Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 6:39 PM, Charles Hope lookslikeiwasri...@gmail.comwrote: He's shifty and does not inspire confidence. Oh, but he does. Several people have written to him offering him money. That clearly indicates he has their confidence. And even among those who don't publicly offer money, the obvious Rossi-worship suggests he inspires a lot of confidence. He's not taking all the money he's being offered. From my extensive experience watching scams in the movies, that's the oldest trick in the book. The key part is that he's not taking *all* the money he's offered. He could be accepting money confidentially; you know to give his investors the feeling of importance, because they have some kind of exclusive access. Or he could be waiting for the offers to increase before he starts accepting. If it is a scam, it doesn't seem like he would be a reliable source of information on what he is and is not accepting.
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
Joshua, What you say can be proved easily. Just offer some money to Rossi in different amounts, at different times and from different identities. See what happens, and *then* of course report here... mic 2011/11/15 Joshua Cude joshua.c...@gmail.com: On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 6:39 PM, Charles Hope lookslikeiwasri...@gmail.com wrote: He's shifty and does not inspire confidence. Oh, but he does. Several people have written to him offering him money. That clearly indicates he has their confidence. And even among those who don't publicly offer money, the obvious Rossi-worship suggests he inspires a lot of confidence. He's not taking all the money he's being offered. From my extensive experience watching scams in the movies, that's the oldest trick in the book. The key part is that he's not taking *all* the money he's offered. He could be accepting money confidentially; you know to give his investors the feeling of importance, because they have some kind of exclusive access. Or he could be waiting for the offers to increase before he starts accepting. If it is a scam, it doesn't seem like he would be a reliable source of information on what he is and is not accepting.
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:25 AM, Michele Comitini michele.comit...@gmail.com wrote: Joshua, What you say can be proved easily. Just offer some money to Rossi in different amounts, at different times and from different identities. See what happens, and *then* of course report here... Much simpler to read Krivit's latest comment on his latest post. It seems pretty clear Rossi's after someone's money. Anyway, I don't have the capital to do the experiment you propose, even if I wanted to.
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
Much simpler to read Krivit's latest comment on his latest post. It seems pretty clear Rossi's after someone's money. Anyway, I don't have the capital to do the experiment you propose, even if I wanted to. Everyone in civilized countries is after someone's money, don't you get paid for a work that gives you a living? To prove the concept I think you do not have to give money you can privately show interest in giving money to support Rossi's endeavors. Interest in buying products is different, you cannot prove scam until you prove it does not what it is advertised on the box and when asked full refund you don't get it. mic
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 5:29 AM, Michele Comitini michele.comit...@gmail.com wrote: Much simpler to read Krivit's latest comment on his latest post. It seems pretty clear Rossi's after someone's money. Anyway, I don't have the capital to do the experiment you propose, even if I wanted to. Everyone in civilized countries is after someone's money, don't you get paid for a work that gives you a living? Of course, but this was to counter the claims that people make that Rossi is *not* after investment money, and therefore could not be running a scam. If Krivit is to be believed, he *is* after investment money, and quite a lot of it. If he really expects, or has received, money of that order, it's not surprising he's turning down the nickels and dimes from internet forum losers like us.
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
To prove the concept I think you do not have to give money you can privately show interest in giving money to support Rossi's endeavors. I think it would be difficult -- Rossi will be suspicious if he doesn't know you or has not heard of you. Jed noted that several scheduled demos including the one to NASA (sept 5 and 6 maybe?) failed -- the device would not work, once for two days in a row! My suspicion is that Rossi was concerned that the people scheduled for these sessions knew how to test properly and how to ask the hard questions. If that was true, he was better off having the device fail than having it work. My guess is that *if* Rossi is a scammer, he got money early on and *if* he is continuing to take money, he's very careful from whom and under what terms. Bernie Madoff did not take everyone's money in his infamous gigantic multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. In fact, you could not invest with this company directly -- you had to go through selected brokers. He wanted fewer but fatter marks. And he got them. Interest in buying products is different, you cannot prove scam until you prove it does not what it is advertised on the box and when asked full refund you don't get it. Right but this isn't like selling can openers through an informercial on television. If cold fusion is ever marketed to any know customers, it will probably work. You can scam investors but as many have pointed out (and I agree) you can't scam an actual customer very long. That's why I keep insisting that it's disturbing that Rossi's client is anonymous. That and the fact that the large, leaky machine Rossi showed October 28 probably doesn't have much practical use in its present form.
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
jmp jmp crossection...@yahoo.com mailto:crossection...@yahoo.com wrote: First, the part about forget Rossi: I think Rossi has been an enormous time/talent sink with no benefit to the LENR field. Arguably, he's set the field back quite a lot. That is preposterous. He has made more progress toward practical, commercial technology that all of the other researchers combined. At present, there is nothing else to talk about in cold fusion, and no other approach worth pursuing. it would be a waste of time to continue working on bulk palladium and other approaches. Perhaps we should return to them in the future to learn more about the physics of cold fusion, but there is no question that the only practical way to make technology is with nickel nanoparticle powder. Rossi is an annoying person who can be difficult to work with, but he has undeniably made a tremendous contribution to this field. The fact that he is annoying has no bearing at all on his contribution. Look back at the posts here at Vortex and consider how much time and effort has been spent by a bunch of smart people in trying to figure out what Rossi has or doesn't have. Wet steam, dry steam. What about that thermocouple/pump/contract with U of B/whatever? This is all skeptical bullshit. None of these issues are real. The steam could be completely wet and the results would be irrefutable. In any case, as far as I know, all real experts in the real world say it is dry. I believe it's been wasted effort. Rossi provides very little information that can be independently confirmed. All of his claims had been independently confirmed. Everything he has done has already been done by others, albeit at lower power levels with less spectacular success. I don't know what Rossi has. Given the dearth of confirmable information he's provided, I *can't* know what he has. Yes, you can. If you understand basic physics and thermodynamics you can be certain that his results are real. I do not know a professional single scientist who doubts this. All of the doubts are from the peanut gallery on the Internet, especially people such as Mary Yugo. She says she knows nothing about cold fusion, so obviously she cannot judge. Asking her to evaluate this would be like asking me to review a performance of the Metropolitan Opera. I do not know the first thing about music and I have never listened to the Metropolitan Opera. So I am not qualified to critique them. I doubt anyone would argue with that. I cannot imagine why anyone takes Yugo or Park seriously, when they brag they have not even bothered to read the fundamentals, and they make many silly factual mistakes. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 11:00 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Asking her to evaluate this would be like asking me to review a performance of the Metropolitan Opera. I do not know the first thing about music and I have never listened to the Metropolitan Opera. When the fat lady comes out to sing, you know it's over. :-) T
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 6:00 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: jmp jmp crossection...@yahoo.com wrote: First, the part about forget Rossi: I think Rossi has been an enormous time/talent sink with no benefit to the LENR field. Arguably, he's set the field back quite a lot. That is preposterous. He has made more progress toward practical, commercial technology that all of the other researchers combined. At present, there is nothing else to talk about in cold fusion, and no other approach worth pursuing. it would be a waste of time to continue working on bulk palladium and other approaches. Perhaps we should return to them in the future to learn more about the physics of cold fusion, but there is no question that the only practical way to make technology is with nickel nanoparticle powder. Rossi is an annoying person who can be difficult to work with, but he has undeniably made a tremendous contribution to this field. The fact that he is annoying has no bearing at all on his contribution. Look back at the posts here at Vortex and consider how much time and effort has been spent by a bunch of smart people in trying to figure out what Rossi has or doesn't have. Wet steam, dry steam. What about that thermocouple/pump/contract with U of B/whatever? This is all skeptical bullshit. None of these issues are real. The steam could be completely wet and the results would be irrefutable. In any case, as far as I know, all real experts in the real world say it is dry. I believe it's been wasted effort. Rossi provides very little information that can be independently confirmed. All of his claims had been independently confirmed. Everything he has done has already been done by others, albeit at lower power levels with less spectacular success. I don't know what Rossi has. Given the dearth of confirmable information he's provided, I *can't* know what he has. Yes, you can. If you understand basic physics and thermodynamics you can be certain that his results are real. I do not know a professional single scientist who doubts this. All of the doubts are from the peanut gallery on the Internet, especially people such as Mary Yugo. She says she knows nothing about cold fusion, so obviously she cannot judge. Asking her to evaluate this would be like asking me to review a performance of the Metropolitan Opera. I do not know the first thing about music and I have never listened to the Metropolitan Opera. So I am not qualified to critique them. I doubt anyone would argue with that. I cannot imagine why anyone takes Yugo or Park seriously, when they brag they have not even bothered to read the fundamentals, and they make many silly factual mistakes. - Jed Jed, Re opera you can consult me anytime, is my hobby. Italian, French, German, Russian, Hungarian, Czech etc. operas. if you wish to listen to a good selection of opera arias, you can find them there: http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2011/03/explaining-opera-music-of-all-noises.html Metopera has a wonderfully well organized website and database. Re Mary Yugo, I am reading only what she tells about Rossi and the E-cat, not LENR or CF. Peter -- Dr. Peter Gluck Cluj, Romania http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
All of the doubts are from the peanut gallery on the Internet, especially people such as Mary Yugo. She says she knows nothing about cold fusion, so obviously she cannot judge. Asking her to evaluate this would be like asking me to review a performance of the Metropolitan Opera. I do not know the first thing about music and I have never listened to the Metropolitan Opera. So I am not qualified to critique them. I doubt anyone would argue with that. I cannot imagine why anyone takes Yugo or Park seriously, when they brag they have not even bothered to read the fundamentals, and they make many silly factual mistakes. It is not necessary to know anything whatever about cold fusion to evaluate Rossi's claims and the performance of his machine. I have no idea why you persist in missing that point. That some other people may have discovered cold fusion is almost entirely irrelevant to Rossi's extravagant claim of megawatt power levels. Rossi's claim is very easy to prove. You yourself have told him how to do it unequivocally many times and he has completely ignored your suggestions and has not asked any of your suggested experts to test it for him. And that tells you nothing? As it happens, I understand the basics of heat transfer and fluid flow and have been involved professionally in the design of Seebeck effect calorimeters. I am entirely capable of determining if Rossi has properly tested his machines and has presented proper evidence. I don't need to study a single thing about cold fusion to do it. Testing Rossi's machines requires no knowledge of cold fusion. They need to be tested as a black box, purporting to be a net, long lasting, efficient source of excess energy. Until that's done, I couldn't give an invisible unicorn to find out *how* he does it. Before you determine how Rossi makes lots of excess energy, it's essential to prove that he does. That has not been done properly, adequately and independently. That fact has absolutely nothing whatever to do with cold fusion. It has everything to do with Rossi's intransigence and resistance to proper independent tests. My working theory on why he behaves that way is that he's scamming. He can easily falsify the premise for us by providing independent tests or even a credible, reliable client who will vouch for him. He has not done that so the matter remains unknown.
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
Re Mary Yugo, I am reading only what she tells about Rossi and the E-cat, not LENR or CF. Simple and completely correct. Proof of Rossi has nothing to do with LENR or CF. Thanks, Peter
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: Re Mary Yugo, I am reading only what she tells about Rossi and the E-cat, not LENR or CF. Simple and completely correct. Proof of Rossi has nothing to do with LENR or CF. Rossi and Defkalion would like you to think so. Rossi's patent attorney, in the letters published on line, would like the Patent Office to think that Rossi's work has nothing to do with Arata's. It is sui generis. This is like saying that fission reactors had nothing to do with Curie, Hahn, Meitner and Strassmann; computer architecture owes nothing to Boole; and Internet technology owes nothing to the previous 120 years of telephony. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 11:58 AM, Axil Axil janap...@gmail.com wrote: You seem to believe that Rossi owes you an explanation. He dislikes you intenslyas a member of the chattering class and will not be affected by your demands for proof. Rossi will cooperate with his cu stomers up to a point. He will remove the veil from his invention just enough to get a customer to buy this thing. That is how our world works, money for information…it is as simple as that. If you think he is scamming, you are free to withhold your money. You seem to want something for nothing…which just does not happen in this life. How convenient that Rossi won't be affected by demands for proof. Could that be because he has none? Rossi has made extravagant claims in public. He has performed almost a dozen highly flawed demonstrations of which the worst was the last in which none of the visitors was allowed to see anything determinative of a fusion reaction or any excess energy evidence except for three lame sheets of paper and a large leaky machine. A lot of people are fawning and drooling all over Rossi. I find that amusing and ridiculous. Rossi owes me nothing but he owes a lot to all the people who believe he really has the answer to the world's energy problems. So far, he has delivered very little or nothing. I know you think Rossi has a customer but you have no reason to believe it other than what he says. And even Jed Rothwell said the guy probably lies frequently and elaborately!
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: And even Jed Rothwell said the guy probably lies frequently and elaborately! I don't recall Rothwell saying that Rossi lies. T
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: I don't recall Rothwell saying that Rossi lies. Because I never did say that. I said repeatedly that as far as I know, he always tells the truth about engineering technical details. Mind your, the list of his statements we compiled includes some diametrically opposite assertions: http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Andrea_A._Rossi_Cold_Fusion_Generator:Rossi%27s_Hints I assume that is because he changed his mind. Or because he does not know what he talking about, he makes a wild guess, and he forgot what he said last time. Many scientists do that. Some engineers do too, less often. If you were to arrest scientists and engineers for making wild guesses and being wrong . . . they would all be in jail. Managers -- who always tell the truth -- would have run everything themselves. Rossi often speculates about theory, but I think it is clear he is speculating. He sometimes says wild things when he gets angry, such as his initial statements about his break with Defkalion. He soon retracted these statements. I would call this spouting off, rather than lying. It is what a cranky 4-year-old does. As I remarked to Mary, he is sometimes manipulative, and I suspect he practices misdirection and selective leaking of facts. So did Edison and so does IBM. Many programmers and engineers do that. Present company excepted! - Jed
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
I suspect he practices misdirection ... We agree. I think his entire performance at the demos consists mostly of misdirection.
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
Mary Yugo wrote: I suspect he practices misdirection ... We agree. I think his entire performance at the demos consists mostly of misdirection. Even if that were true, a 30 L vessel of water cannot remain at boiling temperature for 4 hours, so we can be sure the claims are true. There is a limit to how much misdirection can accomplish. There is a limit to how much confusion the inept use of instruments can introduce. In this case, you can throw out all of the instruments and still be certain of the results. Actually, by misdirection I had in mind some of his statements in his blog, not his demonstrations. The demonstrations are straightforward and easy to understand. Sloppy, with third-rate instrumentation, but no misdirection. No skeptic has discovered any significant error, or any reason to doubt the overall conclusion. Anyone can see many annoying errors that detract from the results and make the results imprecise, but that is not the same as significance. As long as the error cannot cause the result to be wrong, it does not matter how big it is. In some physics experiments, the error bars are huge but the result is still irrefutable. In others experiments, the error bars are small, the methods and instruments are impeccable -- the best available -- but unfortunately the results are unconvincing. Many skeptics do not seem to understand this distinction. They look at the factors a college instructor would cite in grading an lab exercise: neatness, correct use of instruments, documentation, exposition, positioning of thermocouples, and other did-you-follow-the-textbook criteria. They become so obsessed with these details they overlook the actual test results, and the fundamental physics the test demonstrates. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
From Jed: ... Many skeptics do not seem to understand this distinction. They look at the factors a college instructor would cite in grading an lab exercise: neatness, correct use of instruments, documentation, exposition, positioning of thermocouples, and other did-you-follow-the-textbook criteria. They become so obsessed with these details they overlook the actual test results, and the fundamental physics the test demonstrates. One clear moonless evening I Witnessed a grad student and a post doc attempt to take a star reading at Pine Bluff Observatory. The observatory is located out in the countryside north of Madison, property of University of Wisconsin. The incident I refer to occurred back in the 1980s when I was an computer programmer at the UW Space Astronomy Lab. The PD and grad student punched in the parameters for the target star into the computer console. The machine creaked and groaned as the telescope repositioned itself. The machine finally stopped at its destination. Unfortunately, the monitor screen remained dark. There should have been a round blob of light representing the star in the middle of the CRT screen. The PD went over to the telescope and diligently looked through the eye piece. He remained flummoxed. He couldn't see anything through the eye piece either. They went back and forth rechecking star coordinates several times making sure they had entered in the parameters correctly. I was just a lowly computer programmer who felt privileged to be able to watch astronomers apply their trade. I certainly didn't know nothing about how to program the telescope. I did however look up. I then suggested that they both might want to look up as well. It was then that they noticed that their massive telescope was peering into the vast distances of about ten feet - all the way to the inner dome of the observatory. They had forgotten to rotate the inner dome to the proper alignment with the telescope. We all thought it was pretty funny. It became known as the Laurel and Hardy maneuver. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 3:40 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Even if that were true, a 30 L vessel of water cannot remain at boiling temperature for 4 hours, Why not? If it's perfectly insulated it can stay at boiling temperature indefinitely. It all depends on the rate that energy is removed, and the thermal mass of the thing, and it weighs 100 kg. The heat exchanger doesn't help here, because Rossi didn't think to measure the temperature of the *water* flowing through it. There seems to be some disagreement about the output flow rate so the evidence does not support more than say 500 W or 1 kW output, to give 13 MJ total at the high end. That's far less than the energy input during the first 2 hours, and small enough to be stored by fire brick inside the device. And that's ignoring the fact that a kg of alcohol could provide that much energy. The main thing is, that these possibilities could be excluded so easily if Rossi wanted to (and could), but he doesn't, which probably means he can't.
Re: [Vo]:a modest proposal
On Nov 14, 2011, at 14:04, Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: My working theory on why he behaves that way is that he's scamming. There are two problems with that. He's shifty and does not inspire confidence. He's not taking all the money he's being offered.
[Vo]:a modest proposal
I'd like to offer a modest proposal: namely, that we all forget Rossi and focus on how to move the field of LENR forward, either to a definitive demonstration that it has potential we should pursue with greater resources, or to a recognition that there's no there there, and that we should look elsewhere for solutions to humanity's energy needs. Let me try to support this proposal. First, the part about forget Rossi: I think Rossi has been an enormous time/talent sink with no benefit to the LENR field. Arguably, he's set the field back quite a lot. Look back at the posts here at Vortex and consider how much time and effort has been spent by a bunch of smart people in trying to figure out what Rossi has or doesn't have. Wet steam, dry steam. What about that thermocouple/pump/contract with U of B/whatever? Generator on or off during the run? etc., etc, with no end in sight. I believe it's been wasted effort. Rossi provides very little information that can be independently confirmed. Thus, we fill in the blanks according to our predispositions - those who very much want to believe he has something wonderful find ways to rationalize his conduct to harmonize with his claims. Those who require independent confirmation of extraordinary claims dismiss him out of hand. I don't know what Rossi has. Given the dearth of confirmable information he's provided, I *can't* know what he has. Believing he's made a breakthrough would require taking him at his word, which is an exercise of faith that I can't justify in light of his conduct. But dismissing the entire field of LENR because of Rossi's claims isn't consistent with what seem to me to be glimmerings of phenomena we ought to be investigating with both vigor and detachment. So I'm dumping Rossi. Figuring out the truth of the man's activities seems rather too close to our ancestors' use of divination to predict their future - attempts to make information-starved decisions that devolve to futile exercises in misplaced faith and colossal wastes of time and talent. If he has something, it will eventually surface in unambiguous form. Meanwhile, life is short, and I have better ways to allocate my time. I'm reading no more stories about Rossi and will spend no further time considering or discussing his claims. I've decided to adopt a tough loveattitude to those who work in LENR. I'm grateful for their work, and I'll be glad to review their results. But in exchange for giving my time and intelligence to review their work, the work has to be worth looking at. The experiments have to be fully described. Claims made have to be supported with data. The work has to be replicable, and eventually replicated, by independent investigators. I will ignore investigators who omit data or play coy in any way for supposed commercial reasons. I recognize there are valid business reasons for secrecy. But because secrecy so easily masks self-delusion or fraud, and so inhibits exposure of honest errors, I won't pay attention to those who offer results without making themselves available for full disclosure. Not worth my time, nor, may I suggest, yours. Second, I think the field of LENR lacks the credibility to have a fair chance at demonstrating its potential or lack thereof. My (admittedly limited) impression of the field is that it's a collection of interesting, suggestive, but nondefinitive results which, taken as a whole, aren't yet convincing to people who can spend serious money to figure out what's going on, or whether there's anything going on at all. For example, I've read Arata's results and hoped for an independent lab replicate and extend them. I keep looking for more about Brian Ahern's replication of Arata's work, but I don't see any publications. I read about SPARAW's CR-39 neutron detection results and the criticisms thereof. I've reviewed Piantelli's publications, and many others'. Lots of effort, all of it thusfar falling short of providing definitive, in-your-face proof that LENR merits serious resources. Whatever your assessment of the work to date, I think you'd agree that the field isn't exactly storming forward at the moment. It's starved of resources and seems riven by destructive partisan squabbles. The questions that I think should be discussed here on Vortex and elsewhere are: what are the critical experiments that need to be done to elevate LENR's credibility to something that merits real resources? By that, I mean motivating government and/or industry to put several hundred million dollars per year into at least ten years of investigation by first-rate workers with good facilities and with no axe to grind about the results. How should those experiments be done, in detail? Who should do them first, and who should replicate them later? Who might fund this work, why should they fund it, and what's the nature of the program that will convince resource allocaters to take
[Vo]:A Modest Proposal
http://kelsocartography.com/blog/?tag=harpers
Republished from Harper's, January 2009 issue. By Linda
J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz:
``Using conservative assumptions, we calculate that the
bill for {George W.} Bush-era excess, the total new debt
combined with the total new accrued obligations, amounts
to $10.35 trillion...''
Hi All,
In an effort to paralyze the U. S. federal government,
just three presidents, Reagan and the Bushes, have incurred
most of our cureent $11 trillion national debt -- this
was not accident or stupidity; it was deliberate policy.
Paying interest on this debt as it continues to grow
should be repugnant to all of us -- what a waste of our
tax dollars. So, here is a proposal in the tradition of
President Abraham Lincoln:
Immediately pay off the entire U. S. debt with electronic
(and printed when necessary) U. S. Treasury bills,
electronic greenbacks. These treasury notes will pay no
interest; and will be stored in the U. S. Treasury until
the debt-holders give the U. S. Treasury their account
numbers for direct deposit. All interest payments on
notes issued by the Federal Reserve will be banned by law
and immediately cease.
The new greenbacks will be legal tender in the U. S. and
must be accepted abroad by U. S. agencies, contractors,
and banks chartered in the U. S. no matter where they
are operating.
Are we a paper tiger? Let's find out.
Jack Smith
Re: [Vo]:A Modest Proposal
Taylor J. Smith wrote: Paying interest on this debt as it continues to grow should be repugnant to all of us -- what a waste of our tax dollars. Why? A government should honor its obligations. In any case, large amounts of the debt are held by other countries, especially China. We cannot legally renege on our obligations to them. They would stop lending and then where would we be?!? The only honest, legal way to accomplish this is to raise taxes. That should be done, in my opinion, starting with a huge increase on people who make over $200,000 per year, and a $2 per gallon tax on gasoline. The price of gasoline should never again fall to less than $4 per gallon. Consumers and auto manufacturers should know that the era of the obsolete gas guzzling SUV is permanently over. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A Modest Proposal
Jed sez: Taylor J. Smith wrote: Paying interest on this debt as it continues to grow should be repugnant to all of us -- what a waste of our tax dollars. Why? A government should honor its obligations. In any case, large amounts of the debt are held by other countries, especially China. We cannot legally renege on our obligations to them. They would stop lending and then where would we be?!? The only honest, legal way to accomplish this is to raise taxes. That should be done, in my opinion, starting with a huge increase on people who make over $200,000 per year, and a $2 per gallon tax on gasoline. The price of gasoline should never again fall to less than $4 per gallon. Consumers and auto manufacturers should know that the era of the obsolete gas guzzling SUV is permanently over. - Jed Your comments in regards to taxes are, of course, heretical. Sounds like socialism to me! You are anti-American too! If you get your way how will we Americans continue plundering Earth's resources if we are not allowed keep all the gummy bears to ourselves. ;-) Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:A Modest Proposal
Jack Smith writes http://kelsocartography.com/blog/?tag=harpers ...from Harper's, Jan 2009. Using conservative assumptions, we calculate that the bill for the Bush-era: the total new debt combined with the total new accrued obligations amounts to $10.35 trillion... If you reduce the US population down to the number of significant taxpayers (i.e. start with 250 million and eliminate children, elderly, unemployed and the grey economy) then this works out to what? ...about $100,000 per taxpayer. What a bargain! Bush and Cheney are now working diligently to correct the history of their watch, as it has been terribly distorted by the 'liberal' free press, as we all know -- and to cast this fine administration into something more than the absolute worst in American History. Maybe they will succeed, since history is written by the winners and Bu$h's constituency is certainly the huge winner, at least financially. Money talks and there are always a few historians for sale. Therefore, along with Pat Robertson and Rush Bimbo, let me speak for all vorticians in expressing out extreme gratitude for these eight strong years of tireless effort in the War on Terror - and to be have made our nation so much more secure from these heathens by getting them 'confessing the truth' down there at Gitmo ... and for ridding us of ~100,000 of our non-believing enemies (never mind that these were innocent civilians - you know: collateral damage. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ Are we a paper tiger? Let's find out. Maybe we don't really want to know Jones
Re: [Vo]:A Modest Proposal
. . . . . . This isn't aimed at any one person, but to all who are of the likeminded mentality which I am finding myself anathema to. Which one of you built the Georgia Guidestones? Or maybe some drunk from the Dime Box Saloon built them. If so, they're excusable as a funny prank. I don't have any Gummi Bears, I don't really like them, and they damage my already not so great teeth. Sucks to be born with not so good enamel on your teeth. But that's the way she goes. If anyone wants to raise taxes, alright, I'll listen. But I want to see minorities...wait...I'm not going to be politically correct here, I'm going to say it as it is. I want to see blacks, puerto ricans, and white trash such as litter down town Buffalo thrown off welfare. I am tired of paying for these scumbags to pass kids from God knows how many fathers, get them on SSI/etc., and get them paid for. These people, so-called, aren't paying for anything, nor are they contributing anything. So if you want to go after the working class American man (or woman) who does his/her job, pays taxes, and generally tries to help out his/her fellow human being, you'd better go after the real drains on our society first, or STFU. If you don't know what that acronym means, Google it. After all, that's what you guys told the late John Schnurer to do back in the day. I bust my ass each day at work, trying to eke out a living. I pay my taxes, have the maximum withdrawn each week, and get back whatever the state and fed tells me I should. I pay for social security I'll never see. Of course, I might not live long enough for that to matter, see below. I try to help people out as much as I can. But when you want to mandate that I do something, you're speakin' trouble. Come to my house and tell me not to idle my car before leaving for work when today's high is 2F, and I'll not hesitate to blow your brains out. Liberals, take note: YOU DO NOT RUN MY DAMN LIFE! Take your feel good shit, that benefits no one but the voters you seek to culture up from the burned-out cores of once-thriving cities, and shove it where the sun don't shine. You want Canadian style healthcare? Let me tell you something about the Canadian healthcare system. It sucks ass. How do I know this? My father in law is a Canadian citizen, dying of ALS. The government-run hospital and staff that he's at does not give a damn when his feeding tube gets dislodged. Several times this happened, and was not corrected for a couple days. They said he'll be fine. Without food for a few days? And you can't complain. There's no one to complain to. It does, just like everything in bloated government that liberals masturbate to, nothing at all. And you are not ALLOWED to put the tube back together yourself. No, have to have a specially liscenced professional do that. Why? The law. Libs love laws for laws sake. I'll pause a moment to say this: Conservatism in the USA is dead. G.W. Bush raped it, Dick Cheney sodomized it, and the rest of their assorted hangers-on shot what was left. Thanks, guys. You screwed us all. You have a problem with me calling blacks BLACK, or pointing out that most of them within a fifty mile radius of here (with exceptions, some of whom I am honored to say are close friends of mine, people I would lay my life down for), are lazy bums, and have with their garbage music, nasty style of dress, emphasis on treating women as ho's fo' fukkin', dragged the white youth down with them. You have a problem with me saying that? Oh, but you don't have a problem with throwing blacks under the bus, or women, or whoever, if they don't line up with your liberal agenda. Then they're fair game. L. Ron Hubbard should have got a load of your types. I'll give you an example: this past summer, I was minding my own business, driving down U.S. 62, with the windows down, as it was hot. (no doubt my fault because I drive to work, and don't leech off the system). I was jamming to Hall Oates, when a black kid pulls up next to me in a car he obviously bought with drug money. BMW, plus 20+ rims. (You should see 'em try and drive in the snow with four gyroscopes for wheels. Let the precession occur!) He proceeds to cuss at me for listening to what I was listening to, instead of his rap. Said I was rayciss. I said I don't race cars. He got mad, said some garbage, swore a lot. I said I'm sorry sir, I don't speak Ebola, and drove away. Now obviously that makes me racist because, one, I didn't start it, two, I'm white, which automatically makes me one, and three, I don't like black culture such as gangsta rap. I never felt like this, or had to deal with this shit until I moved to a liberal state. I didn't know what racism really was back home. I met it here, and it's directed against me. The minorities, scum, and other assorted fruits and nuts get handouts. I go to the doctor yesterday, and attempt to pay with cash. No medical insurance, can't afford it. Ain't that something? CASH DON'T TALK ANY MORE! All I found out
