"Inspired" by gas prices...

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.
Hubert H. Humphrey

 

fascism is the cooperation of state and the corporation, and the indifference to the individual

Benito Mussolini


pretty much defines the state of affairs in our government today now doesn't it

 

Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance.
Mel Brooks

 

Pretty damned close at least, which corporates would you say are working in such a way?

 

any corporation that lobbies the government, or provides campaign financing, they are after all paying to have laws and regulations beneficial to them enacted, when those people are supposed to be representing there constituency

 

I know all this sounds very political, but lets just go back to basics a bit.

The people is the country, not the government. When people became more and more it became difficult for every person to do everything, maintain the long drop, haul water, harvest food etc etc etc.

So it was decide that one person would supply water to every one, another would attend the sewage, another would farm food and so on. You now pay a small portion of your income for the advantage of the comfort of not having to do it all.

The advantage this system has it allows each person with a talent in his field to do one thing and be very good at it. This means the quality of living goes up for every one.

Then there is also a need to see to the national affairs, protection of borders and so a 'government' was instated to, in the interest of the people, handle certain affairs on their behalf.

Now here starts the problem. Governments are supposed to be in the service of the people. Somewhere along the line these people got paid a lot and they got super human powers which allow them to litterly decide over others life or death. They command millions of deaths, just look here what governments did -
http://www.faze.co.za/South Africa Truth/Genocide in SA.htm

Now a spinoff of governmental powers is you control the economy to a large extent, you can up the fuel price at the expense of the public a little and you get billions. Not too bad, if they are prepared to kill millions, why won't they see how much they can bleed out of you financially !

Now it's getting comfortable. You control so much you can manipulate anything that is to your liking and along the path it's not about the people of the country any more, it's about keeping your power and remain in charge. At all cost. Even if it means putting the fuel price up some more, increase loan rates, dictating the media and even change the schooling system.

Now the public begins to ask very uncomfortable questions - and it becomes a threat since they are all armed as well ! History has proved that disarmed citizens are very easy to manipulate, they just follow your every whimp whereas they are armed there is resistance.

If they are tough to disarm, then you have to follow other methods, like gun free they advocate logic fallacities and to the person who is not an expert in politics, these arguments sounds logic and they are the first to fall in. Politicians are hence abusing their expertise to get their way in achieving their own goals, which is not in the interest of the public or even the country.

Once they have enough mislead votes, they stay in charge. Isn't that the politician's goal in the first place ?

 

Boston,

The government steals your hard earned money in the form of taxes or fees to fund some big buck (unionized) utopian transportation boondoggle, YOUR RIGHT TO YOUR OWN MONEY has been stolen under the color of authority. The elected officials who pledge your money to these rip-offs belong in jail, but there are laws (that they wrote) that prevent these crooks from being accountable.

Yes, it infringes on your rights when they spend billions of your money on a failed and obsolete transpiration systems that few want (except perhaps unionized construction workers and government employees). Do not be so ignorant.

Rail transit is obsolete, too costly, and severs no useful purpose. The county where I live spent half their transportation budget ($300,000,000 from gasoline taxes) over 10 years to lease railroad tracks to give about 150-160 people a day a ride 30 miles from Everett to Seattle. Each ride has an ongoing cost of about $135, and the rider only pays $3. The local news paper asked how they might increase ridership and the answer was to double the number of trains and stops offered, that would increase ridership an estimated about 15 to 20 percent. The Marxist in charge thought that was a "step in the right direction". So, if we double our overhead (at the expense of the tax payers), it will gain perhaps 30 more riders a day!!! Who but a government employee would think that was a good idea? We should buy those riders a limo, and driver, and a lifetime supply of gasoline and we would save money! If no one is willing to pay the full cost in the ticket for a ride, it should not exist.

You are being ripped off by your government to enrich well connected construction companies. All others, including those that pay the costs, are not allowed to benefit.

 

"Transonic Combustion, a startup based in Camarillo, CA, has developed a fuel-injection system it says can improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by more than 50 percent. A test vehicle equipped with the technology gets 64 miles per gallon in highway driving"
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/24701/

 

Just got this from Jews For The Preservation Of Firearms Ownership

Does the re-election of Barack Hussein Obama pose a mortal threat to American freedom via our unique right to bear arms? See if you agree with three samples from Wayne La Pierre's speech at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWR2rvRMZlI

Where there's smoke there's a fire. If there was no issue regarding arms it won't even be under discussion.

 

While I agree with the vast majority of your post, especially the deleted part in my quote, not so fast on the trains.

The efficiency of a train has to do with population density. The MTA in New York City has $6.5 billion in revenue and is corrupt and mismanaged beyond measure. They rake it in running all of the subways in NYC, the trains that go 100 miles in all directions to/from the city. I've included NJ Transit trains in this 100 miles, just to make note of that spoke in the wheel, though NJ Transit is not part of the $6.5bn in revenue. They have even more to add to that pile of money, if you look at them combined.

If they were managed properly, they would be wildly profitable.

Here is a map of the regional rail system...



and the subway...




These trains pull incredible revenue and have greatly reduced the need for new roads, eased traffic (compared to no trains) and reduced the amount of pollution created by the NY metro area.

They are a model public transportation system.

Of course, connecting Everett to Seattle is a waste. You guys probably have a highway running along the track along with not enough people to really make it happen. It's also a cultural or regional setup thing. The reason the trains work so well in NY is that they are a big spoke, essentially. They bring people from the suburbs (where they live) to the city (where they work). They also bring people all around the dense, urban areas (Subway).

When I lived in NYC for 6 years, I didn't own a car at all. I rented one a couple times a year to drive to holidays with family, took a train or plane anywhere I needed to go. There was absolutely no need for a car.

Systems like that work. That's why Europe's system works too. The trains are *practical* and they serve a need. A linear commuter line from Everett to Seattle is kind of a weak idea. Neat as a novelty, but it's not giving people a better option than driving, which is why the ridership is low.

If you look at trains that work, they all provide *better* transportation than the alternative.

Trains do work. They just need to be carefully thought out. Many other countries have successful train systems.

 

Thanks Cat for such a concise overview of a proper implementation of the theory. I guess without the mentioned corruptness it would be a near perfect solution for areas of NYC's scale (population wise).

I found the transonic combustion link from BPL very interesting, thank you as well sir.

 

Whoops. That one wasn't me.

I did forget to thank you for the earlier post of yours about free energy. Your post so correctly explained the idea, I didn't need to post when I first saw it. Later, I forgot all about it.

Thanks for that.

 

What about LA? Could they do it?

I am not sure, because I've only been to the San Francisco, San Jose and San Diego areas. I don't really understand LA. My only understanding of LA transportation is a trip through LAX and the Futurama episode called "The Cryonic Woman"

 

If you ignor the huge up-front costs to build rails, stations, trains, buy land, etc. operating costs can be economic in very high density cities like in east cost and europe. That is not true for most of the rest of the US or Canada. If you include the capital investment, you always loose. Overall operating costs and up front investment is not worth it. It is only marginal in very high density areas, and only made sense when there was not a better way to get around over 100 years ago.

That fuel injection link I think is bogus. Combustion efficiency is already 99 percent or better on modern engines (overall efficiency is lower, but that has to do with friction and other factors unrelated to combustion). The new high pressure injection will only affect that 1 percent loss of the total loss. You will not even notice, you go from 50 mpg to 50.5 if you can get to 100 percent combustion efficiency (not likely). Most of the improvement in performance is from that small lightweight car they put the engine in. You would get similar fuel economy with any modern engine. Some have driven the Prius (a much larger car) to over 100 mpg with just very careful driving methods, so this is not anything ground breaking. Opel in Germany has built a two seat sports car that delivers over 100 mpg with a small turbo-diesel engine in it. Nothing new.

There are some very small gains to be made with high pressure direct injection, they have been experimenting with it for many decades. The problem is any injector inside the combustion chamber does not hold up very well, requires frequent replacement. Not worth saving a few pennies per tank to increase maintenance costs that much. Diesels are direct high pressure injection but the fuel and combustion chamber properties are very different than in gasoline engine. Not sure it would be worth the tiny gain.

I think that companies investors got snookered.

 

A couple of BC posts and a lone S African, the rest from the USA which has just about the cheapest fuel prices in the developed world.

In Europe we would love to have fuel as cheap as USD4 a gallon, USD6 would be great, USD8 would be OK. It has been USD10 or so for years in the UK.

That's why we drive smaller cars (no less comfortable though). My sister's Skoda does about 60 mpg. Anything under 30mpg will never sell

That's also why there are no big outboards sold in Europe and no sports fisherboats. A "big" outboard would be 20hp. Fishermen travel at displacement speeds with small diesel powered boats

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com