tax revolt is terrorism

In many cases private ownership is funded by public funds with the idea of protecting the public -- doing the things necessary to ensure energy security, food security, even national security by funding military readiness.

The legacy of the 20th century is that national security and corporate longevity has been placed ahead of the combined intelligence of the public to engage its collective funds in meaningful ways that assist in the welfare of all, including the marginalized and/or disenfranchised 'members' of mainstream society.

To underwrite change without violence, without dictating market activity or interrupting markets that employ caveat emptor as their market viability, or even without directing public money to research and development of technologies for the purpose of transferring new developments to interested parties, even income tax revolt would be ineffective because the tax revenue generated by the public's dependency on non-renewable forms of energy protects government from having to rely on how much each participating member of the public is able to generate in personal revenue.

What we have is not freedom. Freedom is a misnomer that provides no limitation on the individual or the enterprise. Freedom does not include the ideas of interdependence and governance. Contextually, the modern definition of freedom is the right to participate in making change. Once the ability of the individual to participate is compromised by means of financial dislocation this freedom is made inert. The cost/benefit ratio of participation impinges on the ability of the societal dependent to survive within the system.

The connection between capitalism and democracy is the distribution of domination, quite possibly superior to any other system of approach to governance, but one in which the service of upholding and regulating it pander to an elite nonetheless.

Where policy infringes on freedom is its unwilingness to acknowledge the incorporation of social dictums that run contrary to the operation of the government of the day -- communism for instance. The 'system' of government is a social network whose bounds are loosely defined by the longevity of its supporters. As the ability of corporations to promote policy on a timeline that spans generational boundaries and by this token exceeds the system that limits governance it is apparent that it is the corporation that has the greatest influence on government and the spending of public money to its own advantage.

Income tax revolt is therefore an act of sedition or terrorism in the eyes of government that believes the collection of tax is a measure to protect the public from the threats it has studied on behalf of the public.

the passionate pressure seeks reflection

Scouring the Net for pithy commentary I've come across both the elevated and the base.

One slip on the keyboard can trigger something deep and dark to eclipse your horizon or lead you to the passionate embrace of the sublime.

And then it is time to move on.

Whatever your prediliction, there isn't much time to really understand where you've gone without taking the time to reflect on the sights seen on the journey.

May you someday have the time to reflect and build true memories.


-- your conversion has begun --

the state of self-loathing in the realm of discontent

Being an environmentalist does not equate with self-loathing. Nope.

For accuracy's sake let's say you are not an environmentalist.

That'll do.


-- the cryptic is necessary for brevity --

questions I asked today

Electric vehicles in India

Does USAID monitor the involvment of American corporations in developing countries where it concerns the readiness of nations to accept non-traditional technology in a market for which a regulatory environment may not be readily available?

Mission-critical blows away wind power

This discussion occurred on Sunday, April 4th, 2004 commencing at approximately 8:17 p.m. and ending at 8:35 p.m.

Kelly: Hello! My name is Kelly, and I am a (Live) Fanatical Service Specialist with Rackspace. I am here as a site guide to answer any questions you may have about our products and services.
Kelly: Are you researching a new hosting project or looking to replace or upgrade an existing solution?

Guest53215: i was kind of interested to learn a bit about your hosting. I wanted to find some host that is focused on using only renewable energy
Guest53215: hello?
Guest53215: Kelly, are you there?

Kelly: Hello,

Guest53215: hey

Kelly: sorry just got that through, one moment

Guest53215: np

Kelly: Okay I am sorry abou the delay
Kelly: well as to your requirements I think they are wondeful, or your interest

Guest53215: s, ok
Guest53215: thanks

Kelly: I am not aware of any hosting company doing that.

Guest53215: really?
Guest53215: well, that's not good

Kelly: at this time renewable engergy is just not cost effective in a production environment, servers take a lot of power.
Kelly: and they require absolute redundancy

Guest53215: i guess they must
Guest53215: how many do you have on site?

Kelly: even a second of downtime and doctors lose patient records, sytems and applications fail, etc.
Kelly: we have around 9,300 across 4 locations.

Guest53215: so, i guess wind power is out of the question then
Guest53215: you don't suppose I could have you send me an email with this information do you?

Kelly: Yes, well I think there may be a market for mixing in renewable resources with traditional power at some point, but with data centers, they focus more on 100% availabilty, redundant power grids, etc..

Guest53215: i am tim.****@sympatico.**

Kelly: I can send you an overfview pdf.

Guest53215: i can't capture this conversation

Kelly: yes I can send this to you.
Kelly: and an overview.

Guest53215: can you describe the problem with renewables?
Guest53215: ok, that would be great

Kelly: well I think I just did, but I am not an engineer.

Guest53215: i am still interested in your company
Guest53215: is there a way to become a reseller?

Kelly: As I see it, essentially it costs serveal times more to use that type of energy

Guest53215: can you be absolutely sure you are giving me valid information

Kelly: and in a competitive market place that is a difficult number to add to themix.

Guest53215: someone's career may depend on this
Guest53215: not yours

Kelly: I cannot be sure, however I know that we do not have solar powered servers or wind powered servers, and immediate plans for that in the future.
Kelly: Do I know it is more expensive and less reliable at this time, of course that is a given.

Guest53215: what about purchasing electrical power from companies that provide energy from renewable sources?

Kelly: do I know servers take a lot of power and that if they are mission critical, yes.
Kelly: Well I think most providers do that, I know the our local power service uses some wind generatros.
Kelly: generators.

Guest53215: ah, well that's different then

Kelly: not sure of the mix, just that they do R&D and work with renewable resources.
Kelly: as to reseller programs
Kelly: we do not offer them in the commons sense, meaning

Guest53215: do you know the name of your power company?
Guest53215: is it the same for each of the four locations?

Kelly: you cannot buy our servers and reseller them with your own branded name.

Guest53215: oh, ok

Kelly: No it is not, we are based in San Antonio, and that would be City Public Service of San Antonio,

Guest53215: you can just move registered IP addresses then, i guess, right?

Kelly: I have no idea who it would be in Virgina, or London.

Guest53215: London, England?

Kelly: I am not sure what you mean, we assign IP addresses, you move domain names.
Kelly: yes London, England.

Guest53215: whoops, sorry

Kelly: You can resell from our servers.

Guest53215: where is your other location?

Kelly: to smaller webhosting clients
Kelly: we have 2 data centers in San Antonio.

Guest53215: oh, ok. and you are based in San Antonio?

Kelly: our servers start from the low $400's a month.
Kelly: yes we are based in San Antonio.

Guest53215: do you also do development?

Kelly: Is that the kind of price range you were considering?

Guest53215: as in database development and such

Kelly: we do not, we have clients who do that, we do not compete with them.

Guest53215: well, i was hoping for something a little less expensive

Kelly: Typcially hosts who do development either do not do it well.
Kelly: Or they do not host as well as they should

Guest53215: so what's on your typical backend then?

Kelly: yes again we are geared toward mission critical environments, we host for a great number of high profile clients.
Kelly: we have 4-5 Tier providers per data center.
Kelly: Tier1
Kelly: I meant

Guest53215: lol
Guest53215: right
Guest53215: ok

Kelly: AT&T, Spring Qwest

Guest53215: wow
Guest53215: big names

Kelly: no transit stuff like Level 3, Internap, or Abovenet etc
Kelly: and of course Sprint, no spring and TimeWarner, UUnet etc.

Guest53215: so you are a major part of the backbone i would guess

Kelly: anyway, we do have a company loosely affiliated with us
Kelly: www.serverbeach.com

Guest53215: what do they do?
Guest53215: hosting?

Kelly: they start around $100 a month
Kelly: yes, dedicated self-managed servers

Guest53215: that's getting down around my price range...
Guest53215: is it better if I talk to them or can you do that for me?
Guest53215: and are we talking in USD?

Kelly: I would check them out, they do nice work, you would have to contact them.
Kelly: Yes in uSD
Kelly: they were started by our founder
Kelly: but a totally indpendent company

Guest53215: i guess i'll take the recommendation...
Guest53215: can you still send me this conversation?

Kelly: Yes I can do that.

Guest53215: that would be fantastic...


World renowned wind expert Paul Gipe is also making a presentation on wind energy to the Ontario Rural Council at the Holiday Inn in Peterborough on April 6th, 2004 at 1:00 pm.
Mr. Gipe has shown Ontarians how they can win big with wind under advanced renewable tariffs.

-- and my sister-in-law calls ME a shit disturber... where did she come up with THAT!! --

-~`craZy talk -- free energy -- craZy talk`~-

> I would also like to experiment with on-board electrolyzers
> for vehicles but I don't think there is much public interest
> there. For example, since I had gotten an invite to the
> DARPA/Army power sources conference this year I emailed
> the head of the U.S. Army lab about on board electrolyzers
> and asked if they had ever looked at them or might be
> interested in the concept.
>
> Seeing as a 30% boost in mileage would equate a 30%
> increase in range for vehicles in the field. That was 3 weeks
> ago and so far no response. That same guy answered me
> in 2 days when I wrote to him previously regarding the cost
> of attending the conference.
>
>
> MJ


MJ,

People don't believe that 'free energy' crazy talk. I know, I've tried it.

But don't think that the idea of onboard eletrolosys is publicly unacceptable. You're just going to find it very difficult to engineer a system for which the size of the fuel cell and a tank in a production vehicle conveniently fills all the available space. They won't give you an inch. Better you design both the fuel cell and the electrolyser from scratch to retrofit a new system onto the mounting brackets (too bad the news designs are going to be integrated skateboards).

As always responding to the gaps in the market is the best way to approach market viability. If you can squeeze 30 per cent more out of it and extend range by onboard eletrolosys there will be people to buy it. Just don't expect the government not to feel cheated out of revenue on the fuel they are 'missing' out on.


Sincerely,
tim


-- the pearls of discussion are beaded on the string of wisdom --

_\~ ecoAlien ~!~ neilAoce ~/_

Imagine a world in which people are rewarded with fuel today that is less expensive than it was yesterday because it is more cost effective to make it containing more poison justified by the fact there is less supply and more need.

Imagine a world in which natural gas is legally declared a renewable resource by government so that it can appear investment in renewable energy is greater on the basis that doing so will stimulate renewable energy development.

Imagine a world in which I am considered free to make energy choices of my own but am not allowed to get my friends together to compete with corporations who produce energy -- even when that corporation is a public utility owned by me and my tax paying friends.

You aren't dreaming. You aren't imagining. You're sleeping in the real world. Wake me up too, will you?

-- 'efficacy' is a word in the dictionary --

aPrIl FoOlS ~*energy fear mongering~* ApRiL fOoLs

April Fools on a procrastinator's schedule means it ain't for foolin'. Get it?

...click for more...




...to hoax or not to hoax. that is the question...

Please send any blackout picture submissions you may have just kicking around. Specifically, I'd like to see something from the outages in Britain and Europe that have portable power advocates bursting forth over there.

-- over there is an over here perspective when acting globally and thinking locally --

the critic in us all

Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.
Sir Peter Ustinov 1921-2004

famous environmentalist shot in corridor

Shoot Your Favorite Environmentalist


Ed Begley Junior

Wave to Ed...

Have a picture to share of your favorite environmentalist that you snapped yourself?

Please send your shots from the wilds along with the person's A/S/L and the interesting environmental facts that tuned you into this special person's activism in the first place.

A link or two to the major work of your captured environmentalist should accompany any submission.

celebrity@stippletrout.com

Thanks.

culture vulture tutorials

His book is free. Author Lawrence Lessig is not likely to be looking for Disney-style copyright kickbacks on this one.

Lessig, an influential scholar and Stanford University law professor, has joined with the ranks of authors who are dabbling in the fine art of licensing. Among them are Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Dan Brown and Cory Doctorow.








AND the home of the RSS standard is ... here.





-- this space intentionally left blank --

want to exploit the environment ? -- GO HERE --

Flight of the Exxon Valdez

#******************************************************************
# Funny thing is Exxon is now blamed for 5% of the world's
# total carbon emmissions... AND this just came in as well:
#******************************************************************

When the US team started recording atmospheric carbon dioxide in the late 1950s, levels were around 315 ppm and have risen ever since.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that, if unchecked, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere will have risen to between 650 and 970 ppm by 2100. As a result, global temperatures would warm by nearly 6ýC compared with 1990 levels, the IPCC predicts.

NOW... With all of that information ...
Can you spare a minute or two today
for the following -------------------------------,
                                                                  |
                                                                  |
                                                                  |
                                                                  |
                                                                  ^

Dear Cyberactivists, To learn why to take action now go to:
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/bin/view.fpl/10048/action_id/201.html


Today, March 24, is the 15th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and we're calling on ExxonMobil to spend their time and energy cleaning up Prince William Sound, instead of spending it squelching freedom of speech. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez spilled over 11 million gallons of oil, and we've seen the remaining impacts of the spill that the people of Prince William Sound are still facing everyday.

ExxonMobil has refused to pay the damage claims ordered by a federal court, and has managed to keep the case in court almost continuously since the disaster.

At the same time, ExxonMobil is suing Greenpeace in an attempt to silence us from exposing Exxon's corrupt environmental policies. The case stems from a peaceful protest that occurred at ExxonMobil's headquarters last May when activists, some dressed in colorful tiger costumes, declared the headquarters a "global warming crime scene." The activists were protesting ExxonMobil's continued denial of the science behind global warming and ExxonMobil's blatant efforts to undermine the Kyoto Protocol and other solutions to the problem.

To tell ExxonMobil to spend their time and money cleaning up the Valdez spill, not fighting Greenpeace, visit: http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/bin/view.fpl/10048/action_id/201.html

Thanks for your help.

Jessica Coven
Climate & Energy Campaign
Greenpeace

#******************************************************************
# Have a pleasant day...
# Yours,
# The Management
#******************************************************************

# -- gReP tHe EnViRoNmEnT --

listen -- strap on the haedeFones

National Public Radio : How Hydrogen as Fuel Fares Overseas

Please click on the headline or the audio icon to listen to the story using a RealAudio or WindowsMedia player. To download a player or to find solutions to common problems, please visit NPR's audio help page at Audio Help.

Want a transcript of this story?
Transcript

-- in the north crickets signal it is time to lose weight --

Dr. Seuss a posthumous adbuster

Accept no cheap (l)imitations...

...click me...



For more Dr. Seuss advertising artwork see:
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dsads/index.shtml

oil greases government -- Henry Ford parody

"The Land! That is where our roots are. There is the basis of our physical life. The farther we get away from the land, the greater our insecurity. From the land comes everything that supports life, everything we use for the service of physical life. The land has not collasped or shrunk in either extent or productivity. It is there waiting to honor all the labor we are willing to invest in it, and able to tide us across any local dislocation of economic conditions. No unemployment insurance can be compared to an alliance between man and a plot of land."
-Henry Ford

Borrowed from a Livejournal Entry at:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/ecovillage/

"The Money! That is where our roots are. There is the basis of our physical life. The farther we get away from the money, the greater our insecurity. From the money comes everything that supports life, everything we use for the service of physical life. The money has not collasped or shrunk in either extent or productivity. It is there waiting to honor all the oil we are willing to invest in it, and able to tide us across any local dislocation of economic conditions. No environmental assurance can be compared to an alliance between oil and a plot for money."
-Henny Fjord

Public Figures to Prove It
US Motor Fuel Tax Outperforms
Corporate Net Income Tax Revenue
http://www.census.gov/govs/www/qtax.html

Canadian Statistics Offering Similar View
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/govt01a.htm

environmental debunker turns sights on Adam Smith

From the wink, wink, nudge, nudge files comes the continuing saga of Bjorn Lomberg whose controversial book 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' had the author up on charges of scientific dishonesty by the Danish scientific establishment. Now Lomberg, who beat the rap, is heading an effort to 'save the world'.

Perhaps Mr. Lomberg should be given a standing ovation for attaching a price tag to the environment. The only way, it seems, for current economic models to validate environmental problems and issues is by determining the 'worth' of each article now contained by faith alone. By attacking the economic postulate that labor is the exclusive source of wealth it may now be possible to set a standard for conduct under legislative decree not possible since Adam Smith taught us the road to riches by valuing the contribution of people -- an ideology of revolution consumable by the thinkers of his time who used calculation to build wealth.

Perhaps the work done under the Copenhagen Consensus will redefine economics to include what has only been known and acted upon by intuition since the days of Smith, and not by the calculation upon which so many decisions to exploit are made.

Like a phoenix new methodologies arise from the ashes of what was. With the environment at stake it isn't a good idea to rely on a miracle as the phoenix does. In reality if we get to ashes we are too late.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/3/7/23496/47566

The Economist magazine has started a project, headed by Bjorn Lomberg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist", to gather together economists and domain experts to answer the question of how the world should rank its problems and how they can be dealt with.

In this weeks Economist there is an article outlining the project. The project also has its own website.

atonement in the rough

A Golf course has a lot in common with a road when you get right down to it. That's not a popular view though, is it? It's a little like saying, "hey, your mother's ugly" or worse, meeting your friend's new baby and saying it's head isn't the right shape.

When you go out golfing you do it for the sport, for the exercise, maybe even for the cameraderie, but rarely, if at all, to criticize the developer of the golf course for having made the thing in the first place.

Face it, the guy who developed your local greens is probably outside more often than you and he knows a lot more about things like walkways for ducks and geese or how to keep offending critters and the dung they leave behind in someone elses backyard. He alone cares what is under the tender footfalls of the avid bunch teeing off in the morning mist.

He knows the lie of the land and how to arrange it so there isn't a bunch of junk in the middle of everything like beer bottles, cans of pop, fast-food wrappers, barrels of PCBs and used needles. He is a saint for the sake of his property. He does what Tolkien does in "Leaf by Niggle". He tends his garden and earns his wings as his satisfaction grows in accomplishment.

Meanwhile, as he grows older and he diverts a stream or two to make way for expanded fairways or a creek runs dry from suburban encroachment, he sprays pecticides for grubs and anti-fungal agents to combat leaf mold.

Then he gets cancer and dies at home with his loving family in attendance all around him. He goes to the big golf course in the sky and leaves his earthbound riches to his children. And suddenly it doesn't matter that his son has the worst slice of anyone he's ever seen swing a driver or that it is his daughter whose handicap is pro-ready also has a head for business.

He lived. He golfed. He died.

hemp bindings -- it's a family thing

The time I went to the southern shore of Lake Scugog to see members of my extended family, I was late. Of course nobody said it out loud, but I reminded an awful lot of people of my great uncle who kept his own time no matter what the occasion.

I can only imagine that from the dawn of humanity’s advanced knowledge of hours, minutes and seconds, my family has produced at least one person in every generation who has always missed the cukoo.

Read the Rest

A little taste of short fiction from my files.

fuel strategy hasn't evolved

An evalutation of fuel policy clearly shows trending toward increased performance of gasoline powered vehicles, not in a decrease upon the dependancy of the automobile industry and resulting economies (hence social structures) on the use of oil.

It is generally accepted that automobile manufacturers, on average, increase gasoline fuel efficiency roughly one per cent per year using gasoline as the fuel of choice. This statistic reflects a continuation of feature-sets now expected by customers such as air-conditioning, anti-lock brakes, and an increase in automation and in-cab power usage which drain engine power resources and by that token have an impact on efficiency.


Nat'l Academies Press, Review of the Research Program of the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles: (1998), page 72, in chapter 5 Fuel Strategy

Several key technologies are said to prevent the commercialization of fuel cell technology in transportation. The first, and perhaps the most important development required, is a 'safe' hydrogen storage system. Current designs using up to 5000 psi tanks are considered too dangerous by industry insiders, even a security threat by government regulators, as any explosion could be fatal. Fortunately several properties of hydrogen make the gas less dangerous than gasoline. It takes more concentration of hydrogen than gasoline to ignite, and as a gas hydrogen dissipates into the atmosphere quickly and without toxic effect.

The second hurdle for fuel cells is cold starting. In this, the development of either a system to prevent water from freezing, or a chemical additive to water that does not decrease the electrical efficiency of the chemical reaction need to take place. True, there is heat during this chemical cycle and water is a byproduct of combining oxygen and hydrogen in this process, but the water required to run a fuel cell does not originate from the fuel cell during start-up. It has to come from an external source because it is on a different side of the electrolyte.

The startup water is used to make the 8 micron Nafion (TM) membrane between cells wet as an aid to protons from the hydrogen to pass through to the cathode side of the cell.

It is this polymer membrane, licensed by Dupont to companies such as Ballard Power Systems, that is the 'electrolyte' of the fuel cell 'battery'. In lead acid batteries sulfuric acid is the electrolyte used in the chemical storage/release of electricity.

Ice would not allow the fuel cell vehicle to start to begin the process of reaching it's optimum operating temperature of 80 degrees Celcius, as in the case of the Regenerative Proton Exchange Membrane-based fuel cell.

To some extent gasoline powered vehicles have a similar limitation in climates where the needle routinely dips below minus 30 degrees. The author of this piece knows this intimately as on the evening of his first child's birth he forgot to plug the car in at the hospital and could not start the car to get home in the morning, although the birth turned out just fine, thank you.

The solution, as mentioned, is to plug a gasoline-powered car in to avoid the cold cranking problems associated with frozen batteries having too little amperage in that state to turn the car over. Putting further pressure on this behavior is overly thick (viscous) oil in the pan requiring more battery power to get the crank shaft and related assemblies started. The usual end result is a dead battery and/or the need for a cold boost.

At their current stage of development fuel cells would likely require plugging-in during down time to allow cold starting at any time, a scenario many of us are quite used to. Admittedly, this ice idea is a slight oversimplification of the problem, but it does serve to illustrate how the market overcomes gaps in technology which may not always be designed for universal acceptance -- as the passenger vehicle of today is not designed for universal use rolling off today's assembly lines.

Several aftermarket initiatives and/or dealer options, however, are available to deal with the severity of climate. One is an electric blanket used to shroud batteries during non-use that plug into standard electrical outlets. Another is a 'glow' plug inserted into the lower portion of a vehicle's engine block to warm the oil there and yet another performs the same task in the form of a heated dipstick.

A combination of these methods are used to avoid the cold-cranking difficulty, all of which require power from an external source on the order of one 40 watt incandescent light bulb.

The impact of these technological shortfalls in fuel cell vehicles is to delay their entry into market. The British government, Ballard Power Systems, The US government and others all have documents stating fuel cells will not begin entering into the marketplace until 2010-2012.

One source in Great Britain's Department of Trade and Industry is an Energy Innovation expert in Fuel Cells; Systems Electricity Technologies. This source agreed that the reason Iceland predicts it will not enter a hydrogen economy until roughly 2040 is that its market is too small to fuel hydrogen product development. Keeping in mind that this nation of approximately 200,000 people has nearly limitless geothermal electrical generation capability to produce a 'clean' supply of portable energy and it becomes apparent that what happens in the United States with respect to fuel policy has important and long lasting consequences for everyone.

While Iceland waits for the rest of us to catch up the most recent fuel policy amendments in the US call for ethanol to become more important in the marketplace.

Like gasoline from crude oil, ethanol is hydrogen rich. A new process to convert ethanol to hydrogen for use in a high-temperature fuel cell (approx. 120 degrees Centigrade) recently made public by researchers at MIT hasn't been commercialized yet. The promise of this technology is to extract three times the electrical energy from ethanol as hydrogen for use in a fuel cell than is available from the fuel by burning it in an internal combustion engine (ICE).

Comparatively, in terms of emissions and net energy density this makes ethanol an important choice in the transition to hydrogen as the fuel of choice.

No other policy comes as close to realizing the dream of hydrogen as a fuel source from renewable and relatively 'clean' energy.

And tomorrow I will tell you the reason why pumping this wonder fuel into the next generation of empty tanks is not in the best interests of business, government or consumers despite the apparent equilibrium its adoption would maintain within this economic backbone.