your own markets, thinking out of the box like this dairy farmer, and becoming diversified and working as local as possible and eliminating middlemen. To ME, and this is just an opinion, I'd say buck the trend, not larger and more specialised and more in debt, get smaller, more diversified, and more local and no debt=better profits. The whole idea is to work for yourself, not just a small piece for you and most of the pieces to guys who sit in offices downtown and on trading floors in chicago.
There isn't any magical one size fits all "style" of farming, it just has too many factors that are unique, but every time you can eliminate cost,get benefit and profit from what was more a hassle, like these manure digesters, up quality of your farmed product above the market "norm" which is usually crappy nowadays so that is realeasy to do, charge a higher price, work in a market that isn't already saturated, and deal directly with your suppliers and customers without needing middlemen,then you're better off. You don't HAVE to do the ever grwoing larger volume monoculture debt equals more debt so borrow more to get more debt cycle thing then to "make money".
More real "agri", less "biz". That "biz" part wasn't really invented by farmers, nope it was invented by guys with clean hands and ledger books, that "biz" part makes the guys who DON'T farm money, not YOU as a farmer.
Older model, proving to be not a great deal for todays farmer -agriBIZ
model I suggest they switch to -AGRIbiz
Back to basics. God told folks how to run stuff, he said follow a few simple rules and regs as regards stewardship and economy and money, do such and such and don't do such and such, and it works. Follow mans laws,the bankers laws,the traders laws, the chem suppliers laws, etc, it only works for them, not you.
I like this subject immensely, please excuse remaining typos, it's just a post.
--not a lot. Our small personal rig on the RV we live in has some (3 panels currently)close to 60 watters at 2 amps a piece,run through a trace c40 charge controller to the batts. They are on a cart I modded out of one good handtruck and one junker, it allows 4 wheel stability with ease of set up and aiming, I move them by hand some times in a "bio-drive" tracker mode. the cabling was some scrounged welding like cable, works pretty well. heh. Low tech but it works and has proven useful dealing with winds and the small amount of panels. Suck down every photon I can. That runs the small stuff inside easily without having to use the gas genny. We have an additional feed via underground conduit/wire I put in from one circuit off a panel from the neighbors larger array, his is pretty nice, running almost 3 kw at over 60 amps in the middle of the day with good sunshine. That aray is a hybrid of three different types of PV panels, currently there are 31 of them, different sizes, I *think* the larger panels are 120 watts apiece IIRC. His are primarily unisolar on a large tilting array, two very small siemens put in just to fill a gap in the array because they fit and they were kicking around, then ten solarexs on separate pole mounts. Those are set for 24 VDC run to the batts and stuff, run into 3 4024 trace inverter/chargers, first running through trace c40 charge controllers. Two battery banks, one bank has 24 trojan T-105s, the other has 12 real decent rolls surrettes (dang nice batts, worth the loot if you go to get storage batts). I have onboard in my rig 4 diehard golfcart batts and two starter batts, and one loose 12v "anything" batt I keep charged to use as a mobile jump station or for use during storms, etc, when I want to drop most stuff off and run as self contained as possible, ie, single light and my ancient 12 volt only laptop. Live on the top of a big hill you learn to respect lightning, heh.
All in all most decent, been running solar now 4 years this coming may, only regretis I wish I had started a lot sooner. I used 12 volt tech a long time camping,decades now, but always just spare batts charged off the vans alternator, adding the panels is *nice*. Back in the real olden daze we just swapped car batts and used things like junkyard backup lights for the cabin lights and car radios and car 8track players. You just keep 3 charged batts, one is ALWAYS charged for a backup to start your vehicle, one is in use inside the cabin (or tipi or yurt or tent or hovel whatever), the other is used in your vehicle, Just swap them out daily, rotate. That was our "alternate energy".
Anyway, now with solar, it's slick. Quiet, smooth, works. I have a small wind genny but it isn't installed yet, I plan on building a tower the next place we move to. I don't own where we are now or it would be up already. That one is just a small aeromarine @ 300 watts, thing must only weigh like 10 lbs or something less, pretty small but still needs a tall tower to really be effective. wind and solar and backup fuel genny is a good combo for a decent hybrid system.
Hey, good for you man! I got one, that you can benefit from and your kid will love it. Get a garden! Even a 10 foot by 10 foot garden will produce an amazing amount of food, and there's always stuff the kid can do once they get past toddler stage into the running around energy up the wazoo stage. I started gardening when I was 4 years old, haven't missed a season yet. Our gardens are much bigger than 10 by 10, but still, I had a lot of smaller ones like that over the years. It's practical, easy to do, and you get direct benefits without filtering it through the stupid cash/store/taxes/outside job deal. Even if you are in an apartment you can garden, just use cheap large normal household decorative plant pots, just plant veggies instead of palm trees and philodendrons! Use some stakes from the garden center, grow some stuff like cherry tomatoes and peas and cucmbers, etc indoors, just stick then in front of sunny windows. Save money on chow bill, you get decent organic food, and teach yourself and child some nifty stuff. win/win/win all around. If you want a good inexpensive primer on doing small but very good gardens, I would recommend a book called "square foot gardening", will tell ya all you need to get started. If you have another spare window or some roof or wall space on the south side, get started on solar PV. Even one panel, one charge controller and a deep cell battery you can run some decent 12 volt stuff. Plus, it's a good backup emergency "power" source that will be there if your grid goes out, like a lot of places happens occasionaly. Before I got more, one panel was all my girlfriend and I had for power, we ran a reading light, small b/w tv and the radio off of it, and that was IT for our power. but just a light, tv, radio or a laptop for a bit is 'enough" for backup, and you can start using it right then. For the light, any autoparts store has 12 volt fluorescents for around 10$, and the small tvs and stuff are easy to find and cheap.
Good luck! Kids are a great excuse to "learn and do". Both of you benefit from it!
--would it be possible to get the name of this city so I can do some research on it? I would like to present a proposal to my county commissioners on this. Most of the other sites doing biogas and cogen I found were much larger cities and a population of 10,000 is in the ball park enough for comparison purposes. Thanks in advance if this is possible.
--collecting methane at sewer plants and from city dumps is being done on a large scale at over 200 US municiplaities. It works quite well.
World wide there are literally hundreds of thousands of them (methane digesters using anareobic digestion), most of them being single family sized units where the collected gas is burned in small cookers and for lighting.
I built a digester in the mid 70's, was EXTEREMELY easy to make. I worked on a large dairy then, despite running the digester for all summer and collecting gas, just a small display size prootype unit, I could NOT get the farmer to drive over one mile to my cabin to look at it. His stock question was "why aren't THEY doing it if it is so good?" The gas collected was great, basically burned like propane. I tried other farmers over the years,I have yet to get one to take the plunge and actually do anything different, alwatys the same, it ain't in their propaganda magazines for their particular niche for farming. You can NOT get those guys to do anything practical until they get "permission" from the agribiz cartels, and right now, the agribiz cartels want the farmers to buy expensive petroleum and chemical products from them or their country club buddies. and the farmers WONDER why they keep going broke....and they TEACH going broke in the ag colleges, which is AMAZING to me they can suck young guys into doing that.
grumble....
At least this one dairy farmer in the article gets it, it's probably only one in a thousand or less that can actually think for themselves. Work hard, 7 days a week, YEP! They do, been there done that meself. think outside the box? Hardly ever happens, so petrified of their buddies at the co-op and the feed store thinking they are "enviros" or something near as I can tell.
Flash forward almost 30 years now, I get the same thing today, I work part time on a large poultry farm, besides methane digestion I have also asked why they don't use sprouted grains instead of the dismal dried up crap they call "feed" that barely keeps the cluckers clucking. SAME ANSWER, because "they" don't do it, this "they" guy who tells them what to do, it's not in the trade mags so "it doesn't work, it's hippie pie in the sky stuff enviro whackos".
I LAUGH every time I hear of a farmer going broke, because if they only thought just a smidgen outside the box and stepped back from being brainwashed by archerdanielsdowmonsantoexxon, they could make money, and easily. But no, they'll defend practices that they follow that produce for them a lower profit return than their grand daddys got in world war two. Sure, they can grow huger volumes of much crappier food off an acre, deal is, it IS crappier food and they hand over their cash to the big companies, then the bank takes their property eventually. Lead around by the nose don't even begin to describe it.
And I get the same thing from urban internet engineering "experts" who have constantly told me over the years my solar panels don't work, they "aren't practical". Funny, my electric bill is PAID OFF, I don't get a "monthly" bill with no idea what it will be if there's any political or middleman trading shenanigans. but, "solar isn't practical".
Phooie
The 21st century will belong to those who can think out of the box and stop making money for BIGCO, who work FOR THEMSELVES, and stop supporting those brane dead politicians and political parties who are in BIGCO's pockets.
--oh, I agree. here's the big difference from the past, following historical trends. every technology has, as you say, a light and dark side. what has happened since the second half of the 20th century is we seem to be jumping centuries in decades of advancement. You look at how long it took human beings to get to the steam engine, then look from the steam engine to airplanes, then from airplanes to walking on the moon, now from walking on the moon to...now, what you are seeing now.
Our society hasn't kept up socially, it's IMPOSSIBLE to do so. we still have the same exact ratiosof good people and bad people, the same amount of wars, etc, the same autocracy pushes that we had back in steam engine and pre steam engine days. We can't afford to ignore this and just say 'oh well, we have always dealt with it". We can't. The technology now , once it gets used for abusive purposes, literally can make one person equal to an army of the past. And nothing else has changed for the better, it's the same on the social human front. Every single advance in technology always has gotten used in BOTH general warfare, and in governmental warfare on it;'s own citizens. it's always happened in the past, and there isn't a single human can guarantee it WON'T happen in the future, and odds of it not happening are abysmally low.
So your smart dust will control the grid! Swell! Slick, sounds good! That also means some dictator or black faction could cause an 'accident" and maybe shut OFF power more effectively. Maybe even frame a class of people into showing who "did it". They can now morph videos where it's almost impossible to tell reality from fantasy, a la "the running man" faked videos. They can create digital records, change exisiting ones, etc, basically "prove" almost anything they want to. They are already doing it on the TV, and getting completely away with it, they are injecting fake backgrounds that are so realistic that the average viewer doesn't know he's looking at a talking tv newshead in a studio, they are seeing the news guy standing in front of a building or whatever they want him to see. That's some SCARY stuff if you think how mass propaganda efforts could use that technology. See the abuse potential? And it's happened in the past,it'shappening now, so it will keep happening, there's the rub. It just will get to be "better quality" abuse. More efficient wars. Faster/better psyops. Overclocked "command and control".
I know you can see where I am going with this. In steam engine days it was harder to "command and control" populations, they didn't have bugs, wiretaps, tracking technologies, death from the air directed from thousands of miles away via a console, things of that nature, BUT, we still got the same humans. They managed it then, but now, they can do it on unimaginable scales, and with sophistication into the "gee whizz" category levels..
Michi Kaku the futurist and physicist states this as well. He ranks theoretical global civilizations on a 0 to whatever scale, 0 is were we are now, 1 is controlling the planets weather and limited space travel locally, etc, all the way to a Q god like powers. His opinion, and I agree, that the odds of any civilization getting from a type 0 to even a type 1 are 99 to 1 against it, from misuse of technology. In his case he thinks it will be misuse of uranium, basically burning the planet up and poisoning it. I tend to think misuse of bioengineering from some really stupid "bug" that wasn't thought about and some bioengineered thing gets released and borks the global food systems, or actual bioengineered warfare biologicals released on purpose, but, that point is moot. They already borked a few, like the superweed canola and starlink corn, but that isn't stopping them from saying "whoops, well, we'll try it again". One of these days that whoops is REALLY gonna suck. and they ARE gonna keep whoopsing. guar-an-teed. that's what humans do. We build, we screw up, sometimes it works, sometimes it don't, sometimes it works just too well.
I just am resigned to believing it is going to happen, we'll have some amazingly good tech, humans will benefit from it, but the big dog global megalomaniacs and your combo of garden variety sins of greed and whatnot will order it's misuse, and seeing that humans will more just do their job and take and follow those orders and cash the check, I think it will happen. I mean, it already IS happening, so I see no reason to think it'll stop happening, so just run a normal extrapolation curve on it. Apply moore's law as a general indicator, how long before it gets bad, when some war gets out of control? Especially with the dwindling oil sources and fresh water sources and religious and social strife and the state of the world's economy right now?
Just something to think about, technology is always BOTH useful and harmful. Once the potential for harm crosses some threshold into being regional and global in size and has the ability to get their quickly, which it has arrived at now, then it's only a matter of when and not if it will occur. And I don't think it will be like a "commfortable" 50 years in the futre, nope, I am more thinking by around 2010 to 2015 things could be *quite ugly* on this old green and blue ball.
That's not a lot of time for everyone to evolve into universally "nice guys". Even the 50 years isn't enough.
I know this is termed a "calvinistic" outlook, but I really don't see another description that fits the mass human psyche as well. Humans are agressive, predatory, and perfectly willing to fight to even insane suicidal levels. So, look at the tech available now, project a few years hence, look around at what's generally going on in this old whirrled,then just think about it.
I never really addressed silicon valley. They are making a big mistake, same one they just came out of. The internet dot com bubble came about from greed and stupidity, but they are desparetly looking for the next bubble so they can go back to the good old days of cash as easy to get as it was, inssane amounts. That greed mindset combined with advanced tech we have now but lack of forethought with the tech advances coming real soon in the future might cause a tad more than just another economic bubble. I hope it don't, but really..... they ain't changed, have they? That "mindset"? So? Have governments changed? Are people less greedy, less stupid, less inclined to blame others, less inclined to be abusive? Nope, it's still the same humans.
--dang hell YA! You GOT it. Sad to see HONEST LEGAL immigrants getting the complete BS from our drone bloatedcrats while the illegals are rewarded daily.
I wish you well, I am glad you finally got it straightened out. Hang tough!
Tell ya a story from my girlfriend. She gets a divorce before I met her, but never changed her name back, so one day she goes to do it. Buncha calls later she's down at the SSN office trying to get a new card, she got STACKS of ID, proof of this, proof of that, bills, insurance papers, the whole regular american deal, including our state DL of course. We are the only two anglos in the room. About two dozen or so hispanics. I saw the "ID" these guys were using to get SSN's, didn't even have a picture on it! Just printed up pieces of paper with some weird stamp on it, and they were going through the line fast as the clerks could handle it. One of them was the translator, it was like he had a tour group almost. I mean, we are sitting right there watching this go down.
Comes my girlfriends turn in line, NOPE, not enough "proof" to get it that day, had to go get some more. We are both steamed and incredulous, but what can ya do. So, before we leave, I asked the lady "WHAT is up with handing out all the cards to these guys? Can't you see you are being scammed?" I'm paraphrasing but I asked her that. So, she leans over to me across the counter, older white lady, whispers "we got ordered to do it that way, we don't like it either". No lie, she told me that.
That was in an office in norcross georgia, a burb northeast of atlanta, about 4.5 years ago.
---umm, they do vote when they try and they do collect social security now. They just stand in line, get their DL and voters registration, they can get it at the library if they want to, it's easy to get a card. They do get their kids free public education at local schools, while any local "property" taxes they pay are coming from 12 to an apartment style living. yep, I'm sure those 12 to what was a two person apartment really pays the ole local gov bills, no subsidies there.... They are bankrupting local hospitals all over, as they aren't turned away at the emergency room door for anything from sniffles to major surgery. Thousands cross the border daily just to have their babies on this side, poof, instant citizenship, which then allows the extended family of the baby in. On and on. They do get drivers licenses, and etc. They use the new "matricular" cards which are just printed up pieces of crap basically, then go get "US" SSNs and drivers license based on that matricular "ID". Check out the news sometime. That latest one with the social security was a few weeks ago. We are even building large US government centers down in mexico to make it easier to apply. I guess use google news search, "mexico, social security" as search terms, it's there, you'll find it.
I didn't want to dilute the funny aspect of it with my original post, but the facts are just *data*, it's real, the numbers are real, the events happening are real.
I just can't wait for the US to be a large scale scene like the israelis versus the palestinians once their numbers get high enough and the aztlan(again, use google, you can just read what they say) guys decide to go "normal central american politics", which is basically, bombs and bullets as a normal way to "do" politics. It's coming, they say they are going to do it, and looking around the world at what usually happens in similar situations, I believe them. It'll happen.
I first ran into some of those doods back in the late 60's, talked to them face to face, they were called "brown berets" then. The guys I talked to worked out of chicago, BTW. Anyway, their timing was off a little, but basically what they told me then I can see is happening now. They said they would invade until their numbers got high enough that by both controlling large scale regional politics in the south west and other areas from force of altered demographics (happening), and by implementing forced relocation of anglos by completely skewing the demographics(happening in some places), that they would seize de facto control of several states and have a shadow government with mexico (happening, we already have a few dual mexican government and "US" governmental elected people publically, probably a few more on the sly). Then it will change to just "their new country". They also said they fully intend to use any and all physical pressure to accomplish this, ie , as much guerrilla war as was necessary.. this will happen once they have a lot of sympathisers who are sheriffs, cops, various elected people, people in all areas of some local and state governments and bureaucracies, running the newspapers and other media, etc, what you would need to do a takeover. At the time they were guessing it would take them at least 20 years to even start, it's been 30, but they were pretty accurate so far near as I can see.
I'm more amazed that this government can whip up a frenzy over a "muslim" population that is so small, yet completely ignore a massive invasion that is ongoing and daily. There are mere counties in the southwest that get a projected more than one million illegals a year cross their borders. Oh yes, I am quite sure every single one of them are perfectly nice guys. Like the 100,000 hispanic gang members just in greater LA are all "nice guys". Like the guys who over in my little north georgia community who started doing home invasions armed and violently last month are "nice guys". Uh huh, swell, no problemos... I guess those gang symbols I started seeing on buildings and walls just starting late last year, the markings, are just "high school pranks". Funny they didn't exist before around here, and funny they sort of coincide with a huge local upsurge in violent crime, something that was traditionally pretty rare. Just a coinky-dink I'm sure.
Good read if you are interested, a book called civil war 2 by tom chittum, lays it out pretty well, IMO.
--the article to me split it right down the middle. What the author found interesting and I guess exciting in some of the cases I find horrible. Wasp sized flying surveillance drones? Umm, no thankew. Universal data mining? I'd like to pass on that. Smart dust? Tracking chips for all products, and then humans-the "little kid wandering more than 50 feet away from mommy"?
It's like no mention of the abuse potential here. I don't think that should be ignored, we have as humans ignored that in the past, to continue to do so will most likely result in planetary suicide. It's a variant of the short term profits mentality.
This could just as well been in the "how to make science reading more enjoyable" thread. It's a great example of something "close" but no seegar. I would have liked this article better if it was balanced better, show what is promising and the relative merits of it, as opposed to the obvious dangers of developing it without having a grasp of modern social paradigms and realities.
I think humanity needs a bitter reality pill-our hard science is advanced,and advancing much faster than anything else,but our social science is woefully inadequate to use our hard science advancements without abusing it. this isn't a theoretical world, nothing is pure science, you have to always consider the implications of what you are doing. It's like driving a car, really, a simple analogy. You can build a car that goes 200mph, but without some societal norms and without at least a minimum set of rules that are easy to see make some "common sense"and that are followed by most people, the potential for abuse would make universal adoption of the 200mph car a disaster on the roads we have and with the people we have now.
I guess I am a moderate, neither a luddite nor a "build all we can now, now, NOW!" kinda guy.
Hope this makes some sort of sense. When I first read 1984 it seemed farfetched to me, today, all I have to do is go to any large city and it's close, real close. I look at the headlines, the "robotization" of warfare, the reduction of humans to "collateral damage", the impersonality and reduction of the value of LIFE itself to just another commodity, well, it's scary. Then I read an article like this, and I think "heck, we are a year or two away from it being totally "1984" except with a turbocharger and on steroids.
Can we deal with as humans? No idea, I have serious doubts at this time though.
What do you mean you "don't have a congressman"? Just pick one out! We got 20 million mexicans who can vote, get a drivers license, get free medical care, bring over their entire familes, open bank accounts and now even get social security-all of whom are not "legal" immigrants. No idea how many legal, that is OK as far as I am concerned, but the other 20 million do exist, and what I said is true, they do all that stuff and no one says boo to them--so-- don't let being a canadian get in your way, the US is wide open! Have fun! Pick "your" congress weasel out and let him have it with your opinion!
--not sure of it's effectiveness on solid chemical batteries, but the lead acid storage batts we use in the solar rigs here all have "oscillators" on them that act to stop or reverse sulphation on the plates. They seem to work well, too, I noticed a significant lessening of charge cycles (to basically run the same amount of stuff the same amount of time, normal daily use) and a return to visual clarity of the electrolyte after they were installed for a few weeks. Commercially they can be found under "desulphator" search. From what I understand of the tech, granted I am not an EE so not an expert, but they attach across the terminals in a short circuit manner, using the batteries own power as their power source, very small amount of draw obviously. They at a certain frequency pop a charge back and forth, shocking the sulphates off the plates and back into solution as sulphuric acid. Keeping the plates clean allows a better transfer of power with the chemical reaction. Result, more efficiency and greatly extended battery life. I hope that's a good representation, perhaps someone else here more knowledgeable and who is versant in this tech can explain it better or more accurately.
..wish I could self mod myself to zero with this lame question. Asking because I don't know, and it's probably not possible. But do they make or has anyone made, a mobo with a dual processor for dual processor tasks, then a single processor someplace else on the board, for doing single processor worthy tasks? I would think that might be nifty if it was possible and the software could take advantage of it, especially with multitasking.
--in theory it's our government, in practice it's an international banking and industrial cartel that buys off members of two gangs called the Republican and Democratic "parties". It's bribed and blackmailed through and through, top to bottom and sideways. In addition, all the nominated judges are members of one of those parties. And now we have closed source, no verification computerised voting, it's a sham and a scam. Those gangs are so corrupt and chicken of losing their stranglehold they have on the government they seized, they don't "allow" any third party candidates in the national televised debates.
I would LIKE it to be all of our's government, it was certainly designed that way, and even george washington gave a stern warning over organized political parties taking over, but the default is, we lost. It's gone. We don't have a representative republic unless you are an international faction with very deep pockets, THEY get represented, that's it. Our military is a pure industrial mercenary force, we haven't had a legal war since WW2 desopite being in any number of "wars", they just 'follow orders". They should just slap bechtel and general dynamics logs on their shoulderts and take their US flags off, because they don't represent us, they represent these international for profit corporations. Some federal court lst week REFUSED to even consider a lawsuit brought on constitutional grounds over whether or not it was the executive branch "ruler" or congress who "declares war". Gee, this government got time for all these other STUPID lawsuits, something as important as WHO THE HECK DECLARES WAR isn't worthy of a trial?!? HUH? SAY WHUT?
It's a joke, and saddam is no worse than dozens of other nations dictators. He's a run of the mill plain vanilla dictator. Yes, he's bad, so what else is new? How is he ANY different from any other nation in the mideast? He *might* be a threat to israel, but not the US until we invade, THEN he'll be a threat. What would YOU do if you knew some big force was coming in to kill you? Roll over or go for broke, take as many of them with you as you can? Let's apply some basic logic to this scenario here. The US is HUGE, got weapons up the wazzo, saddam would NOT attack the US knowing he could have overlapping radioactive craters where his nation used to be. This is a SCAM, just like the past dozen wars have proven to bee SCAMS after many years have passed. And if he's this threat to israel, it's their business,not ours, they have by far and away the largest military force in the mideast,overwhelmingly more powerful than even any coalition of muslim nations, and have by some counts as many as 400 nukes, all of which by the way are totally illegal by international "law" which doesn't mean anything anyway, and are in MORE UN violation status than iraq is.
Naw, I want the US to gets it's crooks and slackers out of office and the hired on and appointed bureaucracy. And get our troops out of the one HUNDRED countries they are in now. The 10% of the people left over then of that total federal bloatacracy would be closer to what the federal government's size and influence and lawful duties are supposed to be by actual constitutional design. After that, we can decide if we need to wage war on some nation. Frankly? right now? MEXICO is a threat to our nation, followed by china, russia and then north korea. Iraq, Iran and syria are way down the list.
You want a tad more security inside the nation? The dems and repubs can get serious about all the illegals in the nation, kick them out like any sane nation would, get back control over legal immigration, then get serious about inspections of imports into the nation, and if that makes foreign imports more expensive I don't care, we need JOBS back inside the US, we don't need to be exporting those jobs that are exportable to overseas and running in illegals by the millions to take jobs that are left over. Carry that to it's logical conclusion, you get CRAP. You get the middle class of the US DECIMATED. I don't want to see the US turned into yet another big second world nation with a 1% wealthy ruling class and everyone else serfs. It's breaking in the financial news right now,right today, they are finally admitting how many lost jobs we have. IT'S MILLIONS AND MILLIONS it's at a no joke level, it's BAD, I just can't see losing millions of jobs a year as being all that smart. These aren't buggy whip jobs, these are jobs that were paying home notes, car notes, sending children to college, buying groceries and now THEY AIN'T, and there AREN'T replacement jobs, and what replacement jobs are coming are at MUCH lower pay scales overall. This is NUTS and will only go to create a skewed two class society. We are CLOSE to this being reality.
Screw that, screw spending the projected 1.2 TRILLION dollars to go seize some dipsquat country in the middle east and hold it for years, it is NOT in our best interests at this time. 1.2 trillion would buy a LOT, repeat A LOT, of domestic R&D into alternative energy and DEFENSIVE arms which should NOT be exported to any more dictatorships like we have been doing for 50 years. YOU DON'T ARM GANG MEMBERS DOWN THE STREET, SO YOU DON'T ARM BOGUS DICTATORSHIPS. PROFITS are not worth it, they are short term and those profits will come back and bite you ten times worse, and we are SEEING that happen right now so we should STOP doing that. Too bad we CAN'T because the government got HIJACKED IN A JUNTA TAKEOVER many years ago.
This is too complex, no way to address all this in a single post. The government is insane out to lunch fascist, I've watched it slowly changing since I became fairly politically aware in the early 60's, and I started out my awareness working in both the conservation movement and also as a goldwater conservative.I've been a political activist going on 40 freeking years now, and it SUCKS. Don't tell me electing in ANY MORE DEMS OR REPUBS is gonna do ANYTHING besides make it worse. That goldwater common sense and reasonably honest wing of the R party got decimated and taken over by the fabian socialist old money globalist wing, which runs the repub party now. They are nuts, aristocratic royal wannabes, out to lunch lying weasels. The conservation movement started as common sense, make sure we did our best to stop pollution, save a handful of extremely endangered animals, etc,it was GOOD, until now it's gotten nuts, it got hijacked by UN worshipping naieve fairy tales gaia worshiping global socialist loons. RURAL ETHNIC CLEANSING is NOT the way to go about conservation. And the dimocrat party? Bah! The dim party is just power politics based on transfer of money, that's their voting bloc, steal from one person, give to another, count vote. A formula that works for them mostly, always has, always has been criminal in nature and practice. Bah, a pox on all their houses.
I am an independent constitutionalist who believes in common sense solutions based on the reality that we are americans, we have a unique form of government based on personal soverignty, personal responsibility, an aversion to foreign wars, honest money, sane trading, hard work, limited government, we are supposed to not meddle with foreign nations much or enter into entanglements, and we dang well SHOULD always grow our own food, grow our own lumber, make our own energy,build our own manufactured goods, and not trade with nations that are dictatorial and just lame and stupid. When we did that, IT WORKED, AND WORKED PRETTY WELL.
All that good-baby got thrown out with the bad-bathwater of greed and stupidity. It's gone from looking bad to BEING bad and the projected curve goes straight up into pure freaking heinous big brotherville terrible despotic REAL bad.
Bah phooie. Anyone wants to "go fight saddam", I'll be glad to find an online travel agent for them and point to an online map of where iraq is, go do it, good luck, don't force yet again another insane illegal war for profit on me. GO DO IT IF YOU WANT TO. We set up and supported saddam, the goons in charge now were his buddies back then when he came to power, we supplied him completely with conventional weapons and WMD despite it being "illegal", they KNEW he had proclivities for what he does, they supplied him with chemcials and biologicals and now they act surprised and he's a 'threat". Phooie, DOUBLE PHOOIE,pack up the top level admin, give THEM a rifle, put THEM on the ground as grunts over there, the hypocritcal weenies. They are BLOOD PROFITEERS,SALESMEN AND ACTORS, they are not "leaders" they are LYING CRIMINAL GOONS WHO REPRESENT INTERNATIONAL LOYAL TO NO NATION CORPORATIONS AND MAX PROFITS AND EVERYTHING THEY DO REVOLVES AROUND THAT REALITY.
Besides that, I'm looking forward to kernel 2.6 release, you?
Nothing like a good rant of a sunny saturday! Hope you enjoyed it, most fun to write, and I *do* believe what I write.
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--9-11 is quite an involved subject. There's no way to address it in a simple post other than on a very basic level. This is what I have gathered so far. It's random and off the top of my head, has some data and opinions mixed.
most of al queda are cannon fodder, ie, "useful idiots". Quite literally goat herders.
The intel services have interacted , made use of, trained and supported with materiel and cash al queda and affiliated groups on an on-going basis for a long time
illegal drugs are a tremendous motivation for illegal activity--reference, history of the KLA and support for same with again, domestic intel groups (factions within, the compartmentalisation I referenced). KLA and al-queda are vitually indistinguisable in members.
9-11 was known about in advance. Trial runs of this technique were conducted in the phillipines, and again, all this was known to the intel community, well in advance of 9-11
It is undeniable that oil resources are now, along with water resources, the top sought after commodity, nothing else comes close, even uranium or gold doesn't approach it
"The hunt for terrorists" has always been here. the deal is, and this is more than verifiable, that lower level federal police in various agencies had extremely good intel on these groups. time after time, once the investigations started looking good, the trail appeared to have some off-trails that were heading towards what I call "white guys in suits". When those subtrails were noted to these lower level police agents superiors, they were immediately taken off those cases, in some instances, not only removed, but ordered to not talk about it, and ordered to "forget about it". See my final note at bottom of this post.
Governmental agencies are not the only ones with advanced intelligence services, both the oil industry and the insurance industry and the banking industry have their own private intelligence services, and they are *not* all that incompetent. Also, there is a lot of cross referencing and cooperation involved, as most if not all of the private intel services have as their directors and top level employees retired (?) governmental officers.
In US recent history, large scheduled airliners or large private planes with flight plans are monitored. Deviations from flight path, if not immediately rectified over radio communications, are met with immediate scrambling of the nearest available fighter planes. The lag time for this to happen on 9-11, with FOUR (earliest reports were 5 planes, the existence of the 5th is still controversial) was an extreme aberration. it in no way resembles any similar incident, and there are reports of planes that could have been scrambled as routine, but were ordered to stand down for a critical short time period. No credible explanation has ever been offered for this seemingly large "lapse in judgement" considering multiples of planes like this going off course severely would tell anyone past a room temperature IQ that something rather strange and probably "not good" was occurring.
The buildings themselves, the two towers specifically, suffered again, some rather strange engineering phenomena in order to collapse. Fuel tanks and the fuel contained therein inside the planes, travelling at roughly 500 MPH, smashing into large buildings, would have resulted in the bulk of the fuel being vaporized, and as a vapor or at a minimum highly dropletised, would have almost immediately burnt, not leaked slowly down through one hundred stories of a building. This can be verified by merely watching the video of the second hit, the fuel did all burn up on impact. By other accounts, firefighters were reporting easy access until the moment the building really collapsed, said collapse giving more appearance of a controlled demolition than anything else. In particular, building 7, which had no plane impact, collapsed identically to any number of other recorded previously controlled implosions. No suitable and credible explanation for building 7s collapse and destruction has ever occurred, yet it did happen. In addition, "fire" in and of itself has never prviously resulted in any modern high rise to collapse in such a straight down manner. This is supposedly now two engineering defying occurrences happening within a short period of time. Odds of that occurring naturally are tremendously against those events happening.
Ties, both direct business and indirect obfuscated daisy chained corporate,between high level governmental personages and various "wahabist" oriented governments and individuals, including very wealthy individuals. The only two nations that are(were) primarily wahabist are afghanistan and saudi arabia. All the names and business ties are well known.
In large scale economics, global scale, double and triple crossing is not an unusual occurrence. When you are talking of not billions but trillions of dollars, this should always be taken into consideration.
In considering a crime, the primary focus for determining guilt is to consider the question of "who profits?"
Temporary alliances can be made, for very different reasons, as long as the results achieve a conclusion that profits each of the allies in the alliance. The profitable reasons can be quite varied, they need not be the same reason. The classic example of this would be something like the JFK assassination. There were many credible reasons why a variety of groups/factions would have wanted kennedy "gone". The oil depletion allowance tax law, the elimination of the federal reserve and the "interest" payments to them, and a return ot offical treasury "money", the loss of cuba, the loss (to some) of the upcoming southeast asia games,the renewed interest at actually combatting the mafia under rfks leadership in opposition to j edgars ignoring of same, etc, are all interconnected time-wise events that resulted in any number of high level and powerful "connected ones" becoming *most annoyed* with JFK. So, he gets whacked, this is not rocket science here. Cooperation in this occurring, and using cutouts, patsys, plausible deniability, etc are according to most researchers the "who,why and how" the assassination occurred. Very few if any mainstream researchers at this point in historical time consider oswald to be a lone nut who did it. The consensus, and even after the second official government investigation, is that there were at least two shooters, ie, "a conspiracy" and not a random lone nut. In the immediate time frame though, popular public opinion and official governmental pronouncements were all "the lone nut theory". Double emphasis on "official". Make that triple. Records are sealed until the year--whatever, I forget but it's a long time from now. Basically forever for people now on the planet. 20-something big number.
9-11, being a similar styled event-an event that can be classed as "world class-paradigm and reality shifting" should be viewed similar, with a critical eye towards "official" pronouncements. The old adage applies, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me". Also reference "the SURPRISE attack at pearl harbor, and the 'gulf of tonkin' attack" among others.
Various new governmental initiatives, in particular, patriot act 1, patriot act 2 (first denied it even existed, vehemently denied), homeland security, model states health powers emergency act, and some others, can be considered a total re-work of the government of the united states. Any blief they are less than that is naieve and shows lack of actually reading the documents. Their full implementations completely change our society and government, and it hardly has started yet. The traditional "fine print" inspections, like any contract, provide the details. It is equivalent to a complete re write of the constitution, without an "official" re write, as a constitutional convention would be 'by law" required. But the results are the same, especially if you-you being "the controllers in charge of giving orders"- implement them because you are merely strong enough, ie, "by force" and coercion, and label anyone in opposition as "being with the terrorists". That statement should NEVER be forgotten about. We also have the rather strange pronouncemnts of the clerk in chief saying 'we should never harbor any strange conspiracy theories about who did 9-11" without any sort of public investigation as to who really did it. It was pronounced who did it, hmm, rather quickly and arbitraily. That statement also puts people on record to "don't go there, don't look-or else" which is a direct threat. A direct threat to not look, dont investigate-or else. After considerable time,and public outcry, an "investigation" was ordered, with such a "trustworthy" soul as Henry Kissinger set up as first pick to head the investigation. I would term that so ridiculous as to be worthy of any second rate vegas stand up comedian. That tells me again, it backs up the supposition that no true "investigation" is wanted, that in fact, it is clear indications of an advanced "coverup" effort.
Back to "who profits?" IMO, many, primarily based on money, power, strategic georgraphical interests. Anyone who thinks "oil" doesn't enter the picture can stop reading, skip this post, and don't even bother replying. Oil is definetly with no shadow of a doubt involved in this. Hundreds of billions a year of black market profits in illegal drugs are involved as well. Hundreds of billions in advanced technology sales and service is involved. Geographical "threats" represented by some nations in the immediate area of iraq and other neighbors are involved. The main cast of characters are inclusive of, but not restricted to, kuwait, iran, saudi arabia, the gulf states, syria, turkey, and israel. The "western" countries involved must be viewed in a totality of economic and strategic interests, not just pick and choose what level or what area to look at.
The concept of "the big lie" is well documented and understood historically. Any attempt at a really BIG big lie has to by practicality concerns be initiated at a level able to pull this off, that leaves one choice only, Governmental, sub section, a faction inside the "governmental" realm, and probably with "allies". Again, compartmentalisation.
No other single entity has the resources necessary, nor the already established compartmentalisation of it's resources that would be needed to both promote the big lie, pull it off, and carry it through to completion, and to most importantly, obfuscate most of what would be neede to be hidden to accomplis the "big lie's" goals.
My conclusion is that 9-11 attack was allowed to occur. The hijackers were mere underlings, basically manipulated and brainwashed into being retarded patsys. The reasons are numerous, plain vanilla old human greed reasons of command, control, power, authority, money, wealth, etc.
The side issues of Iraq is that it is a long running example of something that has occurred in the past. For an example, Noriega in panama, ostensibly an "ally", once his usefulness ended and he started demanding "more profits" from serious high level smuggling, he was removed using "official" military resources because of the complexity of his removal. Saddam is similar. Equally bad, equally connected, no longer useful for the various high level factions. Double crossed quite clearly in gulf war 1. The ties between saddam/iraq and the wahabists represented by osama bin laden are neglibile at best. All credible reports going way back indicate they were enemies, not allies. Saddam has always been a secularist. For all practical purposes, the two "things" represented by the WTC attacks and iraq are nebulous at best, into the ludicrous level. but we have the strange ocurrence of a concerted effort to blend these two things into peoples belief systems. It's more or less successful as well. I maiontain it's part of the total "big lie".
For some more relevations indicating official governmental prior knowledge and involvement in this reichstagg event of 9-11, there will be a guest on alex jones tonight. the guest is the lawyer who actuallyrepresents some of the lower level police who were ordered off the terrorism trail case prior to 9-11. that's really the best place to crack reality open, to show how dangerous the course the US is on officially. This is not a joke, and we won't be able to reset the game on this one.
infowars.com, for info on schedules and feeds, etc. His show goes on starting at 9pm central time. gcnlive.com has the full list of affiliate am/fm/sw stations, etc as well.
--how does google with it's archive get away with it then?
--you shouldn't have to skip reading the posts themselves, that is pretty "wrong". Sorry you have to do that. I don't have a good answer either, other than doing what other forums do, start banning trolls, and making the distinction of what a troll really is, ie, chronically abusive and vulgur as a good starting point. And the only way to do that effectively is by using a registration system that only allows registered users to post, and they have to use a "real" email addy instead of a throw away. Even that is spoofable, but it cuts down the signal to noise ratio immensely in places where it's been adopted.
Besides that I find the moderation system a little confusing. I tend to try and use my 1 point optional thing up and down as required, like this post I won't take it as it is pretty off topic to the main thread. But I have no problem leaving it on if the topic is more or less there, even if some of the comments I might make are tangential, because that's how human speech works, one thing leads to another, etc.
One of the best shows on PBS that I used to enjoy, the series called "connections". I think it was good because it clearly showed this point, and what interesting areas you could find in the "connect the dots" search. It's like the arguments for the "pro" side for "pure science", you never know what gems might turn up when you are looking for something completely different.
--hey, thanks! One of the few posts in at least three threads on this subject that provided some information about sco that went beyond "no one buys their stuff". I wasn't aware of their products being used in industries like that.
--I'm just amazed all the time when I read you "need" a 1 gig or larger mghz rating to be cool or something. I'm runnin linux just great on an old 200PP machine, the only real thing I had to do was stick some more ram in it. For workers/clerks in an office? No massive full upgrade or new computer is needed I would think. And even if they *think* it's needed they should milk those older machines dry, this is the age of cutting costs and getting efficient. Innovation is great-where it's REALLY needed. The OS upgrade to linux? Yep, I think it stands a good chance of being a smooth move for them. But the hardware? Unless there's a specific graphic need or some other exotic task, there's no real need.
..I'm really guessing(have not read the article yet either) but, I would imagine that retraining really only means in this instance learning a new similar app, perhaps three of them, and that's it. They'll have some office-like app, their database/accounting, and whatever email thing they will use. And coming from 95, I bet most of them would be looking forward to something new, which might make it easier, enthusiasm tends to do that.
--ya, I always thought that was strange too.
Sorry! Best advice I got is just pick one out-really, send him or her your opinion. Unless they specificallty ask, "don't ask-don't tell". It's not like you are committing fraud, I frequently email different congress people to express a view, usually because of committes they are on. Committes are the best place to get bogus legislation squashed, IMO. Hmm, don't you have a non voting rep? Oh well, best you can do is be active in your municipal government then.
Puerto rico, ya, I'd like to see the colonies gone, either make it a state, or let them go be their own country. This special status is too strange. Of course, I am a real old fashioned states rights guy, I think we REALLY did have the option to break away from the union and make different alliances. The "states" were originally setup way more as independent nations, with "the union" being more of what the UN tries to be, sort of anyway. Oh well, next time...
I think part of the problem with the artifically constructed DC area is it was never intended to be come a full time year round governmental center. Not at the scale it is now anyway. I *think* originally congress was supposed to be part time, with "civilian" representatives who came, met, did some work, then went home to their real job. The rise of the professional politician class, the usurping of power by two private organizations who now run the government like they own it, and the lobbyist/campaign contributions merry go round is extremely destructive, IMO.
I would actually like to see a cap on government service as well, something like 10 years max, then back to the private sector. No pensions,no lifetime employmment, etc. Fair pay while in, but that's it. And I mean not just elected people, basically the entire governmental workforce.
--author was clarke,the satellite was telstar. Telstar was also a 60's instrumental song, BTW.
--I only got one serious beef with the various distros I've tried. I want ALL the apps installed on the machine to show up in the GUI menu system. I don't care if it's a little dragon or a little fat guys foot, when I click on that thing down in the corner I want the menu to be complete. I got stuff on here I don't even know what I got. No idea where it even is. That was my first impression of Linux, I KNEW I had a lot more apps then what showed up.
The only other useability beef is dialout, I had dismal luck at first getting a normal over the old fashioned telephone wires internet connection, MAN that was annoying. I have yet to get kppp on mandrake to work,but I did get redhats dialer and front end to work in the 7 series, and not even gonna attempt to do it with "tweaking files" ever, ME tweaking files is an invitation to mass FUBAR, this is just *so true* it ain't funny. I love that that option is there, sometimes I fool with it, but NOT with my inet connection, that's the primary reason I own a computer.
Besides that, it's a pretty nifty system, if the developers can integrate, more power to them! I'd love to see it. The concepts for GUI are fairly easy, you have to be able to look at what's there, and it should make sense and do what it's told. If it can't, then it won't get used or people will get frustrated. GUI it appears can be made more complex, but then you have to ask "why do that?"
--I've read some about some promising units. One I am familiar with is called the "solar trough" method, where they use long half cylinders aimed at the sun, the curved surfaces focus the heat to the collector. Supposedly once it's actually tuned and set correctly it has the best cost/benefit ratio.
You could also use perhaps on a home made system a used large satellite dish, really designed well for projects like that, focal point, integrated tracker, etc. Also they have really a large setup which is termed a "heliostat" out in cal I believe. That one actually makes some serious power.
I have no experience with stirling engines, so no idea how cheap they might be for any practical size. Aware of them, that's it, I've seen the small toy sized units.
I have an aquantaince who is in the steam business, builds and sells home sized and up units they provide hot water and electricity. I could see a blend of the technology being pretty doable. The problems as compared to PV are, PV is pretty much boner proof once it's setup, it really is. Steam projects require some more sophistication and hands on tweaking and watching. Pressure can be dangerous obviously. Perhaps if decent sized sterling units become cheap and easy to use-then I'll give it a good maybe on that.
I've help work on a few solar heat projects, hmm, first one was helping my dad build a solar water heater for our swimming pool in 68, that one worked well. I built a single room sized passive solar collector that was just a thermosiphon, I wanted to make it active with some integrated pv cells and a fan, but I sold the unit, went and installed it passive, as far as I last knew it was still in operation at this guy's house. Another project I helped work on was an active solar heated greenhouse that was attached to a community food co-op building. They used their used 5 gallon tins that some food products like oils and honey came in, cleaned them oit, painted black, refilled with just clean water and sealed, that was the heat sink stacked up on the wall opposite the glazing they pulled hot air from. That worked prtty well. And in the 80's I sold some commercially built residential solar water heaters, they worked pretty well and sold well while the federal tax credits were available. Shoot, for most peolle they were completel;y *free*. My hardest sells were always engineering types who said "I can build that cheaper" although they never did, and even with the credits making it free would not sign, so no free hotwater for them! pretty funnty really, my first sale was to an actual bean counter, an accountant, I cicn't even get to do my sales rap, he just said 'this is a good deal, free stuyff, where do I sign and how fast you guys get it installed?" hahaha! The more engineering/techie guys I approached would rather argue with people, something I KNOW the slashdot crowd has to admit is "true facts". more HAHAHA!
I have a solar water distiller here that is great at making hot water but ceased transferring the droplets of collected steam downhill into the collection trough. Had a nice thread on it here on slashdot before, waiting until warmer weather to attempt some repairs and mods to it to make it work better.
Here's a design I think is neat for a home made project, collect an old hot water heater,one that doesn't leak but the heating element is shot like a 40 gallon size. Should be beyond easy to find one or more or those most anyplace. Strip off the outer white sheetmetal casing and insulation, revealing the inner black iron core. It's already plumbed for water, so that's a plus, can't beat it with a stick, got an in AND an out, heh.. Repaint flat black, paint interior of scrounged old refrigerator flat black as well. The refrigerator is used becauses it's already a nice moddable box that is pretty well insulated, and again, free for the hauling off. Install the hot water tank inside, use the refrigerator door hinges and make a tempered glass door somehow, then just tilt the thing to approproiate angle and collect the hot water, use it stand alone or as a pre-heater for the existing hot water heater that uses fuel or electricity. the glass part for the front might be the hardest to scrounge and fit, that part is you just got to look hard. Scratched glass is sometimes scroungeable, but would still be perfectly adequate for the task. Must be tempered though, good quality obviously. maybe old car glass? Back flat glass from an older pickup? something like that anyway. I would think that would be the easiest and cheapest way to go for solar thermal, all the components mostly are premade and available free for the scrounging. Here we have an even simpler system for summer use, I just added on a few hundred feet old garden hose, "drinking water" quality, we use that for some washing in the summer, it just lays out in the grass and we can get around 7 gallons pretty hot from it easily before it runs cold. If you really wanted to do that, the way to go would be a one piece roll of high temp black water pipe, comes in 500 foot rools pretty cheap. But I still like the water heater/refrigerator idea. Maybe a little slower to heat and less surface area, but for being pre built almost completely, it's sorta neat.
Another project I worked on was amazingly simple and gave gobs of hot water. We ran a couple hundred feet of hose inside a pile of woodchips, a big pile. I mean that was it, the entire concept is dogsquat simple. That interior temp got pretty hot, and the length of the hose gave some good hot water, and if you ran it real slow it's was perpetual, day and night, no solar nothing required, just the slow composting was doing it. Next place we move I'm doing that one again, it just worked WAY too good to ignore, as the side benefit of the good black compost for the garden you get eventually is a definite plus. And really, it just "looks" like a pile of wood chips, doesn't even look "hippy" or anything as you can hide the hose well if you want to, even bury it and insulate it a few different ways, and if the pile is situated correctly, ie downhill of where you want to USE the heat, it can be a closed loop system that uses thermosiphon to pump itself uphill to where you radiate the heat back out. I can see something like a heated concrete floor or baseboard radiators using that technique, keep your whole house warm passively.
The main proble malternate energy isn't used more isn't that the tech doesn't exsist, it DOES, in profuse directions and angles, the main problem is that "they" have to do it. Joe blow don't want anything unless it comes preinstalled on his house,it's exactly like 'windows come with the computer so that's it, windows is the only way to do computing" mindset. Joe homeowner just accepts and pays out the wazzoo for really crappy levels of insulation, old fashioned normal furnaces and electrical grid connection, energy hog appliances, etc, just because it's "normal" and NO way will the big companies seek to really change that, it's a generations running long cash cow that is worth quadzillions tto them. Just using decent levels of insulation in homes would offet a huge percentage of the domestic US energy requirments, but we still see stick frame homes with only 3.5 inch thick walls and roll insulation with R-18 and cracks and leaky walls all over. Brand new homes selling for hundreds of thousands are still being built, mortgaged, "inspected" by governmental officials and passed as "cool" with tech so crappy we HAVE an energy crisis. Amazing to me, but there ya go. "Alternate energy" has been HERE for at least a century, it's just not used, it's cheaper for people to think (or be forced to think) in terms of "gotta pay my utility bill, and why don't THEY do something about it! Gonna write my congress weasel! THEY need to fix this!" While joe homeowner will gladly pop for a 20 or 30 year note that is serious folding money, pay more attention to the lovely foyer and simply enchanting bay windows, and not give thought one to the actual insulation values or how the home actually "works", they are in essence buying in effect a facade of a well designed home, nothing really special about it, ancient tech with shiny paint and neon blinkenlights and curb feelers.
Banks and utility companies and conventional energy companies love that stuff, makes them bundles of cash.
It's just intellectual and physical laziness and inertia now, so much alternate energy tech exists and is proven, that that's the only real answer why it's not used more, IMO. Waiting for this "they" guy to do it. Your contractor won't do it unless you insist on it, tell him R-55, planned air in, planned air out, tight construction. Just that if it was universally adopted in construction and mandated by "building code" like they mandate so much other stuff that no one really cares about would save so much "energy" every year we could probably cross one entire opec nation off the cash exported-to list. It's not sexy, it's just... more insulation, a LOT more.. that's it, no hybrid basement fusion photon reactors needed, you can even keep the same old crappy energy hog appliances for heating and cooling, they just won't need to be used as much. I've worked on a few 'superinsulated' dwellings, you tell people you've worked on a normal looking house where in 90 degree heat the aircondo don't kick in for three days they call you a liar, but I've seen it with me own eyeballs. They got houses up north now just the light bulbs and cooking and the humans inside provide most of the heat in ther winter, the furnace hardly ever comes on. Joe bigenergy co is NEVER gonna push anything like that, NEVER, cost them so much money it would hurt them bad. They'll call R-22 just the best there is, give it a "good cents" stamp of approval with their monthly corporate propaganda sheets they ship you tucked in with the monthly bill. Their tame politicians who are also energy sellers will not push anything but something THEY can make bundles on, simple stuff that works they'll call "junk science" or "it's not cost effective" or some other drivel, they'll trot out their tame 'scientists" to put it down, seen it over and over again. It's why we HAVE an energy "crisis" it's on purpose to keep sucking in the cash. It's really that simple. It's easy to fake people out if you control the government and the big companies and the media. Real easy, beyond easy.
Phooie. Tons of solutions out there, the basic default is,as joe homeowner who finally "gets it" and wants to take charge of their own energy "stuff",not wait for government or their corporate masters to do it, these are the two basic steps- you add in---> to your own energy pile from one end,various ways, you reduce --- needs from the other, keep working at it, eventually those two lines cross, you become "energy independent". Can be your electricity, your heating, your cooling, eventually your transportation. A homeowner can do it, a nation can do it. We could be energy independent within a few years in this nation pretty easily if everyone really wanted it and stopped being faked out by big corporate megaprofits BS.
For joe homeowner it ain't even rocket science, and you can chunk the projects up to manageable sizes, do it at your own speed and economic level.
--well, duh on me then, thanks.
--mine was literally as you put it, cobbled together with parts onsite, a proof of concept. I used a 55 gallon drum, a washtub, a used and stretched and discarded milking teat from the dairy, some hose, and collected the gas in bags. The batches lasted for several weeks once they had started cooking. They would easily fill up a garbage bag or two a day.
Anyway, were it me, a few years ago a literal goldmine in huge tanks hit the market as older gas tanks had to be pulled from underground and scrapped. You can get these cheap if you look around. large steel tanks, weldable. I'd start with something like that for the slurry tank. Maybe anyway. We got one here on the estate I caretake that got skids welded to it, added some flanges and now it's the diesel tank. Only about 1/10th even with the welding that a similar size "new" fuel tank would run. That's an example of out of the box thinking, and every situation is unique. If you got a dairy I will assume you got a gutter system in the freestall barn, so there's your initial collection point. Then it really depends where it's more cost effective, use it for heating, or use it for electrical generation? You probably already got a farm sized genny, most likely a PTO model, so there ya go, adapting that will require a donkey engine of some kind, probably something like a small 4 cylinder jap truck motor be the ticket. Need reduction gearing, they got the torgue if ya gear it right and you need to hit your sweet spot on the genny RPMs. That's something you'll need to tinker with. the propane carbs will work, they are in your area I'm sure. Storable pressure I'm of two minds, I like solid stuff, but the bladder concept is sound, maybe a army surplus fuel bladder or water buffalo might work. that's your collection and dispersal container for the gas, and it should stand up to the corrosion. Smaller scale they use the float method, the drum inside a drum with water as the seal, but you'll need "more". I wouldn't try to compress it unless you can get guidance from some pro propane guys on this, I think it's too dangerous and requires too much equipment and you'll lose efficiency, that's why I like a flexible bladder.
Commercial designs exist for various operations, and you certainly sound familiar enough with the processes to have found them. maybe find some guys who have done it, like these guys in the article, give ema call on yor nickle and some emails, see what they ran into and what they would do different now. Yes, probably expensive to start, but your alternative is? Keep doing what you are doing, slowly go broke, wait until federal price supports evaporate? You know they stopped and slowed down stockpiling. Well,maybe it'll get worse, maybe it won't, I'll admit I don't know, but tell ya, according to the TV talking heads everyone in the US should be multimillionaires by now if you believed them 4 or 5 years ago. Hmm, didn't happen, so maybe their ideas suck too. Just a thought.
Hey, as an aside, some guys with enough total windy days have found a couple/few of the commercial sized large wind gennys are actually pretty decent. Might be something there as well, 'farm" the wind blowing by, sell into the grid or maybe direct to as local manufacturing plant, after you use what you need? that would require VC but 'energy" is sexy now, might be possible.
It's funny but that was one of the few honest efforts that enron did, that division, their large wind turbines. GE bought them at pennies on the buck I think. google will find that info. There's even better designs out there now, a company outside cheyenne wyoming has one I've seen, forgotten the name now though.
Anyway, keep following their lead on the TV and in the industry rags, or do something different. That's the question. That's the question for all US ag. rural america really, because "rural ethnic cleansing" is a reality. Grain exporters are even seeing it, traditionally our number one ag export, that ratio is shrinking, foreign growers can beat the prices now, just like in manufacturing.
Cheap dollar will help a smidgen there, but hurt the rest of the economy so I don't see the FED or gov wanting that too much, not right now anyway.
I think it's short sighted,dangerous for our national security,I think that the US needs to be a diversified economy, full manufacturing, vertically, full agriculture, mining, energy development, etc. Deal is, we are being forced into competing when there's little more to be done to be "more efficient" following the approved models. If you are following a more restrictive model than the foreign trading nations follow, but they can use the same tech and reduced labor, makes it kinda hard to do. We can watch as family farms disappear within one more generation for all practical purposes, or go for it, do something different. manufacturing is poofing daily, I mean daily you can read yet another big company, layoffs, move to china.
Anyway, me, grew up working on farms locally but my father didn't own one, but that was it around where I lived. He drove into town and was a mainframe computer guy. Worked on them off and on into my 30's, now in my 50's I find myself back living rural, back to work on farms, they (farmers I see) are mostly older now, just a general impression,but nothing much has changed near as I can see. Locally I'm trying to push(casually, this is just fun for me really, and I would like to help people) sprouted grains as an alternative to milled feed, or at least partially. Basically I am not going to push it much longer, they read my lit, look at the batches I make for comparison,get impressed, then walk away saying "the co op" won't allow it " or "why aren't THEY doing it?" I had one guy just with a few stock critters interested, but he couldn't be bothered to follow up on it past just talk, and I sure as heck ain't gonna buy the gear and the grains and build it for him for free!
I can't answer those questions other than some "they" people are doing these things, but mostly like a lot of things in society, money controls what happens and what people are TOLD to do. Ha! I remember my dad being the electronics guy, we had the FIRST tv in the neighborhood. he was that "they" guy who was "doing it" when it came to something new. Someone has to be the "they" guy in every area, or it just don't get done. I have seen a LOT of complaining, but the nanosecond you SUGGEST something else, you can't hardly finish your sentence and they tell you it won't work, can't be done, impossible, etc, every negative you can think of. It's an immediate reaction, like preprogrammed. Plus the "us" versus "them" deal, rural america versus the "enviros". No one can see the other guys point of view, both sides make some points, but extremism on BOTH sides has been the norm forever. the globalist goons love it, it's the classic divide and conquer routine, get people faked out who their 'enemeies" are, get them to stop looking further at that man behind the curtain. Pretty funy if it wasn't so serious. Lately the "enviros" are winning, but if you look w-a-a-a-ay to the tippy top of that "movement" above the grassroots folks who just like the "idea" level, at the true stratosphere of it, you'll see guess who?
archerdanielmonsantoexxonbank bigco inc funding them.
Same guys making all their money off the true wealth creation that agriculture is and farmers are. Now gee, wonder why this is happening? Long range strategic planning to eventually OWN quadzillions of square miles of prime real estate? Combos of nutso laws passed by bribed politicos and economic manipulation? Anyway, I call that a clue. I also call it mass brainwashing because it's happened. That's an OPINION, and I do NOT care who's feelings get hurt, either side of the issue.
For what it's worth I feel the same away about manufacturing jobs, shipping them offshore only accomplished-what? Several million middle class guys with families out of work with little replacement jobs or income? Same with IT work now, you can see that starting to go buh bye. Jobs they can't ship offshore they ship in serf labor. That's a biggee for me, because I can SEE how fast a local area can change, and tell ya, it ain't looking good. The proof is in the auctions and bankruptcies and for sale signs and rising property taxes and governments locally going broke despite it, with a few local fatcats making all the cream. Same guys I see in the paper listed as the largest campaign donors to these various pol weasels. Amazing coincidence I guess you'd call it. And if THAT ain't enough nothing else I can say will offer much. Fug it. I'm buying my own land shortly,been looking for a couple months now for the best deals, something I should have done years ago but got trapped into urban living. Finally broke myself of that,girlfriend conming home telling me she couldn't fill up the tank on her car from dodging the crack heads and winos hanging around the quick store stations was about it for me, that and losing contracts steadily until I bidded myself so low I couldn't afford replacement tools anymore. Fug it. O I remember the stories my grandmas and great aunts told me about the depression, I REMEMBER them stories and they made an impression on me. they told about how all the people got tricked, then they lost their money, all that money moved upstram several levels. the goons are doing it again, it worked so good last time for them.
Our "leaders" insist on it, it's happening. So, moved back rural, got two jobs, both of which are phasing out soon, one ended today actually, but I'll go full self employed then, and here I stay. Small, cheap, but what profits I make will be mine, and I'll have food onsite, water, fuel, and etc. Won't be forced back into the approved mega cities so we can have "wildlands corridors and heritage sites", and sure as heck not going to any of this new global deal fascist camps they are talking about. That's another subject but it ties in. These globalists are some scary insane people, but oh well.
Small scale farming, a little of this, a little of that, I'll work on my own markets. Already talked to two of four local grocery stores, they'll take all the organic produce I can show up with in crates, no one will supply them even though they get asked for it by customers all the time. Another clue. And I WON'T botrrow money from the bank to do it. For the land, sure, got to live someplace, but for the rest, nope, I'll pay cash as you go or just not do it. I am king of the scroungers and cob jobbers, I take pride in few things but that is one of them, if I need a tool I'll make it just as fast as buying it. I just have that sort of philosphy. I detest the "system" because I think it's corrupt,our government is corrupt, the money/banking system is corrupt, the stock market is corrupt, and the fatcats at the top destroying the US middle class on purpose so they can become larger fatcats and create a two class master/serf modern technofuedalistic system is insane. Just check out their golden boy poster child nation red china. That's their little darling. Look CLOSE at the chinese model because that is what's coming here soon. They want that setup HERE and all these large corporations are going along with it, so that's clue #4.
And rather than just complain I offer solutions and do solutions myself, at the scale I can afford. That's the best I can do.
Hope you enjoyed the rant, and best of luck to you and if you detail whatever rig you build I'd like to see the specs. And we share something, when it gets late my fingers hurt, too. I want one of them startrek talking computers, much more nifty.
--you hit on several of my points and did it well. What happened to farming with corporate monoculture is it switched from really being a diversified local farmer to monoculture corporate "agribiz". Look at their soil, they lost the entir3e idea of what soil really is, it's an ALIVE thing, it's not just someplatform for the roots to hang out at. They take out of the soil season after season after season upwards of 80 micronutrients besides the carbon. Not ever is the same amount of carbon put back, even with tilling stubble and cover crops, so that is a net loss. Then they add back 3 to 5 nutrients in powder or liquid form, and that is supposed to make up for the 80 micronutrients they take out, that's where the quality is lost. Lather rinse repeat, for years and years, maybe only do 2 crops in rotation, and never do a traditional "jubilee" one season fallow cycle. Now it's getting into the frankenstein absurd levels with what's grown, some of the gene recombinant schemes being proposed are just slap dangerous, and also not very economical in the long run when you can't even save your own seed, getting tied into some whopper international company's product, and even if you don't want to as their plan is to introduce as much air pollinated GM seed as possible so eventually everything on the planet is contaminated with their patented stuff. Already one case in canada were some guy had a lot of money seized from him in a lawsuit with monsanto canola blew into his rapeseed fields, now monsanto "owns" his crop, he "violated" their patent. and look at starlink corn what a disaster that was and now the BT stuff? are they kidding? a wide ranging larvacide, just in everything? Built right into the FOOD? Oh yas, that will REALLY make for some healthy chow, might as well call it "Dr.s new mercedes payment" brand seed.
I tell you, having a global monopoly on food is a *bad idea*. Too bad it's happening. I read one report, some third world nations, a bare subsistence farmer, once it becomes impossible for him to save seed, is projected to be forced to spend roughly 1/3 his yearly gross on just the seed! and THAT is supposed to endear all these third world guys to something they associate with the "US"? such a deal for them-not! And it WON'T be a deal once what I call "crack" seed is universally used by commercial farmers and the price mu=ysteriously goes up, the sprays they "need" now go up, along with thei fuel costs and equipment costs and they try to trade in a "global market", working in DIRECT competition with second world nations that have huge corporate farms run by the SAME corporations that sell to them in the US now. Like, is this hard to project what is going to happen economically? Who's fooling who here now?
Like your parent poster said, it's debt, but the HOW and WHY the debt started happening reads almost like a mystery novel. It didn't happen overnight, it just gradually changed into it. There really aren't that many independents left, not when you work for the bank and 6 or so large international corporations. And they don't care! What happens is they get the larger farmers sucked in, they follow all the normal rules, eventually they lose out, have to sell, and guess who is waiting and has the buckets of cash to buy "distressed" land and equipment at auction? Add in the scammed enviro "willing seller" conservancy trust scams, we got a serious crisis almost right here. These international guys go down to south america and whatnot and can seriously undercut the US now, because they use the same tech at much reduced material cost and greatly reduced labor. There's NO way to compete with that EXCEPT for working your own markets, thinking out of the box like this dairy farmer, and becoming diversified and working as local as possible and eliminating middlemen. To ME, and this is just an opinion, I'd say buck the trend, not larger and more specialised and more in debt, get smaller, more diversified, and more local and no debt=better profits. The whole idea is to work for yourself, not just a small piece for you and most of the pieces to guys who sit in offices downtown and on trading floors in chicago.
There isn't any magical one size fits all "style" of farming, it just has too many factors that are unique, but every time you can eliminate cost,get benefit and profit from what was more a hassle, like these manure digesters, up quality of your farmed product above the market "norm" which is usually crappy nowadays so that is realeasy to do, charge a higher price, work in a market that isn't already saturated, and deal directly with your suppliers and customers without needing middlemen,then you're better off. You don't HAVE to do the ever grwoing larger volume monoculture debt equals more debt so borrow more to get more debt cycle thing then to "make money".
More real "agri", less "biz". That "biz" part wasn't really invented by farmers, nope it was invented by guys with clean hands and ledger books, that "biz" part makes the guys who DON'T farm money, not YOU as a farmer.
Older model, proving to be not a great deal for todays farmer -agriBIZ
model I suggest they switch to -AGRIbiz
Back to basics. God told folks how to run stuff, he said follow a few simple rules and regs as regards stewardship and economy and money, do such and such and don't do such and such, and it works. Follow mans laws,the bankers laws,the traders laws, the chem suppliers laws, etc, it only works for them, not you.
I like this subject immensely, please excuse remaining typos, it's just a post.
--not a lot. Our small personal rig on the RV we live in has some (3 panels currently)close to 60 watters at 2 amps a piece,run through a trace c40 charge controller to the batts. They are on a cart I modded out of one good handtruck and one junker, it allows 4 wheel stability with ease of set up and aiming, I move them by hand some times in a "bio-drive" tracker mode. the cabling was some scrounged welding like cable, works pretty well. heh. Low tech but it works and has proven useful dealing with winds and the small amount of panels. Suck down every photon I can. That runs the small stuff inside easily without having to use the gas genny. We have an additional feed via underground conduit/wire I put in from one circuit off a panel from the neighbors larger array, his is pretty nice, running almost 3 kw at over 60 amps in the middle of the day with good sunshine. That aray is a hybrid of three different types of PV panels, currently there are 31 of them, different sizes, I *think* the larger panels are 120 watts apiece IIRC. His are primarily unisolar on a large tilting array, two very small siemens put in just to fill a gap in the array because they fit and they were kicking around, then ten solarexs on separate pole mounts. Those are set for 24 VDC run to the batts and stuff, run into 3 4024 trace inverter/chargers, first running through trace c40 charge controllers. Two battery banks, one bank has 24 trojan T-105s, the other has 12 real decent rolls surrettes (dang nice batts, worth the loot if you go to get storage batts). I have onboard in my rig 4 diehard golfcart batts and two starter batts, and one loose 12v "anything" batt I keep charged to use as a mobile jump station or for use during storms, etc, when I want to drop most stuff off and run as self contained as possible, ie, single light and my ancient 12 volt only laptop. Live on the top of a big hill you learn to respect lightning, heh.
All in all most decent, been running solar now 4 years this coming may, only regretis I wish I had started a lot sooner. I used 12 volt tech a long time camping,decades now, but always just spare batts charged off the vans alternator, adding the panels is *nice*.
Back in the real olden daze we just swapped car batts and used things like junkyard backup lights for the cabin lights and car radios and car 8track players. You just keep 3 charged batts, one is ALWAYS charged for a backup to start your vehicle, one is in use inside the cabin (or tipi or yurt or tent or hovel whatever), the other is used in your vehicle, Just swap them out daily, rotate. That was our "alternate energy".
Anyway, now with solar, it's slick. Quiet, smooth, works. I have a small wind genny but it isn't installed yet, I plan on building a tower the next place we move to. I don't own where we are now or it would be up already. That one is just a small aeromarine @ 300 watts, thing must only weigh like 10 lbs or something less, pretty small but still needs a tall tower to really be effective. wind and solar and backup fuel genny is a good combo for a decent hybrid system.
Hey, good for you man! I got one, that you can benefit from and your kid will love it. Get a garden! Even a 10 foot by 10 foot garden will produce an amazing amount of food, and there's always stuff the kid can do once they get past toddler stage into the running around energy up the wazoo stage. I started gardening when I was 4 years old, haven't missed a season yet. Our gardens are much bigger than 10 by 10, but still, I had a lot of smaller ones like that over the years. It's practical, easy to do, and you get direct benefits without filtering it through the stupid cash/store/taxes/outside job deal. Even if you are in an apartment you can garden, just use cheap large normal household decorative plant pots, just plant veggies instead of palm trees and philodendrons! Use some stakes from the garden center, grow some stuff like cherry tomatoes and peas and cucmbers, etc indoors, just stick then in front of sunny windows. Save money on chow bill, you get decent organic food, and teach yourself and child some nifty stuff. win/win/win all around. If you want a good inexpensive primer on doing small but very good gardens, I would recommend a book called "square foot gardening", will tell ya all you need to get started. If you have another spare window or some roof or wall space on the south side, get started on solar PV. Even one panel, one charge controller and a deep cell battery you can run some decent 12 volt stuff. Plus, it's a good backup emergency "power" source that will be there if your grid goes out, like a lot of places happens occasionaly. Before I got more, one panel was all my girlfriend and I had for power, we ran a reading light, small b/w tv and the radio off of it, and that was IT for our power. but just a light, tv, radio or a laptop for a bit is 'enough" for backup, and you can start using it right then. For the light, any autoparts store has 12 volt fluorescents for around 10$, and the small tvs and stuff are easy to find and cheap.
Good luck! Kids are a great excuse to "learn and do". Both of you benefit from it!
--would it be possible to get the name of this city so I can do some research on it? I would like to present a proposal to my county commissioners on this. Most of the other sites doing biogas and cogen I found were much larger cities and a population of 10,000 is in the ball park enough for comparison purposes. Thanks in advance if this is possible.
--collecting methane at sewer plants and from city dumps is being done on a large scale at over 200 US municiplaities. It works quite well.
World wide there are literally hundreds of thousands of them (methane digesters using anareobic digestion), most of them being single family sized units where the collected gas is burned in small cookers and for lighting.
I built a digester in the mid 70's, was EXTEREMELY easy to make. I worked on a large dairy then, despite running the digester for all summer and collecting gas, just a small display size prootype unit, I could NOT get the farmer to drive over one mile to my cabin to look at it. His stock question was "why aren't THEY doing it if it is so good?" The gas collected was great, basically burned like propane. I tried other farmers over the years,I have yet to get one to take the plunge and actually do anything different, alwatys the same, it ain't in their propaganda magazines for their particular niche for farming. You can NOT get those guys to do anything practical until they get "permission" from the agribiz cartels, and right now, the agribiz cartels want the farmers to buy expensive petroleum and chemical products from them or their country club buddies. and the farmers WONDER why they keep going broke....and they TEACH going broke in the ag colleges, which is AMAZING to me they can suck young guys into doing that.
grumble....
At least this one dairy farmer in the article gets it, it's probably only one in a thousand or less that can actually think for themselves. Work hard, 7 days a week, YEP! They do, been there done that meself. think outside the box? Hardly ever happens, so petrified of their buddies at the co-op and the feed store thinking they are "enviros" or something near as I can tell.
Flash forward almost 30 years now, I get the same thing today, I work part time on a large poultry farm, besides methane digestion I have also asked why they don't use sprouted grains instead of the dismal dried up crap they call "feed" that barely keeps the cluckers clucking. SAME ANSWER, because "they" don't do it, this "they" guy who tells them what to do, it's not in the trade mags so "it doesn't work, it's hippie pie in the sky stuff enviro whackos".
I LAUGH every time I hear of a farmer going broke, because if they only thought just a smidgen outside the box and stepped back from being brainwashed by archerdanielsdowmonsantoexxon, they could make money, and easily. But no, they'll defend practices that they follow that produce for them a lower profit return than their grand daddys got in world war two. Sure, they can grow huger volumes of much crappier food off an acre, deal is, it IS crappier food and they hand over their cash to the big companies, then the bank takes their property eventually. Lead around by the nose don't even begin to describe it.
And I get the same thing from urban internet engineering "experts" who have constantly told me over the years my solar panels don't work, they "aren't practical". Funny, my electric bill is PAID OFF, I don't get a "monthly" bill with no idea what it will be if there's any political or middleman trading shenanigans. but, "solar isn't practical".
Phooie
The 21st century will belong to those who can think out of the box and stop making money for BIGCO, who work FOR THEMSELVES, and stop supporting those brane dead politicians and political parties who are in BIGCO's pockets.
--oh, I agree. here's the big difference from the past, following historical trends. every technology has, as you say, a light and dark side. what has happened since the second half of the 20th century is we seem to be jumping centuries in decades of advancement. You look at how long it took human beings to get to the steam engine, then look from the steam engine to airplanes, then from airplanes to walking on the moon, now from walking on the moon to...now, what you are seeing now.
Our society hasn't kept up socially, it's IMPOSSIBLE to do so. we still have the same exact ratiosof good people and bad people, the same amount of wars, etc, the same autocracy pushes that we had back in steam engine and pre steam engine days. We can't afford to ignore this and just say 'oh well, we have always dealt with it". We can't. The technology now , once it gets used for abusive purposes, literally can make one person equal to an army of the past. And nothing else has changed for the better, it's the same on the social human front. Every single advance in technology always has gotten used in BOTH general warfare, and in governmental warfare on it;'s own citizens. it's always happened in the past, and there isn't a single human can guarantee it WON'T happen in the future, and odds of it not happening are abysmally low.
So your smart dust will control the grid! Swell! Slick, sounds good! That also means some dictator or black faction could cause an 'accident" and maybe shut OFF power more effectively. Maybe even frame a class of people into showing who "did it". They can now morph videos where it's almost impossible to tell reality from fantasy, a la "the running man" faked videos. They can create digital records, change exisiting ones, etc, basically "prove" almost anything they want to. They are already doing it on the TV, and getting completely away with it, they are injecting fake backgrounds that are so realistic that the average viewer doesn't know he's looking at a talking tv newshead in a studio, they are seeing the news guy standing in front of a building or whatever they want him to see. That's some SCARY stuff if you think how mass propaganda efforts could use that technology. See the abuse potential? And it's happened in the past,it'shappening now, so it will keep happening, there's the rub. It just will get to be "better quality" abuse. More efficient wars. Faster/better psyops. Overclocked "command and control".
I know you can see where I am going with this. In steam engine days it was harder to "command and control" populations, they didn't have bugs, wiretaps, tracking technologies, death from the air directed from thousands of miles away via a console, things of that nature, BUT, we still got the same humans. They managed it then, but now, they can do it on unimaginable scales, and with sophistication into the "gee whizz" category levels..
Michi Kaku the futurist and physicist states this as well. He ranks theoretical global civilizations on a 0 to whatever scale, 0 is were we are now, 1 is controlling the planets weather and limited space travel locally, etc, all the way to a Q god like powers. His opinion, and I agree, that the odds of any civilization getting from a type 0 to even a type 1 are 99 to 1 against it, from misuse of technology. In his case he thinks it will be misuse of uranium, basically burning the planet up and poisoning it. I tend to think misuse of bioengineering from some really stupid "bug" that wasn't thought about and some bioengineered thing gets released and borks the global food systems, or actual bioengineered warfare biologicals released on purpose, but, that point is moot. They already borked a few, like the superweed canola and starlink corn, but that isn't stopping them from saying "whoops, well, we'll try it again". One of these days that whoops is REALLY gonna suck. and they ARE gonna keep whoopsing. guar-an-teed. that's what humans do. We build, we screw up, sometimes it works, sometimes it don't, sometimes it works just too well.
I just am resigned to believing it is going to happen, we'll have some amazingly good tech, humans will benefit from it, but the big dog global megalomaniacs and your combo of garden variety sins of greed and whatnot will order it's misuse, and seeing that humans will more just do their job and take and follow those orders and cash the check, I think it will happen. I mean, it already IS happening, so I see no reason to think it'll stop happening, so just run a normal extrapolation curve on it. Apply moore's law as a general indicator, how long before it gets bad, when some war gets out of control? Especially with the dwindling oil sources and fresh water sources and religious and social strife and the state of the world's economy right now?
Just something to think about, technology is always BOTH useful and harmful. Once the potential for harm crosses some threshold into being regional and global in size and has the ability to get their quickly, which it has arrived at now, then it's only a matter of when and not if it will occur. And I don't think it will be like a "commfortable" 50 years in the futre, nope, I am more thinking by around 2010 to 2015 things could be *quite ugly* on this old green and blue ball.
That's not a lot of time for everyone to evolve into universally "nice guys". Even the 50 years isn't enough.
I know this is termed a "calvinistic" outlook, but I really don't see another description that fits the mass human psyche as well. Humans are agressive, predatory, and perfectly willing to fight to even insane suicidal levels. So, look at the tech available now, project a few years hence, look around at what's generally going on in this old whirrled,then just think about it.
I never really addressed silicon valley. They are making a big mistake, same one they just came out of. The internet dot com bubble came about from greed and stupidity, but they are desparetly looking for the next bubble so they can go back to the good old days of cash as easy to get as it was, inssane amounts. That greed mindset combined with advanced tech we have now but lack of forethought with the tech advances coming real soon in the future might cause a tad more than just another economic bubble. I hope it don't, but really..... they ain't changed, have they? That "mindset"? So? Have governments changed? Are people less greedy, less stupid, less inclined to blame others, less inclined to be abusive? Nope, it's still the same humans.
--dang hell YA! You GOT it. Sad to see HONEST LEGAL immigrants getting the complete BS from our drone bloatedcrats while the illegals are rewarded daily.
I wish you well, I am glad you finally got it straightened out. Hang tough!
Tell ya a story from my girlfriend. She gets a divorce before I met her, but never changed her name back, so one day she goes to do it. Buncha calls later she's down at the SSN office trying to get a new card, she got STACKS of ID, proof of this, proof of that, bills, insurance papers, the whole regular american deal, including our state DL of course. We are the only two anglos in the room. About two dozen or so hispanics. I saw the "ID" these guys were using to get SSN's, didn't even have a picture on it! Just printed up pieces of paper with some weird stamp on it, and they were going through the line fast as the clerks could handle it. One of them was the translator, it was like he had a tour group almost. I mean, we are sitting right there watching this go down.
Comes my girlfriends turn in line, NOPE, not enough "proof" to get it that day, had to go get some more. We are both steamed and incredulous, but what can ya do. So, before we leave, I asked the lady "WHAT is up with handing out all the cards to these guys? Can't you see you are being scammed?" I'm paraphrasing but I asked her that. So, she leans over to me across the counter, older white lady, whispers "we got ordered to do it that way, we don't like it either". No lie, she told me that.
That was in an office in norcross georgia, a burb northeast of atlanta, about 4.5 years ago.
---umm, they do vote when they try and they do collect social security now. They just stand in line, get their DL and voters registration, they can get it at the library if they want to, it's easy to get a card. They do get their kids free public education at local schools, while any local "property" taxes they pay are coming from 12 to an apartment style living. yep, I'm sure those 12 to what was a two person apartment really pays the ole local gov bills, no subsidies there.... They are bankrupting local hospitals all over, as they aren't turned away at the emergency room door for anything from sniffles to major surgery. Thousands cross the border daily just to have their babies on this side, poof, instant citizenship, which then allows the extended family of the baby in. On and on. They do get drivers licenses, and etc. They use the new "matricular" cards which are just printed up pieces of crap basically, then go get "US" SSNs and drivers license based on that matricular "ID". Check out the news sometime. That latest one with the social security was a few weeks ago. We are even building large US government centers down in mexico to make it easier to apply. I guess use google news search, "mexico, social security" as search terms, it's there, you'll find it.
I didn't want to dilute the funny aspect of it with my original post, but the facts are just *data*, it's real, the numbers are real, the events happening are real.
I just can't wait for the US to be a large scale scene like the israelis versus the palestinians once their numbers get high enough and the aztlan(again, use google, you can just read what they say) guys decide to go "normal central american politics", which is basically, bombs and bullets as a normal way to "do" politics. It's coming, they say they are going to do it, and looking around the world at what usually happens in similar situations, I believe them. It'll happen.
I first ran into some of those doods back in the late 60's, talked to them face to face, they were called "brown berets" then. The guys I talked to worked out of chicago, BTW. Anyway, their timing was off a little, but basically what they told me then I can see is happening now. They said they would invade until their numbers got high enough that by both controlling large scale regional politics in the south west and other areas from force of altered demographics (happening), and by implementing forced relocation of anglos by completely skewing the demographics(happening in some places), that they would seize de facto control of several states and have a shadow government with mexico (happening, we already have a few dual mexican government and "US" governmental elected people publically, probably a few more on the sly). Then it will change to just "their new country". They also said they fully intend to use any and all physical pressure to accomplish this, ie , as much guerrilla war as was necessary.. this will happen once they have a lot of sympathisers who are sheriffs, cops, various elected people, people in all areas of some local and state governments and bureaucracies, running the newspapers and other media, etc, what you would need to do a takeover. At the time they were guessing it would take them at least 20 years to even start, it's been 30, but they were pretty accurate so far near as I can see.
I'm more amazed that this government can whip up a frenzy over a "muslim" population that is so small, yet completely ignore a massive invasion that is ongoing and daily. There are mere counties in the southwest that get a projected more than one million illegals a year cross their borders. Oh yes, I am quite sure every single one of them are perfectly nice guys. Like the 100,000 hispanic gang members just in greater LA are all "nice guys". Like the guys who over in my little north georgia community who started doing home invasions armed and violently last month are "nice guys". Uh huh, swell, no problemos... I guess those gang symbols I started seeing on buildings and walls just starting late last year, the markings, are just "high school pranks". Funny they didn't exist before around here, and funny they sort of coincide with a huge local upsurge in violent crime, something that was traditionally pretty rare. Just a coinky-dink I'm sure.
Good read if you are interested, a book called civil war 2 by tom chittum, lays it out pretty well, IMO.
--the article to me split it right down the middle. What the author found interesting and I guess exciting in some of the cases I find horrible. Wasp sized flying surveillance drones? Umm, no thankew. Universal data mining? I'd like to pass on that. Smart dust? Tracking chips for all products, and then humans-the "little kid wandering more than 50 feet away from mommy"?
It's like no mention of the abuse potential here. I don't think that should be ignored, we have as humans ignored that in the past, to continue to do so will most likely result in planetary suicide. It's a variant of the short term profits mentality.
This could just as well been in the "how to make science reading more enjoyable" thread. It's a great example of something "close" but no seegar. I would have liked this article better if it was balanced better, show what is promising and the relative merits of it, as opposed to the obvious dangers of developing it without having a grasp of modern social paradigms and realities.
I think humanity needs a bitter reality pill-our hard science is advanced,and advancing much faster than anything else,but our social science is woefully inadequate to use our hard science advancements without abusing it. this isn't a theoretical world, nothing is pure science, you have to always consider the implications of what you are doing. It's like driving a car, really, a simple analogy. You can build a car that goes 200mph, but without some societal norms and without at least a minimum set of rules that are easy to see make some "common sense"and that are followed by most people, the potential for abuse would make universal adoption of the 200mph car a disaster on the roads we have and with the people we have now.
I guess I am a moderate, neither a luddite nor a "build all we can now, now, NOW!" kinda guy.
Hope this makes some sort of sense. When I first read 1984 it seemed farfetched to me, today, all I have to do is go to any large city and it's close, real close. I look at the headlines, the "robotization" of warfare, the reduction of humans to "collateral damage", the impersonality and reduction of the value of LIFE itself to just another commodity, well, it's scary. Then I read an article like this, and I think "heck, we are a year or two away from it being totally "1984" except with a turbocharger and on steroids.
Can we deal with as humans? No idea, I have serious doubts at this time though.
What do you mean you "don't have a congressman"? Just pick one out! We got 20 million mexicans who can vote, get a drivers license, get free medical care, bring over their entire familes, open bank accounts and now even get social security-all of whom are not "legal" immigrants. No idea how many legal, that is OK as far as I am concerned, but the other 20 million do exist, and what I said is true, they do all that stuff and no one says boo to them--so-- don't let being a canadian get in your way, the US is wide open! Have fun! Pick "your" congress weasel out and let him have it with your opinion!
%^)
--not sure of it's effectiveness on solid chemical batteries, but the lead acid storage batts we use in the solar rigs here all have "oscillators" on them that act to stop or reverse sulphation on the plates. They seem to work well, too, I noticed a significant lessening of charge cycles (to basically run the same amount of stuff the same amount of time, normal daily use) and a return to visual clarity of the electrolyte after they were installed for a few weeks. Commercially they can be found under "desulphator" search. From what I understand of the tech, granted I am not an EE so not an expert, but they attach across the terminals in a short circuit manner, using the batteries own power as their power source, very small amount of draw obviously. They at a certain frequency pop a charge back and forth, shocking the sulphates off the plates and back into solution as sulphuric acid. Keeping the plates clean allows a better transfer of power with the chemical reaction. Result, more efficiency and greatly extended battery life. I hope that's a good representation, perhaps someone else here more knowledgeable and who is versant in this tech can explain it better or more accurately.
..wish I could self mod myself to zero with this lame question. Asking because I don't know, and it's probably not possible. But do they make or has anyone made, a mobo with a dual processor for dual processor tasks, then a single processor someplace else on the board, for doing single processor worthy tasks? I would think that might be nifty if it was possible and the software could take advantage of it, especially with multitasking.
Again, I know, most likely lame.
--in theory it's our government, in practice it's an international banking and industrial cartel that buys off members of two gangs called the Republican and Democratic "parties". It's bribed and blackmailed through and through, top to bottom and sideways. In addition, all the nominated judges are members of one of those parties. And now we have closed source, no verification computerised voting, it's a sham and a scam. Those gangs are so corrupt and chicken of losing their stranglehold they have on the government they seized, they don't "allow" any third party candidates in the national televised debates.
I would LIKE it to be all of our's government, it was certainly designed that way, and even george washington gave a stern warning over organized political parties taking over, but the default is, we lost. It's gone. We don't have a representative republic unless you are an international faction with very deep pockets, THEY get represented, that's it. Our military is a pure industrial mercenary force, we haven't had a legal war since WW2 desopite being in any number of "wars", they just 'follow orders". They should just slap bechtel and general dynamics logs on their shoulderts and take their US flags off, because they don't represent us, they represent these international for profit corporations. Some federal court lst week REFUSED to even consider a lawsuit brought on constitutional grounds over whether or not it was the executive branch "ruler" or congress who "declares war". Gee, this government got time for all these other STUPID lawsuits, something as important as WHO THE HECK DECLARES WAR isn't worthy of a trial?!? HUH? SAY WHUT?
It's a joke, and saddam is no worse than dozens of other nations dictators. He's a run of the mill plain vanilla dictator. Yes, he's bad, so what else is new? How is he ANY different from any other nation in the mideast? He *might* be a threat to israel, but not the US until we invade, THEN he'll be a threat. What would YOU do if you knew some big force was coming in to kill you? Roll over or go for broke, take as many of them with you as you can? Let's apply some basic logic to this scenario here. The US is HUGE, got weapons up the wazzo, saddam would NOT attack the US knowing he could have overlapping radioactive craters where his nation used to be. This is a SCAM, just like the past dozen wars have proven to bee SCAMS after many years have passed. And if he's this threat to israel, it's their business,not ours, they have by far and away the largest military force in the mideast,overwhelmingly more powerful than even any coalition of muslim nations, and have by some counts as many as 400 nukes, all of which by the way are totally illegal by international "law" which doesn't mean anything anyway, and are in MORE UN violation status than iraq is.
Naw, I want the US to gets it's crooks and slackers out of office and the hired on and appointed bureaucracy. And get our troops out of the one HUNDRED countries they are in now. The 10% of the people left over then of that total federal bloatacracy would be closer to what the federal government's size and influence and lawful duties are supposed to be by actual constitutional design. After that, we can decide if we need to wage war on some nation. Frankly? right now? MEXICO is a threat to our nation, followed by china, russia and then north korea. Iraq, Iran and syria are way down the list.
You want a tad more security inside the nation? The dems and repubs can get serious about all the illegals in the nation, kick them out like any sane nation would, get back control over legal immigration, then get serious about inspections of imports into the nation, and if that makes foreign imports more expensive I don't care, we need JOBS back inside the US, we don't need to be exporting those jobs that are exportable to overseas and running in illegals by the millions to take jobs that are left over. Carry that to it's logical conclusion, you get CRAP. You get the middle class of the US DECIMATED. I don't want to see the US turned into yet another big second world nation with a 1% wealthy ruling class and everyone else serfs. It's breaking in the financial news right now,right today, they are finally admitting how many lost jobs we have. IT'S MILLIONS AND MILLIONS it's at a no joke level, it's BAD, I just can't see losing millions of jobs a year as being all that smart. These aren't buggy whip jobs, these are jobs that were paying home notes, car notes, sending children to college, buying groceries and now THEY AIN'T, and there AREN'T replacement jobs, and what replacement jobs are coming are at MUCH lower pay scales overall. This is NUTS and will only go to create a skewed two class society. We are CLOSE to this being reality.
Screw that, screw spending the projected 1.2 TRILLION dollars to go seize some dipsquat country in the middle east and hold it for years, it is NOT in our best interests at this time. 1.2 trillion would buy a LOT, repeat A LOT, of domestic R&D into alternative energy and DEFENSIVE arms which should NOT be exported to any more dictatorships like we have been doing for 50 years. YOU DON'T ARM GANG MEMBERS DOWN THE STREET, SO YOU DON'T ARM BOGUS DICTATORSHIPS. PROFITS are not worth it, they are short term and those profits will come back and bite you ten times worse, and we are SEEING that happen right now so we should STOP doing that. Too bad we CAN'T because the government got HIJACKED IN A JUNTA TAKEOVER many years ago.
This is too complex, no way to address all this in a single post. The government is insane out to lunch fascist, I've watched it slowly changing since I became fairly politically aware in the early 60's, and I started out my awareness working in both the conservation movement and also as a goldwater conservative.I've been a political activist going on 40 freeking years now, and it SUCKS. Don't tell me electing in ANY MORE DEMS OR REPUBS is gonna do ANYTHING besides make it worse. That goldwater common sense and reasonably honest wing of the R party got decimated and taken over by the fabian socialist old money globalist wing, which runs the repub party now. They are nuts, aristocratic royal wannabes, out to lunch lying weasels. The conservation movement started as common sense, make sure we did our best to stop pollution, save a handful of extremely endangered animals, etc,it was GOOD, until now it's gotten nuts, it got hijacked by UN worshipping naieve fairy tales gaia worshiping global socialist loons. RURAL ETHNIC CLEANSING is NOT the way to go about conservation. And the dimocrat party? Bah! The dim party is just power politics based on transfer of money, that's their voting bloc, steal from one person, give to another, count vote. A formula that works for them mostly, always has, always has been criminal in nature and practice. Bah, a pox on all their houses.
I am an independent constitutionalist who believes in common sense solutions based on the reality that we are americans, we have a unique form of government based on personal soverignty, personal responsibility, an aversion to foreign wars, honest money, sane trading, hard work, limited government, we are supposed to not meddle with foreign nations much or enter into entanglements, and we dang well SHOULD always grow our own food, grow our own lumber, make our own energy,build our own manufactured goods, and not trade with nations that are dictatorial and just lame and stupid. When we did that, IT WORKED, AND WORKED PRETTY WELL.
All that good-baby got thrown out with the bad-bathwater of greed and stupidity. It's gone from looking bad to BEING bad and the projected curve goes straight up into pure freaking heinous big brotherville terrible despotic REAL bad.
Bah phooie. Anyone wants to "go fight saddam", I'll be glad to find an online travel agent for them and point to an online map of where iraq is, go do it, good luck, don't force yet again another insane illegal war for profit on me. GO DO IT IF YOU WANT TO. We set up and supported saddam, the goons in charge now were his buddies back then when he came to power, we supplied him completely with conventional weapons and WMD despite it being "illegal", they KNEW he had proclivities for what he does, they supplied him with chemcials and biologicals and now they act surprised and he's a 'threat". Phooie, DOUBLE PHOOIE,pack up the top level admin, give THEM a rifle, put THEM on the ground as grunts over there, the hypocritcal weenies. They are BLOOD PROFITEERS,SALESMEN AND ACTORS, they are not "leaders" they are LYING CRIMINAL GOONS WHO REPRESENT INTERNATIONAL LOYAL TO NO NATION CORPORATIONS AND MAX PROFITS AND EVERYTHING THEY DO REVOLVES AROUND THAT REALITY.
Besides that, I'm looking forward to kernel 2.6 release, you?
Nothing like a good rant of a sunny saturday! Hope you enjoyed it, most fun to write, and I *do* believe what I write.