Where’s Ralph?

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Ralph Nader made his name “exposing” the design defects (as he styled them) of the Chevy Corvair.

Leaving aside the fact that what he styled a “defect” was really more a difference – the Corvair was rear-engined and nose-light and so handled differently than the overwhelmingly front-engined and ass-light American cars that drivers of the time were used to, especially when tire pressure recommendations were not adhered to – the relevant thing is that he was cheered – deified – for “exposing” a supposed problem with the car.

It’s a man, man!

Ditto all the other “consumer advocates” who followed in his slimy wake.

Well, where are they now – and why are they all silent?

About electric cars, that is.

Somehow – for some reason – EVs have earned an exemption from the ordinary rules. Almost no car journalist ever writes or talks about their design differences. Much less their very significant defects.

Doesn’t the “public” – Nader, et al’s fetish object – have a right to know?

Apparently not.

Instead, a concerted campaign to fluff up the supposed virtues of the electric car – among them that they are  – allegedly – “zero” emissions (they’re actually not, it’s just that their emissions are emitted elsewhere).

Meanwhile, the EV’s numerous design deficits (if not defects) are simply not mentioned.

Examples?

One often reads that electric cars cost less to maintain than cars with gas or diesel engines because you’ll never have to change oil and filters or belts or coolant or replace a water pump or hoses. All perfectly true.

But why no mention of the electric car’s battery pack?

Eventually – just like the battery in your laptop and every other battery ever made – it will be less able to accept and store a charge. The cycle of discharge and recharge depletes a battery over time.

Chemistry.

But the Electric Car Chorus leaves people with the impression that electric car batteries are immortal. Which is like leaving people with the impression that they will never have to replace the 12 volt starter battery in a conventional car – or change tires or brake pads. But unlike tires or brakes – or the 12V starter battery that IC-engined cars have – an electric car’s battery pack costs thousands to replace when the time comes.

And the time will come.

So people will buy a very expensive electric car – thinking that at least they’ll save some money on maintenance – and then find out they’ll be spending several thousand dollars to “maintain” (that is, to replace) the battery – long before the car itself has worn out.

Why no mention of this?

An IC engined car (gas or diesel) will usually go at least 15 years and 150,000 miles before major components begin to deteriorate such that the car becomes no longer worth fixing.

What is the service life of an electric car? How long – and how many miles – can you drive it before it – or some expensive part of it, like the battery pack – wears out or requires very costly maintenance?

Does it not factor into the economic equation? Don’t people considering an EV have the right to know? Isn’t it the job of journalists – of automotive journalists – to find out and then tell them?

Crickets.

Well, at least they’ll save on “fuel” – since the electric car consumes no gas. Well, yes. You won’t spend money on gasoline. Instead, you’ll spend it on electricity.

And not just electricity.

Another not-mentioned thing about electric cars is that to charge them in less than 8-12 hours (on standard household current) they must be plugged into a so-called “fast” charger.

Most homes do not come standard with “fast” chargers. And it is not free – or even cheap – to have one installed in your home. A 240 Volt circuit must be wired, which involves electricians. Plus the hardware for the charger itself.

You don’t have to spend the money on a “fast” charger install, of course. But without it, you had better plan ahead. If your battery runs down, the car isn’t going anywhere for hours – and so, neither are you.

It’s never mentioned.

Imagine, as a thought experiment, that a similar necessity for the ordinary operation of a nonelectric car was given the Silent Treatment by the car press. That you had to spend a not-small sum of money – in addition to the car itself – in order for the car to be more than occasionally useful as a car.

It is hard to imagine that – because it is inconceivable. Latter-day Naderites would bellow like wounded Elks, sounding the alarm. But with electric cars?

Silence.

And what about taxes? You know – to replace the motor fuels taxes that won’t be collected if/when electric cars start to go mainstream? Do people suppose the government is going to give them a break on that? Electricity may be cheaper than gas – right now. Because it is barely taxed. What happens when it is taxed proportionately vis-a-vis gasoline? A gallon of unleaded currently carries with it about 50 cents on average in federal, state and local motor fuels taxes. Exclude those taxes and a gallon of gas actually costs about $1.75 per gallon (at current prices).

What will the equivalent of a gallon of electricity cost when comparable taxes are applied?

What about the additional taxes?

I mean those which will be necessary to fund the billions in new infrastructure (power generating plants, a national network of “fast” chargers) that electric cars will require. These will not be free, either. New taxes will be applied to those already being collected to maintain the existing network of roads – with the difference being these will be collected via Big Brothery monitoring of your driving habits and mileage accrued rather than paid at the pump.

The sound of one hand clapping.

How about the fact that the weather has a substantial effect on the EV’s legs – i.e., how long it will run (and how far it can go) before it must be hooked to its electrical umbilical cord for a recharge? Heat and cold affect battery performance; they also entail the use of accessories such as the heater and air conditioner meant to ameliorate the effects of heat and cold on the occupants of the vehicle.

These – wait for it! – use power.

Which in an electric car means the finite charge contained in the battery pack. Think about a flashlight. As soon as you turn it on, you are draining the batteries. And lights don’t draw that much power. Air conditioning does. So does an electric heater. Ever run a space heater in your house in winter? You probably noticed the effect on your utility bill.

In an electric car, you will notice the effect as well. In the form of a substantial reduction of range.

This might matter to people thinking about an EV who live in parts of the country where it gets cold – or hot. Where it will be necessary to run the heater – or the AC. People might want to know . . .

And how about the effect of using the EV’s often-touted tremendous capability to accelerate quickly? Tesla, especially, makes much of the quickness of its cars. But it takes energy to accelerate mass.

Physics.

The more acceleration is demanded, the faster the battery is drained. And range thereby reduced.

Of course, an IC-engined car’s tank drains quickly, too – if you keep putting your foot down. But unlike the EV, the IC car’s tank can be replenished in minutes rather than hours (or half to three-quarters of an hour). So range is irrelevant as a functional/practical  question. 

Crickets.

Ralph is silent. His young apprentices are silent. Most car journalists are silent, which is especially appalling.

It’s like the Funny Uncle upstairs that no one wants to talk about. In that case, everyone was protecting the family’s honor. What is being protected here? In whose interests is it to mislead the public – as the public have been misled – about the reality of electric cars vs. the fulsome scurvy truth about them?

Is everyone on Elon’s payroll?

Am I the only one not getting a check?

. . .

Got a question about cars – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!

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338 COMMENTS

  1. Welcome to the Jungle of Eric Peters Vocal Academy.

    Eric has just finished his soundproofed booth and he is recorded videos of Gabriela his very first client. You too can be a star just like she’s gonna be some day, if you’re willing to put all the effort in that it takes.

    Gabriela Gunčíková – How To Sing Guns n’ Roses – Eric Peters Studios
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6H1LAo5rB8

    Hurry though, there’s a limited amount of vocal prospects who will be considered.

    [Verse]
    Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here everyday You learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play If you got a hunger for what you see, you’ll take it eventually You can have anything you want, but you better not take it from me

    [Chorus]
    In the jungle, welcome to the jungle Watch it bring you to your shun n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n knees, knees I wanna watch you bleed

    [Bridge]
    And when you’re high you never Ever want to come down So down, so down, so down yeah

    • How about this Tor;
      Imagine yourself in an early 60’s, smokey, beatnik, poetry bar;

      (with the bongo drums riff between the lines)

      take me down…
      to the paradise city…
      where the grass is green…
      and the girls are pretty…
      oh, won’t you please…
      take me home…

  2. Just to address a few of the issues mentioned.

    Note: I did not say, “counter” the issues. Just talking about them.

    I think Ralphie is in hiding, because he and his ilk have the visions of technocrats. They won’t fight against something if it’s something they can manipulate to their advantage. So the Naderites will be comfortable not opposing them for their economic costs. Instead, they’ll be cheering them, because they will be able to force more rules over their eventual use.

    Related to the major upgrades in the electrical grid, I think our pal Elon has it solved. He’s dreaming of getting a contract to install the Powerwall in every new house built after (probably) 2020. Another way of getting on the cronyism gravy train for that so-called visionary entrepreneur. As an aside, my cousin had visions of working for Elon Musk. Thankfully, our family disabused him of that fantasy. Instead, he got employment with Schlumberger right after getting his Petroleum Engineering degree.

    The Naderites don’t believe in anyone being able to purchase their goods and services at low costs. They’re happy to inflict costs on the economy like they did with getting the Corsair removed from production and forcing everyone to buy more expensive vehicles. The next round of this scan will connect to something you wrote about a few weeks ago: The high costs of a new vehicle. These technocrats are just as happy turning everyone into serfs that will never actually own their cars in the future. Instead, they’ll be continually rolling over car leases when the battery pack dies out.

    One other design flaw of the electric car: What happens during a rainstorm? I know that no one intends to flood out their vehicle, but they can still drive after heavy rains. An electric car? I’m not so sure.

  3. Nunz, the obvious answer to the crapola question is that these frauds just went down the hall to the men’s room when they had to go. The were on a soundstage the whole time, at least when they weren’t asleep in their motel rooms.

    The people who buy this bullshit about moonshots are too far gone. There’s no reaching them. I just never thought I’d see such NASA knob slobbing guvluv here of all places. You expect this kind of crap on sites that attract the conservative flag humpers, but I never thought I’d see it here, especially coming from the people it’s coming from.

    • Mao thought he had a pretty long march. But we’ve marched all the way to the moon. And sent rovers to mars. Get your boots on. Next thing is we’re marching all the way to Proxima Centauri.

      We’re so lucky here. Fiscal 2017 ran a federal deficit of $666 billion. US Total spending was $4 trillion.

      I guess we’re supposed to get mad when we get a $90 dollar seat belt ticket.

      But if we’re forced to pony up trillions and trillions for all these space operas and other stuff. We should swell our chests with pride.

      Worst of all is that baby faced Apollo stuff. I guess that’s all we have here. Clovers. And Apollos.

      A kouros being free-standing ancient Greek sculptures that represent nude male youths.

      In Ancient Greek kouros means “youth, boy, especially of noble rank”.

      I knew the rest of the Americas are rife with rich Euros looking to score some Boy Love.

      But now I know America is the leader of the free world, and has even brought male child prostitutes to the moon. And someday the whole galaxy.

      Sure makes you proud to be an American. Better go shave again, and send in another tax payment, I don’t want to fail in my civic Project Apollo duties.

    • Right, Ed?!!!! I’m absolutely dumbfounded! Not that I expected everyone here to be fully onboard with the Moon hoax, by any means- but I kinda did expect at least a good level of skepticism from pretty much anyone who’d post here, other than perhaps Clover; and at least a few major players who were fully onboard.

      Ignorance could be excused- but the fact that some are defending the extravaganza in some level of detail, rules out ignorance.

      It just seems so wrong that those who don’t believe in government, continue to believe the biggest lie ever told by ANY government. And not just any lie…but one which has caused more people to become or remain died-in-the-wool statists, with a major case of the warm-fuzzies for Uncle, than any other event in history ever has or could.

      And all for something, even which if true, would be the worst case of waste, extortion, and effort-for-nothing in the history of the world.

      Ed, you and I saw it on TV when it happened, and we were unimpressed, even as children. We may as well have been watching Lost In Space. I guess many here did not see it live (LOL…from 240,000 miles away) but they’ve seen historical images of it…which look a HELL of a lot better than what we saw. I guess they’ve had time to improve the hoax a bit- just like the Craigslist scammers update their techniques every once in a while to stay current.

      Maybe when all of us who say the first try are dead, they can re-shoot it, and fix all the loose ends! Then again…what they have seems to be working just fine…..

      • 52% of Brits don’t believe the Moon Landing really happened.

        Neil Armstrong’s ‘one small step for man’ speech marked an incredible day for USA science and space exploration – or does it?
        http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/moon-landing-celebrates-47th-anniversary-8446862

        Maybe everyone is laughing at us, the way we laugh at the North Koreans. Stupid North Americans.

        Even Moonies would have to admit it’s pretty funny if it turns out no American ever did go to the moon.

        I hope those Chinese get to the moon soon and catch Uncle Sam with this dick in the punch bowl over this thing.

        That would be epic, if it happened.

        • Tor, ya know, if I went to the Moon 😉 I’d be sure and bring something back which we don’t have on Earth, so I wouldn’t have to give fake rocks to the Swedish meatballs.

          China, nor Russia, nor anyone else is likely to expose us in a meaningful way, because it would expose the deceptions of their own space programs. Maybe they’ll just do it for the benefit of their own people though “Look! The Americans didn’t do it, and lied about it; but of course, we’re telling you the truth!”.

          But this is why it is so disturbing that even among Libertarians that there is so little skepticism. Throughout history, anywhere there has been government- from city-states, to empires, those governments have ALWAYS used lies and false narratives to maintain control and get the people to do exactly what they desired them to do.

          Such has been the premise for virtually every aggressor nation in every war ever fought; for every empire ever built. Could Hitler and a handful of men ever have done what they if it were not 90% of Germans believing their lies?

          Government can not exist without lies. No one says “Here, take my money and my autonomy”. No one lives in a police state and genuinely believes that they are free, unless they believe lies.

          The more socially and technologically advanced a society…the greater the lies must be.

          • Hi Nunz,

            The Soviets had endless problems with their N1 moon rocket. It used many more engines in its primary stage than the Saturn V. If they could have exposed fakery, they would have. Either the Soviets were very gullible or the conspiracy was unbelievably effective, as well as technologically sophisticated, including the ability to fake telemetry.

            We got the best Nazi rocket scientists, remember!

            • Not sure on his tweet follow through record.

              His campaign promise record, is at about 20%. The bring the troops home from overseas promise is fucking shattered.

              Only one thing he’s made any worse, but its Yuuuge, is the overseas warmongering he promised to stop. Very expensive, believe me. (written in Trump voice)

              He seems Way better than Obama as far as what he says, and who he seems to be in person.

              But if I run the numbers, it remains to be calculated how bad or how good The Donald is relative to all the other 44 Prezilents.

              If I had a time machine, I’d probably white out 44 of them and black out the other blustering bastard.

              I pump the Trump, because I don’t want to let the less evil be the enemy of the absolutely no dam good.

              Pre Georgey Washing Knickers, the Prez of the Confederations (there were like 7 or 12 of them) only served a year at a time and had far less power.

      • Hi Nunz,

        The difference between the Moon question and – as an example – the 911 Commission Report – is that there is tangible, verifiable evidence (including the math and the physics as well as the physical hardware) in support of the reality of Apollo whereas the physical facts run contra to the official story with regard to 911.

        The Saturn V, for example, is extensively documented. You can literally go touch one, if you like. The launches were public. The F1 engines real. The thrust they produced and the fuel carried in the rocket and the speed/trajectory all checkable – and they check out. As opposed to this business of a steel-framed building symmetrically falling straight down into its own footprint as the result of office fires.

        The physical evidence of the Moon landings is there and verifiable – and has been verified, by multiple sources not under NASA (or Uncle’s) control.

        Accepting these facts does not mean we have been told the whole story, of course. I agree with you that Uncle is inherently untrustworthy and would not be surprised at all to learn that some aspects of the program were not as advertised and that some aspects of the program we were told nothing about at all.

        But this idea that the entire program was a fraud is, to me, of the same species as claiming that the SR-71 was really a static display model or never flew Mach3 and that all those hydrogen bomb tests were really special effects done for our bedazzlement by Stanley Kubrick in a remote studio somewhere in Area 51.

        No offense, mang!

        I think part of the reason for the disbelief derives from today’s Safety Cult culture, which cannot conceive of a time when the – by today’s standards – recklessness of a program such as Apollo could have occurred.

        For instance, this business of sweating radiation and micro-meteors. Today, people piss their pants over such. Guys like Gene Krantz and Jim Lovell didn’t give a damn. They worked the problem.

        Today, overweening, neurasthenic agonizing over “safety” makes something akin to Apollo unimaginable. It’s not a technology problem. It’s a pussy problem. And a money problem.

          • Donald J. Trump‏Verified account realDonaldTrump 15 minutes ago

            Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened.

            3,579 replies 4,964 retweets 12,939 likes
            Reply 3.6K Retweet 5.0K Like 13K

            I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!

            8,063 replies 4,150 retweets 17,082 likes
            Reply 8.1K Retweet 4.2K Like 17K minutes ago

            Budget that just passed is a really big deal, especially in terms of what will be the biggest tax cut in U.S. history – MSM barely covered!

            3,838 replies 3,993 retweets 16,890 likes
            Reply 3.8K Retweet 4.0K Like 17K

            • “Subject to the receipt of further information”

              There’s his escape clause. How many other things he’s tweeted about has he actually followed through on?

              • Not sure on his tweet follow through record.

                His campaign promise record, is at about 20%. The bring the troops home from overseas promise is fucking shattered.

                Only one thing he’s made any worse, but its Yuuuge, is the overseas warmongering he promised to stop. Very expensive, believe me. (written in Trump voice)

                He seems Way better than Obama as far as what he says, and who he seems to be in person.

                But if I run the numbers, it remains to be calculated how bad or how good The Donald is relative to all the other 44 Prezilents.

                If I had a time machine, I’d probably white out 44 of them and black out the other blustering bastard.

                I pump the Trump, because I don’t want to let the less evil be the enemy of the absolutely no dam good.

                Pre Georgey Washing Knickers, the Prez of the Confederations (there were like 7 or 12 of them) only served a year at a time and had far less power.

                • Why bring the troops home? Who wants those bastards here? All they do is become cops and kill everyone.

                  If it weren’t for my belief that government is illegitimate and immoral, I could run for prez. My solution to “the troops” would be to put half of them in blue uniforms and half of ’em in black uniforms, and send them all to the frozen tundra of extreme northern Canada, or Antarctica, and tell them all that the ones wearing the other color uniform is the bad guy; and let ’em all slaughter each other. Keep ’em out of our hair; keep ’em from killing other innocents and doing the evil deeds of bankers and politicians; and weed out the genes which make people become mercenaries for the cause of evil.

                  That would solve about half of our problems.

                  I’d encourage faggots, trannies, dykes and kid-touchers to join my army!

                  The winners don’t get to come home. They get to freeze and starve to death, if they managed not to croak in the battles!

                  • Send team blue and team black to fix the crumbling infrastructure here.

                    They can all work on for CA Department of Water Resources.

                    Oroville Reddenbocker Dam isn’t done and rainy season isn’t much more than a week away for Northern Cali.

                    Not going to be able to run enough of the inflow thru the Hyatt power plant, really going to need some kind of spillway soon.

                    Or if you want it war like. One squad tries to destroy what’s left of the Dam, the other squad tries to repair it.

                    Official drone footage of your tax dollars hard at work
                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQHL20n5IXE

                    Or team bluebird sits around on the broken spillway serfing the internet like Eloi.

                    And team blackblood digs silos in the ground so they can come out at night and eat the Eloi like Morlocks.

                    Then some English dude appears on a time machine and takes one of the dingbat Eloi soldier girls with him to another time.

                    Here’s the angry time traveler Bill O’Reilly now. He’ll do it live
                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1M6EYA14eU

                  • Hi Nunz,

                    An excellent idea. I feel great sympathy for anyone dragooned into “service” via conscription. And I understand that many people who volunteer do so out of desperation. Still, the fact remains that the military turns these people into order-following (and barking) killers; authoritarian automatons. Used, in many cases, to perform murder on behalf of the state.

                    As such, they are very dangerous to civil society.

                    And even, ironically, to the state. Which is still largely run by civilian poltroons. This eventually wears on “the troops,” who often support a coup that brings into authority one of their own. A Peron, for instance. Or perhaps even a gefreiter.

                    • eric, somehow they manage to let evidence of their entitled status willy nilly everywhere you go. Not like you can simply live and not be subjected to their bullshit if no other way than the cashier at the store a couple days ago.

                      She had on a t-shirt with something about “Heroes” and a bunch of numbers and names of countries we’ve destroyed with said “heroes”.

                      Well, stir up my afternoon of convalescing and shopping, not a good combo to begin with but nobody seems to want to go to town and buy groceries and whatnot for us.

                      I tried to avert my eyes and was lucky enough all the offending bs was on her back(better her’s than mine I always say…..although I can’t seem to opt out of paying taxes like “The Donald”.

                      But then she had to use her highly ignorant state to cast aspersions on my choice of frog legs. It was so much better….before chemical farming when I could just go to the tank with a .22 and stun a few dozen bullfrogs, throw em in a toe sack and bring em home for a meal fit for a king. Ah, let me go back…..(cue Frank Zappar and the MOI…Mud sh sh Shark)to a time when hunting for dove had a couple people reserved to snipe bullfrogs and then supper of frog legs and dove with garden fare.

                      Then she demonstrates she doesn’t know the difference between toads and frogs.

                      I’ve worked with a couple of heroes, wounded in the course of action and never to be the same again….not necessarily physically but mentally so they have a view of entitlement to jobs and pay they aren’t qualified for except for their “service”.

                    • So true, Eric! Once ya have a standing army, there can be no liberty.

                      The mercenary aspect of it all is what gets me. Someone will go out and let themself be programmed to unflinchingly follow orders[ to kill and oppress and destroy on command, without any appeal to thought or conscience- which is pretty much a textbook recipe for creating a non-human monster- and then gloat about their moral deficit and imagine that they have somehow done good, because they volunteered to be in that position, and followed the orders of the crazed emperor, and were efficient at killing and destroying.

                      These are the scariest kind of people- and now that TPTB choose to primarily recruit them to be pigs, is having the effect of showing us just how evil they are; and how much they are the biggest threat to our liberty- as they proudly proclaim that they “fought for our freedom”.

                    • 8-man, that reminds me of a local ad I’ve been seeing for a power equipment dealer advertising good deals on mowers. The advertised rock-bottom price includes a discount for “heroes”.

                      Guess I have to pay more, since I’ve never killed anyone. Guess I’ll shop somewhere else.

                    • Nunz, 60 miles away, Dyess AFB and Abilene, a red, white and blue combo of savings for heroes. At least 10% off on whatever they need. I get to pay full price, no blood on my hands, but a cold blooded killer is entitled.

                      Holidays associated with old glory are smorgasbords for the entitled class although I’ve never asked what sort of deal they’d give me. I have no doubt they’d include me. Don’t buy anything I don’t have to in that town and that’s fairly much everything.

                    • Just posted on THE DONALD /REDDIT/ 10 minutes ago…

                      So my wife left..

                      [[self.The_Donald)
                      submitted 9 minutes ago by James01jr]]

                      So my wife left me

                      I have stage 3 melanoma, a broken ankle and have had 2 surgeries on my neck in the past year but fuck it now I’m gonna focus on making America great again and raising my kids to love God America and the values I signed my life on the line to fight for.

                      I love you deplorable assholes and this Dom has gotten me through some really shitty times in the past couple years.

                      I just ask you guys to never give up this fight for our country.

            • Goats Gulch project is on a hiatus.

              I have more time, if you have something constructive I should do to RED PILL more of these insufferable normies I see everywhere.

              I could set up a slack project database, if my copy of the software lets me.

              You’re pretty high energy and capable of producing unlimited motive force.

              I’m thinking of Mein Dampf as our project name? You like?

                • Be an internet shitpost aholic like me?

                  I barely even need sleep anymore. The better havol’s parents brought to big tubs of her childhood stuff and I’m reading thru her yearbook and all that kind of “keepsake” stuff.

                  Funny how we’re kinda like crows, with all our baubles, and favorite shiny in our nest.

                  The wife’s parents are here in town, so I’m all by my lonesome mostly for at least a week.

                  And the El Paso Hank Rearden’s Honky Tonk Gulch is in serious retard mode.

                  Nothing to even do cause I have to be available for 2nd Dad and 2nd Mom at a moments notice.

                  Not wanting to fuck up the few remaining pooches I haven’t already screwed.

                  I hope you, reddit the donald, voat a 4chan/pol/ are have your hosting bills paid current cause I’m a fixing to unleash the virtual hounds or something.

                  Rear Den Hank’s Honky Tonk Gulch…

                  …In the West, an aggressive, ideologically-driven climate change agenda has been directed chiefly against this industry.

                  Petroleum products literally make up the contents of thousands of items that people take for granted.

                  The successful cultivation of the hydrocarbons that comprise these items is the result of hard work of the pioneers of both theoretical and practical knowledge who have used their skills to make the provision of energy to the world more reliable, efficient, and cost-effective.

                  Yet, implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, Ayn Rand villain governmental bodies have identified these creators as “the enemy,” as those responsible for the dissolution of both the intellectual and physical ecosystem of our world.

                  The election of Donald Trump to the presidency is a potential good sign that, at least in the US, these pioneers (and the products and processes they produce) will not be shunned, but instead be appreciated and encouraged.

                  I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of Atlas Shrugged and Shitted Himself and digest its contents as best you can.

                  The ponderables contained in the work are numerous. But to my mind, the most important of these that merits consideration is the hypothetical question:

                  What would happen if the creators really did go on strike? What if Oil and Gas leaders decided that it wasn’t worth it anymore?

                  Put that in your EV and Gemini Capsule crack pipes and smoke on that one for a very long time.

        • Hi Ya, Eric!

          O-K, Eric, you say that the math and physics and hardware are proof.

          BUT….that the math “works” is entirely predicated upon their model of the solar system being completely accurate. Circular reasoning. Believers in “Global Warming” can cite similar- but of course, if the model “they” are using; the “science”; the predictions of the supposed effects are wrong, then all the math proves is “such and such” would happen, IF their model and or the data behind it were accurate.

          Ditto the physics: If the physics. If things work differently “in space”, how do you know, except for what they tell you?

          And the equipment. How do we know that that equipment can do what they say it can? Oh…because they did it, and two guys who work for them say that it did? There’s no doubt in my mind that with the billions of dollars in looted wealth which has been distributed to cronies in the name of space programs, that they indeed did come up with some fancy machines that can go up in the air- but again, where is that proof that even one ever went to the Moon?

          What do we have? Astro-nots who won’t talk about it…and fake Moon rocks.

          I just looked this up- the location of the Apollo lunar modules. One was scrapped; a few had accidents and were left on the side of the road; and the only ones actually on display, are ones which were NEVER USED.
          https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/apollo-program/spacecraft/location/lm.cfm

          “So here’s something that was made to go to the Moon, but of course, this one didn’t actually go”- and they “lost the technology” to get men up there, but yet two of these things are still extant…..

          C’mon, Eric- when you see all of the lame excuses; the BS; and, just like with 9-11, the thrown-away…err…I mean “lost” data [Remember 9-11? They couldn’t get that debris out of there and melted down fast enough! No time for forensics!…. or, what, 2 frames of video from surveillance camera near the Pentagon?

          I might be open to the Moon thing, if there were any real proof. And considering that we are dealing with known liars/the scum of the earth, who have a vested interest in the matter, the burden of proof should even be greater- but as is always the case with their shenanigans, we find the usual problems, and the oh-so-convenient 700 boxes worth of “lost” stuff, and taped-over tapes, etc. Sounds like their same old tricks if you ask me.

          But yeah- there are some who would have us believe that EVERYTHING is a hoax or conspiracy. I think much of it is planned “damage control” (They actually allocate millions in the military budget to domestic internet propaganda/disinfo)- or some, just genuine nuts- like those who believe that some secret society controls everything that goes on…but yet, it’s members have to use hand-signs to recognize their own major players…and somehow, “everyone knows about these secret societies! LOL.

          My modus operandi is to always approach the unknown from a neutral position, and demand proof of any claims. Trouble is, for many, that the things we have been indoctrinated with, we take for granted and accept as fact- and rather than demanding proof of their accuracy or existence, we automatically start from the premise that they are true; and we only demand proof of their fallacy.

          And what’s more; since we are indoctrinated in many areas, even if we see lies in one area, we are still often blinded to the possibility that other things which we’ve been taught since childhood, and have come to believe without question (Since we learned them at an age when we essentially did not have the ability/experience/knowledge TO question them) may also be false.

          So we get “The math works, with the physics, to prove that the shiny flying things with blinking lights could have gone [not ‘did go’] to the Moon”. And so the math is indeed true…..but the physics- eh..maybe yes, maybe no- but it’s all irrelevant if theior model is wrong- and considering they can’t even get models of earthly things [cough- Global Warming- cough – “eggs, salt and butter are BADddd for you!’ -cough] and how I think we can agree that 99% of scientists are just yes-men for Uncle (and it was no different in the past), I would find it very hard to have any confidence in such an outlandish claim as sending men to the Moon, unless there were some SOLID substantive “touch it, see it” proof.

          Meh…say what you want; I think you will “come around” to this one day. You’re just not there yet.

          This song just came to mind:
          ‘In The Year 2525’ – Zager & Evans
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yesyhQkYrQM

          • As they used to say in Russia.

            You know you are under communism when the soap no longer cleans.

            We know we are also under communism 2.0 because the tobacco no longer burns nor performs its characteristic pharmaceutical effect.

        • “The Saturn V, for example, is extensively documented. You can literally go touch one, if you like. The launches were public. The F1 engines real. The thrust they produced and the fuel carried in the rocket and the speed/trajectory all checkable – and they check out.”

          Does their ridiculous claim that this massive thrust enabled the manned capsule to continue all the way to the moon “check out”?

          No, it doesn’t. Their story holds that the rocket gets the capsule into space from earth’s atmosphere and falls away, with the fuel exhausted. Then the capsule is supposed to just continue all the way to the moon with no further energy expended on it.

          If that isn’t ridiculous enough, the capsule gets to the moon, and goes into orbit, releasing the moon module, which manages a perfect landing, then later manages a perfectly timed liftoff to rendezvous with the capsule again and somehow, all that hardware still has the momentum necessary to break from moon orbit and make it back to Earth.

          You might as well swallow the Tonkin Gulf story. It’s at least possible, even though it never happened.

          • Hi Ed,

            The CM had its own rocket engine and unlike the main stage F1 engines, it had a throttle. It didn’t take nearly as much thrust to get the CM to the Moon, nor slingshot it back.

            The math actually does compute…

            • No, it doesn’t. Werner vonBraun stated that he calculated the amount of fuel needed to reach the moon and it was more than twice what was needed to escape the atmosphere.

              Try running the figures for packing all the fuel needed into the capsule and see how well it would fit. You’re defending the indefensible here. Watch out for that. Look at how Walter Block turned out.

              • Hi Ed,

                That’s right – using his original concept of a single rocket that would leave Earth, land on the Moon and then return… not the way it was done, with Houbalt’s concept of a staged rocket and lunar orbit rendezvous.

                Von Braun deferred to Houbalt, but only after Houbalt went over his head and presented his ideas to Von Braun’s boss.

                • Really? That isn’t how it was done? The very idea of what they claim to have done is absolutely laughable, but it makes sense to you.

                  Look at the extreme complexities involved with getting their capsule out of the atmosphere (where it somehow magically escaped Earth’s gravity as well and just fell all the way to the moon), into an orbit around the moon ( where the little cardboard and mylar “moon module” miraculously detached and landed perfectly) waiting for a perfect escape of the moon module from the moon’s gravity and a perfectly timed rendezvous and docking before falling all the way back to earth.

                  The whole thing is indescribably complex and it absolutely cannot be replicated even with the vastly advanced technology available today.

                  What is much more believable is that the whole thing is a hoax that was made up in order to obscure the end users of the huge amount of money that was created out of thin air in order to set up the worldwide empire that emerged during the Vietnam war.

                  The insane WTC collapse story is easier to swallow than the Apollo fraud. The moonshot tale doesn’t even make sense the way they tell it. No reason for the Apollo missions is even given, and no reason for its abandonment is given either.

                  I’d rather pick out some myth about a couple of dozen gods to defend, like those the Greeks and Romans had, than to try to defend the moondoggie myth.

                  • Shit Ed. What if there’s nothing up there.

                    Maybe those cell towers is how they do the GPS and Satellite Teevee and all the rest.

                    I remember the old radio towers back in the day in the upper midwest.

                    Empty southern tundra, and then a 1000 foot high stick with a few red lights on it.

                    Maybe before cell towers, those were part of the con too.

                    The thing is only 15% of our minds are rational.

                    That leaves a lot of irrational neurons to convince us of all kinds of things.

                    That’s one of the ways THEY humiliate most of us.

                    By pretending everything in the world is 100 percent known and rational.

                    When its probably closer to 15 known / 85 unknown just like our brains are.

                    I say if you want to believe you’re essence is a Libra born under a big dipper spilling constellation, that’s your right.

                    Certainly no reason to feel inferior to the kinds of “rational scientists” who waste there time watching things like the news and the weather in the paper, radio spectrum, or televisual radio spectrum.

                    • Zuckertownburgopolis says:

                      When you finish boosting your post “Macho Man Reviews up to 680 people will see it in News Feed for $3.

                      Such a deal, for only
                      $78,358,206 everyone on Earth can see Eric’s Macho Man post.

                      Reading comments written in wifey’s yearbook.

                      Favorite one is “you’re a bimbo, Hank”

                      She was a bimbo is going to look nice on a tombstone someday.

                      I find it sweet and funny. Strange how we were such different people on the edge of seventeen.
                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB6Gecy6IP8

                      Just like a white wingless dove.

                      Sings a song just like she singing

                      And the days go by
                      Like a strand in the wind

                      In the web that is my own
                      I begin again
                      Said to my friend, baby
                      Nothin’ else mattered

                      Hank was no more than a baby then
                      Well he seemed broken hearted
                      Something within him

                      But the moment Wifey first laid
                      Eyes on him all alone
                      On the edge of seventeen

                      Well, Wifey went today maybe Wifey will go again tomorrow
                      Yeah, Yeah, well the music’s there
                      Well it was hauntingly familiar

                      When she sees Hank doin’
                      What she try to do for me
                      With their words of a poet

                      And a voice from a choir
                      And a melody
                      Nothin’ else mattered

                    • Hi Tor!

                      Here’s what would be even better: If we could get every person who reads EPautos to send in $5 each month, I could afford to buy a new GM vehicle to test drive each month. And really test drive it. Test drive the scheisse out of it. Then raffle off the remains for EPautos readers only.

                      It would be sweet revenge!

                    • It is pretty interesting that GPS doesn’t work over vast expanses of the Southern hemisphere…..and that satellite TV dishes aren’t aimed very high, and tend not to work where there is very weak/no cell signals (Like where I live- cell reception is one bar on a good day- but you don’t see one satellite dish ’round here….even though we have an unhindered view all around…

                      I’m not an eggspurt on such things…but they sure do raise some interesting questions.

                    • eric, you could do long term updates on the winners’ cars.

                      Example: I dunno eric, getting the cattle in the Sienna is no problem but when you open the door and that hot air hits them they all back up.

                  • Ed, I figgered out how they got them tin cans to fall exactly where they needed to go: They just wrote: “Moon or bust” on the side with a crayon. A lot of ’em busted. For some reason, the ones with the clean-cut all-American alcoholics managed not to….’cept of course for the one carrying the one of their own who was sleptical of the whole thing- Gus Grissom. (Someone must’a erased the “Moon or” part on his, so that it just read “bust”.

                    See? the physics work….as long as your physics texts are Bugs Bunny cartoons!

                    • OMG this is so weird it’s happening again right now, like John Carpenter said it would…

                      Eight More Days Till Halloween
                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp_d96GUyu0

                      With Cochran’s plan coming together and Silver Shamrock masks distributed all over the United States in the form of the same three unimaginative, generic designs, it’s time for a demonstration of how this great pagan sacrifice of children is going to take place.

                      It takes place by turning their heads into piles of bugs.

                      Nothing livens up the Halloween experience like a little bit of child murder.

                      Halloween III – Season of the Witch – The Demonstration Clip
                      https://www.hooktube.com/watch?v=ssS4T_OcltU

                    • Nunz, using their logic, I could just jump off my deck and fall all the way to Richmond. I’d save a lot of gas that way, y’know.

          • Ed, you’re better at this than I am! HAhaha! You make their BS sound as ridiculous as it really is!

            They speak of “thrust”- and yet thrust would accomplish nothing in the vacuum which they claim space is. Also, aerodynamics and the use of them (and or thrust) for steering would also be useless.

            The maths and the trajectory and all add up….as long as one believes that things actually behave the way “they” say that they do, and all conditions are exactly as “they” say they are… LOL.

            Oh, and the perfect landing, and take off and re-assembly in space of the module with the capsule….and that they “forgot” to calculate for the heat and and the radiation, so the maths don’t work out too good on them…so they just say they lost the technology- The technology they forgot to even include to begin with….

            Aww, we must be crazy not believe. Would the Nazis, teamed up with Uncle, EVER lie? Hey, they those Moon rocks were just fake because they forgot to take real ones. I mean, can ya blame them? Being busy taking pictures and hitting golf balls and all? It was only 6 trips they made! Maybe they’re remember next time.

            • I know it, nunz. Accepting their “numbers” is exactly like taking the numbers for the Tesla seriously. Elon has a car called the Tesla, true. His car will actually move under its own power for a little while, also true. Now that those facts are established, why is everyone still in denial about this car being able to run rings around ICE cars, and hold together without major repair for 300k miles?

              I mean, his numbers are right there, so why can’t you admit that the Tesla is the absolute tits? These deniers just don’t understand engineering. You don’t argue with the Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech, ’cause he’s a hell of an engineer.

              Don’t they even get it?

  4. So there I was in the trench, I was shooting at the damn Muzzis, and our commander told us to go. So I climb out of the trench, I start running, and immediately I feel this sting on my chest.

    I fall down, wind knocked out of me…I thought I was dead. But I catch my breath, I look down, and I realize the bullet didn’t even enter me. The kitten. The kitten in my pocket caught the bullet. That newborn feline saved my life. All I got was a bruise.

    Mr. Fluffybits was buried in Arlington when we got back.
    http://media.riffsy.com/images/48c35d13fa0e3b993f58771cfd58bd92/tenor.gif

  5. Is the Earth a Rubiks Cube? Or a dandy dodecahedron? Who can say.

    There are no deciders. Only your own mind and assertion of individual will.

    Flat Earthers Claim The Solar Eclipse Just Proved Earth Is Flat
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/08/22/flat-earthers-declare-solar-eclipse-just-proved-earth-flat/#1041e0886921

    Maybe you believe in eating three meals a day. Or you eat whenever your hungry. Perhaps you capture stray cats and devour them whole on the spot. Or you’re some kind of candy ass supermarket cuck who buys big bags of sheeple chow.

    Maybe you sleep in a 24 hour cycle. Or you sleep when you’re tired and wake up when you’re rested. Maybe you just listen to music to relax, and have never dreamed or slept in your life. Who can prove you haven’t always been woke?

    There’s no real rhyme and reason to calling one guy sane and one guy crazy. It’s all just subjective preferences according to the alpha austrian Carl Menger.
    https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/carl-menger-and-the-foundations-of-austrian-economics/

    • I’ve read there is conclusive proof that the Earth is a Klein bottle that is impossible to escape from due to the Van Allen 4th dimensional crossover. So obviously any crazy notion that men have landed on the moon or put up so-called “sputniks” is crazy nonsense. Anyone saying differently is just engaging in NASA knob slobbing. For that matter there is no solid evidence that we are not all in some kind of alien pods dreaming away in the Matrix, with no mouths and having to scream.

  6. One of my Friends who used to advocate Hydrogen( without giving good reasons why) thought to find more ways to burn Hydrogen was the future( for goodness sake the stuff is easy to burn) my answer to Him was Hybrid cars are more the wave of the future than pure Hydrogen vehicles.He should have found better ways to produce Hydrogen( a building or two over, they were actually working on this at VT)The answer of course “Dance with the that Brung ya”(Jimmy Dean) Improvements on all fronts will be gradually phased in. Imagine a world where you are penalized for owning a pure electric car( could happen- the Unicorn doesn’t always fart pixie dust )

    • I wonder where the safety Nazis will be on the issue of Hydrogen…

      For that matter, where are the safety Nazis on electrics? I seriously doubt the safety Nazis have even considered what happens destructive collisions of an electric vehicle.

      The massive heat released from uncontrolled battery discharge (excellent welding action) plus the resulting cloud of noxious chemicals ought to get the safety Nazi’s panties in a serious knot.

      And after Uncle gets done mandating protective iron for those oh-so-dangerous batteries, electric vehicles will be done….

      Shazaam!!

    • The idea of hydrogen-powered internal combustion engines seems to be dead, or at best on life support. For the past five years hardly anyone has been talking about it or showing new H2-fueled prototypes. The main reason is the push to ban internal combustion engines in vehicles over the next 15–20 years in parts of Europe and also in California and, essentially, to require electric power instead.

      A significant second reason was the nature of hydrogen as fuel: the large amount of energy required to manufacture H2 and the challenges of transporting and safely storing it. The risks of hydrogen make those of gasoline or alcohol look like nothing. Think Hindenberg or Challenger (space shuttle).

      Outside of fuel cells, we might see H2 as fuel in a few specialty applications that require IC engines as the best option, but I doubt we’ll see these in vehicles.

  7. Batteries are really unnecessary for an electric car. Putting Tesla’s name on Musk’s electric car is an insult to great scientist; who regarded Einstein as a chump if not an actual fraud. Transmitting electricity through the ground to run electric devices is obviously a better method of powering electric cars instead of using batteries. His research was sabotaged by the oil interests.

    • Speaking of Einstein, he has been coming under attack in recent years. He has been accused of plagiarizing his theories, and there are others who believe that his theories are unproven. I’m no scientist, but I have heard that his theory of relativity has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

      • Einstein was a moron. He believed that time travel was possible! Anyone who believes that, does not possess a genuine understanding of the time/space continuum; nor of the essence of life.

        Interesting too, that the fruits of the work of many of these scientists is often very telling. The fruits of so many of the heralded 20th-century scientists tended toward destruction and increasing tyranny, rather than nurturing and freedom.

        • Nun, you might be interested to know that many of the members of the Skunkworks believe the only way for inter-stellar travel is something along the lines of a star gate. The Skunkworks isn’t known for it’s morons in that field.

            • Mr. BrentP,

              I don’t think anyone here questions your bonafides.

              Or your writing ability.

              Or your respectful-yet-terse, rebel-within-the-system point of view and demeanor.

              But let me just ask you for a favor.

              Please consider accepting Nunzio as the rare gift that he is.

              He’s saying more than not, your life and those like you has been a noble lie.

              Alexander Hamilton himself said industrialists were only okay. For it was the farmer/rancher and the wildcatter/miner who was the true backbone of America. The ones who made the Earth itself a source of profit.

              As opposed to any kind of transient production facility which was neither here nor there. Which you’ve even admitted was here one day, and has mostly moved on to China in another.

              I don’t dispute what you’re saying is the primary reality.

              But are you sure some of what he’s saying isn’t possibly a secondary reality you’ve refused to see?

              Guys like him are like hen’s teeth; they’re the sort that all this warmongering was trying to holocaust or else militarize for this or that Noble Lie.

              There’s something so divinely subversive about the way he just stands there in his striped pajamas in the middle of the star spangled concentration camp square and plainly and cheerfully says “we” never went to the moon.

              And even more so when he says I don’t believe “them” when they tell me the earth isn’t flat.

              That’s how America used to be not that long ago.

              We weren’t frog marched into all being on the same page. Or even the in same book.

              That’s how American freedom used to be.

              All of your assertions are without proof. And besides the point. Your scripture isn’t holier than anyone elses.

              A car can be imagined, engineered, and assembled without any language. Or belief system. It doesn’t matter if you’re dreaming of Jesus bringing in the sheaves, or Wehner Von Braun adding the final rivet to Saturn VII for it’s maiden voyage to Uranus.

              Like him or not, Uncle Al’s system is the pinnacle of American achievement. It’s all been downhill since these new radical ideas have been attempted.

              Even including this so far ludicrous idea that one sided free trade and enterprise can compete in the long run against mercantile nations like China Korea Japan EU and the 50+ UK Commonwealth Countries.

              • The key aspect of determining reality from the manufactured fiction is to be able to determine what is true from what is false. Everything is not a lie nor is everything the truth.

                There is nothing false about the magnitude of work it would take to go to the moon today. Technology is so easily lost. There are things which are many thousands of years old that we cannot build today. Why? The technology was lost.

                The manufactured reality tells us these people were primitive. Used copper chisels at best. The same experience that tells me what it takes to get to the moon tells me that this story of these being primitive dumb people is a lie.

                The reason the moon landing is seen as a lie is because Nunizo and others want to preserve this fiction that humans only move forward. Humans don’t always move forward. They move backwards as well.

                In many ways the present civilization is superior to that of ~12,000 years ago and in others it clearly is not. We can’t build with stone like they did. There can be lies about how they did it, but you can’t deny they did it. Something like the moon landing we can’t go and visit, but there are too many interested third parties who can check and did for it to be a lie.

                We are living in a society that is -regressing- to the human mean. As such its past accomplishments look like magical impossibilities. That doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

                But let us for a moment consider that government simply did not want us to know any longer. That would explain why things seeming stopped. I do not discount the possibility. There is evidence to that effect. Men who have claimed to work on such projects who could take people out into the desert to see things flying around in “impossible” ways on the precision of a military schedule.

                • Whatever makes Cypher enjoy his steak is good for the steak holder huh?

                  I’m totally with you, I hate paying for the shiny, but that’s why the women are there and do the purchasing. I can’t stand retail situations. Get overcharged regularly, but I get physically ill trying to stand in a line to “consume” something, as stupid as that probably sounds.

                  This whole notion of modelling reality with with all stakeholding variables named and plotted. That’s quite a hard to swallow greasy weasel I’d say. Over and Under is exactly right. I’m both underwhelmed and overwhelmed by “science” all at the same time.

                  Until hadron colliding, to take an example, leads to a product, I wouldn’t call it any kind of science. It’s just maths until its provides tangible benefits or results. Cui Bono from finding out who’s the alpha sub particle of a sub particle is in a high stakes molecular scrum, I’d like to know.

                  Lousy reader, but this stuff on inventing history is a good intro to our manufactured historical memory.

                  Staged Centuries: Fabricated Reality, Invented History, Phantom Time, historical Manipulation
                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YszdBk4fGY

                  History of New Chronology
                  http://chronologia.org/en/history.html

                  I’m always way out on the tangent here. Maybe some day I’ll finally saw the sine and open up my mind. Or maybe you’ll be my cosiner here, since my intellectual heft is a bit suspect here.

                • I should really lurk more. I wouldn’t be such a scatter brain doumasse if I’d apply myself where it counts.

                  But hey I’m getting hundreds of replies on Voat and Reddit, maybe its just the gamesmanship quant experience I most care about.

                  I remember being three years old and on up with my Dad’s scientific calculator and pressing all the buttons and seeing the answers progress in Fibber McNochy’s Closet or whoever the math guys name was.

                  Even now I want to open Paint or McPaint and make another Sieve of Eratosthenes type thing.
                  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Sieve_of_Eratosthenes_animation.gif

                  I just love the rush of raw numerals whizzing by in the morning.
                  https://media.giphy.com/media/quEsMOrr3hmQ8/giphy.gif

                  I wish the matrix green screens were a real place I could go and that the lynx green screen browser could somehow be brought back.

                  I just love making some kind of whacky abacus to help me soldier up all the toothpicks into their assigned regimens.
                  https://i.pinimg.com/236x/63/a7/9c/63a79c35d52a6771e50e8988973b94d5–sweet-memes-autistic-kids.jpg

                • It doesn’t personally affect me whether “they” went to the Moon or not. I just like to know the truth vs. when I am being lied to.

                  If they “were capable of doing something” and are no longer capable of doing it, that still does not prove that they in-fact did it.

                  I merely ask for proof of their claims. I am offered virtually none, unless one counts some corny home movies as proof.

                  I ask why so many anomalies exist. No one can give me a straight answer. Changing to theoretical what-ifs and possibilities or questioning my motives is not a valid answer.

                  I merely ask for some substantive proof. “They say” is not proof.

                  Oh, that’s right…they threw all the proof away.

                  Not even a decent picture of Earth from the Moon. Not even a decent picture TODAY from “space”. (Decent= one which isn’t CGI, and in which the clouds don’t stay in the exact same formations and locations forever, and weren’t produced by a graphics clone tool and where the continents aren’t different relative sizes and in different relative positions compared to their other images!) -They can’t even FAKE IT GOOD!

                • Hi, Brian,

                  Very elementary stuff there! It’d be beyond the scope of this comment section to deal with every argument here, but I’ll just do one, for example.

                  “Water conforms to the shape of it’s container when being acted upon by forces”.

                  Very true; and in-fact is exactly what I said earlier, when I mentioned that if a force such as gravity existed which were capable not only overcoming the centrifugal force of an Earth spinning at 1000MPH (to prevent water and everything else from flying off of it) AND in fact could exert such force so as to hold water in place where it is 1000’s of feet deep, to the point where that water is exerting a downward force of 1000’s of psi. how is it that that same water’s surface does NOT conform to the shape of the bottom of the ocean (essentially it’s “container”), but instead, remains smooth and flat?

                  In fact, that water is so flat, that with the aid of a telescope on a clear day, one can see objects which are in some cases over a hundred miles away- which would not be possible if the Earth were a sphere with a 24,000 mile circumference- according to standard formula used to measure the aspects of a sphere (The Pythagorean theorem) and object at that distance on a sphere of that size would be several THOUSAND feet below the horizon.

                  The thing is, those videos were not even remotely good at their stated goal of “debunking” the flat earth- like when they show water being squirted in a arc, and then try to allude to that “proving” that water “does not seek it’s own level”. LOL.

                  If anything, such lame attempts at debunking would do more to make believers of anyone who possesses even a rudimentary knowledge of demonstrable physical science.

                  Hey, just get a spherical object made of something like wood, and carve out some depressions in it, and pour some water on it, and see how good that “gravity” makes the water stay in place! : o

                  And just as with the Moon stuff, their “science” is predicated upon acceptance of other theories of theirs being true- such as “gravity working upon the water”- a force which is supposedly so great that it can counter thousands of psi of force of deep water, and the centrifugal force of “a spinning earth”- but yet which allows a helium balloon to float up into the sky- now THAT is magic! [NOT science].

                  Reaaly, when they have to resort to such lame arguments, it kinda makes points for the other side…..

            • One thing to consider, is there were only a half dozen manned missions to the moon, which must have been at least 576 million miles in total travel, and took men 238 million miles above the surface of the Earth.

              Other than those missions (1969 to 1972) no human being from any nation has ever been more than 800 miles above the surface of the Earth for any reason.

              Just an interesting fact to consider.

              Maybe there’s a lot of secret far off earth military missions we don’t know about where aero dogfaces are stationed in orbiting bunkers or whatever, that is also a possibility.

              • Hi Tor,

                I strongly suspect that there are things about the Moon – or on the Moon – that are being kept hidden from us. Several astronauts have made public statements – some very blatant – about what they saw or know about. I personally suspect it has to do with either beings from somewhere else, or beings from somewhen else, including possibly technical civilizations that existed on Earth a very long time ago.

                  • Tor, maybe your “we” and mine aren’t the same. I recall being the lone holdout, the guy who refused to do whatever it was the herd was involved with. Moo, I’d rather rope the herd than be part of one. My next door neighbor was being a turd so I roped him to a remote tree and left him. When it got late and I was asked if I’d seen him lately, I didn’t lie….and said I hadn’t. Then they got nasty and asked if I knew where he was. I was having a memory problem. He could have saved himself at any time by hollering but he was trying to throw the onus on me. It didn’t work that well. When he was discovered somebody said “you shouldn’t do that” and that was about all.

                    I like to look out over that field of blank faced worshipers and wonder what could be going through their pea brains. See, I’m back here in the shadows just waiting for the other shoe to fall…..and I hope it falls on all you sheeple standing out there like…..like……sheeple.

                    • Good stuff as always.

                      I’m pretty low on the purity scale, to be honest.

                      I’m willing to advocate out here tens or thousands of miles away from real life danger and through the safety filter of the online experience.

                      Its sheeple and eloi all the way down, these days mostly.

                      I’d say you’re a Morlock in your way.

                      And I’m a Morlock in mine.

                      Pretty sure you’re the kind of Morlock the majority would want in their foxhole if ever we were living the dystopian of HG Wells time machine for real.

                      I’m more of a spoiled kid that went rogue for a lady.

                      My life is pretty close to the Marty Robbins tune El Paso.

                      I’ve chased a few Felinas in my day and been shot up pretty bad, but I would never change.

                      “Tor’s El Paso”

                      9 hours east of the West Texas town of El Paso
                      I fell in love with a Mexican girl

                      Nighttime would find me and my fake ID i made on a Macintosh in Rosa’s cantina
                      Music would play and Felina would whirl

                      Blacker than night the gypsy hair and eyes of Felina
                      Wicked in the best ways she stole some of my sisters Jewelry from her room while casting a spell

                      Kicked out of my house was my teenage quincenera a wild young and shunned cowboy

                      Wild as the West Texas wind
                      Only 2 years from having a bald spot at age 17 and daring, a drink I was sharing
                      With wicked Felina, the girl that I loved

                      So in anger I
                      Challenged the rules of my fathers
                      Down went his hand for the gun that he wore
                      My challenge was answered in less than a heartbeat
                      This handsome new bastard young stranger near death in a dark slum room floor

                      Just for a moment I stood there in silence
                      Shocked by the bold selfish deed I had done

                      Many thoughts raced through my mind as I stood there
                      I had but one chance and that was to run

                      Out through the back door of Rosa’s I ran
                      Out where the horses were tied
                      I caught a good one, it looked like it could run
                      Up on its back and away I did ride

                      35 homes in 35 years fast as I
                      Could from the West Texas town of El Paso
                      Out to the badlands of North Mexico.

                      One day Cradled by two loving arms that I’ll die for
                      One little kiss from Felina, and from our daughters goodbye…

                    • Tor, I commend you and you found it as I was about to say “You never know what your next motivation will be and where it will come from”….and that fairly well covers it when I was put on a spot by Tex, a guy I’d listen to my whole life and then he nailed me to the post and it was do or die.

                      Do not forsake me oh my darlin, on this our weddin day. Do not forsake me oh my darlin, wait, wait along. I do not know what fate awaits me. I only know I must be brave and I must face the man who hates me…or lie a coward, a craven coward, or lie a coward in my grave. Oh to be caught tween love and duty, oh how I love my fair haired beauty. Look at the big hand movin a long….nearin high noon.

                      The sheeple are doing their best to ignore high noon and I can’t wait. I wanta get this shit settled ASAP. Strap on your Bowie knife and double down the rounds in both your bandoliers, sling your kit over your back cause it’s about to get a lot worse before it gets better but it’s the only hope we have.

                    • Never mind going to the Moon. They have yet to even circumnavigate the Earth around the north-south axis.

                      They can’t even do that- but they can “go to the Moon”?

                      Let them do the N/S thing first- THAT would impress me, and also disprove the flat earth.

                      Let the fuckers conquer Earth first, and get things straight and gain some credibility, then we can worry about wasting billions in stolen loot to flit around in space.

                      Even amateurs can circumnavigate the Earth on the east/west (In reality, just circling the continents)….but even the goobermint with our unlimited resources can’t do the N/S thing. But they can go to the Moon….as long as you believe they can, and don’t ask for proof.

                    • “They have yet to even circumnavigate the Earth around the north-south axis.”

                      Then this must be more gunvermin lies:

                      “A pilot from Fredericksburg, Virginia, has flown around the world in a single-engine airplane on a route down the eastern side of the Americas, over the South Pole, across the Pacific Ocean, up the West Coast of the U.S. to Alaska, over the North Pole, and home.”

                      https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2015/january/22/around-the-world-over-the-poles

                    • [Sigh]

                      So, even assuming a globe model, he went down the east side of one face of the globe; hung a U-ey, and came back up the west side of that same face…kept going north; hung another U-turn, and came back down the eastern side of his course, to where he started.

                      Nice try.

                      Did you really think I’d fall for that?

                    • I hate to screw the consensus pooch:

                      But if your sister was on the moon, and you wanted to be seen her with any kind of telescope, even the most Holy Hubble Telescope.

                      She’d have to make a structure longer than 140 feet long if she wanted to be seen by any telescopes.

                      As you’ve probably guessed, no telescope on Earth can see anything Apollo-related.

                      Not even the sacred Hubble Space Telescope. The laws of optics can’t yet be repealed by government fiat.

                      Hubble’s 94.5-inch mirror has a resolution of 0.024″ in ultraviolet light.

                      This means it can’t resolve any smaller than 140 feet at the Moon’s distance.

                      In visible light, it worse, the Hobble’s at 0.05″, or 300 feet.

                      The biggest thing supposedly left on the Moon after those Sacred 6 man missions was the 18-foot-high by 14-foot-wide Lunar Module.

                      Maybe your sister can explain how anyone has ever seen anything man made on the moon with any kind of telescope.

                      Seems to be a pattern, that only they can see their feats of genius, not any kind of independent man.

                    • Nice pooch-screwing there, Tor. These guvluvvers who claim that “they left shit up there that you can see to this day” have never seen any of the shit themselves, they’re just repeating what some NAShole claimed.

                      I’ll bet that they saw it on TV, too.

                    • Speaking of crap, Ed, what did those guys in the tin-foil suits do with their doody up there?

                      According to Brent, every little ounce of extra weight had to be engineered-out….so I doubt they just kept it in plastic bags in the crapsule- although that might explain the fake Moon rocks- freeze-dried turds!

                      Is that the “crap” that they left on the Moon? Did they just jeison it? That would scary! Imagine Buzzed Aldrin’s loaf floating endlessly through space; picking all kinds of stardust and debris until it becomes a massive meteor and crashes to Earth!

                      I could just see it! Uncle would have to rape us even more to “protect us” from space sewage! We’d need precision laserbeams to break them up -It’d be a regular Crapplestar Turdlactica- a Space Roto-Rooter.

                      I could just see the insurance claim: “Cause of ten-foot diameter hole in roof? Neil Armstrong’s 50 year-old turd.

                    • Apparently conversation of mass is another government lie to you as well.

                      I would bother with the answer, it’s been known for decades, but then again those are just more government lies to you. Without an irrefutable third party witness to defecation and what became of the product it’s just another one of NASA lies.

                    • Amen, Brent.

                      I am the last person to take anything the government says or claims at face value. But this idea that Apollo was faked? If it was, it is the most amazing conspiracy of them all.

                    • But where are the details, Jason????

                      Bill Harrelson holds the RECORD for N/S “circumnavigation”- and an actual plot of his track used to be on the website which supported him- but it was removed, do you know why?

                      As can still be proven by doing a little research- from the horse’s own mouth no less- his course was that of flying from NC to South America, down to Brazil, then down to the “South Pole”, then BACK UP to Chile….across the NZ, then back up to the west coast of ‘Merica, and, like the other guy, up to the North Pole and then back to where he started.

                      That is NOT circumnavigation.

                      If you every give a cursory look into all of the supposed N/S circumnavigators, the story is ALWAYS the same.

                      It’s all popular fiction- they call it “circumnavigation”, but as soon as you look into it, you see that it is not….it is just “flying to both extremities.

                      It’s not even disputed; it’s not even like anyone’s trying to hide it. It’s just a matter of taking two seconds to actually look at something, as opposed to reading search results or headlines.

                      C’mon- anyone who is a Libertarian should know better. Saying that someone “took a course over the north and south poles” is quite different than saying that they circled the earth on the N/S axis.

                      This is the kind of BS they use for simple things on EARTH in the here and now- not even a concerted effort by a gov’t agency- so can you imagine how many more magnitudes of BS are involved when it comes to a huge government agency which is funded with BILLIONS of dollars?

                      You guys disappoint me; I sincerely expect better of yous[sic].

                      Egads! You’re one step away from believing “They’re fighting for our freedom!”!

                    • The problem with the flat-earth types is that no amount of evidence is sufficient to sway them from their ludicrous belief system. Once could play battling web links all day long and nothing is going to be sufficiently convincing. There will always be some detail that the nutter will seize upon to reinforce his nonsensical ideas. I could point out that many satellites use polar orbits, for example:

                      http://www.phy6.org/Education/wlopolar.html

                      But to the flat-earther it’s just not going to pass muster.

                      The idea that it is “impossible” to go around the earth via the poles is ludicrous on its face. Just like the idea that it is impossible that a 1960s computer made small enough to fly onboard Apollo is capable of doing complex calculations. (Bunky, I’ve worked with 1960s lab computers small enough to fit on a desktop and they were not even specifically designed to be as compact as possible.)

                      Of course you are free to believe whatever you like, no matter how inane it may be. It’s quite entertaining, actually, better than just about anything currently on the cesspool of modern TV.

                    • Jason, this is getting a little beyond the scope of this comment section- so I’m going to try and refrain from addressing specific details here, since we have two separate controverseis going here; But do you really think that I have never considered the things which you mentioned???

                      I mean, do you get the impression from any of my other comments which you may have read on this site, that I am some clueless backward bumblefuck?

                      Consider this: ALL flat-earthers alive today were heliocentric globe-earthers at one time, since we are ALL programmed to be so from toddlerhood.

                      We are familiar with the globe model and it’s claims and proofs [or lack thereof], and we found it lacking; found something which better explains the reality of what we see before our eyes; which offers more proof and fewer problems.

                      Conversely, globe-earthers have not started out as flat-earthers, since the globe model is the default position of our time; and thus, most globers have never really questioned the model or the so-called “science” behind it. It’s something that is just accepted because it’s all you’ve ever been taught, and everyone else around you believes it; and you’ve likely never heard the other side’s case, because you dismiss it out-of-hand as “crazy”.

                      Yet you don’t see the absurdity of everything in Australia being upside-down, or of water conforming to a globe; or of being able to clearly see things over distances which if the Earth were truly a globe, would be thousands of feet below the horizon, etc. etc.
                      And what exactly is it about those geostationary satellites, which allows them to stay up there, that you feel would prevent them from doing so if the Earth is flat and stationary?

                      And why is it that those who always claim to be the strictest adherents of sceince, always turn out to be the ones who indeed are exercising more of a faith-based belief than anything else?

                • 1969 wasn’t the first time man made it to the moon IMO. The ancients tell us of different ‘worlds’. In gaming it’s called a reset or a respawn. The human civilization on earth is destroyed and man starts over.

                  But what ever is left on the moon stays on the moon through the resets.

                  • I believe that past civilizations were far more technically advanced than given credit for these days.

                    Relics of their existence persist for thousands of years; Our crap, except for some of our garbage, truns to dust in ashes in a few years or immediately after a catastrophe.

                    Moderns don’t like to admit this because it is contrary to the popular fairy-tale of evolution. They have to portray everything that came before as crude and prehistoric, and us as the only ones who have it right.

                    But most of those civilizations also had a more realistic understanding of the nature of our environs, and probably realized that you could no more “go to the Moon” than ya could go to the Sun.

                    …..and if they did it, they wouldn’t have “lost” the data.

                • “I strongly suspect that there are things about the Moon – or on the Moon – that are being kept hidden from us.”

                  Oh, shit. Now we get the Transformers explanation. “We can never go back to the moon because there’s alien life forms up there that are going to wipe us out if we keep fucking around on their turf”. Yeah. OK.

                  You daddy guv believers just beat the shit out of any of the religionists you hate so much. Nothing is too far out for you to believe if you saw it on TV when you were little.

                  My brother and I just fell all out in the floor laughing at the ridiculous fake scenes of “astronauts” hopping around like retarded fleas. If you didn’t buy the shit when you saw it on TV, there’s no way anyone can convince you to believe the same shit decades later.

                  If you were in diapers at the time and fell for anything you saw on the tube, it seems that nobody can get you to look at it objectively even decades later.

                  You kids believe whatever makes you feel warm inside. Being all grown up in other ways doesn’t count if you hang onto any of the lies told on TV when you still wore footed pajamas.

                  • Yeah, when has the goobermint EVER lied to us “for our own good”?

                    If there were really anything up, and we knew about it and had the capacity to actually go there, Uncle would be claiming ownership of the Moon, and portraying any inhabitants as enemies and dangerous terrorists who need to be destroyed- and would be using that as an excuse to take what is left of our wealth and liberty, to “save us”. (Don’t laugh- this might sorta be the direction in which they are going, now that they have established an official “Space Weather Agency”!)

                    And they didn’t discover these terrifying aliens until the last trip?

                • Apollo, the creepy ideal of the kouros-a beardless, athletic youth- is the god nation of music, truth, prophecy, healing, medicine, sun, light, and more.

                  Apollo the son of Zeus and Leto, has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis.

                  He is the the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle.

                  Apollo is also a god who can bring bad health and deadly plague.

                  Apollo is associated with dominion over colonists, and is the patron defender of herds and flocks.

                  As the leader of the Muses and director of their choir, Apollo is best remembered
                  playing the lyre Hermes created for him.

                  Hymns sung to Apollo are called paeans.

                  Human spaceflight programs
                  Vostok programme (USSR, 1956–1964)
                  Project Mercury (USA, 1959–1963)
                  North American X-15 (USA, 1954–1968)
                  Voskhod programme (USSR, 1964–1965)
                  Project Gemini (USA, 1965–1966)
                  Soyuz programme (USSR/Russia, 1967–ongoing)
                  Project Apollo (USA, 1961–1975)
                  Space Shuttle (USA, 1972–2011)
                  Shenzhou programme (China, 1992–ongoing)

                  Space station programs
                  Salyut stations (USSR, 1971–1986)
                  Skylab (USA, 1973–1974)
                  Mir (USSR/Russia, 1986–2001)
                  International Space Station (USA, Russia, Japan, Europe, Canada, 1998–ongoing)
                  Tiangong program (China, 2012–ongoing)

          • One inhumanity I’ve observed sort of from the inside but not really.

            Is the way women are expected to work and be the equal of men even right at the construction site and out on the upper floors of some scaffolded rickety gypsy contractor jobsite even.

            That works great until periods and babies come into the picture.

            Yet no Cloverus Americanus seems to give a care in the world to the brutal realities of such an inhuman thing.

            I’m not saying pile on even more bullshit stacking the deck against guys, but dam you all is some ice cold northern lake pike when it comes to expectations of women in the states.

            I know they have to drug up to kill their wombs and work through the pain and the struggles not to lose logical purchase when emotions and girl stuff cycles around.

            It’s heartless and coldly stupid really. Who here could even reasonably draw the outer parts of female genitalia I wonder.

            All the violence and detached imagery on every screen is so anti woman. And now also anti man. So its a win win for them and a lose lose for us somehow.

            Not that hard to imagine the enchanted frozen mindset really. We all do it to some degree or other. I’m 50 now and just recently developed some empathy for what its like getting old and infirm. I had no idea really, its a real trip, even though I still gloss over it.

            • Add 18 to that and the muscle to weight ratio is way down but you still have to climb that load and throw the chains and straps and not bust your ass.

              A 23 year old came into the yard one day and said he was fucked up, he’d lost his grip and fell backward off the side of the tractor. He had to be assisted back to his feet. I told him I couldn’t afford to do that cause that landing doesn’t get easier. That’s the reason I hate some slick fuel tank between the cab and the first step. That’s the reason Peterbilt’s are never built that way and he was getting into a Pete.

              Seemed like he didn’t say “Let me get that old man” so much after that and just lent a hand. That shit hurts…..and might not….ever again.

              As far as women on the jobsite goes, I try to not envision it. They don’t have the upper strength that could be a life saver nor the balance and muscle of a man. I only did that stuff because it paid well cause few COULD do it. Plus the rules have changed for the girly men we have now. The guy carrying 50 or 80 extra pounds isn’t going to be on par with the people who can really do the work. I no longer take jobs with any serious amount of climbing or height involved. I might be required to climb a 30 foot stairway but not a ladder.

              I fell between a piece of shaker equipment and my trailer last year trying to rectify(never did)a tarp malfunction. I was lucky I can still tell about it.

            • Seeing a woman doing a man’s job is the biggest turn-off. Nothing makes a woman look more vulgar and ugly, and degrades her to the point of being a mere appliance.

              They think that that is somehow better than nurturing children and caring for a home and husband?

              Feminism has done more to degrade women than anything else in history ever could or would do. Why do they call the removal of femininity “feminism”?!

              My neighbor (and most men today) never learn. He wants wants a woman who works. He complains because thus far, all the ones he’s married and then divorced have not kept a clean house nor cooked real meals. They just work. Then they come home and play on Facebook. Same scenario over and over….but he wants her to have her own money; to pay for her own car; etc. So what’s the point in being married? Where’s the benefit for either?

              No time for sex even. Last one he had, ended up boinking an old geezer in the closet at the factory where she worked.

              Talk about a double standard: Imagine if white guys made [c]rap “music”!

              • So you wouldn’t like a sweet little Doh Girl like author Lena Dunham? Being a writer is pretty cool.

                Which Outfit Do You Think Lena Looks Better In?
                https://i.redditmedia.com/mrWbcK4V1Op4Mk0dc1bsUryifb41wjRpUk6lFOHj_z0.jpg?w=708&s=d4ebf0819114e7011214e979a18e77d9

                You can see her in all her naked glory in any episode of Girls on HBO if you’re not sure what she looks and acts like.

                She’s only 30 years old, so I think her youth would make it possible. Be a good idea to keep the light low or maybe remove the bulbs even, so as not to kill the mood.

                She probably pulls in a few mil a year. She’s probably quite the chick magnet too, so there’s the second hand smokin hotties to consider.

                You sure you don’t want a little lovin hot from her oven?

                • “Only 30”?! A 30 year-old has what, maybe 5 good years left- IF she’s taken care of herself and wasn’t wild when younger.

                  Money=unbridled power. I wouldn’t want a lot of money muself, because even the best of us tend to do foolish things when we have unlimited power/options even just over our own lives.

                  Give that power to a woman? Holy jit! Watch out! She’ll be the most miserable wretch on earth- like Hitlery or Oprah.

                  Oh, dear goodness! I just clicked on that link. Warn me next time, Tor! That’s a guy, right?

                  • Money is a great power—because, in a free or even a semi-free society, it is a frozen form of productive energy. And, therefore, the spending of money is a grave responsibility.

                    Money is the tool of men who have reached a high level of productivity and a long-range control over their lives.

                    Money is not merely a tool of exchange: it is a tool of saving, which permits delayed consumption and buys time for future production.

                    To fulfill this requirement, money should be some material which is imperishable, scarce, and always in demand among those you trade with.

                    Money cannot function as a medium of exchange, unless it is backed by actual, unconsumed goods.

                    Have you ever asked what is the root of money?

                    Money can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value.

                    Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

                    When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others.

                    No ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow.

                    Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money.

                    Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes.

                    Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time.

                    Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions—and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

                    Some say money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak?

                    What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles.

                    Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? No.

                    Money is made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability.

                    An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.

                    Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return.

                    Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more.

                    Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders.

                    So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another—their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

                    Most lump together all men who become rich, refusing to consider the essential question: the source of the riches, the means by which the wealth was acquired.

                    Wealth does not grow in nature; it has to be produced by men.
                    Nature gives us only the raw materials, but it is man’s mind that has to discover the knowledge of how to use them.

                    It is man’s thinking and labor that transform the materials into food, clothing, shelter or television sets—into all the goods that men require for their survival, comfort and pleasure.

                    Behind every step of humanity’s long climb from the cave to New York City, there is the man who took that step for the first time—the man who discovered how to make a fire or a wheel or an airplane or an electric light.

                    When people refuse to consider the source of wealth, what they refuse to recognize is the fact that wealth is the product of man’s intellect, of his creative ability, fully as much as is art, science, philosophy or any other human value.

                    • Nothing wrong with money per se.

                      Land is the source of real wealth. Money is just a substitute for the produce of the land; labor;the creativity and intellect of men, etc.

                      The trouble comes when one acquires money out of all proportion to what they could ever hope to legitimately produce.

                      Not only are such huge sums of money almost always acquired by nefarious means, or in association with such, but even when it is not, just having the power to indulge in whatever whim one desires, is virtually always detrimental to themselves- in every respect- from their character development to their happiness; to one’s physical and mental well-being.

                      Imagine having so much money that you could spend $100K per day for the rest of your life. People think that that would make them happy- they’d be able to do anything.

                      In reality, in a very short time, one realizes that buying stuff or being to do stuff is utterly pointless. Buying a new Ferarri every week will not make one happy.

                      In-fact, just the opposite- One quickly realizes that “This is it. This is all there is, and it really isn’t so great. Now what?”. This is why the very rich are so often very unhappy.

                      Searching for and finding a great used Ford for $3K might prove to be infinitely more satisfying than buying just another boring new Ferarri- but not when you have $150MIL- then it’s all ruined- and neither satisfies.

                      And one quickly realizes that being able to intimately direct every aspect of one’s existence isn’t any better- or even as good- as living day by day and deakling with what comes within the limits of what you have- which proves ultimately more satisfying, and also affords one nice little surprises which they would otherwise have missed out on.

                      What’s the difference whether you live in a huge mansion or in a trailer, as long as you have a warm comfortable place with a nice view to call your own?

                      The only real difference is in what others will think, and in the power you may have over them- but if you desire those things,you’ll never be happy, because you’re not living for yourself, and you don’t really like those whom you are trying to impress or rule.

                      That’s if it’s your money. You want a woman who is worth $150MIL? You would be her lap dog. Being a lap dog to any woman is a recipe for disaster; being one to a miserable woman who can do whatever she pleases at whim, is utter death.

              • Hi Nunz,

                This is subjective, of course – but: I think the pace of life has become too pointlessly busy. People spend so much time working, to earn money, to pay for things. Not just excessive things (i.e., fancy cars, a big house) though that it s factor, but just to make ends meet.

                We’re burned out as a culture because of this.

                It certainly puts the kibosh on building relationships, family.

                Is the be-all, end-all purpose of life the “getting of things” and the paying of bills?

                It seems to have become so.

                • While I see that play out fairly much everywhere I notice here in the outback we still have some families that aren’t all that hot on the latest thing and live a rural life with livestock and all that goes with it.

                  Seems like the people with only girls are of the gotta have everything mode and boys are somewhat kept to traditional roles…..as far as that can go these days.

                  I’m often trucking in the back country, lease roads and the like. I see the little boys still dressed like their dads and working livestock….and the not little boys who still dress like we’ve always dressed here in the outback.

                  My SIL made a comment about my wearing western shirts and heavily starched and creased Wranglers saying that was so far “out”, as in behind the times. No, it really isn’t and heavily starched jeans stay a lot cleaner and there’s nothing wrong with looking like you care about your appearance even though you have a dirty job. She sees it from city slicker eyes and we see it from traditional working people eyes. Go to a funeral as I did last week and the standard fare is starched creased Wranglers and white shirt and boots(your best). And yep, we still have a hat tugged down to take off and hold when appropriate. And this will be the style for a long time to come.

                  The main difference in mine and my grandfather’s outfit was he wore overalls, creased and starched for Sunday wear and a different style hat and boots.

                  But “paying the bill” has become more difficult and the difference between now and 1970 is not the new vehicle but the rest of it. A new vehicle is the only thing most people now have. Those who care about other things aren’t so much likely to be paying for a $75,000 Ford pickup named after a nefarious ranch. I saw an ad for a new Ford 450 recently……with an estimated $99,500 price tag. Come on now….really?

                  • 8, man, I gots to try that starch thing! I always look like a scruff, although I don’t do all that much work!

                    I was always impressed, how years ago, even laborers and tradesmen used to dress so nicely. Working people used to dress nicer than half the people today do when they’re going out or are in a business setting!

                    Rich people(by the standards of former times) going out shopping in public, look worse than bums did 75 years ago.

                • Your observations are spot-on there, Eric!

                  It’s yet another example of people refusing to draw a line. Humans and rats seem to be a lot alike. Put ’em in a maze and let ’em get a whiff of cheese, and they’ll happily do “what is required”, not caring that the conditions imposed on them are totally artificial, and need not be that way.

                  Even in elementary skool, I remember being sad at how so many of the other kids would accept whatever was imposed upon them- without any cares about why they were doing it (So the teacher would write a letter of the alphabet on your paper), or what the ultimate goal was; or whether it was ultimately right or wrong; good or bad (Not according to the artificially-imposed rules, but in the broader scheme of things); or what the alternatives might be.

                  Nope…just tell ’em “This is what you’re supposed to do”, and they’ll do it, and strive to do it well, so they “win”- even if winning really means losing.

                  But yeah, that’s the way it is for people who want to live the modern way. Virtually everyone I know who is married, I see them not as a homogenous intimate unit existing as a core building block of society- but rather, now, as just two people sharing a house, whose lives intersect occasionally, and who are basically just existing as labor and capital for the state-industrial complex, which they live their lives around.

              • A woman who works is the result of lowered expectations. A woman who earns money is a far sight better than the other available options. Even a woman the likes of Peg Bundy is considered to be asking too much these days.

          • Yeah, the pinnacle of my Atari programming was when I made a Pac Man game where he didn’t have to respect the maze walls.

            He just went right through them and the ghosts had a hard time even getting near him because they obeyed.

            Guess even then I was some kind of anarchist.

            Ayn Rand and Larken Rose would have loved it if they could have played a game of Anarcho Pac Man.

            Too bad I don’t have those old units. I’ve tried mods that are supposed to simulate them somewhere, but it just wasn’t the same.

          • Maybe we’ll call you professor some day.

            You could get a PHD in ELD.

            Mein Gott we’re getting more ridiculously Soviet North Korean each and every day.

            Somebody stop this crazy red menace merry go round, I want to get off.

            You can swagger around with your esteemed title. Move over lessor mortals, a PHD in ELD is in your midst. Look ye tiny plebians at my Ozymandian greatness and trunkless legs and despair.

        • I’ve got Polish kind in my family. Some of us even didn’t get an official ID until a tonsilectomy was needed, and that meant going to the real hospital. Not saying who though.

          The old fake ID with very close picture magically appeared and the paper trail from Port Arthur Canada was soon afoot. You need a special kind of mind to keep it all straight, from what I’ve experienced first hand.

          How do they find someone that’s so close I wonder. What devil’s bargain is made to make such a ruse beomce reality I”ve always questioned.

          Hungarian (Australian officially) Chess champion screams after forgetting the all important second part of the dine and dash gambit.

          GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY PENIS!
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEsZkTTgydc

          This gypsy should have never been arrested, he should have been made minister of Hungarian or Australian education. Such beautiful eloquence. and amazing voice acting skills.

          Gypsy in Stephen King’s Thinner
          https://hooktube.com/watch?v=0i0Q5EVC8Sw

          Later he pretends to be a Greek in some big fat wedding deal.

          Come to think of it, all actors and actresses are gypsies at heart when you think about it.

          I have a big long spiel about my first name being Thor. It used to be my dancing name, blah blah blah. I can’t even can’t even go into it really. Then when they ask the last name, I say Smith, but its spelled really funny with lots of umlauts and cyrillic letters and stuff. It’s 6 12 18 letters long, whatever the best situational long tailed cat seems best to put in shroddingers boxing match at the time.

          Thor Smith is just fine too. Pleased to meet you. Nun Zeo.

          The catholics are the absolute best, they’re always good for help when you need to get some adjustments done to your official story it seems. Good good guys.

          Whatever it takes to stay off of Schindler’s shit list I’ve always said.

          Love you Schindy
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCu_9M9favY

          • Gypsies and Polocks (or Polock Gypsies) I can handle. But Greeks? I freaking hate Greeks! (I used to live in Astoria, Queens). Can we make them exempt from the NAP?

            Ya know how they separate the men from the boys in Greece?

            With a crow-bar!

            Well…they do make some pretty good food though…..them and the Mexicans. Being a Wop, I loves me some pasta and pizza, but after that, you’re more likely to find me eating dolmades or a taco than anything else.

    • Kerdasi, could you imagine the insanity of that?!

      Where I originally come from -Long Island- a suburb of NYC- there are a lot of places where tracts of houses are built right along the electric company’s right-of-ways for their high tension towers. It has been proven over the years, that people who have lived in such houses for long periods of time, have incidents of certain types of cancers- especially breast cancer- many times greater than the general population.

      And just just living near wires which carry electricity overhead. Could you imagine if the ground (or air, as some would advocate) were one big conductor?!

      Just because something may be possible; may work; and or may be efficient, doesn’t always mean that it’s a good idea.

      And this is part of the problem which technology brings, which Libertarians should be especially attuned to: That no technology should be forced universally on everybody/anybody. Any scheme which would presume to use “the earth” or “the air”, universally, is the imposition of that technology by force, upon all.

      • Nun, back in ’85 when we moved here where we live I had the power company stop 300 feet from the house and buried cable in underground conduit. It wasn’t only because some large thing like a cotton stripper or big rig was going to pull it down(oh, it would have too)but I’d already read of studies where people living under and close to transmission lines had many times the cancer rate of the rest of the population.
        Hell, I have enough stuff to give me caner without the power we verily need for life being a source. So now I sit 14 hrs a day with a headset(only way a trucker can legally use a phone)on, and a phone with two sources of RF bombarding me. Gee, ain’t life grand. And it’s not like I can dis this stuff either. Nowadays one of the qualifications of driving for companies is having a smart phone, and that pretty much included everyone once ELD’s were adopted.

        • After a long wait, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) published the final electronic logging device rule — or ELD mandate – in December 2015.

          ELD Facts
          https://eldfacts.com/eld-mandate/

          Fleets have until December 2017 to implement certified ELDs to record HOS.
          Fleets already equipped with electronic logging technology will have until December 2019 to ensure compliance with the published specifications.

          HOS fines are racking up!
          $216,678,872.30
          HOS fines since the beginning of 2017*

          The thing about this kind of crapitalism is nobody will even react to the plain evil right in front of their face.

          Maybe a bit of hemming and hawwing about what Trump should do about it, or Saint Elon or whatever avenging angel of authority one prays and supplicates to.

          Like the KaranKawa tribesman of the bayous of olde. They’re standing their dumbstruck with their fever blankets in hand, getting ready to take a nice long vacation from the NAP and then get on hiking the endless trail of tears that goes on and on forever infinitum.

          Red man licks windows with his non-forked tongue but not even a final war whoop as the sun sets on his way of life forever.

        • 8, ANOTHER reason I stay away from those stupid phones!

          Don’t they still make phones that offer a jack into which you can plug a wired headset, and keep the phone at least a couple of feet away from ya? (Yeah…I’m living in the past- I guess today, a welfare recipient with an Obamaphone probably wouldn’t deign to using such a primitive device, eh?)

          Wish I could have afforded to bury my electric line when I moved here and hewed this place out of an old overgrown cow pasture. Maybe that’s the good thing about living in a trailer…err [Read in Thurston Howell III voice:]…’I mean “mobile home”, muh boy….’ -Maybe the metal siding and metal roof doing the Faraday cage thing will help protect me… (Sure seems to do a good enough job repelling radio signals at my mother’s! -But not quite good enough- she can still listen to the statist propaganda they call “news”)

          • Hi Nunz,

            I got a sail fawn last year, god help me.

            Why?

            One, it’s a way to save money, post divorce. I got a Wal Mart “straight talk” phone. It’s a one-time $100 cost for the phone and then $35/month for the service. Save a few bucks vs. the land line with long distance.

            Two, much as I hate it to concede it, I need it. Because – cure rip tide analogy – everyone else has one and unless you’re ready to retire, it’s de facto essential for work purposes. Even for a freelancer like me. Since I can’t afford to retire, I got the phone.

            Three, if you have any inclinations about dating these days, you’ve gotsta have a phone. Women text. Without a sail fawn, you might as well forget it – unless you go Amish.

            • Depending on how much you use it, look into Ting as a reseller. If you don’t use it a lot your bill will be about $12/month with taxes.

              • Wow, it lets you use your old phones even, from what I read.

                I’ve got a whole box of high quality recent model sail phones, I can probably start my own gypsy cell phone service for 20 bucks a month, phone included.

                Being the goto phone guy (telepimp?) is also a pretty powerful position to be in.

                Way cheaper than taking a gal out to a movie or dinner these days. Get her and all her cute friends phones, and keep it very vague about how you’re doing it.

                Thanks for the link.

                • As long as you “have” something that you understand its costs might outweigh its benefits.

                  I don’t see any other problem.

                  Really, no one really knows how draconianly panopticonic the cell tower systems are.

                  I also see no reason to expect land lines to be in anyway better.

                  If one is going to opt out of sail fawns on principle, they might also consider opting out of land lines for the same reasons.

                  Instead of calling this Cognitive Dissonance.

                  I would call this Cognitive Uncertainty.

                  It’s hard to know what the beneficial and moral thing to do is these days, because we’re basically bipedal sentient mushrooms they always keep in the dark

                  • I like landlines.

                    They do their thing on only FOUR volts : o 4V !! The ‘lektric can go out, but the ol’ landline will still work, ’cause that 4V goes so far, it comes from far away and is not affected by the local utility!

                    The wiring is simple!

                    The phones are simple. And back when the phone companies still used good old electro-mechanical devices for switching, and to do all the other things they do, those phones worked better than ANYTHING!

                    Today, since landlines are falling into disuse, the phone co.s are switching to cheaper, crappier computerized equipment…..and call quality is suffering, and problems are increasing.

                    When I was a kid, in the late 60’s, when the phone co. in NY was using equipment from the 1930’s, those phones were at their zenith!

                    But like Eric says…regression. Social regression- people abandoning landlines and switching to cell- causing phone co.s to go with lower quality cheaper equipment and not care as much about landline customers- spurring technological regression. A perfect example.

                    • Land line phones have generators (and batteries) in various places and at switching stations. If you look closely you start seeing them around. And it’s ~9V (6 to 12V range).

                    • That’s a feature not a bug.

                      As BrentP says, why pay for the shiny?

                      Who cares if you hold a 1 oz plastic seashell in your hand to use the phone and access the internet.

                      Would it really be better if we still had phones and computers that would take a whole room in your house?

                    • 4V, 6V, whatever…it’s an ingenious system which works well and was very reliable, and all while using ancient technology.

                      Of course, now that they’re adding computerized thingamabobs and such, we’re starting to see regression….

                    • The horror, nunz. What if they fuck around there and lose the landline phone technology.

                      “They” lose technology all the time.

                    • Hey, don’t laugh Ed! “We” still can’t replicate that two-tin-cans-and-a-string technology! But I hear that they’re assembling a team of 4 year-olds to try and figure it out.

            • Eric, you band-wagon riding hipster! 😉

              Actually, what you say is very true- one of the most legitimate excuses for the existence of sailfawns, is for business. I actually had one back in the mid 90’s for that reason, while most others still had pagers! (I still do keep a Trac-fone for “emergency” use, since there are no more pay-phones around. Virtually never use the damn thing, and it costs me $75 a year to keep it active…)

              As fer women-folk though….

              What you say reminds me of a convo I had with my millionaire friend years ago when I first met him. He was selling a used car (He was a dealer at the time) – a 5-speed; and complaining that a lot of people were calling in response to his classified ad (Ah! Remember those?) but they’d hang up when they discovered it was a stick. I asked him: “Why don’t you just put ‘5-speed’ in the ad?” and he said “Because then my phone wouldn’t ring!”.

              Of what value is having one’s phone ring, if it’s just a waste of time for both parties, when you could qualify your respondents by merely putting ‘5-speed’ in te ad, so that you know when the phone does ring, it woll be someone who knows how to drive a stick?

              Same deal with women. When I used to date, I’d try and weed out the non-compatibles [Before I realized they are ALL non-compatible!].

              If I were dating today, and the bimbo couldn’t handle me not using a phone…as they say in the vernacular: SEE YA!!!!

              In-fact, I wouldn’t want some douche sho’s gonna sit there looking at texts or answering calls while we’re supposed to be having a conversation. Not just the phone aspect; but if she were that much a social creature, she would NEVER be happy with me, nor i with her.

              The only way you’ll be happy with someone is if there’s real compatibility- otherwise, far better to be alone. Weed out the obvious non-compats, and be glad for the opportunities to do so.

              Personally, I always liked “The 1st. Date Fart Test”. If she failed that….move on! Can’t go through life with someone who would presume to stifle me or make a face every time, and who has no sense of humor!

              TEST women. They are testing you…and much more so than you think! Only, they do it the opposite way. They do “shit tests”- to see how much shit you’ll put up with. Thing is, if you put up with their shit, they lose all respect for you and will dump you.

              It is only when you don’t put up with their shit that they will get interested, and start to respect you.

              Always put ‘5-speed’ in your ad- or you’re just wasting your time providing free meals for heifers.

            • Eric and everyone, heads up if you decide to switch to a non Straight Talk service provider like I just have. After you tell Ting or any other company to switch your number: Shut your phone off, remove the battery, and remove Straight Talks SIMM card PRONTO! The sorry bastards purposely sabotaged my phone with-in minutes after I made the call, and now it cannot find a cell phone signal anywhere even after performing a factory reset. I ended up going to Best Buy and buying a new Sony unlocked phone.

          • The phone I bought last year still has a headphone jack. I haven’t attempted to try it with any of my old accessories though.

            • I love playing chess and also online go, even though I’m brutalized by my east asian rivals.

              So sorry round eyes, pay up sucker.

              It’s better if I play a 9×9 version so I don’t have as long to make mistakes, but not many players like that size.

              Gonna check out hexapawn. Looks bad assed.
              https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33379/hexapawn

              I was usually one of the smartest fish but I grew up in a very small pond, so wasn’t that difficult. I was pressured to go to a big city and become one of those super geeks, but luckily I was allowed to refuse, which made me who I am (or am not) today.

              That’s my schtick. I even play dumb and act folksy when I’m writing things, so I’m more closely mirroring the average bears. Or maybe now I really am just an average or not even quite average bear.

              My supposed savant nature was killed in the crib, and now I’m just an idiot, with no savant included. Also doesn’t every family think any not totally tarded kids are some kind of savants?

              You are who you pretend to be, as old Curt and straight to the point Vonnegut used to say.

          • Nun, I won’t lie. I had a bit of head start on the underground. Dad got the wire gratis, a friend had the conduit he wasn’t gonna use, he and then I owned the Ditch Witch and a couple friends who I did this work with every day to help, knocked it out like nothing. I’ve run enough conduit of all types to do it in my sleep as had everyone else. Getting the wire gratis I didn’t count on but it certainly saved a lot. I supplied unlimited cold beer for months getting everything done, about $400/month back then but well worth it plus some this and that.

            I was considering building a pole barn for a while and the wire was one of the big costs plus the fact I ain’t the muscle I was once and that makes a lot of difference. I do have the forktruck lift for the tractor but most of my friends I go visit and sit on their headstone to converse. It don’t last forever. I can see the end from where I sit but never say die….it’ll come soon enough.

            As far as wired headsets, yep, you can get em and as long as you’re not in a big rig they’re fine and only a one ear unit is legal in a big rig anyhow…..but they work well. I have a couple set of ear pods that are ok and one that’s great but uncomfortable but each has a mic that works well besides the fact I can only use one side….and the DOT will tag you for them and a drivers fine can be $2700+ with the owner’s side coming in at a cool $11,000+….try to work that off….you won’t get the chance. So yeah, find you some wired headphones and they will probably please you to no end and you can take a call and hear fine and be heard fine. In a big rig you’d have wire wrapped around the shifter and no telling what else if you have a wet kit on the truck. I leave my phone on charger in the top part of the cooler where it’s dry and cool since to do otherwise brings up a message saying your phone is overheating. No joke, everything including me is overheating at that point.

              • Wow 8, those fines! That is depressing- not that the fines exist- but companies and people are STILL willing to participate in the “legitimate” economy. It’s apparent by now, that no line in the sand will ever be drawn. We have reached 99.8% compliance and submission.

                Same thing in places like Long Island….3 million people paying $10K-$20K a year property taxes on just plain-old everyday houses, while the infrastructure and quality of life around them crumbles, and those who complain, much less leave, are few.

                Modern apes love their enslavement.

                Awww, I have no use for them headsets…like I say, I literally may use my phone maybe twice a year. Don’t even turn it on unless i need to make a call; I get mad every time I do. One day I’ll probably just smash the damn thing.

                • Nun, WTF do you think everything costs so much these days? DOT pulls you over for a level 2 inspection and both units could be straight off the dealer with copious amounts of reflective tape, way more lights than needed but they’ll find something to write you up for if they see you’re out of state, or they’re just needy at that point. I’ve had the DOT point out brakes that were out of adjustment and stick a tiny thing down there and say “see, see, it’s way out…right after you’d just adjusted it and it was so tight that 20 lbs of application pressure would slow it down fast. I had one tell me my brakes were just….what was it he said, he’d learned a new word….and was a rookie….but he kept repeating it. They were worn, reprehensible(but it wasn’t that term). I shook my head and said “I guess we see two different things since I just bought the entire brake system and brought it to the yard and helped install them”. No way he says. Yep, way says I. They were brand new, every damned part of the brakes but they were filthy, bad filthy and so was the truck and the weather was filthy and so was I and so was everything. Middle of the winter and rain and sleet and construction and quarry running and sites that you generally got pushed out of with a dozer. His damned car didn’t look too good either. So he wrote me a ticket for one brake being way out of adjustment….which it wasn’t.

                  Now this isn’t a one time thing. It goes on and on and if you are in a certain zone and one of them thinks he can keep getting you he will. Never mind that we prove these things are false, he can keep writing you up day after day for the same shit to the point your lawyer(sic)contacts his supervisor and says “enough”. It’s some sorry shit that used not to exist….but it does now.

                  • I know it, 8. Even 20 years ago when I had my tow truck and used to schlepp junk cars- ya had to live in fear of the DOT- If the guys with brand new trucks were getting stopped and reamed for no reason, what chance did li’l ol’ me have in an old truck?

                    I’d often take the back roads…and I was lucky- never got snared. I might have continued longer in the bidness- I enjoyed it and made good money- but I’d be damned if I’d be a chicken waiting to be plucked- when my time would come, as it certainly would sooner or later, they’d probably have a field day and zap half a years earnings with my old truck, even though it was in great shape.

                    I draw lots of lines in the sand.

                    This country has become a bigger scam than a carnival full of gypsies.

                    Name a business or industry, and I’ll tell you of a several uncle-run scams. The more “accessible” a particular filed is to the little guy; the small ontrmanure; the individual, the more scams Uncle will be running on it.

                    • American based gypsies aren’t so stereotypically obvious as what you see on TV.

                      Do you have any idea how much real estate in Houston can be worth, since there’s no zoning.

                      All I ever did on paper was manage shitty homes and apartments.

                      But in reality it was more like I was running whores.

                      I was the only game in town that took people at their word and let them move in as soon as they forked over the cash.

                      I also never turned away an attractive open minded young single girl in dire need of a place to live.

                      I might not get high marks on Zillow or AirBnB, buy word on the street was all I ever needed to keep the money flowing while doing little to no maintenance, except when someone moved out.

                      Einstein says energy mass and the speed of light is the fundamental equation.

                      I’d beg to differ.

                      There’s a lot of men, at least for some point of their lives is all about getting with somebody, whether on a transactional basis or a romantic basis.

                      This fundamental principle, along with the oldest profession, is probably what keeps the ladies knocked up and their milk of female kindness flowing all throughout the milky way.

                      What red blooded male wouldn’t want to rent a place next to Ghetto Shakira?
                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3-GiVIE8gc

                      Don’t dismiss gypsies and their larger IQ and power spreads between males and females.

                      They’ll still be roaming long after this uptight islamerican society self destructs from a terminal case of red white and blue balls.

                    • Actually, Tor, a few years ago, I sold a motorhome for a client, to some gypsies who were carnies…. They were actually pretty cool. Uncle [Ours, and Alf] doesn’t like them, because ya can’t make slaves out of people like that. Not debt slaves, nor tax slaves, nor 9-5 cubicle slaves.

                      Like Archie Bunker said of Dagos (is also true of Gypsies) “When ya do find an honest one, ya really got something there!”.

                      As he also warned, too: “A Hungarian is a guy who can folly[sic] ya into a revolving door and come out ahead of ya!”. (LOL, I love that!)

                      Gypsies, Tramps, And Thieves:
                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLTETaWswCY

                  • 8, “…WTF do you think everything costs so much these days?”

                    I would love to see an honest study on the economic impact of electronic paperless logs.

                  • Hi Eight,

                    These costumed parasites endowed with “authority” – and the systematic, deliberate fleecing of people just trying to make an honest living – it’s going to reach a critical mass. At some point, these parasites are going to start going missing. Or found on the road, later. They will have earned it.

                    • The US disappears people and throws there bodies in with the “nookleeyer waste” stuff probably.

                      Yucca Mountain would be a great place to put all the bodies.

                      Maybe we put in a bid to store the nuclear waste, which is worth tens of millions per ton because its reusable actually.

                      And we can also store the bodies there.

                      Let the bodies hit the floor best version
                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_CoEC5qqq0

                    • eric, the beauty of this system is it automatically kicks out your “number” when you aren’t playing right. Actually, it will shut down your truck no matter the consequences cause might makes right. If you die for a few minutes over-run it’s just the cost of doing bidness with a faceless computer system.

                      Skunk wants to see a cost analysis. That would certainly depend on who is doing that. Why, it’s already saving money left and right…..according to TPTB else why would it be so?

                      Never mind the existing rules make no sense according to the human body. A half hour was easy to fudge during 8 hours on paper logs. Maybe you want to take a 4 hour break and hit the road for another 4 hours and then take the break again and get some rest both times. Too bad. 14 hours and it’s off even with the 1/2 hour break in the first 8. Nobody but an idiot could invent such a perverted system.

                      I could go on pointing out inanities but why bother?

                    • Not 30 minutes after my reply I got a text from DART for a 2 hour course on learning ELD.

                      Nice of them to provide it to me even though I don’t work for them.

                      They call it a career extension since it apparently ain’t that easy to understand. 2 hours, I guess not.

                    • 8, “Skunk wants to see a cost analysis. That would certainly depend on who is doing that.”

                      Yeah, that is why I called for an honest study. War is not the only government program where the first casualty is Truth.

              • Sheeit Tor, we been readin each others mind today. I was just thinking about that scene in Pirate Radio where everybody said what the motto of their fraternity was.

                I remember the motto of my fraternity: “you better get that timber on your shoulder and get it where it needs to be so we can get that casin rolled on it cause the girls in Ft. Stockton ain’t waitin for the “pussy” to get to town tonight. Pure motivation.

                • I was an honorary non paying member of a brand new Alpha Tau Omega jobber.

                  My friend was the grand mufti or whatever you call the top alpha guy in frat speak.

                  Near as I could tell the purpose of that frat was to get about 30 guys all sleeping in a small room where they had to leave the windows open in the cold Great White American North because otherwise they’d all get Lee Jung Airs disease or whatever.

                  Glad I got to meet and raise hell with the guys in an upper class small town way, and see a bit of how the things work, but I’ve always been about shooting myself in the foot and joining harmful things, instead of enlisting in the easy way.

                  Hell the matriarch of our family offered me an all paid expenses paid ride at Notre Dame because her cover story identity was being a bigbluewig of the local Cat Lick church.

                  She also bought my Moms from one of those Cat Lick orphanages. Really I owe a lot to those holy rolling rubes.

                  ++++++
                  Sing It Christ Kitties:::::

                  Every Sperm Is Sacred – Monty Python cover with guitar chords and lyrics
                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0SpP7MOy5w

                  A7 D
                  I’m a Roman Catholic,
                  A7 D
                  And I have been, since before I was born.
                  E7 A7
                  And the one thing they say about Catholics, is;
                  E7 A7
                  They’ll take you, as soon as you’re warm.

                  Verse 2:

                  A7 D
                  You don’t have to be a six footer;
                  A7 D
                  You don’t have to have a great brain.
                  E7 A7
                  You don’t have to have any clothes on;
                  E7 A7
                  You’re a Catholic the moment dad came, because…

                  Chorus 1:

                  G D7 G G7 C C/B Am7 D7
                  Every sperm is sa-cred, every sperm is great.
                  G G7 C Cm G D7 G G7
                  If a sperm is was-ted; God gets quite i-rate.

                • Heres some sore whority gals naw, praise sam houston and the sacred alamo lordy almighty
                  https://cdn.totalfratmove.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/65f2561b946b93e6ebffd5560e586416557676010.jpg

                  Sam Houston and the Battle for Texas Independence
                  “Remember the Alamo” know what it means?

                  Sammy Hews Tons had already served in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governor of Tennessee when he moved to Texas in 1832.

                  At the time he arrived, Texas was part of Mexico and the site of rising tensions and violent disturbances between Mexican Federales and Anglo settlers from the United States.

                  Voicing his support for a separate state of Texas, Hews Tons emerged as a leader among the settlers. In 1835, he was chosen commander in chief of the Texas army.

                  The Alamo was an 18th century Franciscan Mission in San Antonio, Texas, which was the location of an important battle for Texans fighting for independence from Mexico.

                  In 1836, a small group of Texans was defeated by Mexican General Santa Anna.

                  When Hews Tons received word of the defeat at the Alamo, he was inspired to begin a month-long retreat to regroup and replenish the Texas army’s strength.

                  Remembering how badly the Texans had been defeated at the Alamo, on April 21, 1836, Hews Tons’s army won a quick battle against the Mexican forces at San Jacinto (I could maybe hit the spot with a Radio Shack Rocket right now) and gained independence for Texas.

                  Soon after, Hews Tons was elected president of the Reeee public of Texas. He continued to serve as senator and governor after Texas became part of the United States in 1845.

                  Sam Hews Tons died in 1863 in Hunts CoupDevilles, Texas, where a 67-foot-tall memorial statue of him now stands.

                  After a lifetime of service to his cuntry, the event for which he is most well known is his role in the independence mythology of Texas.

            • I was just at the end of the end . exe patent pending battle and all I saw were mostly tiki torches being brandished about.

              2017 Red State Blue State Civil War Slap Fight Battle of Charlottesville VA
              https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/12/12-charlottesville-standoff.w710.h473.2x.jpg

              Gonna maybe need a new H1b program to get more serious white guys in the game, Probly cain’t put a new hungry fight into a bunch of old overfed dogs, no matter how big the size of your fight club soda cracker.

  8. I’ve been involved in building and flying model airplanes for more than twenty years and for the past 15 years involved in flying electric powered model planes.
    An entire industry has grown up around this aspect of the hobby, including RC cars, trucks, boats, helis and now quads(drones). In that time I have watched battery technology leap from Nicad, Nimh to Lithium Polymer to now the latest in Silicon-Graphene cells that are capable of 4.35v/cell instead of the usual 4.2v/cell.
    Higher discharge rates do exist in these new types as I have used one of these packs and they do kick butt. The claim of 500 cycles has as of yet to be actually determined by typical hobby use. These cells are also fast charge at 5-6 C rate.
    These packs are not expensive when compared to the lithium packs of ten years ago. Believe me they were pricey for the performance they provided and you had to be very careful charging the buggers or you might lose your house or car.
    If battery technology can get beyond the use of lithium which is now considered a strategic material, enough so that American soldiers in Afghanistan fight over, what other materials might be discovered that will create major advancements in batteries.
    The future of such cells as alkalines NIcads and Nimh don’t appear to be too certain.
    It is certain that electric cars will not go away. New technologies in batteries, drive train components and design, will insure a future for EVs.
    Elon Musk, however is another story. I compare him to the carney barkers who sell religion like deodorant. But that’s another story altogether.
    ANother thing to consider is just how did Henry Ford get his company started? Was it through government handouts, subsidies and the like or was it more likely to be from investors who saw a good thing?
    How about the Buick, Packard, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, all the rest of the car companies either still going or once was a major player in the market? Did any of them rely on the government to get started?
    It wasn’t until recent years when the big three asked for and received government bail outs to keep from going the way of the Dodo.
    Free market? Don’t make me laugh.

    • john, for a decade or more GM had to limit their sales fearing anti-monopoly laws. I’d offer a link but LexisNexis is expensive unless you have a vested interest.

      GM has been fined $29M in China for supposedly having a monopoly.

      The early ruling in 1951 by a jury trial ended with GM being fined $5000 and the treasurer, H. C. Grossman fined$1. The judge didn’t see it the way the jury did. GM had lots of company in this court case with Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, and Mack Trucks.

  9. When I worked for an electric-supplies wholesaler years ago, the open secret in the industry then was that the US electrical grid was near capacity because few new generating plants had come on line in recent years. Observers said to expect brownouts and blackouts in the near future because of ever-increasing demand outstripping supply.

    And this was before the valid concerns we have today about terrorists targeting the grid. Look into the Metcalf sniper attack on a substation in California that happened on 16 April 2013.

    The concerns led to changes in the laws to require energy conserving designs in electric lighting and household appliances. These laws along with development of high-output LED lighting and an increasingly dismal economy have helped buy time so far, but the issue hasn’t gone away.

    The utopians were demanding replacement of the vehicle fleet with electric cars then. The question was obvious then and still is now: just what do you suppose is going to happen when you being plugging a bunch of electric cars into the overtaxed grid to recharge them?

    New plants have been built recently, but most of these have been natural gas–fueled to replace older coal–fired plants with little net gain. God forbid we build any more nuclear plants. The NIMBYs come out in force when anyone proposes any new plant anywhere, but oh well, it’s their future blackout to enjoy…

    Even modern deep-cycle battery technology has problems over time. Deep-cycle batteries are designed to go through deep discharge before recharge. Despite routine maintenance and water replenishment, the large batteries used in the fork trucks at work are good for about 5 years tops. Then it’s time for a $7,500 replacement. That 5 years just happens to be the outer limit of the expected life of the little (non-deep cycle) 12–volt battery in your car. So the question of battery life and cost of replacement is real and must be extended to electric cars.

    The grid problem and the battery life questions are real, and no one should dismiss them. Keep plugging away, Eric.

    • ekrampitzjr,

      “just what do you suppose is going to happen when you being plugging a bunch of electric cars into the overtaxed grid to recharge them?”

      More mandates. WTF do/did you think will happen?

      That big ugly smart phone everyone lines up to get will have a crank handle.

      Eventually, the penal system will convert from days or months of imprisonment to sentences of watt hours produced.

      Sheriffs across the land will push for property tax increases because they are running out of battery storage.

      Candles will become very popular.

      But the electric fire trucks won’t be able to handle the resultant candle fires and mandatory fire insurance will be the cause celeb.

      Americans are absofuckinglutely addicted to electricity. And like any other addicts, they will lie, cheat, steal, and even kill for their fix. The top law enforcers of the near future will ranked on the amount of electricity they “produce.”

      The future looks lovely.

    • They know there isn’t enough capacity. Capacity is intentionally held down. The idea is to make resources scarce and control them to control the people. It’s all intentional.
      “dumb government” is great cover but the people who ultimately guide the whole ball of wax are not dumb. There are a lot of dumb people in government and everywhere else that are manipulated, but the manipulators aren’t dumb.

      • Exactly, Brent! Better to look inept than felonious. This is how they establish the Hegelian dialectic- create the “problem”, then propose a solution, as if the problem had arisen organically and couldn’t have been predicted.

        Be it FEMA acting inept in Katrina and other disasters….or NASA “losing” all the Apollo data….

        • FEMA was not inept. They deliberately and experty kept out private sector help and created a government Monopoly. Apollo data was not lost. Video was missing for quite some time.
          Even today climate data isn’t lost people are hertics if they don’t go along.

          Dumb government is expressly used for individual pollices that serve a greater whole or cover a racket.

          • HAhaha!! Cool video, Ed!

            I KNEW I shouldn’t have used NASA as an example, for fear of rehashing THAT again….but it was just such an obvious and perfect example with which to illustrate Brent’s comment.

            Well, maybe I can redeem myself by making an on-topic comment:

            Where’s Ralph?

            He’s under the kitchen sink, in the cabinet, next to the garbage pail. [Ralph is my cat]. I swear…you open that door, and he makes a bee-line to that spot!

          • Hi Ed and Nunzio, I have read that entire dispute about the moon landing and the other related disputes. I am stating right now that I believe what the government tells me as far as I can throw the government; and I can’t even lift it at all.
            That having been said; I do have an observation and some questions.
            I have traveled in jets before, and I usually get window seats because I request them. I have many times noticed that the Earths surface is indeed subtly round from my viewpoint. I have to ask whether or not you have ever been a passenger in an aircraft with a window seat?
            Another point which was brought up is the speed that the Earth spins and circles the Sun. The common house fly can travel at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour if it is flying forward in the cab of your car while you are driving that fast. Further, if the Sun was circling around the Earth; would it not leave a tail of fire behind it like a comet leaves a tail? Is there some sort of physics in play here that I lack understanding of?

            • Hi Brian,

              I’m not sure about Ed, but I think I’m the only flat-earther here. (I’ve been a geocentrist for over 30 years- but a flat-earther only recently)

              Although I no longer will fly, I have flown in jets many times since the age of 7 or 8 (1969/70). I found just the oppossite of what you say to be true- I was always amazed at the expanse of flat ground one could see on a clear day, with a straight horizon- unless perhaps you flying in an aircraft which had slightly curved windows.

              There are even people now who have posted videos on Youtube, who have launched weather-style balloons with non-fisheye lens cameras, to heights above even which jets fly (over 100K feet) and even at that height, you can view the footage and see that there is no curvature.

              More importantly, I used to work on the water (starting in my late teens) in the environs of the NYC metro area, and although I didn’t realize it at the time, many of the sights I could see would not have been possible if the earth had the curvature of an 8,000 mile diameter sphere, as confirmed by the standard Pythagorean formula.

              As for the sun: Since we do not truly know the nature of the Sun, whatever speculations we may make about “What should be”, are just that- speculations.

              Therein lies the problem with much of what is called “science” these days: There is much speculation: and assumptions based upon other speculations and assumptions- but there is no hands-on proof- and what data is proffered, is always that whcih can not be replicated privately; but always that which eminates from the government, or some source which is funded by it.

              And although there exists not one iota of solid proof for a heliocentric globular earth model, there does exist a good deal of evidence which renders such a model impossible/improbable- such as the famous “Airy’s Failure” experiment (Please Google or search on Youtube if you are not familiar)….which, conveniently seems to never be mentioned in government schools.

              I do not necessarily believe that the heliocentric-globular earth model is necessarily some huge conspiracy; it is likely just perpetuated error which has been standardized and accepted as the norm- as was the case with many things throughout history. The ancient Phoenicians had cosmological-astronomical beliefs which would be scoffed at today by both sides….but yet they still managed to navigate the seas quite accurately over long distances…..

              • Nunz, although I would not put the label “flat earther” on me (the only label I apply to myself is NAPian) I do lean in that direction too.

                I learned a long time ago to never believe the government in anything. And that includes anything that is taught in government indoctrination centers aka skools.

                I remember when I was taught that the world was round and that it spins really fast and gravity and yada yada yada. I believed it all because that is was what kids do – believe what they are taught by adults. But I also remember at the time that something inside of me said “this does not seem right” (just as my instinct told me something was wrong with what I was being taught in Sunday School).

                So my mind is very open to the claims of a flat earth. But there is one aspect of the FE argument that I have trouble with: if the earth is flat and stationary then why the difference between turning into a left curve and turning into a right curve? Just a question that popped into this novice’s brain one day.

                • Hey Ya, Skunk!

                  I’m with ya on pretty much all counts there.

                  The spinning ball didn’t make sense to me, even as a small child, either- as I’ve always had a very intuitive knowledge of “physics”- or, how things behave in the real world- and the spinning ball orbiting the sun at 67,000MPH seemed more like science fiction than science- even in my single digits.

                  It is very interesting too, how they promote that model literally from kindergarden- with a globe in every classroom. It just seems so strange- I mean, why would they be teaching any astronomical/cosmological model to 5 year-olds -be it fact or fiction- before we even know that 2+2=4 or that water boils at 212*F? It’d be like teaching you the theory of shifting a 13-speed road ranger in a tractor-trailer, before you even knew how to ride a bicycle. That really does sound like indoctrination.

                  And even in elementary school, I had all of these questions of simple logic, which the teachers could never answer- like “If the gravitational pull from the Moon is strong enough to cause the tides in the oceans, how is it that it does not have ANY effect on lakes and ponds?”.

                  I really never had considered that the earth might be flat though (Their indoctrination does work…), but yet, I knew that their model couldn’t be right.

                  I don’t blame you for not being fully onboard though; since things like this are not things which we can ever fully touch and see and know fully from our perspective. At best, we can look at the evidence; the data; and what is observable, and get a pretty good idea of what may be the truth and what may be a big fat lie.

                  For me though, what tips the scales in favor of a flat stationary earth, is that a globular heliocentric model is not compatible with the Bible. When it comes down to it, that’s pretty much what all these theoretical speculative “sciences” today are: Just an alternative narrative of a different god, vying for our allegiance.

                  The god of State can’t proclaim the same worldview as the real God- else why would anyone need them?So they invent an alternative, which if you believe, makes the real God look inferior to those who can not see the wool that is being pulled over the Kool-aid.

                  Now about that left vs. right curve: I’m afraid that that is something I’m not familiar with; nor ever noticed. (My immediate thought is; If it’s to do with cars, maybe it’s because the steering wheel is to one side). Please explain.

                  There usually are simple explanations- like with the oft-repeated Coriolis (Water draining in the “Northern hemisphere tends to spin in one direction, while water draining in the SH tends to spin in the opposite direction)- In reality, that effect is not exclusive to any locale, and has more to do with the shape of the receptacle being drainer, and other factors, than location).

                  For me, the only part of the flat earth model I am not completely satisfied with, is sun and Moon rise and set.. I wish I would have been into this when I still lived by the ocean and or worked on the water- as the water is the only true flat expanse which is not affected by topography- as there are some things I would like to observe now.

                  But even with that, having one question, is better than having hundreds of contradictions/impossibilities/unanswerable questions which the spherical earth model is full of.

                  We just simply don’t know nor understand everything. One thing I do know though: There are too many problems with the globular/heliocentric model for IT to be correct. I think any honest, intelligent person, even they do not believe a flat earth model, would at least admit that Uncle’s model certainly can not be true.

                  • Nunz, great point about teaching kids the solar system so early. It seems eerily similar to teaching very young children sex ed.

                    What I mean about left and right turns is that when driving one can take a left turn faster than a right turn (hence, “go fast turn left” in racing). I was told that it has something to do with the rotation of the “global” earth. No big deal, just a thought in my amateur science head.

                    That water draining thing always had me asking, “If that is so then in what direction – if any – does the water at the equator drain?” Seems to me it would not go in any direction. Again, I am not a science guy. Just some curious thoughts that come to mind.

                    Fully agree with your last two paragraphs.

                    One other thing too. I never got the magnetic North stuff either. I am supposed to believe a large amount of some type of mineral deposit near the north pole – but not quite really there – causes a compass to point to it?

                    Something seems a little off there too.

                    • Oooo! Skunk, you shouldn’t encourage me! : )

                      Yeah, if that left turn thing were true, and because of a spinning earth, then for that matter, an airplane should be able to fly west at an astonishing speed- since the west would be coming at them at 1000MPH if the earth were spinning at that speed, as they claim it is; and conversely, when going east, that same plane would have to travel at at 1000 MPH just to stay in one spot, because the east would be traveling away from them at 1000 MPH.

                      But they tell us that “It doesn’t work that way because the whole atmosphere goes along with the earth”- but if that were true, then it would negate their other objections, like the Coriolis; or faster left turns; and, correct me if i am wrong, but I could swear that I’ve seen clouds in our atmosphere which move independently of the Earth : )

                      What really “got” me from a very early age, was water! If “gravity” is so strong as the hold water to the face of the earth, even “down under” or on the sides of this supposed globe; and even so where that water is thousands of feet deep, so that at the bottom it exerts a pressure of thousands of pounds per square inch….how is it that a simple helium balloon can float off into the sky immune from this great force, just because it is lighter than air?

                      And if such a great pressure were being exerted so as to hold this water in place in the oceans 😉 then how is it that the water would not conform to the topography of the ocean floor even at it’s surface- since water does NOT seek it’s own level nor remain flat when pressurized?

                      And the reason they had to invent the notion of gravity, is because the spinning earth model required a reason as to why everything would not go flying off of an earth which was spinning at 1000 MPH due to centrifugal force.

                      So that is their “science”- Invent a theory to explain what one sees….and then when there are problems, just invent other theories and phantom processes to explain away those problems.

                      The scary thing is, that today, “they” have such influence over us all, that the simple idea of believing what we see before our own eyes, and the obvious reality of density and buoyancy as to answer to why the apple falls to the ground when you remove it’s means of support, is considered heretical and insane….

                      I did have an early interest in science when I was young- up until about 7th grade. I loved learning practical, demonstrable things and doing experiments and such- but then they started with all the theoretical nonsense, and just preaching what essentially is a religion- and while I didn’t know the details at the time, I did know that something was wrong- and that we had gone from “Here, this is how this works, and you can demonstrate it and prove it before your eyes”, to “This is what some retard imagined happened 8 billion years ago”.

                      It was like the only reason they taught us a few basics and let us do some experiments early on, was so that when they’d preach the theoretical BS, we’d associate that with science.

                      “And after all, they DO know what they are talking about, since THEY put a man on the Moon!; and WE (teacher must’ve have had a mouse in his pocket) DO have all of those dinosaur skeletons on display in the museum….tsk, tsk”. [I wonder if the teacher even realized that those skeletons were constructed of plaster, based on one tooth or bone fragment of who-knows-what that they found; and that “the real ones are kept in a hermetically sealed warehouse somewhere, so that they don’t get damaged” [Shhhh! But no one seems to know where any of these supposed warehouses are, and why it is that a skeleton could survive for “millions of years” in the dirt, but now must be protected from a museum’s air…]

                      It’s all just so much lunacy.

                      I was actually so glad to discover all of this stuff as an adult, so that I could again start learning some science…but REAL science, which actually makes sense- and that I can get -as Paul Harvey would say “The rest of the story”- i.e. not have the experiments which DISPROVE their theories conveniently left out of the narrative.

                      Oh, and yes….you are absolutely correct about Coriolis and the Equator. And it should be just the opposite at the “poles”. Just as the effects from rotation would be many times greater near the poles vs at the Equator- and pressure/gravity would have to either change drastically at different lattitudes as ones goes closer or further from the poles or equator, or else we would see greatly different physics at either extreme- but of course, we don’t see such differences.

                      And yes!! The giant magnet! Either the magnetic field would have to bend itself around the entire earth, or it would have to pass through several thousand miles of solid earth to work in the “southern hemisphere”….and compasses should work great the closer one gets to Santa’s workshop ;)…and be very weak or not work at all the further one gets from it….

                      I may not have all of the answers…but I certainly can’t buy into any of that BS, for NO ONE has any sane answers…..

                      Oh, and there are plenty of problems with “their” sun, too- like they can not satisfactorily explain crepuscular rays with a sun that is supposedly “90 million miles away”.

                      It’s an interesting thing I’ve noticed too, over the last 3 decades since I went from merely being a skeptic, to actually seeing the glaring problems with their narratives, and learning some real answers: I’ve noticed that once you unraveled ONE of their deceptions pertaining to one discipline, many of the others start to unravel of their own accord, because their modus operandi is always similar; and the same pattern just repeats itself over and over again- just with different lingo and specifics.

                      Once you get a handle on that first deception, the rest are easy. Which is why I’m surprised that Brent believes in NASA. (May as well believe in the Easter Bunny….).

                    • Just like climate change, this is obviously settled science.

                      You have a lot of nerve.

                      If the balls on your pool table are spheres then the table must be a sphere too!

                      Don’t be some conspiracy nut who contradicts globehead logic.

                    • I knows the Oith is round, ’cause Mrs. Koppelwart told me so. Right after I farted and blamed it on Johnny, and she believed it!

                      You see, some guy a few hunnert years ago dropped an apple from a tower, therefore, the Oith is a spinning ball!

                      (I could swear that I saw those clouds move independently of the earth once, when I was outside and had my eyes open; but I’m wrong, because you can see on those time-lapse images of Earth from space 😉 by NASA, that they in-fact really do stay in the same exact spot for 24 hours and never move at all!)

            • Sorry, Brian but I never mentioned anything about the shape of the Earth. The “flat earth” thing always seems to be brought up when any discussion of the moon hoax starts.

              The earth could be any shape at all and the basic point would still be just how could there have existed, in 1968-72, the technology to send humans to the moon and bring them back home in a matter of days, but ceased to exist later?

              The video refers to NASA as an acronym for “Never A Straight Answer”. I like that.

              • Exactly, Ed.

                I questioned the “moon landing” even before I became a geocentrist; and absolutely stopped believing in it LONG before I became a flat-earther.

                If anything, a flat earth model could make the prospect of “going to the Moon” MORE probable, in some respects, because we do not believe that the Moon is a “quarter of a million miles away”.

                Most “Moon truthers” are not flat-earthers…although virtually all flat-earthers are Moon truthers.

                  • Tor, if that’s the video I’m thinking it is, it’s a pretty good one. One does need to keep in mind that there is a lot of dis-info out there in many materials which claim to be pro flat earth (Such as the Flat Earth Society, which is actually a red herring, created to make flat-earthers look ridiculous).

                    Sometimes it’s intentional dis-info; sometimes it’s just ignorance on the part of the average Joe who may be making the video.

                    For instance: Some cite as proof of FE/refutation of a globe: “The fact that airplanes fly at a level trajectory means that if the earth were a ball, they would just fly off into space by maintaining a constantly level position”.

                    Of course, such an argument is easily refuted by even a semi-intelligent 6th grader, by saying that “level” is with respect to be parallel to the ground- so if the earth were a ball, staying aparllel to the ground would still ensure a course that conforms to the shape of the earth; and that the gyroscope works because if gravity exists and acts as it’s theory purports, then the gyro would stay level as the plane follows the contour of the Earth”.

                    I try and weed-out stuff like that, and concentrate on the undeniable aspects- like that there is no observable curve, even at great heights; thyat we can see things at great distances with the aid of telescopes and binoculars, on earth, which would be FAR out of the plane of sight if the earth were round; and the behavior of water; etc.

                    Some of these ameteurs are doing fine work though. It’s like a scientific renaissance in some respects, only sans the interference of the king or the Cat-lik church!

                    • My own model is everything that ever was, is, and will be is all right here at the same time, but we’re too dumb to see it.

                      Think of your cat staring blankly at the TV. He might see a shape or hear a sound, but he won’t follow the plot of what’s “really” going on.

                      That’s how reality is for us too.

                      I can’t draw a diagram or prove it.

                      But I just know there’s a way back, a way to remain, and a way forward from everything that’s possible.

                      It’s my own ball of string theory, and sometimes I can almost articulate, most times not.

                      It doesn’t matter if anyone else understands or believes.

                      It is mine. And it’s all I need to know.

                      Right now where I’m at, there’s also a Karankawa guy sitting in his teepee whittling a shitty model of a new canoe design he’s excited about.

                      And also a seven nippled feline dolphin sapien aggregate condensate Vishnu riding a giant Quetzalcoatl on its way to Omega Centauri.

                      Sum ting wong with Tiangong so sorry please for space debris
                      https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/4676492/chinas-runaway-tiangong-1-space-station-will-crash-to-earth-within-months-harvard-university-astrophysicist-warns/

          • Telemetry tapes are simply the data they measured. Even if those tapes existed they would be declared lies because it is simply measurement and tracking data and the video in digital form. Any modern conversion of this data would be declared part of the conspiracy. Would you accept a modern conversion process from these tapes as proof? Would you? Of course you would not.

            So what difference does it make? What’s more believable, a giant decades long conspiracy involving multiple governments or a government agency using long obsolete equipment recycles tapes instead of upgrading? The later is what it does just about everywhere.

            Reusing tapes was commonplace hence the loss of much in the way of television. There are some Dr. Who episodes that are gone forever as a result.

            The converted video itself was found. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes#NTSC_broadcast_tapes

            Then the cited youtube video goes on about destroying the technology. This person does not understand manufacturing. When something isn’t being made any more and won’t be made any more most companies scrap the tooling. That’s how it goes. Furthermore people retire and die and they take how things were done with them. Nobody writes a lot of stuff down. This is why companies have americans train their lost cost replacements. If everyone is just fired the knowledge vanishes. It’s passed on person to person.

            Where I work today if I was tasked with making the product this company made in sold in 1985 it would be a very difficult and costly thing to do and its nowhere near the complexity of a car let alone a saturn V.

            Furthermore even something as unique as a saturn V is going to have many many parts that were off the shelf in its era. They won’t be today. Why do you think having the right bolts for restoring your car is such a big deal? You can go to the hardware store and for most things buy a perfectly serviceable bolt that will probably be better than the original. But it won’t be the same. This goes right through to more complex parts and systems. They simply aren’t made any more and to make them will cost. It’s better to redesign to use modern stuff.

            The problem with ancient aliens leaps is that they look at things with an already decided conclusion. But that’s mostly what people do.

            • Whatever, brent. I didn’t read your overlong attempt to start up with your guvluv again. Go argue with someone who still thinks you have an independent mind.

              • I’d like to see anyone here show me amateur individual proof that the Earth is a globe.

                Let’s start with that first, before we move on to the more difficult question of whether Americans ever walked on a spherical moon.

                I don’t believe its “settled science” any more than I believe in atomic bombs causing a nuclear winter, or industrialization causing climate change.

                GuvLuv is exactly the right term here.

                If we are truly freethinking and freeacting men, we must be allowed dignity and respect no matter what peaceful beliefs we’ve chosen to navigate our surroundings with.

                The fact that it is beyond the pale to discuss the shape of the land sky and ocean. Is a philosophical cousin to the fact that vaccines save lives.

                That laws and courts are necessary. That smoking kills and harms. That seatbelts and vehicle pollution technology is a benefit.

                That this whole imposed clusterfuck of authority is in anyway “scientific” and proven and beneficial.

                Fuck every controlling clover and force feed them fish heads if they have a problem with young earth creationists. Or flat earth philosophers. Or whatever peaceful system a man has chosen for himself.

                The bible, koran, and torah say god created the earth. Nietzche says that god is dead. Both of these are both true and not true. Neither is provable beyond debate at the current time.

                Fuck every single atheist commie and christ commie who want the state to enforce one belief or the other.

                • It is very telling that much (if not all) of government’s power/authority/legitimacy-in-the-eyes-of-people comes from the fact that they have established themselves as the author of/possessor of/arbiters of all knowledge. Be it a “law of science” or a decree of law- if one of their god-men has written it down and it has thus become encodified with the proper signatures, it “becomes truth” until and if they change it. Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK, and Buzz[ed] Armstrong walked on the Moon. It is written! It is truth!

                  Sodomy used to be a crime. Now it’s a crime to “discriminate” against a sodomite. Sodomy used to be a mental illness; Now “homophobia” is a mental illness (One which I am happy to have!)

                  But the majority of “knowledge” is of a nature which is unprovable- such as what happened before the earth existed “80 billion years ago” and or is a product of a democratic process (Faggotry=mental illness; then homophobia=mental illness) because those are the things which are up grabs, especially once one’s former source)s) of authority is challenged/dethroned.

                  They can’t fool many by saying 2+2=5, since it is too easily to prove that it doesn’t; but they can fool many by pontificating about space travels or what happened eons ago, because if the average person does not have a conflicting view, then the gov’t’s narrative becomes the only real option, since they claim to be the ones who know/have been there; done that.

                  And just as a skeptic’s debunking of one official lie leads to the recognition and unraveling of many others….conversely, the acceptance of lie on one subject leads to more, and the eventual acceptance of the whole system of lies- because it is all predicated upon who or what we recognize as our ultimate authority.

                  What’s amazing, is that the fruits of government authority are so ROTTEN, and yet that doesn’t seem to dissuade most people- which I guess is why Hitler was so popular: His “fruits” were the emotions of “patriotism” and collective greatness. Sell people the emotional high, and I guess they don’t care at what cost it comes- be they meth-heads or Nazis.

                  • Sodomy doesn’t even exist if you don’t let it.

                    Maybe I get locked up for not paying my Obamacare taxes soon.

                    And I end up in cell with “Randy.” and “Andy.”

                    Randy has some unrequited loving feeling whoa oh whoa oh whoa, and I haven’t had time to gang up with anybody there.

                    Andy is the force multiplier, and eventually I’m divided and conquered and split like a Dairy Queen parfait on a Sunday drive.

                    Boom goes the dynamite Randy does his thing badabing and I pretend to be very happy or sad about it, whatever is best for survival purposes.

                    I wipe up my shit and spit from the gladiator pit and go about my life.

                    I don’t have to think about it. Relive it. Do anything. My mind is my temple and I am the one true Lord Sovereign Beef Supreme.

                    Such things are only a big deal if you let them be, and I like to think I wouldn’t and would shoot shovel and shut up about the whole thing and make quick work of getting some better outcomes in the near future, before things get any worse.

                    What else is there in life.

                    I hope to never be my own enemy lamenting and wailing like a heart stopped women, that is the province of someone else, never me.

                    I’m here to piss and moan in an only theoretical way, in this near worthless vernacular known as untethered American Online English.

                    But really, I couldn’t be happier every day that a full retard pane tester at a window licking factory.

                    • Tor, I’m getting a tattoo on my butt of one’a them street signs that says “One way- do not enter”!

                      Maybe on the other cheek: “Exit only”.

                      ‘D be handy in case i have to go into a faggot-friendly bidness, like the Fambly Dollar- (I think they have a sign out front that says “Deliveries in the rear”)

                  • Ed, you say “What’s amazing, is that the fruits of government authority are so ROTTEN, and yet that doesn’t seem to dissuade most people”. That fairly sums it up. My dear departed sister was an authority licker so much she got a degree in something I think must be the ultimate contradiction, Criminal Justice. Every time I see those two words I can only think of how evil is always duplicitous.

                    But my sister, who always preached to the family while the kids were calling them pigs, how they were there to protect you.

                    Once she saw what was left of our house, plenty shit just torn up for fun and how they tried to kill me in jail, it rocked her to her very core. I think it helped kill her or maybe was the very thing that was so ingrained she couldn’t handle it.

                    • Wow, 8, (BYW: T’was I who said “the fruits of gov’t/ROTTEN” thing).

                      What you describe is something i often think of. I think that seeing something like that happen to a close loved one, is the ONLY thing that would wake up any of our cop-loving loved ones.

                      They just don’t “get it”, until it hits home, personally- and even them, I fully believe that many would still make excuses, because their love of guv has been ingrained in them as a religion from a young age, and has been also in their fathers.

                      Something my mother said the other day really shocked and horrified me:

                      Because of all of the state’s red tape and ridiculous procedures, my 92 year-old mother ended up running out of sleeping pills 10 days ago (I’m taking her to the doctor tomorrow, and she’ll finally get more)- My mother, even with the pills, only gets a couple of hours sleep per night- which is hard on a 92 year-old. Without the pills, she gets even less!

                      I half jokingly said “Too bad ‘Joe’ doesn’t sell them {My nieces husband who is on disability and supplements his income by going to the doctor and then selling the pills he gets], you could just buy some from him!”.

                      Even though said half-jesting, my mother gasped, and said “Oh! That would be a SIN!”.

                      “A sin”. Funny, I’ve read the Bible over 40 times thus far in my life…seem to have missed the part that says: “Thou shalt not buy medications, except from officially-licensed sources and only when prescribed by an officially licensed fizz-ishion”.

                      But that is how deep this runs- and the sentiments about government/citizenship and state are truly held as religious beliefs.

                      And if one considers the transgression of a law as a “sin” than ipso-fatso, the author of that law is their god. : (

                      This is no different than the politician who says that you have no right to protect yourself or your property, but that if you encounter someone who is trying to harm you, you should call 9-1-1.

            • It was more than just telemetry data which was lost destroyed. The telemetry data has little to do with billions of dollars worth of research and documentation that went into creating the technology or documenting the [non]event.

              Virtually ANY technology of the past can be easily replicated once it has been accomplished. If all data were lost today of how to build an F14, or a GPS system, or an ICBM, just the fact that those things existed, and were based on extant technologies which are also in use in other capacities, would enable those who have knowledge of the component technologies to replicate the whole quite easily and quickly- just as top-secret nuclear technology was spread around the world as soon as one country figured it out.

              It is INSANE [Seriously noo-noo-nah-nah-noo-noo insane] to believe that some group of statists could “send men to the Moon”; lose the technology [Oooppss! Hate when that happens!] and then believe that they could send probes to Jupiter and Mars…and that Elon Muskrat is going to send people to Mars “in 5 years”, all based on the exponential explosion of technological breakthroughs since 1969….but yet they somehow can’t figure out how to send men “back” to the Moon.

              To hold such a belief is simply not logical.

              • It seems an easy matter to prove. But it isn’t because everything is tightly controlled.

                For instance, what happened with the Northern California fires. Or Mandalay Bay in Vegas. Or to Puerto Rico. Or Houston. Or Florida.

                The government invents all the weather bullshit from whole clothe. And then all the drooling lunatic clovers walk around babbling about it like fucking Rain Man.

                Yeah Hurricane Maria has definitely been spotted 20 miles from San Juan. Yeah definitely. I am a Pakled and I need to believe in science. Because it makes my ego go.

                I’m definitely not some pathetic North Korean who’s being bamboozled a hundred times a day by government BS. I am smart. I work at a factory and help build things that make things go.

                Yeah automobiles are definitely what they tell me they are. I am a Pakled Clover. I am a mechanic on the Mondor.

                I like it when government approved machines make things goooooooooo!

              • Hi Nunz,

                Brent makes a strong point, I think. As a hobbyist, I know exactly what he means with regard to obtaining parts (i.e., “technology”) for an old car long out of production; parts that were cheap and common 40 years ago but are now very hard to find and expensive when you do find them.

                The knowledge to make (as an example) a set of factory cast iron Pontiac V8 cylinder heads exists. But the physical resources needed to manufacture those heads are gone now. The molds/tooling and so on. These could of course be made again – and then Pontiac V8s made again. But it would require a major investment of money to do so.

                Apollo occurred at a time when the government had vastly more resources available because there wasn’t yet a massive Entitlement State (one of the reasons Apollo got cancelled was because of moaning about “wasting” funds on the space program while the Free Shit Army’s paws went empty; see, for example, Whitey on the Moon). The expenditure on Apollo was enormous and could not be replicated today without massive cuts in entitlements, massive taxes increases – or both.

                • Some or most of Apollo likely happened.

                  But it just seems to tempting that they don’t exaggerate what they’re doing so they can have a plausible explanation for all the stolen trillions plus the opportunity cost of the trillions they took through exuberant flim flams.

                  I think its instructive to take the religious and sovereign man’s side in the argument from time to time and see how.

                  On the Soviet side, guys literally burned up in orbit and stuff. Hard to believe the same thing didn’t happen with us.

                  I bet the real number is a 1000x higher.
                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents

                  • Hi Tor,

                    Agreed, absolutely.

                    The Soviets also had major troubles with their moon rocket, designed by Sergei Korolev. It used many more individual engines than the Saturn V and had problems getting off the pad in one piece.

                    The Soviets were good at making powerful things, but their ability to finesse (and miniaturize) lagged behind considerably. Another example: The MiG 25 vs. the equivalent US fighters of the same period. The MiG was a powerhouse – but also a blunderbus.

                    It had vacuum tubes.

                • Hey Eric,

                  Meh, I don’t really buy that analogy. It’s not that NASA’s claiming that they can’t reproduce the simple equipment [by today’s standards] that they used in the Apollo “missions”; but rather, they’re saying “We no longer know how”- even though the scope, expense, and caliber of technology they use today, have increased exponentially.

                  A better analogy would be GM saying “We can not figure out how to make a 1976 Trans Am again”. It’s ridiculous.

                  It’d be like them saying “We can make computer-controlled fuel-injected low-emission high-powered cars now, but we can not reproduce a carburetor”.

                  Heck, the primitive technology from 1969 used in the Apollo gone-fishin’s, could be reproduced by amateurs today.

                  Think about it: The electronics in those rocket ships were simpler than what is in a 25 year-old car today.

                  And it’s not as if they don’t know how to send things “into space” anymore, because they supposedly do it all the time- and they send back images and data from far greater distances, in far greater detail (supposedly),so what technology, exactly, are they talking about which they are incapable of reproducing?

                  I think the ONE thing they are talking about specifically, is getting humans safely through the Van Allen radiation belt. And THAT technology they can’t “reproduce” because they admittedly never had it to begin with.

                  When one of the astro-nuts was questioned about that very thing, years later, he merely replied “We didn’t know about it then”.

                  A more accurate response would have been that the average person didn’t know about it in 1969 (Nor, did they know about the heat of space travel and the climate of the Moon apparently) so NASA made no pretenses about sending a dinky uninsulated (!!) tin can up there- but now that such things are more widely known, they can’t get away with doing that again; nor can they just dismiss the dangers/existence of the Van Allen belt, because then they would have to admit to being wrong about some foundational points of the cosmology on which all of their “science” is based on- and once they have to admit foundational error, they would lose all credibility- as would the various branches of “science” involved.

                  Which brings us to the question of: Why can’t they just fake it again?” Why can’t they just glue some styrofoam 😉 inside the capsule, and tell us that it’s magical radiation-proofing?

                  I think because they know that too many people are “on to them” already- and thus can’t risk something which may discredit everything they’ve ever done, thus destroying belief in the god of government. Also, maybe now, too many other nations and even regular people have capable-enough equipment to be able to see that they are not doing what they say they are.

                  Hey, speaking of old parts: Ya know, when I need a part for my 1991 tractor, I often find that I can just have it made at a local machine shop for a third of the cost of what it would cost to buy that part new; and that’s WAY cheaper than it would be to buy a part for a new tractor- even if you were to give me the new tractor for free!

                  Funny, that these two subjects have met here, because I often say of the local CASE IH dealer, that “He wants the Moon for parts!”. : D (How come most emoticons don’t work here? Ya get those square boxes instead… except for: 😉 )

                  • Hi Nunz,

                    I don’t think the claim is that they no longer know how – in concept (the theory and the math). It’s that – per Brent’s post – the multitude of small steps and specialized equipment needed can’t be reproduced today, at least not without prohibitive expense.

                    A better analogy might be the Quadrajet carburetor. It is a very intricate device, with lots of small parts and the castings are almost ornate. If the tooling used to make the carb’s parts were lost, reproducing them – and so, the Quadrajet – would be effectively impossible.

                    • eric, the QJ is so ubiquitous that other makers have improved it and made it infinitely adjustable front and rear. I’d like to try one with adjustable air F&R.

                    • Mornin’ Eric!

                      Here’s the thing: If cars, and the various components used in them, were no longer in existence, then yes, it might be a daunting task to again try and reproduce a Q-jet, or even a simple incandescent headlight.

                      But as long as functional cars exist; ones which can even out-perform the kind that had Q-jets and incandescent headlights, there is no need to say that you can’t drive to Nashville because it would cost too much to reproduce the VW bug you [not ‘you’ personally : ) ) drove the last time you went to Nashville 30 years ago….as you hop into your 2017 Nissyotadai and drive to California.

                      Do you “get” what I’m saying? (Please do, or I’m going to have to start hitting myself repeatedly in the head with a mallet. 😉 )

                      It’s not as if they shut down NASA after t5he Moon BS, and went home and that was it.

                      They kept expanding on technology to the point where they can (supposedly) do things which would have been impossible in 1969. They can now go to Mars (LOL), and go into space in re-usable piggy-back airplane-looking thingies, etc. etc. -so why can’t they, with all of this improved “superior” technology, do what they already did 50 years ago with things which looked like Model T’s by comparison?

                      In other words: You don’t need to reproduce a Model T, when you already have a modern Corvette which can run circles around the model T.

                      Do you see the utter absurdity of them essentially saying “We can go to Mars with the fancy-schmancy stuff we have today, that you paid for, many times over; but for some reason, with all this great stuff, we can not achieve the simpler task of repeating something that we did 50 years ago with an erector set and the radio from Gilligan’s Island”.

                    • Hi Nunz,

                      Sending a small probe to Mars vs. three men to the Moon is apples-oranges! An interesting thing about the Saturn V is it contained enough fuel/thrust to do the mission described.

                      Do I trust NASA? Heck no!

                      Is NASA wasteful? Heck yes!

                      But those are different questions.

                    • PS:

                      Oh, and Eric?

                      The people who are saying that they can’t figure out how(Not that they can’t afford to) “reproduce the technology”, are almost definitely NOT aware of the fact that the Moon landings were a hoax- which, of course, is why they can’t figure out how they did it, nor find any data from the event.

                      It is doubtful that they are even aware of the ongoing hoaxes. They probably actually believe the stuff they are saying.

                      In order for a conspiracy or hoax to be successful and remain largely undetected, only a handful of people at the very top can know that it’s a hoax. And even those who may be involved in perpetuating on-going hoaxes, are likely unaware of the nature of past ones- although they can likely surmise….

                    • ….and look at that NAS-hole reporting to Congress, in the video which Ed posted! -Essentially the NASA version of Bill Clinton saying “What constitutes sex?”.

                    • Funny thing too, Eric: Ya grow up in the US; ya believe what the US version of the common narratives- be it about space or history or who won the war or who the bad guy is- and even after ya figure out that you’ve been lied to, a lot of the lies, or at least major parts of them still linger, almost as a reflex reaction, or involuntary thought- especially if it’s about a particular subject or aspect of a subject that you’ve never questioned before, or investigated.

                      Which is why we don’t just see everything all at once. The house of cards falls slowly at first…one card at a time.

                      And people who grew up in Russia or China or Iran believe their culture’s narratives.

                      We still take so much for granted, even when we think we have a handle on the truth.

                    • Hi Nunz,

                      I’m pretty skeptical about pretty much everything. I am certainly well-aware that most of the “history” we were taught is either bunk outright or only half the story. But I base my skepticism on facts – including the lack thereof.

                      I know the government built – as an example, the Mach 3 SR-71 and the U2. That they performed as advertised – and more. Much is possible with essentially unlimited funds, which the government had to play with back then.

                      The Saturn V rocket’s technical details can be critically examined and they also hold up. The thing was real – and a mighty achievement. I think disbelief is easy because today such an achievement is inconceivable. Leaving aside the problem of resources, the Safety Cult destroyed the manly culture of risk that made Apollo and the preceding programs possible. Men built the Saturn V and flew them. Such men no longer exist – or rather, they have been exiled.

                      Submitted for your consideration: Gene Krantz … vs. Mary Barra.

                    • Evenin’ Eric,

                      Oh, I know that “they” make weird and wonderful things which really work…at least on Earth, or it’s immediate environs.

                      But how do WE know how something which looks legit on paper would work in space, if space were like they say it is?

                      It’s one of the many things which you and I can’t test; and the ones who are making the claims are known liars, AND the mysteriously “lost” virtually all of the proof/data; and what they proffer as “proof” is riddled with anomalies which shouldn’t exist; ….and the “Moon rocks” turned out to be fake… so basically, the only thing they can point to as evidence, are some home-movies (And “home” is the right word- : D )

                      I mean, other than Uncle’s narrative, and it’s endless echoes having been ingrained in everyone since childhood over the last several generations, really, how much objective evidence is there to support any man even walking on the Moon, once?

                      And the question of “Is it possible” is quite separate from “Did they really do it?”.

                      As I’ve said in a more recent post, they have yet to even circumnavigate the earth (by aircraft) around the north-south axis.

                      Why?

                      Either it is not possible, because the earth is not a globe; or they are incapable of weathering the conditions they would encounter.

                      And if the latter is the case, that would be quite telling, as the conditions in “outer space” would be infinitely more extreme; and considering that humans for at least 100 years now have ventured into those extreme conditions with very rudimentary vessels/equipment.

                      So here we are- 2017- and Earth has not even been fully conquered yet.

                      I’m sorry my friend, but in light of these things, I really don’t see any reason to believe.

                  • The Apollo guidance computer was a 16-bit system that had both read-only and read-write memory (a total of about 56K words), and a CPU with a 2MHz clock. It sported features such as a real-time operating system with interrupt-driven multitasking and IO system, and it implemented a virtual machine with more capable instructions than the native CPU for ease of doing complex calculations. Overall performance was on a par with the first generation home computers that came 10 years later, though the software used was far more sophisticated.

                    Hands up everyone here who has programmed 1960s-vintage computer systems. (Anyone else but me raise his hand?) In fact I’ve worked on systems that had noticeably less power than the Apollo Guidance Computer and the ground-based mainframes used at NASA. You would be amazed at what you can do on such a “primitive” platform when hand-selecting machine instructions and not having to deal with a lot of extraneous overhead.

                    The calculations required for a trip to the moon are well within the capabilities the computers of that time period.

                    • Dabbled in machine language in Atari 400 and 800. Also good at basic on apple macintosh, but only the original 128k version.

                      Buying my own Ataris was the first time I dipped into the ol college fund. Learned more on my own, than I did in all those years in the think tank.

                      Was pretty good at doing gimicky things on an Apple II also.

                      rather than it only being hardware exclusively, I would say its also a kind of algorithmic pattern recognition ability you need.

                      this can transcend specifics, but its hard.

                      I’m sure a hundred years from now, no one would have the slightest clue how to ride an analog bike the way we all did mostly as kids.

                      Okay siri the sixth, start the electropedals.

                      Horses will still be rideable, because the animal won’t forget how to be ridden.

                      When you’re on slack or whatever or at least a self die dact like me, you don’t know jack squat you can speak about.

                      Yet there’s all kinds of things you just know how to do using your lizard brain or whatever part parses the code and puts the java scripts and pokes and peeks in the bucket before your project gets some lotion and the hose again.

                    • The 6502 in those machines is a pretty good little CPU to learn machine language/assembly language on. Very simple, you can pretty much hold the entire CPU architecture in your head. I used to do a lot of assembly-language coding back in the day on a variety of platforms.

                      Today’s programmers that deal with cell phones (and even watches) that have multicore processors and gigabytes of memory can’t imagine what it was like to do anything on the limited hardware available decades ago. If I had not been there myself I’d probably find it difficult to imagine as well.

                      I think that’s part of why there is disbelief amongst the younger set that any complex task could be accomplished with the technology available. We had to write entire applications – even operating systems – in the confines of memory that would not even be considered a decent sized buffer today. Basically we would sweat out each machine instruction and bit of memory used, and use as many tricks as possible available on the platform in use to conserve machine resources and get as much performance as possible. Programmers were much cheaper than hardware back then. Today the opposite is true.

                    • I remember working within 48K and then later a 128K bank switching RAM on the 8-bit ataris. I started combining lines of code so line numbers wouldn’t eat up bytes of RAM in BASIC.

                    • Tor, I had my atari playing Battleship like a pro and an Apple IIe learning from its human opponent to become unbeatable at very simple game called hexapawn. It was a class assignment, the AI part was extra credit. Looking a wikipedia that was the whole point of the game.

                    • My cousin spearheaded the use of a computer at the big ad agency -which he became CEO of in NY- in the 70’s. Yep…you could do a lot with a big ol’ main-frame that occupied half of a floor of a skyscraper, with punch-cards and tapes.

                      The one that fit in the spaceship? If you asked it to calculate the square root of 273 it would probably explode. A digital watch of the late 70’s had more power. Literally.

                      May’ve sounded impressive at the time, when no one had home computers nor knew anything about them. “Computer-anything” sounded impressive. Now we laugh at the specs of that computer. A childs video game from the dollar store that runs on 2 AAA batteries is more powerful.

                    • Hi Nunz,

                      The computers used in Apollo were different and built do very specific things, which they did. Comparing them with modern cell phones and laptops in terms of memory, processing speed and so on isn’t relevant. The technology available in the late 1960s was capable of sending men to the Moon. But the late 1960s were a different time. A time when risk was accepted and the nation wanted to go to the Moon. The resources were brought to bear. Today? It’s Gibs muh dat. Entitlements, which includes “defense” spending, of course. Congress would never redirect the funds needed to launch a 21st century Apollo program, which is why there is no such program.

                      Brent is right about regression. People mistake the gadgets that are now available with “progress.” But see my earlier points about the 707 and SR-71. There are many others. Look at the state of the power grid, of the transportation grid. The real things that define progress are in much worse shape today than in 1970.

                    • Nunzio,

                      One of us has worked with 1960s-vintage computers of similar specification to the Apollo flight computers and one of us has not. If you don’t mind I will go with my own decades of experience, as well as the experience of my colleagues, rather than your uninformed speculation.

                      A “childs video game from the dollar store that runs on 2 AAA batteries” is NOT more powerful because the software is not purposed to the task even if the hardware is faster. (Just how much programming experience do you have in order to make these sweeping determinations?)

                      That “childs video game from the dollar store that runs on 2 AAA batteries” in hardware terms is also more powerful than the SAGE computer of the 1950s was. Can it do what SAGE did? Or was SAGE a hoax as well?

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPdRKdC4-GA

                      (Note that about 7:11 into this film the issue of reducing a computer in size for flight is addressed – in 1956!)

                      But of course you know better than the people who have actually worked with this technology and won’t fall for any of that – it’s turtles all the way down, man. Keep the faith.

              • The first product I worked on out of school cannot be made today without a monumental investment in time and effort and every drawing and specification still exists. But it can’t be made. Why? The tooling was scraped long ago. There’s millions of dollars right there for the mechanical parts. Then the electrical. Those chips are obsolete. Nobody makes them. The billions put into making those parts cheap has been scrapped or redone multiple times over since then. It’s gone.

                Look at how much you need to pay for a dynacorn body shell for a 1960s car. That’s actually quite cheap for the effort they had to put in.

                Every little process behind every little part comes down to people. People who know it. Once that’s gone, it’s gone. That’s why the whole ‘make it in China’ thing has been so devastatingly impoverishing. The plants, the tools, the people’s knowledge, just gone. There’s nobody to teach it to in a generation’s time.

                You could hand me every saturn five drawing there ever was and there is no way in hell I would get you working rocket on the first try even if I got there. Not everything is on those drawings. Tool up to make some part per print only to find the metal is tearing. How was that solved? Well back in ’67 Bob knew just how to set and run that machine made in ’59 to produce good parts. Today’s computer controlled models can’t be manipulated that way. Bob’s been dead for 15 years. The machine he knew so well was scrapped in ’87. Maybe there’s another one somewhere….. So now that part has to be redesigned and then three that assemble to it and the cascade goes on.

                In WW2 and before the Japanese had a special language called technical Japanese. By the 1970s there were few people left who could even read it. Sure there were all these prints to make a zero but just finding someone who could read them was difficult. Those got translated, but what about all that didn’t?

                By 2000s when people became concerned about those lost tapes there was -one- machine left that could read them. If another decade went by before someone thought of it there would have been no way to read them.

                And why should be someone be concerned about saving any of this 1960s shit anyway? Nobody knew it was going to be the peak of the public space program. That there would be some need to prove it happened decades later when moon flights were something for tourists.

                • By saying that they “can’t reproduce the technology”, they’re not talking about reproducing the primitive toys that they “sent to the Moon”- because since technology has increased exponentially since 1969; and since they now send vehicles “to Mars” and “Jupiter” [or is it Saturn? -Or the Tooth Fairy’s lair?] they could obviously use today’s superior technology to accomplish the SIMPLER task of returning to the Moon, which would be “easy” compared to their claimed exploits of today- and much cheaper than their other projects.

                  So it’s not the hardware; They’re saying they lost the KNOWLEDGE of HOW to do it [Oh…so they DID LOSE it…]

                  And it’s even funnier, considering that many of the people who developed and worked on that “technology” are still alive today, including my brother-in-law….

                  It would be like saying “I can’t go to Hooterville anymore because my bicycle broke, and it would cost too much to reproduce that bicycle”- and then hop in my truck and drive somewhere 30 times further away.

                  Sorry, but all of the excuses used to justify NASA’s lies and nonsense are just plain ridiculous. They make as much sense as claiming that Saddam has WMDs, or that the only nation to actually use nuclear weapons against another country has to deprive all other countries of the right to possess nukes ‘for the safety of the world’. It’s all rhetoric, which can only be swallowed by Clovers.

                  “We have great technology which we can use to go to Mars; but for some reason, only the 1969 model can go to the Moon”. How can anybody in their right mind believe such?

                  • Hi Nunz,

                    There are still a few of the Saturn V’s F1 main engines in existence, also other parts of the rocket itself. It is certainly possible to reproduce a complete Saturn V and the command module/lunar lander, but the cost would be exorbitant and the Feds would rather spend our money on entitlements and “defense.”

                    Apollo was ended prematurely because of gibs muh dat. The Free Shit Army squealed.

                    It’s also part of the reason why no supersonic transport. The 747 was supposed to have been the last subsonic heavy commercial jet. It was expected that by around 1980, most transatlantic aircraft would be operating at Mach 2-plus. But that got shot down by “environmentalists.”

                    So, here we are – it takes longer to fly from NY to CA today than it took in 1970.

                    Because a 707 was faster that a 767.

                    It should take half the time. Because the trip ought to be on an SST.

                  • You want to reproduce say a 19th century bicycle? Good luck. The common skills that made it aren’t common any more. The people who knew how to use those skills to make a bicycle are largely dead. There might be one guy in the world who can make the wood wheels.

                    That’s the question being answered. The ability to recreate what flew to the moon in the 1969 and the 1970s. That’s gone. The knowledge to make those parts even. So many of the processes and materials are obsolete and not available just like the wood wheel for an 1880s bicycle.

                    The knowledge of what the rocket has to be and do is not gone. That’s obvious. The calculations to get there are not gone. I think those may be in my copy of the 1960s space planners’ guide. The math is probably on the internet some where.

                    The technology today is vastly different and any new moon vehicle would have to be designed from scratch to use modern processes, off the shelf parts, and so on. The knowledge to take today’s stuff and build it into something to get the moon doesn’t exist* because nobody has bothered to do it. Because people stopped doing it.

                    If people stopped building automobiles and parts for the existing ones and forty years later you want a new automobile how much of undertaking would that be?

                    Technology may be very much advanced but nobody has built a private passenger automobile for forty years. They still build semi-trucks so maybe you can use some that stuff. That’s the situation. Technology has sailed on away from building vehicles to get to the moon and back.

                    *to public knowledge. I do believe there is a space program that we are not allowed to know about. It’s extent and ability is of conjecture.

                    • But you miss my very point, Brent: There is no need to reproduce the 19th century bicycle, since a modern bicycle can do everything the 19th century one did, and more.

                      They don’t need to reproduce 1969 technology, when the technology they now have supposedly allows them to do even greater feats.

                      Are you telling me that the equipment which is capable of sending probes to “Mars” is not capable of accomplishing the simpler task of “going to the Moon”, which is infinitely closer; in a less hostile environment; and has [supposedly] been done before?

                      You don’t see anything wrong with this?

                    • You’re missing my point. You should read more than the first paragraph.

                      Nobody has built anything to send men outside of orbit since the 1970s. There is no modern spacecraft to go to anywhere beyond orbit (neglecting the possibility of a secret program). Moon, Mars, Vulcan, doesn’t matter.

                      The only thing to borrow from at all are sending the probes but sending machines and sending men are two very different things.

                      What you have is legacy information from the 1970s and things that are remotely similar to work from.

                      It’s like building a passenger automobile when all that was built for the last four decades has been commercial trucks.

                    • And YET, Brent, they could do those things [send men past orbit] with an uninsulated tin can, with simple technology [by today’s standards], without even knowing about things like the Van Allen Belt- and did that safely somehow because as Buzzed Aldrin said “We didn’t know about that then”- so I guess that magical technology somehow operated on the basis of “What you don’t know won’t hurt you”- but now that they know about it, that premise will no longer work, so they have to invent some new technology which they admittedly didn’t even have in 1969, because they weren’t even aware of the dangers of which they needed a technology to protect them from.

                      C’mon! You and NASA have more excuses than a congressman!

                      Eric’s teeth should be hurting by now!

                      Even today, they couldn’t accomplish the feat of having a module launch itself from the Moon and meet up with a hovering rocket, and then attach itself to that rocket so perfectly that it would be fit for a quarter million mile ride through space; radiation belts; and the heat of re-entry…not because “they lost the technology”, but because THEY NEVER DID IT TO BEGIN WITH.

                      People are so brainwashed, every year millions watch rockets take off and then make a parabolic curve over the ocean, and tell their kids that it is going “into space”.

                      I’ve become somewhat used to expecting such from the dumb sheeple; but not from you- or anyone who is aware enough to post here (except perhaps from Clover)

                    • Hi Nunz,

                      Today – almost 2018 – there is no aircraft flying or even on the books that can replicate the speed and altitude achieved by the SR-71 when JFK was still alive, almost 60 years ago.

                      Consider that.

                      A Boeing 707 – which first flew in the late 1950s – was faster than any commercial jet flying today.

                      Why aren’t Blackbirds and 707s being built today? Why are today’s aircraft inferior, in terms of their performance, to those of 60 years ago?

                      It is because of regression. America is a dying culture, not a rising one. The sun was highest, at its apogee, when I was born in the late 1960s.

                      It has been fading ever since. Slowly, at first. You could hardly tell. The dimming was slight. But now, today? It is obviously very late afternoon and the daylight is fading fast.

                      Stronger, more vital cultures will soon take their rightful place and – probably – send their men to the Moon and beyond.

                    • Nunzio, when you’ve spent two decades designing, developing, and manufacturing stuff you can start to lecture me on how it goes.

                      It’s not some belief in the state, it’s how things are. It’s called reality. I make stuff for a living. I know the state of manufacturing in this country because I live it.

                      I visited a supplier recently I’ve worked with my entire career no matter where I worked. It’s a living fossil. The people doing the machine set up average about 3-4 _decades_ on the job. A particular set of machines where there when they started. Probably 1960s vintage stuff designed in the 1940s. The business can’t find replacements as people retire.

                      That’s the sort of oddity place where you might get some Apollo parts made.

                      This is just for stuff that there’s really no better way to make. The work just all went to China and very few survived in the USA.

                      I don’t know what to tell you, except you’re telling me my business here despite apparently having never done it.

                      You want a rocket to go to the moon today with modern tech that has supplanted the old stuff? Much of the f’in thing will have to be made in China unless you want to spend years recreating it here in the USA.

                      Do you even realize what a development program for such a vehicle would be like? Throwing thousands of engineers at it was something that could be done in the 1960s USA. Today? Engineers are over worked and underpaid. You want a moon mission, you’re going to have to do it with a mass of H1B visa holders.

                      Again, it has nothing to do with government. It’s how it is. We can’t even make televisions in this country as things stand this moment and you can’t figure out why we can’t make a moon rocket on demand? For crying out loud we can’t even make a simple 100W standard light bulb anymore without years building a new facility. The capital was scrapped a few years back.

                    • Brent, I think we can agree that “getting there” is not the problem. By your own words, just doing so with humans, is the problem.

                      Expense is not the issue either- as they are constantly spending BILLIONS on other equally worthless projects; are intending to go “back to the Moon” [But say that they won’t be able to for c. 10 years] and are even now planning a joint “space station” with Russia “close to the Moon”.

                      And they apparently safely navigated dangers of which they weren’t even aware of in 1969, with no harm to the humans involved (So you can’t say the technology was liost, because it admittedly never existed)- so WHAT is the problem?

                      And they’re even talking about putting men on Mars….but you say that they don’t have the ability to/can’t afford to go to the Moon “again”….

                      And again, the technology used in ’69 was a JOKE. My bro-in-law saw the Lunar Rover in-person, at work, and was not impressed. Hearing him speak of that experience when I was a child, post 1969, was actually the first negative comment/doubt about “the Moon Landing” I had ever heard.

                      Even if they had to start from absolute scratch today, they could accomplish more, faster and better and for a fraction of the cost, of what they supposedly did in 1969.

                      The real problem is that it would be harder to fool the public today, thanks to the skepticism of past hoaxes; the explosion of worldwide communications and computers; and the general availability of technology to the masses for cheap. e.g. you can buy a digital camera that will take quite good detailed pics of the moon for c. $300 today- whereas to achieve the same results in 1969, would have cost THOUSANDS (or tens of thousands, accounting for inflation) requiring at least a medium-format camera and a very large, wide aperture high-quality lens.

                      But ultiomately, whether they could or couldn’t do it “again” today is moot- it still does not prove nor disprove whether they did it in the past- but the feeble excuses they make sure do make it look bad for them. The fake moon rocks…the lost imagery; the lost data; all the anomalies in what evidence they do offer as “proof”; the fact that there is literally not one tangible thing which is not found on Earth that they can offer as a souvenir – I mean, they’ve basically proffered every excuse other than “the dog ate my homework”- and the only “proof” that exists are some TV-show and still images which could have been made on any set or in NV or AZ….and which are full of anomalies which raise more questions than they answer.

                      Sorry, but even those known for telling the truth would have to do better than that in order for me to believe; how much more so, those who lie when ever their mouths are moving?

                    • Most everything is a “joke” if you past the shiny.

                      The 1960s Corvette is a joke and so is the 2018. Once you get an engineer’s eye for how things are made you can see how cheap ass most everything is and has always been. But that’s the job, to make things affordable.

                      Stuff sent to the moon looks like a “joke” to you because every last bit of mass was to be avoided. There’s no margin for shiny in stuff like this.

                      If it would function on the moon but break on earth that was good enough.

                      “For here Am I sitting in a tin can Far above the world Planet Earth is blue And there’s nothing I can do”

                      Contemporary lyrics. Everyone knew these things were sketchy ass vehicles.
                      Safety moms today would have the whole program shit-canned today.

                      I’ve been in I think it was a Gemini capsule. I was a kid, it was in the parking lot of a museum so kids could climb in and on it. Good enough? Probably. From our view today is it really worse than driving around at 100mph in a shell of GM’s finest 1960s fiberglass. If something went sideways you were in a heap of trouble.

                      You seem to think the government should have cared about the moon landing more than it does other things. The government doesn’t care. The moon landings served their purpose and they were done with them. It’s all trash to them. Like your dream car is to Joan Claybrook.

                      Enough hoarders around to keep what was kept otherwise it would all be gone.

                      Plus most this overblown. Nobody back in the 70s and 80s thought that processing decades later might make for a better picture than they already had. Why should they care? Government workers, government paycheck.

                      The rest I’ve covered at length previously. The moon hoax people remain unconvincing.

                      I see nothing but ordinary behaviors. As to the ‘fake’ moon rock that was in the hands of a foreign government. Yeah… so you trust that government? Trust all the caretakers of it not to have swapped it so they could have a moonrock for themselves? Or trust fedgov not to swindle another government? Quite a problem for you. Somewhere one of the governments has to be honest. All lies all the time can’t work.

                    • Oh-ho-ho, you KNOW I agree with you about the regression, Eric!

                      Funny thing is though, if money and durability and efficiency aren’t issues (as they aren’t, when Uncle is involved) then they can make magic like never before, which makes even yesterday look like prehistoric times.

                      Most of the regression is either as a result of social decay (The need for instant gratification; acceptance of debt vs. saving; no maintenance vs. built to be durable….) or, it is planned regression- like it is with cars, as you’re well aware- virtually out-lawing diesels; making cars heavier than ever via “saaaaaaaaaaaaaafety” mandates, while decreeing that they must get higher MPGs than ever before, etc.

                      No regression of technology where the state is concerned. The pigs have computers and license plate scanners and electronic finger-print-matchers and retina scanners and heat-imaging cameras, and bar-code readers.

                      When I was younger, if you were good at forging or altering a document, license, inspection sticker, etc. you could get away with a lot. Today you can’t get away with a thing, because everything’s plugged-in to a central source and instantly verifiable…..

                      They can make it work just fine when they want to.

                      And how do you KNOW what the SR-71 could do? Did you ever measure it? The Nazis greatly exaggerated the capabilities of their technologies too.

                      The greater they make it appear, the easier it is to justify, and the better they come out smelling.

                      As I’ve said, NOTHING is history has so united a society to communally support a monstrous government as has the supposed Moon thing.

                      I got to personally witness how this country changed from that point of demarcation. I always referred to pre-early 70’s as “the old world” vs. post as “the present world”.

                      My generation- the ones who grew up with this, thinking it was a fact, were the first totally statist American generation. The Hippie movement died out as the space generation came in….and there has been virtually no resistance since.

                      For something which was SO crucial to the state; so beneficial to it’s power and authority, and in cementing the love for Big Brother in the minds of the peons, ya’d think there’d be something more in the way of cold hard proof, other than an empty warehouse where 700 boxes used to be with all of the data and images and stuff…and some fake Moon rocks.

                      Heck, if I could believe that, I’d have to believe in “Global Warming” too- LOL…NASA says that’s true, too!

                    • Hi Nunz,

                      Th aircraft community (I hate that word, but in this case) which includes people in foreign countries, not under the control of Uncle, is very serious about things like speed and altitude records and they keep a watchful eye. An instrumented eye. The SR-71 has been tracked at Mach 2-plus and absolutely did achieve the altitude and speed records it holds.

                      On the Moon stuff: It’s verifiable (and was verified) that the Saturn V left Earth orbit; that the CM did orbit the Moon – that landers were sent to the Moon and did land. These things are not in doubt, unless one is determined to simply ignore the overwhelming physical evidence and instead go with speculative scenarios that are purely speculative. You can see the landing sights today with a high-end home telescope, including the tracks of the rovers sent on later missions. The lower stages of the landers are on the surface. Etc.

                      Now, that said, you can express doubt about other aspects of the program, including whether men actually landed on the Moon. If you assume a massive conspiracy – and many other things.

                      I personally do not disbelieve that men did, in fact, land on the Moon. But I grant that this part of Apollo is harder to confirm with indisputable physical evidence and that it’s possible the astronauts merely orbited the Moon and never left the CM. But this strikes me as extremely unlikely for a variety of reasons – among them that the Soviets would have exposed it in a minute and certainly would have known, had it been faked.

                      Just as they – and others – would have exposed any lies about what the SR-71 could do and did do.

                      The reason it’s becoming easier to doubt Apollo is because everything is so fucked up today, because it seems increasingly improbable, from our perspective of ubiquitous incompetence, that people could have been so got-damned competent back then.

                      But, they were.

                      Those “slide rule guys” were just brilliant. No other word for it.

                      But they were guys – and they smoked and probably chased women.

                      The gynocracy can’t get to the Moon.

                      They could.

                    • Oh for crying out loud…

                      It’s very easy to just say everything is a lie. But not everything is a lie. If everything was a lie then we wouldn’t have the problems we have today.

                      The problem is that there is enough truth to cover the lies and enough disbelief intentionally started by what is real to make anyone who points out a real lie a subject or ridicule.

                      BTW, the SR71 holds the speed over a recognized course for NY to London among other things. Those sort of things are not something the fedgov controls, but I know they faked it with an aircraft carrier in the middle right?

                      https://naa.aero/records

                    • Oh, dear goodness, Brent….

                      They couldn’t even fold the buggy up and put it back in it’s suitcase as planned, so had to “leave it on the Moon” it was such a piece of junk [The reality probably was that it was so cruddy, or had even broken already, that they didn’t dare keep it handy for scrutiny- so they disposed of it].

                      Yeah, it could barely function in the Grumman parking lot….but it would somehow work better after a quarter million mile ride in a suitcase, and in the extreme environment of the Moon.

                      C’mon Brent…if you have to go to that level of denial…..

                    • >”BTW, the SR71 holds the speed over a recognized course for NY to London “<

                      Good answer. Now was that so hard? See? When it's true, it's pretty easy.

                    • My “dress” cap has the outline from the front of an SR 71 with the letters “SR 71″….sent to me by a member of the Skunkworks.

                      It has started countless conversations with everybody asking if I flew them and telling me stories of when they were on flight crews for them and how they’d wash them with freon and keep the fuel hoses stuck in until they started taxiing since they leaked so badly. I even have a pic of a blown 454 that’s in the Lockheed museum, a starter for one. Now they’re in an outside museum since they’ll never be used again.

                      Recently speaking to a guy at Home Depot doing the same thing I was, getting “stuff” who said he was in town for a few months but lived right on the runway where the SR 71’s are kept and all he ever has to do to relive old times is look out the kitchen window.

                    • Nunz, For crying out loud the moon isn’t earth. Is even high school Newtonian physics a government lie to you?

                      “I merely ask for proof of their claims. I am offered virtually none”

                      Bullshit. I gave you an extensive list of third party verification previously. You just hand wave it away as a giant conspiracy spanning multiple governments and private groups.

                    • Ha! The SR71 hat brings back memories, 8.

                      I have a Gulfstream jet T-shirt. My late uncle gave it to me. He went to work for them in the early 80’s when he moved to GA. He did the upholstery in some of ’em.

                      I’ve had that shirt for over 30 years. It just sits in a drawer. I’m not a plane fan boy. I tried wearing it a couple of times 30 years ago, figuring it’s just a gray shirt, and who’s gonna pay attention to what it says on the front? But every time I’d wear it, “plane guys” would start conversations with me. I didn’t want to be bothered- in general- much less by people who wanted to converse about things in which I had absolutely no interest.

                      My uncle did the upholstery in Bill Cosby’s personal jet. The Cos liked his work; he sent him a basket of fruit.

                      Too bad my uncle wasn’t still alive- what with the Cos’s “sexual assault” scandal and alll- he coulda said that Bill tried to fuck him up the ass or something… 😉

                    • Now you’ve piqued my curiosity, Eric!

                      With all due respect, if I may ask for some pointing-in-the-right-direction as to what is proffered in the way of proof of their crafts orbiting the Moon and landing on the man, etc. as you say.

                      Nothing detailed or specific- just to point me where to look to see the nature of this proof. I don’t see how any proof can exist other than “They say”, but I’m willing to listen.

                      I have a feeling that this proof will be a lot like the “proof” for “circumnavigating the earth on the N/S axis”- which, in reality, were just trips that involved visits to the extremes of north and south, as I detail here: https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2017/10/13/wheres-ralph/#comment-672848

                      Can you picture any of these things being proven in a court? The circumnavigation thing would be over in an hour.

                      The Moon BS….after all the rigamarole, would basically come down to the trstimony of a handful of men -2 of them alcoholics- and who ALL worked for the agency which which was making the outlandish claim, or the crime family which sponsors it (Uncle)- and considering all of the damning testimony to the contrary- such as the “loss” of all the data; fake Moon rocks; anomalies in the extant imagery; etc. I think we know how that trial would end. [SWell, only if it were somehow conducted in an impartial arena instead of one of Uncle’s courts, with Uncle’s brainwashed slaves as jurors!]

                      But really, I’m open to what you may have, if it’s more than “They said…”- which, knowing you, I’m expecting it is- but scratching my head as to what it could be.

                    • exactly, Tor. Even if they had done it, it would not justify the theft and tyranny. It would just mean one less lie. Big deal.

                      Even if they had done it, it’s like bragging about being the guy who is in the Guiness Book Of World Records for smoking the most cigarettes at one time or having the longest finger nails or sniffing the most socks- it’s bragging about something which accomplished absolutely nothing…but which is actually worse than a stupid world record, because it not only accomplished nothing, but was used as an excuse to redistribute BILLIONS of dollars of other people’s wealth to the military-industrial complex and it’s favored cronies.

                • Bill Harrelson’s weight-class world record flight over both the north and south poles almost ended before it began.

                  While pushing the heavily fuel-laden Lancair IV onto a set of scales, the single-engine aircraft tipped backward and its carbon-fiber rudder struck the ground, damaging it.

                  “I seriously considered ending the record attempt right there,” said Harrelson, 64, who—with his wife Sue—had spent eight years building the specialized aircraft for this audacious, ultra-long-distance flight.
                  https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2015/june/pilot/f_globe

    • ekramp, you might want to do a little research on what the nuclear energy sector of Britain, France and Germany do with their waste…..flush it down a pipe….straight into the ocean.

      While gas powered plants are cleaner there have been none made to exceed the amounts of energy produced by plants they replaced. Well, the wind is cooking here today and thousands of windgen units in Tx. will be chunking out some serious wattage.

      I’d bet we’ve seen our last nuclear power plant in this country. What do you do with the wastes? Nobody has figured that out yet.

  10. This fom wikipedia: Range anxiety is the fear that a vehicle has insufficient range to reach its destination and would thus strand the vehicle’s occupants. The term, which is primarily used in reference to battery electric vehicles (BEVs), is considered to be one of the major barriers to large scale adoption of all-electric cars. The term range anxiety was first

  11. Lew’s got your back Eric. Just this week he’s posted two decent articles on this topic. The first by Jerry Reynolds at carprousa.com titled Stop the Electric Car Insanity questions why the big guys are trying to follow Musk’s loosing strategy and most of the points you covered here. The second by Larry LaBorde (on Thursday’s Lew Rockwell page) talks about things like CNG power and how much of the US electric is powered by coal. Larry makes an excellent quote for making the Musk lovers head explode by stating “There are over 1 billion (1,000 million) passenger cars and light duty vehicles in service around the world today. Currently there are only about 2 million electric vehicles (EVs) in service around the world. That is only 0.2% of the total of passenger light duty vehicles.” Just where do the electric car people think all this extra electricity will come from?

    • Hi Steve,

      Lew’s a friend; to me personally and to liberty, generally. A good dude (as The Dude might say).

      It’s critical to not give in or give up hope – because then they win.

      And that, I cannot abide!

  12. From ‘the great white north,’ another lonely voice of sanity:
    https://www.thestar.com/autos/2017/01/21/electric-cars-are-a-short-circuit.html
    Electric cars are a short circuit
    Jim Kenzie
    ‘…A friend of mine worked on the EV-1, General Motors’ first shot at a modern battery-powered car. When he left that project, his parting gift from his colleagues was a 75-foot-long extension cord, which I thought was terribly funny. He also came out of that experience saying that there are three types of liars in this world: liars, damned liars, and battery engineers.
    …There are other environmental facts to consider. Where do the batteries come from? Most car batteries today and in the foreseeable future are based on such benign elements as nickel and lithium.
    Much of our nickel still comes from the Sudbury region, where it is mined using Diesel-powered equipment. It is shipped by Diesel-powered trains to the west coast, loaded onto bunker-C-fuelled tankers, and shipped to China, where it is loaded back on to Diesel-powered trains and sent to the battery factories. The finished batteries go back onto Diesel-powered trains to China’s east coast, are loaded onto bunker-C-fuelled tankers and shipped back to North America, where they once again are loaded onto Diesel-powered trains and shipped to the car assembly plants. So, that’s nice and clean. Lithium? Hello, Galaxy Note 7 …But the larger problem for society — what happens to all those toxic chemicals when the battery IS done?
    We know how to recycle every milligram of a conventional car, and presumably somebody will come up with solutions and facilities for batteries, too. But we don’t have them yet, certainly not in the volume we’re going to need if electrics do become a big part of our fleet. Which they won’t; jus’ sayin’ …
    …A few Christmases ago, we found out how robust Toronto’s electricity distribution infrastructure is; an ice storm shut the city down for a week.
    Let’s plug 500,000 cars into that every night and see what happens. The city burns to the ground, is what happens. What’s more, and as previously noted, an electric cars business model depends on governments bribing potential customers with your and my tax dollars.
    That’s $14,000 in Ontario, which I think is the highest bribe in North America, mostly going to wealthy people who can afford any car they want? For, as noted above, approximately zero societal benefit? Why isn’t there rioting in the streets? Not to mention encouraging electric car purchase with these bribes, then having amongst the highest electricity prices anywhere? Better reread Adam Smith, Premier Wynne.
    Listen, if you want to spend your own money buying an electric car and pretend you are saving the planet, fill yer boots. Likewise, if you want to spend your own money buying a Porsche and pretend you’re driving on the Nurburgring on your way to work. Just don’t expect me to be happy with the government using my taxes to help you fulfil either fantasy. When any battery-powered car can compete on a level playing field without tax-funded bribes, give me a call…

      • eric, two old college buds bought Pria a few years ago both being hypocrites citing the carbon footprint. One of them got mad when I pointed out everybody else subsidizes his car since no hybrid had been built that didn’t use the taxpayer’s dollar.

        And besides that, they’re about the ugliest thing on the road.

        • 8, to me the biggest trouble with a Prius is that it’s almost always being driven by some asshole who never learned the first thing about driving. The most common encounter I have with that type of vehicle is to come up on one in the left lane going 10mph under the speed limit.

  13. It’s just a hunch, but my guess is that there will be a huge breakthrough in energy technology in the near future. Both gas-powered and electric vehicles will become obsolete.

  14. Don’t know about pure electric batteries, but my Prius battery is rebuildable cell by cell, it’s not thousands to replace, cells are available reasonably. It’s actually something that the home mechanic can still fix.

    • So, Kit, are you a home mechanic who has fixed a prius battery? Where did you buy the cell? How much did it cost? What’s the procedure for replacing a cell?

      • I admit that I have never had to do this, my Prius has 179,000+ miles on it and tha battery is still going strong. However, there are plenty of tutorials on the web that show how to do it, and it seems very straight forward. YouTube videos too. In Los Angeles there are many mechanics who will perform this service for around $500. I’ll also refer you to this article from Forbes on the subject. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybradley/2014/04/09/replacing-a-dead-prius-hybrid-battery-doesnt-have-to-cost-thousands-of-dollars/#6b05ff263ee9

        • Hi Kit,

          A Prius is a hybrid, not an electric car; it’s not a direct comparison. Your Prius relies on its IC engine at least half the time, which considerably reduces the load on the batteries.

          • Hi Eric,
            I understand that. I prefaced my first comment with “Don’t know about pure electric batteries” to address that. I am also sure that my Prius runs on gasoline most of the time. It is more “electric assisted”.

            I do perform all of my own maintenance so far. The web and YouTube have been a lifesaver as far as procedures I have performed to date.

            I actually took your advice on that purchase when you mentioned earlier that used ones were getting more affordable. I am sure that no pure electric car would make sense with the 200 miles I put on nearly every day. I drive for Lyft full time now, and the Prius is a real gas saver.

        • OK, Kit. I get it. You were just making a claim based on something you read somewhere and had no firsthand knowledge as to whether it was true. That’s the kind of thing that gets you ignored once it becomes a habit.

  15. It’s not a matter of EV vs IC. There will always be IC engines, especially diesel. I have a diesel pickup and an ’04 Mazdaspeed Miata. Neither is going anywhere. Both EV and IC can serve a purpose. We have a Model 3 on order. Why? I have solar, I can generate electricity. Gas/Diesel, not so easy. To charge a 50 kwh Battery from flat to full at $.11per kwh is $6 for 215 miles of driving while a similar sized IC engine at 30mpg would cost $17.92 at $2.50 per gallon.
    Battery life, especially for lithium ion, is affected by several factors. First is charging rates, if you run a battery flat and recharge it quickly you can shorten it’s life. Next is charging cycles, every time you charge the battery is a cycle. Finally, depth of discharge. This is how low you run the battery before you recharge. Tesla claims the Model 3 has a range of 215 miles. If you drive 50 miles round trip to work everyday and fully recharge before your next trip you’ve discharged the battery to 80% or a 20% depth of discharge. Tesla batteries are expected to have a service life of 3000 cycles or 8.2 years. Use it as I just described and you can expet 5000-6000 cycles. Never charge it until it’s dead and use a fast charger frequently and you’ll get 1500-2000 cyles. On a closing note Toyota has been putting batteries in the Prius for years and a replacement today ranges from $700-$2500.

    • Hi Fifth,

      How much did you spend to install your solar electricity rig? Just curious.

      Also, consider the example of people who “home brewed” biodiesel and “evaded” motor fuels taxes. I expect exactly the same thing to happen to people such as yourself.

      You should, too.

      Finally, you spent – or will, whenever you pick it up – at least $35,000 on your Model 3. This pretty much obviates whatever you save on fuel, doesn’t it?

      • Also, there has never been a case of a battery overheat and thermal runaway. It has happened in the Boeing airplanes, laptops, and cell phones. We as pilots cannot allow certain models of Samsung on our airplanes due to this. The battery technology has deep flaws.

      • Eric, about $20,000 for the first 7 kw and I have about half the materials to triple that. Yea, I know, that’s cheap. One of my skills is electrician. The bio-diesel is on the horizon but solar took first priority because it runs the whole house. You spend the $35,000 for one car or the other. My hope is that by the time the Mrs and I are both retired our only major annual expense are property taxes on the farm.

    • So when your Tesla is taxed with keeping the interior warm when it’s 20 below zero, the lights are burning, the radio on (or audio device of your choosing), and the wipers brushing snow off, how far are you willing to hike when the batteries rapidly fade?

      • In order, I’m in Texas, if it’s 20 below outside I have larger problems. You heat the vehicle before you disconnect the charger. The battery heater only has to keep the batteries above freezing not 98.6. Summer heat is a problem but I can roll the winows down if necessary. Once again, I’m a Texan we’ve evolved larger sweat glands and contrary to the popular belief of my children you will not die if the thermostat is set on 80. Most importantly, the audio device of my choice is the gentle whisper of my wifes voice (did I get that right honey?).

        • Doesn’t make sense to me. You could buy a similarly-sized economy car for $17K, instead of $35K for a model 3- and use the A/C whenever you want; and a few years down the road, have something that hasn’t depreciated as much (You lose on both ends with an EV) and which will run for 250K miles easily without major repair.

          All the compromises of not using the A/C, and such, may sound good in the company of other virtue-signalers….but paying twice as much to live with only half-as-good will get old fast in the real world.

    • Fifth, “Never charge it until it’s dead…”

      Pardon my ignorance here but is that not like saying never fill up your IC car until it runs out of gas? How does one drive their EV until it runs out of charge, timing it just right so that it dies in one’s garage with a charging station? Or any other charging station located – where?!

      With an IC car one can carry a gas can with them. But can one carry a “Triple Z” size battery with them when their EV runs out of juice?

      Again, pleading ignorance here; just mentioning some random thoughts that come to mind on the subject.

  16. I really dig the photo of Nader,though. Isn’t he so cute? He looks like the clean-cut Mormons that ride their bicycles around Blacksburg, gaily sharing the word of salvation with all of us godless heathens. As a matter of fact, he kinda was just that, the Evangelist of Public Safety! I wonder what Ralphie will get to do in Heaven? Maybe God will appoint him to monitor the hems of everyone’s robes, so no one trips over themselves and falls into Hell!

  17. Jesus, the more I look at this picture I see the sheer contrivance of the facade that it is. A “charging station” that resembles a gas pump, with a “hose”, no less. A charging port in the car, exactly where one would expect the “gas cap” to be. I mean look…….do you even KNOW why conventional cars have a gas cap there??? Government Interference, that’s why! I have had dozens of vehicles that used to fill at the rear. Now we all have to “pick the correct side” of a car to fill up, because of Ralphie, probably. But why this pretense, and stupid-as mimicry on an EV? It looks like “nudging” in action, to me. Monkey see, monkey do! Disguise the alien bastard-child to “blend in” with the natives, so to speak. Why not have a 3rd-rail pickup shoe underneath? Just drive up, lower the shoe, and charge it, and never leaver the driver’s seat! Why does this “new shit” require us to stand out in the fucking rain and handle a high-voltage appliance? This is some near-sight non-innovative crap for all the money it costs. Even the damned railroads know better than to pull this stupid shit!

  18. This prick Musk is the Anti-Christ. I don’t believe in drug-induced psychopathic hysteria, generally speaking, but this is really too much to put down to my own “wild imagination”, let alone coincidence. An orchestrated promo shot….just look how screwed up the whole thing looks! This too creepy, I need to go throw up and take a cold shower, Christ Almighty!

  19. OH Holy Shit! I just noticed something else in that photo….I shit you not! The Tesla logo….it’s a god-damned CRUCIFIX! Look at it for God’s sake…it’s a little man hanging on a cross……..what a sick-ass bastard. He needs to be burned alive in his own hellish monstrosity!

  20. I like that picture of Twat-Face “filling up” his latest abomination with his….OMG! What is that sick bastard doing???? I’ve seen some sick shit in my life, but is this guy porking his own baby here? Just who is juiced in that photo anyways? Call the FCC!! My eyeball-virginity has just been raped!!! Is it just me, or is this smug prick pulling off the biggest F.U. right in front of the cameras?
    As well orchestrated as HIS PR is, it ain’t no coincidence!

  21. Funnily enough – someones finally proposed a tax on Teslas!! Turns out these things are so heavy, and Norway has soo many of them now (because of the biggest tax benefits anywhere) they have started screwing up the roads !! so guess what ! A tax!!!! Though I’m never for taxes.as they always mis-allocate resources and create new problems…. have to admit, deep down inside this one is making me smile!!!!!

  22. If someone is concerned about the enviiiiiiiiiironment, encourage them to invest in Elio. It’s a much simpler approach to saving the enviiiiiironment and money than the strip mining necessary to get rare earth minerals out of the ground.

    • You’re absolutely right, Charles. While I’m no fan of Elios (Except that they used to make great frozen pizza!) the car company of the same name has the right idea for tree huggers. THAT is the way to do it- as opposed to highly technological 4500 lb. 0-60 in 3 seconds behemoths which cost a fortune and use toxic components, while not reducing, much less eliminating emissions, but just transferring them to a remote location- i.e. where the electricity is generated.

      But this is the American way….just have a good intention and spew artsy-fartsy sentiments…but DON’T EVER actually have to lift a finger or do without some luxury for one’s cause. If one cares about starving kids in Ethiopia or The Bronx, just cut a check to some bogus charity which spends most of it’s money on advertising and maintaining it’s real estate; and if one wants to save the earth, drive a Tesla, and only buy things which come in recyclable plastic, even though it will never actually be recycled- or will use more energy to recycle than if made anew from scratch, and has to be subsidized to make it worth while…like all of these pie-in-the-sky feel-good philosophies.

      • You’re just on the edge of the woods of how unreal everything “we” “know” is.

        You didn’t grow up an a street. Or live in house with an address in some city, state, nation, and planet.

        It’s all turtle twattage all the way down.

        Without the state, at the age of 5 or 6 you could have walked out the front door of your taconite shack and started living for yourself. You have no family except for the shared Stockholm Syndrome experience you mutually endured.

        I pity your poor abused mother and hapless naked stalinist chicken of a father. As also I do my own.

        Maybe “Mom” would have been greatly relieved. Had you just wandered away never to return when she still had time to do what she wanted to do absent all the aggressive authoritarianisms.

        There was no plan no destiny. If any of our lives and beliefs were true, there wouldn’t need to be a gun beyond the whole Plato’s Cave Passion Play we’ve all been acting in against our will.
        https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/platoscave.gif

        I’m a Romani myself, in the sense that I was within the sphere of Rome’s Empire around the same time there was a Roman Empire that encompassed much of the Western World. Not any kind of Pollock Kraut Mick Limey Wop or any of the other official noble ethnicities of renknown.

        My mama used to dance for the money the elites would throw
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86S-c-hV8uc

        My family has had to play nice through all kinds of bullshit polities and Clover Control rat mazes over the generations.

        We wrote what we were told on their papers. We said what we had to say when we saw them in the street.

        But in our hearts we never were and never will be part of any of their geographic gamesmanship.

        I’m typing in a font and with a few repeating symbols and have an approximation of what you think it means, but it means nothing to me, because its all been imposed by Authoritarian Assholes.

        Maybe Trump, Bannon, and Miller can turn this Western Juggernaut around, maybe it can’t. I’ll miss it in some ways, but it isn’t the be all end all to me.

        I have a chosen lovingly taught real identity that is real and sacred only to me and mind.

        As much as I like you all here, you’re all fakes in my books. Just because you firmly believe in the characters of your guvgiven names and credit reports, doesn’t lend a bit of legitimacy to any of it.

        One big disaster can rise up at any time, whether artificial, or natural, and you’re all just a bunch of unknown Ozymandiases to my eyes.

        All 300 plus million of you are statistically likely to be nothing more than trunkless legs, sooner rather than later.

        Look on my institutions and writings, ye Mighty, and despair! Laugh and cry is more likely.

        Before to many suns moons and tides nothing about you remains: you’re just rounds and round circularly reasoned decay of a colossal star spangled wreck, boundless and bare.

        Why should anyone else even about any of the things you care?

        The only truth is the lone and level sands stretching beyond the horizon line and then farther away.

  23. It will take some time but the government will buy up all the land and then deny access to it. By this time almost everyone will be living in cites, our enjoyment of driving long gone. The process of ruining the driving experience involves making cars into washing machines that cost too much and can’t be repaired.

    I cannot comprehend the desire to have all the latest electronics and safety devices in a vehicle such that these interfere with awareness as a driver. Maybe these things can be separated from the core operating systems of the vehicle. This way they can be thrown out with no consequence.

    Handsome hollow shells of electric cars will meet their early demise at the crusher. Their batteries will be recycled. The subsides will be exhausted. New dependencies will emerge. Cries of unfairness! Subsidies restored! Pork barrels overflowing!

    • GreenDump,

      “these interfere with awareness as a driver”

      Are you saying that what passes as a driver in 2017 is aware?

      The very reason this garbage is so popular is because people don’t want to be aware. Reality is too painful for them to even observe, let alone contemplate.

      They ride with pride in their rolling cocoons.

      • Ralph is driving and text messaging while eating pizza and reading the newspaper. He’s going the distance. He’s going for speed.

        • Eric geht die Strecke

          er geht für die Geschwindigkeit

          As we speed towards a bloody finish, the flags go down
          The blog fans get up and they get out of town

          The arena is empty except for one man
          Eric driving and striving as fast as he can

          The sun has gone down and the moon has come up
          And long ago some clover left with the cup

          But Eric’s driving and striving and hugging the turns
          And thinking of Missus Eric for whom he still burns
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMoRaIYgpQM

          De mala gana se agachó en la línea de salida
          Motores de bombeo y golpes en el tiempo

          Los destellos de luz verde, las banderas subir
          Agitación y la quema, que anhelan la copa

          Se daftly maniobra y el músculo para el rango
          Rápido de combustible ardiendo en un tanque vacío

          Temerario y salvaje, que fluye a través de los giros
          Sus proezas podent y la popa en secreto

          Eric’s gone full sisyphus
          Eternally riding the steed…

  24. I’m glad you’ve taken a break on bashing the subsidies (on which I agree with you) and are focusing on the different design characteristics of ICE and EV. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. It seems Ralph is missing in action but EV manufacturers (particularly Tesla) have thought about these issues (I won’t call them defects) already. Let me address them one by one.

    1. EVs do require less maintenance than ICE because of the fewer moving parts and far less upkeep requirements. As for the battery itself, there are many examples of EVs having 100K, 200K, and even 300K miles with little degradation. Hardly needing a full replacement for something that many drivers won’t get to in even 8-10 years.

    https://insideevs.com/200000-miles-tesla-model-s-experienced-6-battery-degradation/

    https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-s-250000-miles/

    http://www.motortrend.com/news/a-tesla-model-s-has-hit-300000-miles/

    2. As you know over 90% of the charging is done at home so 6-8 hour charging times aren’t really an issue because people do sleep you know? It does require a L2 charger but an existing 30A dryer outlet will do. Installation of a 40A circuit costs a few hundred dollars at most. Pretty good tradeoff for NEVER having to go to a gas station again.

    3. I’m actually glad that EVs don’t pay the gas tax. Most of it doesn’t go into infrastructure anyway. It just goes to the bloated government bureaucracy. But most states will figure out how to tax EV owners. Some already have. As far as building out a charging infrastructure, the manufacturers have taken responsibility for building it out. Tesla will have 10K stalls by the end of the year and a consortium including BMW, Mercedes, and VW are doing the same. Nissan already has thousands in Japan, too.

    4. Weather affects EV just as much as ICE vehicles. One benefit of EVs is that they don’t waste much power when stuck in traffic like ICE cars do when idling.

    5. Range when accelerating is not as a big issue you make it out to be. Not everyone is racing all day long. Tesla has three models that get 300 miles of range. Even in the worst weather, going at 75 mph, uphill, against a 30 mph headwind, it will still get enough range to get to the next supercharger station. They are currently spaced out 150 miles apart all across the US. If you’re not going long distance, it’s also enough to get you home so you can charge back to full again by the time you wake up in the morning.

    • DM,
      You are still demonstrating that you are the same Clover you were 9 months ago. YOU define EV range in terms of running from one charging station to the next. No EV will ever touch the versatility of the ICE. You wish everyone to be as ignorant to the history of transportation as you seem to be. Do you think electric motive power is a NEW IDEA? You probably also believe that the ICE/EV hybrid is a new concept in transportation, even though it is nearly 100 years old, in practice, let alone concept. Or perhaps that automated transportation is cheap, efficient, and 100% fool-proof, because that is, also, incorrect. It is not me that says these things either, but rather, an entire global transportation industry, of which, personal vehicles for individual mobility is only a very TINY, MICROSCOPIC, portion of. Oh, sorry, I got carried away there for a moment, you probably don’t have the slightest clue what I’m talking about, do you? Exactly, have nice day, Clover.

      • EVs have been around forever but battery technology has advanced quite a bit.

        I never say EVs are for everyone. But for many, it makes a lot of sense.

        • Hi DM,

          Battery technology has advanced, but it’s still not close to being economically or practically competitive with gasoline technology. This is why current EVs emphasize other attributes, such as quickness and technology (and of course, that they are “green,” which is hugely debatable).

          • I just did a quick google search about the price for a Li-on car battery pack. In the last ten years, the price has dropped from $1000 per Kwh (kilowatt hour) to $227 per Kwh. Now, consider the fact that one gallon of gasoline contains about 33 Kwh of energy. So, the cost of a 33 Kwh battery pack that contains the same amount of energy as one gallon of gasoline is about $7,500. The battery industry claims that electric motors are three times more efficient than an IC. So, the cost would be about $2,500 in order to match the millage of one gallon of gasoline. In order to have a range of 200 miles, a small car would need a 50 Kwh battery pack which would cost about $11,000. (I paid $1,200 for my 97 Subu which has been a pretty good car for the last seven years.) The average person knows nothing about basic physics which is one reason why they are so easy to dupe. Another way to look at it is to consider that the retail price for one Kwh is about twelve cents. The cost to store that amount of electrical energy is $227. In other words, it costs about 2000 times more to store electrical energy than it costs to generate it. It will never make any economic sense to store large amounts of electrical energy.

    • ” As for the battery itself, there are many examples of EVs having 100K, 200K, and even 300K miles with little degradation. ”

      Those articles you linked are obvious lies. No Tesla has ever gone 25k miles without failing, let alone 250k miles. See how easy it is to just make a claim? Anybody can do it.

    • Hi DM,

      On battery life: The links you posted do not reflect real-word use and the fact remains that batteries wear out and – in the case of EVs, because the battery packs are very large and very “hi tech” – cost a fortune, both new and to replace. The economics alone make the whole thing absurd.

      You write:

      “As you know over 90% of the charging is done at home so 6-8 hour charging times aren’t really an issue… ”

      This is quite an assertion. It assumes a great deal. It assumes people won’t mind the perpetual having to plan their routines are around charging times; that just being able to get in a car and go – now, without planning – isn’t a concern to most people. I find this risible. We live in a fast-paced/right-now economy. Having to deal with plugging in a car – every day – and waiting, hours, every day… really?

      You don’t mind having to spend a few hundred bucks (probably more) to install the necessary electrical hook-up; I am guessing many people will. You like the idea of “never having to go to a gas station again.” Ok. I suspect most people prefer being able to refuel their car in less than 5 minutes.

      On taxes: Obviously, I don’t like them, either. That said, how will the roads be paid for absent motor fuels taxes? It is inevitable that other taxes will replace them and these will not be anonymous, pay as you go. They will involve monitoring of your usage/mileage. The Big Brotherism this will entail is horrible to contemplate. Because it will entail monitoring all electrical usage. What do you suppose “smart” meters and “smart” appliances are for?

      Weather does not affect an IC car nearly as much as it does an EV. Heat, for example, is generated effectively for free via using the heat of the engine. The blower motor uses very little power. And an engine is not appreciably affected by colder or hotter weather while a battery is.

      And we get back to recharge. The worst gas hog, driven pedal to the metal, may suck its tank dry in 200 miles or even less. But it can be refueled in less than 5 minutes whereas an electric car….

      • My friend with the 2011 Nissan Leaf recently had to get a new battery in her car. To be honest it wasn’t worth replacing as the car is only worth about $3,500.

        • Hi Rich,

          I’d like to like electric cars. Really. I am all for less expensive and more convenient ways to get around. But the electrics available are neither.

          I just don’t get it.

          • I think if they actually wanted more electric vehicles, they would allow golf carts on sides streets and bike paths (just don’t let them on busy roads, we don’t need more slow moving things). Golf carts don’t seem to be problems on side streets in gated and golf communities. I don’t see many bicycle users wanting to share “their” paths with golf carts though. That would have to be overcome too. Granted golf carts are also toys for the wealthy, but maybe some people could use them in place of second or third cars if they could be used locally.

            • Rich, they actually have glorified golf carts -such as GEM electric ‘cars’ which are legal in most locales to drive on roads where the speed limit is <40MPH but they never seemed to have caught-on (They've around for quite a while).

              Americans are too spoiled….they have to have 'real cars' which go 90MPH and convey status or fashion, even if it's just to run to Kwiki-mart 2 blocks away, or take the brats to the endless adult-supervised communal activities (They have 4-seater model GEMs).

              Then again, with what those things cost new (Golf carts; GEMs; et al) they are pretty absurd….but they can be had used pretty inexpensively.

    • 1) I rarely need to anything besides oil changes and coolant changes as far as engine work goes.
      Brakes, suspension, tires, interior parts, body and paint (I live in the rust belt), etc those are where most of my time goes and electrics still have all that to worry about.
      2) Except now the car becomes another battery I must remember to charge or be SOL when I need it. This is why I still have corded electric tools in addition to the battery ones. This is why I have gas tools. I don’t need more batteries to chase after.
      3) If you think tax evasion is going to be allowed forever you’re delusional. It is specifically being tolerated for the present to introduce tax per mile and other intrusive forms later that government can leverage for the only thing it likes more than money, power.
      4) Being stuck in traffic can be mostly solved with proper traffic engineering, but the government has other things besides throughput in mind. If this is the best thing electrics have to offer it is another case of government justifying its own power in a cascade that never happens without what it did at the start of it.
      5) I would guess then that Telsa Motor’s software uses the unsold capacity of the battery to do it. TM apparently makes all their batteries the high capacity version including all the cells and then software locks the capacity. That means everyone has the big battery but the software prevents using it without payment. That capacity can then be used to mask difficulties to the user. Of course this means that people are either paying for cells they can’t use or TM is giving them away hoping people who ‘upgrade’ will pay for it all in the long run. This physical reality wasn’t covered in the great unlocking of people fleeing hurricanes getting their car’s battery capacity ‘unlocked’. My guess TM isn’t so stupid as to sell all that battery without getting payment so its getting paid for by the buyer (and taxpayer?). Buy the battery then buy unlocking it. It’s a software subscription…. TM controls how much of the battery you paid for that you get to use.

      • Hey Brent,

        Ignore anything else I posted, and watch some of this video on Galen Winsor or read the transcript I’ll post when you can.

        tl;dr fissionable material is totally safe as long as you have a diluted version which you keep dry and has no chance of reaching critical mass.

        Being afraid of handling it makes as much sense as irrationally terrified of Tri Nitro Toluene. (C7H5N3O6)

        • I don’t know what radioactive material has to do with anything I posted but I believe the dangers are both understated and overstated depending on the situation and which is best for the “stakeholders”.

          • Most cigs in Homeland America are mandated to be fire safe if you can believe it. The packs/cartons somewhere anyway, say FSC on them.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_safe_cigarette

            This happened only recently. Good ol’ science and industry making our lives so much saaaaaaafer.

            One can only imagine what this FSC adulteration is really doing to people and for what reasons.

            One’s response to smoking is the ultimate shibboleth for me.

            Just ask anyone, do you mind if I smoke, and see how much of a clover they probably are about it. You don’t even have to have tobacco. Just ask for their permission. Give them the power.

            Reach in your pocket, and then say you’ve changed your mind or whatever, if that’s the expected response in your normie interaction scenario.

            You will be greatly surprised I’d bet.

            • Tor, I sell beads at pow wows. I keep a cigar going as a form of libtard repellent. It works like rats a’fightin, as Huck Finn said.

              • Pow Wows. Now that sounds like fun I haven’t had in 40 years or so. Good memories.

                As to the evil cigar that violates everyone’s lungs’ saaaaafety…

                I’m not knocking the women who can’t tolerate smoke. Maybe the older or sicker men also.

                But communicate your needs with humanity and style.

                Don’t act like there’s some kind of “settled science” regarding the matter. And imagine you are some kind of heroic scholar for being a wimpish intolerant sissy.

                It’s the same principle at work that’s destroying all the good cars everyone loves so much.

                You get what you give.

                Be tolerant and stoic about things you find unpleasant. In no time, you will find it’s not a big deal, and you don’t even think about it anymore.

                Maybe this won’t happen for you overnight. But work on it, and help others do the same.

                Eventually things will improve in all aspects of our society, if you start with the little things you can personally do right now.

                • Pow wows attract a few libtards of the rock rubbing bliss bunny type as well as some SJWs. Having a good repellant spares me from having to listen to them whine.

                  I don’t like cigarettes, the smell repels me, but cigars always have a pleasant aroma outdoors. Indoors is a different matter.

                  You’re right about tolerance, I think. It’s like respect in that you have to bring some to get some.

              • Haha! Nice Shibboleth, Tor!

                Back in Jew York, ya’d start a riot just by asking.

                Here? A lot of people still smoke. You can spot the transplants, ’cause theys the ones what asks!

                Wasn’t that long ago that you could still see people smoking in the supermarkets and such here- but of course, “they” put the kibosh on that recently.

                I really don’t understand this “addiction” thing either. I have more than a handful of cigarettes in a day, and I’m sick of them. I find 3 or at most 4 cigs in a day, on the occasions when I have cigs, is plenty.

                I couldn’t even fathom smoking 20- much less 80 in ONE day…and over and over again every day. If there’s something “addictive” in ’em, I guess it doesn’t work on me.

                Last pack I bought, i ended up throwing half of them out they were so bad- and they were expensive name-brands too. Nothing but self-rolled 5 Brothers for me from now on, iffin I have any at all. (I hear you can order decent cigs from Indonesia- like Djoram Coklat….but ya have to buy ’em by the carton. I don’t even like buying by the pack! I wish they sold cigs individually! (Some places used to- and of course, they outlawed even THAT!)

                And yeah, the self-extinguishing cigs…. I’m sure THAT’s good for ya!

      • Li Ion batteries seem to get permanently hurt if used to below 15% per the warning on cell phones. I’m guessing once(evidently that’s so since I had to use mine down to single digits one day and that was years ago)they get pulled down below 15% on a regular basis it degrades them.

  25. We had a Corvair when my brother and I were in high school. My brother put his barbell set into the front trunk. Bingo. A good mechanic told me in the late 60s that all the Corvair needed was better suspension which would have been easy.

  26. Musk is much like this Weinstein guy. Ignore the sleazy corrupt creep at the top because he is some sort of “visionary”. (never mind most real visionaries of the world are ignored during their lifetime).

    Someday he will get what my grandma always said people like him get, his comeuppance. Like Weinstein, someday, his crimes can no longer be ignored. At some point this fraud will be over. They will no longer be able to defend him. He has stolen so much he someday will be caught. They will then bail on him like rats. Some won’t be able to escape and go down with him. We will see if Weinstein’s scandal takes down that clown Clooney and Stone with him.

    It sucks that it could take decades to take Musk down and that he will likely continue to steal billions of taxpayer dollars until then. Most likely Ralph will be long dead by then. It sucks that little potatoes like him will likely get away with it. But compared with Musk, he is nothing. He made Musk possible, but that’s about it.

    • Take comfort in the fact that even Nickolai Caucesceu and his bitch-wife eventually got shot like filthy dogs by their own former-supporters! Unlike Hitler’s death, you can watch the mangy curs get theirs right on You-Tube. Yippee! When can we drag our blood-sucking parasites out into the streets for good-ole-fashioned tar-and-feathering? Oh, wait, we should at least get the codes and passwords to their Swiss bank accounts first, and let them watch us reclaim our stolen livelihoods, THEN have them drawn and quartered.

  27. No noise from Ralphie, why? Because he already made his fame, and fortune. In fact, most of these “silent” watchdogs and whistleblowers on someones payroll as an economic advisor, or PC advocate. They use their “talents” to conceal, gloss over, and provide a marketing facade for the “envisionaries that will save our economy”, you know, Musk, and all the other crony-crapitalists. That’s right, Crapitalism, did I just coin a new one here? No, Wal-Mart has been exercising crapitalism for decades, and made billions! Why shouldn’t our entire nation’s economy be built on that same principle? Reuse, Reduce, Recycle, is out the window Baby!
    Buy, Consume, Dispose, aka Lather, Rinse Repeat. This is what will save our mighty empire of imaginary electronic non-reality. Instant gratification, BEFORE you even buy it, what could be better? Ever look at what these “envisionaries” use for transport? Bullet proof Cadillac and Lincoln SUVs, Learjets and Bell JetRangers.
    Sheeple, what is wrong with this picture???????

    • No noise from Ralphie because he is a Marxist, and the electric car/”green” agenda is a component of their plan for gaining full control.

      • They say every time they try to circumnavigate from the North Pollock to the South Pollock, they get so cold and dizzy that they never make it all the way.

        They’re probably using those same drunken astronaut pilots to fly these mission too.

        Maybe they should try using some of those Hurricane Hunting guys.

        If you believe in that hurricane stuff, that those guys are already used to spinning around at 200 mph when they fly into the hurricanes.

        Shouldn’t be that much different for them spinning around as they fight against the supposed spinning of the big blue Marble that they claim is our Mother Earth.

  28. I saw that the new Tesla SUV monstrosities were being recalled due to faulty seats or something. I have a feeling the engineering incompetence at Tesla will start catching up with them regardless of how expensive they make their cars.

    • The day of reckoning is coming for Musk, there’s no way he’ll produce the numbers he needs to become profitable. He’ll be permanently stuck in production hell because he/Tesla doesn’t have the scaling expertise.

      He’ll need another economic downturn to blame the whole fiasco on and he’ll either again be bailed out with a government loan or will have to sell/merge with another company to save what’s left. After that, the new owner will eventually boot out his bi-polar ass like PayPal did.

      • Hi Mr. Friendly,

        I agree. I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. The hysteria-hype this guy spews has become literally comical; like a Saturday Night Live skit. Mars! In Five years! Re-power Puerto Rico!

        And of course, his preposterous cars.

        • His automated electric big rigs should be a big hit. No doubt he got truckers to write the program for it. Do those trucks swerve to avoid a collision? If so, do they know how to modulate the trailer brakes only to straighten a skid?

          Probably they avoid only certain sized lifeforms. I say this because I was headed to the yard one day from my house. There’s a curve in the road that’s blind because of the high berm of dirt. I saw a vehicle at the house that day and slowed more than usual. As luck would have it, I was going slow enough to lock the brakes and not run over a 4 year old girl and her puppy. After I’d stopped(slow down heart and get out of my throat). The house had been empty for some time and wasn’t livable but that didn’t keep a bunch of wetbacks(sorry, I meant US citizens in the making)to take up residence.
          The little girl was smiling at me and the adults wouldn’t come out the door to get her. Instead they simply called to her and the puppy followed. Once she was inside I proceeded in 1st gear at an idle. I wasn’t hard for me to remember the house was occupied even though they left a few days later.

          There’s a guy named Super Trucker Dan who regularly posts on YT. He addressed a question from one of his followers about automated trucks. He suggested flatbed operators weren’t likely to be replaced for a long time due to all the things a flatbed operator has to do….and correctly. I can’t argue with that.

        • “Mars in 5 years!”- That truly is hilarious- ‘specially from a guy who couldn’t even get a $35K subsidized economy car to market in 5 years…..

              • Now that’s funny.

                As to manned missions…


                The United States’ Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. There have been six manned U.S. landings (between 1969 and 1972)

                I put it in bold, because as Buzz Lightyear said, when he got drunk and crashed the moonwagon on the 3rd mission, our mission hic is to hic boldly go where no man has gone before. (pukes in his helmet and passes out in the Sea of Tranquility)
                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maria_on_the_Moon

                Tell me, have you ever navigated the 22 seas and 1 ocean of Lovely Luminous Luna?

                Where wast thou when Iyov lamented in his famous book about how I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

                Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

                Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?

                When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it, And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

                Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;

                Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? Declare if thou knowest it all.

                Clark’s Prayer
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02v0301n0aU

                • Does alcohol work in space? (It don’t work down here! Just tends to make brains not work!). I thought it was from pissing in their space suits. Instead’a dumping it out the trap door, it just went up into the helmet and fermented for enjoyment on the ride home. That’s why they had to land in the water; they were too blotto to hit any kind of a fixed target on land.

                  • Yeah they always have a designated capsule driver assigned by Houston.

                    But something about the vacuum of space and the zero gravity makes them all say the heck with it every time.

                    Silly drunken astro nuts!

                  • Nun, it works for some. I can only hit certain notes with the help of bourbon and I’m not the only one. Alcohol enables one to remember things….when once again under the influence. I figured this out in the 60’s and now scientists have found the same to be true under same conditions. Drink something like good bourbon, or even cheap bourbon, study a subject and it can be recalled under like conditions once again. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times I aced not only quizzes but difficult finals using this method.

                    I made a high school teacher mad enough to nearly have a stroke on a chemistry final with this method.

                    I used the method in college too only nobody gave a shit. I could ace a final and the next week not remember enough about the course to make a damn.

                    Walk hard, hard
                    Down life’s rocky road
                    Walk bold, hard
                    That’s my creed, my code

                    I’ve been scorned and slandered and ridiculed too
                    Had to struggle everyday my whole life through
                    Seen my share of the worst that this world can give
                    But I still got a dream and a burning rage to live

                    Walk hard, hard
                    Though they say, “You’re all done”
                    Walk bold, hard
                    Though they say, “You’re not the one”
                    Even if you’ve been told time and time again
                    That you’re always gonna lose and you’re never gonna win
                    Gotta keep that vision in your mind’s eye
                    When you’re standing on top of a mountain high

                    You know when I was a boy, folks used to say to me
                    “Slow down Dewey, don’t walk so hard”
                    And I used to tell them, “Life’s a race and I’m in it to win it
                    And I’ll walk as damn hard as I please
                    How do I walk boys?”

                    When I meet my maker on my dying day
                    Gonna look him in the eye, by God I’ll say
                    “I gave my word and my word was good
                    I took it in the face and I walked as hard as I could”

                    • It only makes sense smoking and drinking are positive beneficial things.

                      Otherwise people wouldn’t do them.

                      Science can go jump in the woods on this one, I don’t know why anyone would give them much respect on these two issues.

                      They’ve been total useless cucks about intoxicants so far.

                      Gyspy Identititarian

                      Bubble Dance (Rihanna) – Valerian
                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JMtVbYgb7E

                    • I’ve always maintained that smoking in moderation was actually BENEFICIAL.

                      Most of my relatives have been moderate smokers….they’ve all lived long and have stayed healthy till near the end.

                      Most recently, my aunt passed away last year, at 95. She smoked <1/2 pack a day since long before I was born.

                      Most Dagos in northern Italy smoke…still live into their 90's- emphysema and ling cancer are rare there.

                      It's gotten to the point where you can't even buy decent cigarettes here in the US anymore. Everything's turned into weak watered-down garbage. If you can even find non-filters anymore, they even suck now.

                      What I wouldn't give for a pack of good old unfiltered Lucky Strikes made the way they were years ago.

                      I used to buy a pack of cigs once every 3 or 4 months or so- but i haven't been bothering lately- there's nothing good left out there.

                      Thinking about ordering me some 5 Brothers tobacky and rolling it- now THAT makes a good cigarette that'll put some hair your chest.

                      Nut yeah- the anti-tobacco hysteria is yet another government lie. When are they going to do a study with people who smoke in moderation? No…they only do 'em with people who heavily. Yeah, you smoke 80 (or even 20) freakin' cigs a DAY, you're gonna kill yourself. Really, how many things- even vegetables, could you take in such constant and huge quantities, and nOT it do ya harm?

                      But of course, Uncle has to extrapolate that into "any tobacco use".

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