I never told this one, but I might , if I were still teaching, because farming is a fast changing profession, and part of the job of teaching agriculture is teaching the inevitability of change.Teenage boys (girls too) love a rebel and a colorful character, especially one that engages in activities they think they would enjoy, or consider high status.
If you want to convince a young guy who loves his fire snorting hot rod or his 4x4 v8 truck that electric vehicles are the next big thing in transportation, or at least get him to consider the possibility, your best bet by far is to tell him a story that entertains and informs him, rather than lecturing him about his destroying the environment by wasting so much gasoline and diesel.
His own vanity can be used to lead him to actually endorse things he would otherwise scorn- such as a battery electric or hybrid car or truck- simply because he wants to be "in the know"well ahead of his less well informed peers.
Here's a story "related" to me and some friends of mine by my cousin Klem, while we were enjoying a few drinks and working on restoring an old truck a few days back in my garage.Now Klem is based mostly on a real life character- a formally uneducated, self trained mechanic and independent trucker/ businessman with a head on his shoulders.When he isn't traveling the country delivering heavy freight with his eighteen wheeler, he works on his farm and in his shop restoring his collection of vintage hot rods. He's the sort of guy who latches onto an idea and sticks with it until he has considered it from every possible angle.
Some of Klem's tales and experiences are literally true to life, such as his visiting many automotive museums and delivering freight to places as diverse as Alaska , Silicon Valley, and the North Dakota oil fields.Independent truckers really do tend to make friends with the guys they deliver to and for, as Klem does, when opportunity allows, if for no other reason than doing so is good for repeat business.
Some of his tale is true to life;the rest of it is based on well established facts gathered from a wide variety of sources.The details in the latter case are either the product of my imagination or ones I have cribbed from the work of other writers, in which case I have followed the honorable ancient practice of changing names, places, and dates so as to protect the guilty- namely me.
There is nothing in this story that is represented as factual that isn't actually a fact, if it pertains to the technicalities of the oil industry and the electric vehicle industry.
I have taken the liberty of editing the real world Klem's grammar to some extent for clarity , and his salty vocabulary to a much greater extent, so as to allow kids to access this blog thru school computers. Words are spelled , approximately,as he pronounces them.
Cousin Klem and Electric Cars
One lazy Saturday afternoon a few weeks back we were all hanging around the shop talking a lot and even working a little on my project truck- an old Ford f150 4x4 with the granny gear four speed and the 300 cubic inch "big six" which if I live long enough to finish it will eventually run on stove wood rather than gasoline.If you a don't know anything about wood gasifier trucks and cars, a really good spot to check them out is Low Tech Magazine.
The subject of electric cars came up, and Klem was off and running.I have reproduced his natural speech as well as I can.His story went something like this.
Now let me tell ya somp'en bout them 'lecterc cars. I run to the shaky side onct a month most times, 'n I done seen plenty of 'em- they're all over the place, some parts of Kalerfornyer, you see one ever minute.
Twenty years ago, I wooda bet the farm I wouldn't never live to see er practical lecterc car, but Nissan is cranking out a couple of hundred of 'em , ever day, not far from muh old home place- close 'nuf I'm gonna ride down air an take the tour some slow day.The big wheels running Nissan ain't made no secret outa that they 'spect to 'ventually sell 'lecterc cars by the million. 'N all my favrit car mags sez that pretty near ever body who is anybody in the car bizness is coming out quick with their own lecterc cars, if they ain't selling 'em already.
One lazy Saturday afternoon a few weeks back we were all hanging around the shop talking a lot and even working a little on my project truck- an old Ford f150 4x4 with the granny gear four speed and the 300 cubic inch "big six" which if I live long enough to finish it will eventually run on stove wood rather than gasoline.If you a don't know anything about wood gasifier trucks and cars, a really good spot to check them out is Low Tech Magazine.
The subject of electric cars came up, and Klem was off and running.I have reproduced his natural speech as well as I can.His story went something like this.
Now let me tell ya somp'en bout them 'lecterc cars. I run to the shaky side onct a month most times, 'n I done seen plenty of 'em- they're all over the place, some parts of Kalerfornyer, you see one ever minute.
Twenty years ago, I wooda bet the farm I wouldn't never live to see er practical lecterc car, but Nissan is cranking out a couple of hundred of 'em , ever day, not far from muh old home place- close 'nuf I'm gonna ride down air an take the tour some slow day.The big wheels running Nissan ain't made no secret outa that they 'spect to 'ventually sell 'lecterc cars by the million. 'N all my favrit car mags sez that pretty near ever body who is anybody in the car bizness is coming out quick with their own lecterc cars, if they ain't selling 'em already.
You can love 'em or lump 'em, it, but they ain't goin' nowhere. The times is changing, and "the time and tide don't wait for no man, not even the king",like Mac sez . You gonna see more of 'em ever year from here on out.
When I asked Klem later about putting his thoughts on the net, he asked me to insert this personal introduction.Here's as good a place as any for it :
Now jist so all you snooty stuck up panty wearing pinko commie lib'rls unnerrstand where ah'm coming frum, I'm a "dictation" this here 'pinion piece, as my Cousin Mac calls it, and he's gonna make me famous- so he sez- by putting her out on the net. Ah ain't so sure 'bout the famous part, but he'll put her out there, all right, and all my buddies'll see it, cause I'll show 'em. We all got net on our phones and sich these days- can't git by no more without it running air bizness. So I'll probably be famous 'nuff to git a few beers out of it .
Now jist so all you snooty stuck up panty wearing pinko commie lib'rls unnerrstand where ah'm coming frum, I'm a "dictation" this here 'pinion piece, as my Cousin Mac calls it, and he's gonna make me famous- so he sez- by putting her out on the net. Ah ain't so sure 'bout the famous part, but he'll put her out there, all right, and all my buddies'll see it, cause I'll show 'em. We all got net on our phones and sich these days- can't git by no more without it running air bizness. So I'll probably be famous 'nuff to git a few beers out of it .
Now I'm a Bible quoting, pistol tot'ng, Bambi murdering, republican vot'n, flag wavin' , beer drinking American farm boy, and I own an honest to goodness ( pre bailout) guv'mint motor's Chivverlay four by four with knobbies , and a trailer hitch, and a gun rack-wif guns in it, most times..I drive it everywhere, my days off,'cluding on logging roads and thru farm fields that would depreciate a new truck at about five hundred dollars a mile cause of the dents and scrapes, but that's jist my pers'nul truck. My work truck has a six hunnert horse Cummins and thirteen gears an eighteen wheels and weighs eigthy thousand pounds , loaded legal. I git ah over weight ticket now and agin, but it pencils out ok.
I voted for Nixon, and I voted for Reagan too. I got my very own sawmill back on the farm. If ever run across a whale when I'm out fishing, I'm gonna put everything in the cooler on the anchor line, except the beer, for bait, and pray for a bite. So I guess I ain't no tree hugger nor no whale lover neither one .And I ain't nowhere near dumb enough to believe ever thing AlGor has to say.
An in case anybody is wondering-I'm proud and satisfied with who I am.
Now ' bout them 'lecterc cars.
Never would have 'blieved it a few years back , but there's a pretty good chance that if I live long 'nuf to get a new pickup it will have a batry in it as big as two forty gallon ice chests, and , it will be either a "plugin hybrid" or a "bev", which is slang fer what they call " batry lecterc vehicles." . I feel kinda like old Rip Van Winkle, the feller what went to sleep young and woke up old,like I went to sleep and woke up old, an ever thang has gone crazy on me. Course I don't bleve in him myself. Mac does , or let's on like he does, but then he 'bleve's lotsa foolishness contrary to good sense.
I can't 'member a time when they weren't trucks and tractors on the old home place, but I remember my Grampa's last horse and his last mule.I plowed some garden , enuf to larn how,with that mule when I was a kid. Grandpa growed up back when it took a a rich man in our part of the country to own a car and he never believed back then he would ever own one hisself.
He couldn't even 'magine trucks and tractors taking over farmin'..I 'member talking to him many a time about the days when it took him from 'fore daylight 'til after dark for him to drive his daddy's wagon twenty five miles round trip to town to deliver a load of apples and bring back some stuff needed on the farm. He soloed town and back when he weren't but twelve years old.People had to work back in them times.
As things turned out, he had him a car and a pickup by the mid thirties , and he got his own first tractor right after WWII. But He kept his last horse and mule , 'cause he loved 'em, and he loved working 'em, until all three of 'em- him, and the horse, and the mule- wuz too old to make it to the field anymore.The last time I remember hitching the mule up was to tow start his ole Jeep, ' cause the batry went dead. That would have been maybe 1965 or so, when I 'uz still ten foot tall and bullet proof m'self.
I'm gonna to keep my ole Chivverlay truck 'til I'm too old to drive it, mostly cause I've had it so long it's family now.Course don't hurt none it's been paid for for so long I can't even remember what I paid for it! I look after it, an it looks after me, and I 'spect it to k'llectible by the time I'm done with it.
But I seen the writing on the wall, and the wall sez that 'lecterc is on the way in, and gas is on the way out. Course not many people gonna buy lecterc cars for a good while yit. This ain't no over night thang. Gas cars gonna own the road for a long time yit..
But the writin' is on the wall just the same. Lemme 'splain to ya how it used to be , and how it's gonna be.
Lecterc vehicles has been around about as long as "internal combustion engines" (i-c-e, which is perfesser talk for gas 'n diesel motors) and they ain't never really gone away. They's millions of lecterc vehicles running right this minute ,mainly golf carts 'n forklifts 'n industrial trucks used in places where exhaust fumes is too dang'rus , like warehouses. I hauled forty tons of Chinese electerc bicycles jus' las month from Frisco back here to the dirty side myself- which is what has got me to thinking so much about these here 'lecterc cars.. 'Long with 'membering what I paid for diesel when I first got my own rig- thirty cents. It costizes me almost ah grand to fill up on the West Coast these days.Half uv yer used ta used to drive yerself- you know it' costiz uperds uv ah grand ah day these days running double jist to feed the horses..
Batry cars n' trucks done real good for a while , from round 'bout about 1900 till 1920 er so...But lectercs back then wouldn't go but 'bout twenty or thirty miles on a charge, and recharging 'em was slow.I know all bout this stuff cause I have hit all the big main car museums one time or another. Seeing the country is one of the best things 'bout trucking. Mac, when you gonna renew ya CDL and hit the road wimme for a couple months?Ah kin git us a load up to 'Lasker, an you ain't never been…Anyhow, them first lecterc cars wuz a lot faster and handier than horses- It takes a good horse to go even ten miles at a trot,'n pulling a buggy at a fast trot more'n three er four miles ul kill a horse on a hot day.Us farm boys still know a little sum thin bout horses- course we keep 'em mainly for fun ruther than work these days. When the roads was good enough, an 'lectricity was 'vailable, meaning in or real close to the nice parts of big towns,mainly, lecterc cars was a real good deal for the doctors 'n lawyers 'n Injun chiefs what could afford one of 'em.
They sold high, but the price was affordable - if you had it- cause when they warn't needed they just set in the stable where the horse used to be. Somebody had to see to feeding and watering a horse ever day of the year, and clean up after it, which runs inter real time and money considering how much use it was apt to get.An horses are slow to saddle up and to hitch to a buggy, and they hafta to be cooled down and curried after workin' 'em on toppa that.An if you work a horse real hard for a day er two, it's got to have a day er two to rest up jis like a man. A lecterc car don't neither eat nor drink and it don't draw flies and it don't need it's stall mucked out ever little bit, an if she ain't broke down she ' ll go ever day long as yer plug er up ever night.Taking care of ah 'lecterc car 'iz a piece of cake 'pared to a horse.
But lecterc cars wuz useless without a power line, and a fairly decent road, and gas cars got a whole lot cheaper real fast, and gas could be hauled home in cans and sold at country stores. The Model T Ford and dirt cheap gasoline killed lectric cars , it's as simple as that.When Cadillac come out with "automatic cranking " in 1911, the days of the lecterc car was numbered, but it took a few more years for the last of the kumpnies making 'em to go broke.
Now if cheap gas and cheap motors hadn't of run lectric cars off of the road, something along the lines of the Stanley Steamer would still have done it. Stanleys run on "karoseen" and karoseen was cheap too,…. back then..Stanleys was fast and dead reliable and the last new models would go all day without a refill of water or kerosene. You could average thirty miles an hour or better, here and there, for a few miles,in a Stanley , if you run across a good enough piece of road!! But a Stanley was slow to git started, and a new one costed too much, and they used too much karoseen compared to a gas car,, and people wuz afraid of 'em.But the truth is that not nary a Stanley ever blowed up and killed somebody.
Now if it hadn't been for gas and kerosene , coal or wood fired steam powered trucks would have took over trucking, cause the batry's back then wuzn't able to pull a truck more than a real short haul. They was some 'lecterc trucks used out on the roads, but they just couldn't go far enough to be good for nothing except local deliveries within 'bout four or five miles. They ain't yit made no batry's good enough to run a truck out on the highway, but they might, one ah these days..
Now let's fast forward to the good old fifties and sixties .Gas 'n diesel 'uz still dirt cheap. There weren't nobody up till then who amounted to anything who worried much about 'em getting to cost too much, let alone running out. The first real oil man, who also happened to be a real college perfessor of the oil bizness too, part of the time, who happened to take a good look at oil running short - in public at least-was this feller named Marion King Hubbert. He was a big wheel at Shell , which everybody knows has always been one of the biggest oil kump'nies..
Now people with good sense knows that perfessrs took altogether are some of the dumbest people that ever lived, when it comes to plain common sense, but cousin Mac sez I'm painting with too big a brush when I say thangs like that, and that perfessers come mainly in two kinds. I guess he knows, cause he has spent God only knows how many years hanging around them kind of people. He sez the ones workin' what he calls '' hard science' has mostly got their ducks in a row, and generally what they say you can take it to the bank. The one main 'ception dealin' with them kind is is when the perfesser has some skin in what he's talking bout. Even preachers is known to tell a lot of lies when they is money in it.The other kind is all the rest lumped together, and Mac sez you need to take what they say with plenty of salt cause a good many of that sort are sure enough idiots, and more of em are just plain old shysters looking after themselves and their buddies- an most likely you ain't one of them buddies.Of course some of them is good honest people who can learn you a lot.
Well this feller Hubbert is wuz one of them hard sciences kind , and he sez that any perticular oil well is gonna eventually run dry, which is good sense, cause I ain't never met nobody who claimed he has seen it raining oil. So in '56 Hubbert sez that oil output in the 'lower 48", which is everything except Alaska and Hawaii, , would top out in the late sixties or early seventies, and he hit it right on the button. The amount of oil coming out of American wells set the all time record in 72, and we ain't getting but about half now, out of our own wells, what we was getting then. I know this sounds like triple x bullsxxt, on account of all the stuff you hear on the news about oil going crazy in some places like North Dakoter, but it's the honest goodness truth.I didn't 'bleve it myself till I checked her out bumper to bumper.If ya want to check it for yerself, just look and see what the the federal guvmint has to say about it. If you don't trust them, you can maybe trust BP, or the IEA, which is run by what they call the OECD, or any ecyclopedaer so long as it's a new one..
Algor ain't got nuthin on them crooks that runs the news , an the news ain't gonna say much agin the people that pays THEIR bills running the ads.Cousin Mac told me all bout this, an he does know a few things bout common sense , spite 'o his hanging out with all of them perfessers.
Now our so called domestic oil production really has been going up real good for the last two or three years, cause when the price of oil got up towards a hunnnert bucks a barrel, and stayed there, it got so you could make some money getting out what they call "tight oil" by way of what they call "fracking".The oil guys been doing some of this here fracking for a long time.There ain't nothing really much new about it, that's just more ignorance or lies, depending on who's talking.And they have knowed about the places getting fracked, or maybe about to get fracked, for a long time too. The difference is all in the price.Twenty years ago, oil sold for twenty bucks or so, give or take. Now it sells for a hunnert bucks er more, 'n so fracking makes money nowadays, at least in some places.
A good oil well inTexas er Oklerhomer used to put out hundreds of barrels, or even thousands of barrels, ever day, for years on end, maybe for as long as thirty years or more. Then it would eventually peter out to what they call a stripper well, which makes five or ten barrels a day for maybe for another fifty years or maybe even longer. Ah well like that costed less than a million bucks in todays money .
Them new fracked wells cost ten million bucks apiece, and the best of 'em don't produce worth a hoot compared to the old days. Four or five hundred barrels a day out of a new fracked well is counted a big winner. 'N after a year, that four hundred will be down to two fifty, and in another year , down to one fifty, and it keeps getting worse. After four or five years any particular so called tight oil fracked well is most apt to be down to a stripper.
And oil fields are like fishing holes- you hunt for the best spots first, and fish 'em out first, and then you move on to the next best spot, until you don't ketch enuf to go fishing no more. The only real difference is that you can come back too a fished out lake a after ah few years 'n ketch agin most times. The way it works in an oil field is that you drill new wells 'tween the old ones, and spend a ton of money putting in water and chemicals to push the last of the oil out, and another ton of money on pumps and 'electricity to run the pumps .'N when it gits so it costiz more to git the last of the oil out that ya kin git out than ya kin sell it for, ya pour the well full o' cement and hunt yerself ah new oil field.
You learn all about this stuff if you listen when you deliver equipment to the oil fields, 'specially if you are willing to buy a few beers after work for the guys what uses yer load..An if you want another load another day, it pays to buy them some beers.
You learn all about this stuff if you listen when you deliver equipment to the oil fields, 'specially if you are willing to buy a few beers after work for the guys what uses yer load..An if you want another load another day, it pays to buy them some beers.
Them fellers that works the oil fields move a whole lot, from one place to ah nuther, when the old fields git worked out, and new ones git opened up.Some of 'em have to move as much as ever three or four years these days because new oil fields these days don't last like they used to.
About this point Klem had to leave for someplace a thousand miles away in order to be there Monday morning, but we talk frequently on our cell phones, and so I got this next part that way.
Sorry I had to make you folks wait on me, but I been real busy for the last couple of days.'N any way Mac sez you ain't got much 'tension span , any how,'n bout five or ten minits is 'bout as long as most folks are willing to listen 'regardless..
So anyhow if ya got any sense at all, ya see where this depleshin 'n this fracking thing is headed. Oil's been going up all my life, 'n any fool kin see that it's gonna keep on going up, cause they's more people wanting it ever year, 'n ever year they is less'n less left , 'n what's left is harder'n harder to git out of the ground or out from under the water..
"N it ain't just depleshin, 'n more people wanting it , neither.Mac keeps talking 'bout this place called Export Land, which I ain't exactly figured out where it's at er who is the boss of it, but anyhow I git it, ' cause it's as simple as taking candy from ah baby.
Them countries what has oil to sell has got to the point they er using a lot more of it theirself, 'n that leaves 'em with less to sell.Ever year they use mor'n more,'n ever year they got less left than they used to have, and 'n fool kin see this ain't good news , but there ain't nuthin ya can do about it. Mac sez most of the trouble over in Egypt right now, which is on the news a lot if yer listen to that Nashunul Propergander Radio, like I do, when I git tired o Rush and Sean 'n Patsy Cline 'n they ain't no raceser football on, is on account of they used to have a lot o money coming in from selling oil, but now they er short, an gotta buy oil 'stead of selling it, 'n they're goin' broke on account of it.Ya can't buy nuthin to eat if you ain't got no money. 'N they is bout two er three times as many of 'em these days as they got land to grow them sum thin to eat on, , count of most of the country being a desert.Mac knows all 'bout sich stuff, cause he don't listen to nuthin but the news, hardly, 'n this sort of thang is what blows all them perfesser friends o his'n's skirts up.'N he's gonna add on a list of all the countries what used to have oil to sell, which he has showed to me, what is short now, and having to buy oil to make up the difference.. It's plumb skeery.
. Now of course they is plenty of people what sez there is still plenty of oil left, and some of 'em even claim that oil is gonna git cheap agin.It makes sense that they ain't no danger of oil running plumb out,because it's like fishin'. You go far enuf, n' spend enough time 'n money gittin air, n you kin always ketch some fish- but not as bigger ones as you used to, an not as many of 'em neither.. The last real old time good oil hole in the gold ole US of A wuz the North Slope up in Erlasker all the way back in the eighties. It come in bout two'n a half or three million barrels a day, and sold for twenty bucks or thereabout.Now she's down to around about one barrel a day where she used to put out five.
I run up to 'Lasker 17 times while they wuz laying the pipeline. Man, you talking about a pretty place, n cold- ain't no way to describe it, you gotta 'xperience it to 'bleve it.You gotta leave yer rig running in the winter time in Erlasker, cause if you let it set for three or four hours, the only way you kin git her cranked up agin is to build a fire under her, which yer insurance kumpne is apt to git sorter bent outta shape if you owe mor'n she's worth, an sic the cops on ya, if she burns up. I ain't been up that way for a long time. Course it gits cold enuf in North Dakoter to freeze the xxxx off of a brass monkey , but it don't stay cold in Dakoter like it does in Erlasker all winter long.'N it don't git half as dark neither.The sun don't hardly even come up in the middle of the winter onct you git a good ways up in Erlasker,'n if you go far enuf, it don't even come up ah tall for a week or two right about Christmas, but I never seen it- or ruther , I never didn't see it not come up myself cause I weren't never far enuf up at the right time o the year.
Course this here Bakken and Eagle Ford, both of which is which is fracked er both coming on strong.But that's mainly because they er gitting a hunnert bucks a barrel these days, and they er mainly still working the honey holes.The state of North Dakoter sez the boom times ain't a gonna last no more'n ten years or so at the outside before it peters out and starts downhill.
So I figger that the people who sez there is plenty of oil left are be telling the truth all right,on account of the fracking and what they call the tar sands up in Canada. But the ones who sez it's gonna go down, 'n stead of up, is either ignorant , or crooks with skin in the game, I'll bet my farm on it..Now I like the salesman what I bought my truck off of ok- for a salesman. But I would be a sight bigger fool than I am if I 'spected him to say anything bad 'bout the future of the trucking' bizness. The truth of the matter is that long haul trucking is on its way out,'n trains are on the way in agin, on account o them six hunnert horses under my hood costin' me a close to a grand a day jist for diesel running double.I'm jist barely hanging on, and I'd be retarred already if I had any sense.But I love the road, 'n being my own boss, 'n seeing places I ain't yit seen,'n trains is a story for 'nuther day, this'n is about cars, mainly.
Now I 'bleve I have argerred the case for oil oil going up pretty good. Me'n Mac has got a cousin that's a lawyer, who other than that is actually a pretty decent feller, and he sez that when he argers a case, he pounds on the law if the law is on his side, and he pounds on the facts if the facts is on his side, and if the law 'n the facts is against him , why then he pounds on the table. My 'pinion is that the people talkin' bout cheap oil is pounding on the table.
So this brangs us up halfway on yer lessons on how come gas cars is on the way out, and lecterc cars is on the way in.We'll take up from here in the next few days,'pending on how busy me 'n Mac git.
(footnote- I can't put my hands on that list right this minute, but here is something better. http://mazamascience.com/OilExport/ Type this in to your browser, and all you have to do is scroll thru the countries. If a country has green above the baseline at the right side , it is exporting- if red below the line it is importing. There is a time scale across the bottom. The year the green disappears, and the red starts, is the year a country went from exporting oil to importing oil.
A few days later
Sorry 'bout taking so long to git back to ya folks, but I been kinds busy the last few days 'n Mac sez most of yuh ain't got patience'n brains enuf to pay 'tension for more'n about ten minutes atta time anyway, ,'n he's busy right now too, on account it being apple picking' time.'N on toppa that , he's bitchin cause he sez it takes three times as long to type wrong like I talk as it does to type right to start with like ah perfesser, 'n he can't type with but two fingers no way.
Now less see , last time we left off with me telling ya why oil ain't never gonna be cheap agin, barring a miracle. Ter the contrary- it's shore to keep going up,over the long haul, less'n I'm a fool . Now we all have heared about miracle carberators,all of us old that's old enuf to know what a carburetor is anyway, and all sorts gadgets that's 'sposed to make yer car go more miles to the gallon.They ain't none of 'em that works,ceptin the ones they put on at the factry, like overdrive 'n fuel injection 'n easy rollin tires.If you can't git it on the car when it's new, it ain't gonna make it burn no less gas,'n you kin take it to the bank.All of the rest of 'em er jist ways fer crooks ter sep'rate dummies from their money.Now let me back up jist a little here-sometimes a new chip er a motor add-on will help yer gas mileage a little, but genrilly putting it on yer car is asking fer frouble, big time.The ones that do work a little bit work by doing things that ain't good for the motor.
Let's put it this way . All of us knows plenty of fat people , and there ain't nobody that wants to be fat, 'cepting maybe some pore souls hitting close to dieing from cancer . You can't turn on the idjit box nor the radio ' thout hearing ah ad for some miracle fat pill, er some fat busting diet or 'nuther.
I guess I know ah hunnert fat people, 'n I ain't never met but two or three that skinnieed down and stayed skinnied down.'N them two or three done it by running and lifting weights and not eating hardly anything a tall-'n not just fer a week or two neither- they just don't hardly eat ah tall no more..If them pills 'n diets worked, all hunnert of 'em fatso's would be skinny.Me too!!! I'd be number hunnert'n one!! 'N my Sweet Pea would be ah hunnert n two!!She used to weigh ah hunnert'n two but now she weighs about two hunnertn two.In air case the lovin' an the cookin' has both lasted!!
Cars 'n trucks got to have fuel, and other than gaserlene 'n diesel, they ain't really nuthin out there but bottled gas, moonshine, 'n lectrerc. Maybe fuel cells one of these days, but ones you can afford- not for ah long time to come.Now bottled gas- propane-which is what yer cook with on yer grill- works fine to run a motor. They's plenty of forklifts running on it right this minute, cause it burns so clean you can use it in place of ah 'lecterc forklift on a lotta jobs.'n you kin keep a bunch of full spare cylinders on hand in ah factory er warehouse 'n git by with ah real small tank on a forklift cause it don't take but a minute to swap out a tank 'n you ain't never far from yer spares.
Now fer a car to go far enuf on propane to be practical, the tank ya need's got to be pretty big, and it's gotta be a real stout tank in case of a wreck, cause it is ah pressure tank.If it gits even a little bitty a hole in it, all the propane is gonna come out in one hell of a hurry. 'N it takes a long time to fill one up too.But the real killer is that there just ain't no place at all close by to fill up with propane fer 99 percent of ever'body.
Now I do 'spect that they will put in high speed natural gas pumps at truck stops on main highways one o these day's if there happens to be ng pipelines handy, 'cause there is room on big trucks for the tanks, and natural gas to fill 'em up is dirt cheap compared to diesel. A conversion kit costs real money, but plenty o truckers would pay for one for their truck if they could git any regular use out of it.An a new truck can be easy be built new to run on diesel or ng either one, whichever one is the cheapest and the handiest.
But ng trucks ain't no shore thang.The tax man might slap a big enuf tax on ng it wouldn't be worth the bother.Er that the people what owns the ng might git sich a good price fer it they sell so much uv it to Chiner er Germany er Japan that what's left costs as much as diesel. Er it may be that there ain't enuf uv it that can be got out of the ground without too much trouble ' expense for it to stay cheap anyhow.
But they ain't yit figured out no way to load up 'lectricity on a ship 'n sell it to people on the other side o the ocean, an they ain't apt to.Close as they kin git is selling the coal n ng ya burn to make it.
Now you gotta unnerstand that propane 'n ng is two diff'runt animals, close kin but not the same thang. Propane is a liquid er a vapor which you git by sep'rating it out of ng n oil that comes out of the well.S'long as yer keep it under enuf pressure in ah tank, it stays liquid.You kin git a whole lot in a tank on account of it changing to a liquid when you put the squeeze to it .Let the pressure off of it, and it vaporizes in ah flash.Now natcherul gas can't be made to change frum a vapor to a liquid no matter how big a compressor and how stout a tank yuh use, unless you run it thru a refrigeration plant and cool her down to about xxx below zero, like they do on them ships they use to haul ng across the ocean.'N thats below zero in good "Merican figgers too, n'case you're wondering.So it seems unlikely that ng will ever be used much as a liquid fuel in trucks. It costs too much to compress it and cool it, and the kind of tank you gotta keep it in costs a fortune on top of that.
So to run ah truck on ng, you gotta add on some whopping big high pressure tanks what cost ah lot of money 'n take up a right smart of space too on yer truck- but you kin find room for 'em on a truck, specially if you haul real heavy stuff like steel fer instance, cause a full legal load don't take up but a fourth or less of yer space. Now if yer hauling real light stuff, like say tater chips, which don't weigh hardly nothing , you can't git a full load on yer truck by weight, ' n that space matters a whole lot.
So I could add on the ng tanks 'n conversion kit to my motor, 'n run the main roads on ng with my rig, and burn diesel where I have to, just by flipping a switch in the cab.This would save me a lot of money. An it would make a lot of money for the people who owns them ng pumps too- if they ever git built!. But they's a big difference in making the job pencil out between a truck on the road two or three thousand miles a week that gits five er six or maybe eight miles to the gallon at the best, and a car on the road a couple of hunnert miles a week that gits twenty miles a gallon or better.Not to mention the owner of the car most likely having to go a long way out of his way to fill up on ng.. So I have my doubts 'bout seeing a whole lot of cars burning ng anytime soon.It might hap'n if gaserlene gits sky high and ng stays cheap- just not real soon.
Now as far as moonshine is concerned-well, I'm a farmer myself, part o' the time, 'n I'm telling ya, it just ain't possible to run all the cars 'n trucks in this country on moonshine. They ain't land enuf to do it.'N burning moonshine has already run the cost uv grain thru the roof.Pore people still gotta eat 'n grain is what ya make bread 'n chicken n eggs 'n hamburger out of. Course you over edjicated 'vironmentilst idjiots what thought gasohol would be a good thang never stopped to think about that, did yuh now?
Most all the best land is farmed already, and people are supposed to be ahead of cars in the chow line- they ain't, but they ought to be, anyway.Now I'd just as soon deliver new tractors as anythang else that'll fit on a flatbed er in a dry van 'n I got 'quanitances 'n customers out in corn country that has got rich on account ah gaserhol. They're growing corn on land left to them by their daddies, making two er three hunnert thousand , 'n more,a year, free a 'n clear on places where their daddies couldn't hardly make enuf too pay land taxes 'n git a new pickup ever ten years.They er driving new Porsches and Cadillacs 'n buying g their boys Viper's n Corvettes like they wuz Pinto's n Vegas,'n sending the girls off to college driving Beemers n flying off to Colerrader to go snow sking 'n break their fool legs,'n then on to Florida to wait fer the broke legs to heal up.Hellfire even the hired hep is as apt as not to be driving ah new forty er fifty thousand dollar pickup - that belongs to the farmer of course- to run to town to git a part or fetch the groceries.
You don't think nobody who farms for a living these days still raises what they eat if you know anything about farming. They either ain't got the time,if they're small timers, or else they ain't got no shortage of money to buy what they want if they're big time.Course here'n there you will run up on somebody who does still keep a garden n a few chickens fer a hobby 'n fer old times sake on account of life long habits, 'n ah garden is ah hobby that pays its own way n then some, if the weather is good, n the bugs n the deer don't eat it up for yer.If yer got time ter look after it,an ya know what's what, ah garden is ah uncommon good way to save ah right smart o' money.But if you got a business to run, ya better off looking after it 'n buying yer groceries.
Raising corn don' take but a few weeks in the sprang 'n the fall of steady work if you got all new equipment- 'n 'bout all ah them corn growers got new stuff, or near new, these days.'N they ain't satisfied with jist e10 neither, they wancha to have to buy e15 so corn 'll go even higher than it is already.
I got pore people living all around me, and some of 'em kin to me, and I want them to eat good at the least.. I been pore myself. .I growed up mainly on a little home growed salt meat 'n beans n taters we growed on our little old home place.Worked daylight till dark, cut wood, toted water, wore hand me down briches 'n shirts that mah brothers out growed. They's plenty of people too sorry to work these days what with the guvmint keeping 'em up, but they' ten times more more that's pore that works their butts off, an more besides that that would ruther work than live on charity if they could find ah job. .'N ever time the price of corn goes up, the price of eggs'n chicken legs 'n hamburger goes up too.'N all the talk you hear about anybody that want's to ah gitting ahead and doing good is jist bull shit pure 'n simple these days.There ain't hardly no good jobs no more.'N the guv'mint has fixed it so it's near impossible for somebody to start a small business no more 'thouht they already got money and edjication , an if pore people had money 'n edjication, well they wouldn't be pore to start with, now, would they?
So what it looks like to me is that gas 'n diesel prices er gonna keep on a going up, n there ain't nothing much out there to take the place of 'em, that is gonna do you much good anytime soon- cept maybe ah 'lecterc car.Maybe ah fuel cell car one of these days, but there ain't nobody yit selling 'em, and they might not never git cheap enuf to sell a whole lot of 'em. Batry's is coming down fast,'n the bstry is the only part uv a lecterc car that runs into much more money than what goes in ah reg'ler car,'n you gonna save back part of the price uv it with a lecterc motor which is a lot cheaper than a gas motor , 'n no transmission at all is hunnert percent cheaper than a transmission..
Now it's past time we got down to some ser'yus talking about 'em, ruther than the price of gas n diesel, and ng, n sich. Now it so happens I jis got back from Kalerfornyer,'n I had a couple o' days o' dead time to git the load ah wanted coming back, n' I bobtailed down to the Silicon Valley, as they call it, to look around, and let on like I wuz interested in buying myself a used Tesla.Tesla's er right common round them parts , which is where they make 'em, 'n where they got the money to buy 'em too. Ah man who drives a right flashy truck like mine with his own name on the doors kin git the attention of any body selling a high dollar car right quick, 'n it weren't but a few minutes before I wuz taking the owner uv one to lunch at ah fifty dollar diner too talk business -you got to make the owner unnerrstand you got the money if you want the car, 'n fifty bucks is lunch money to people what drives seventy 'n eighty thousand dollar cars.
Traffic was so bad we couldn't find a place to open her up not even one time, so we pulled over on the shoulder of the interstate like we was checking for a low tire for a minute, and I set my watch, 'n he put the pedal to the metal,'n she hit sixty in right at 5.3 seconds flat-'n that with two big old fat guys , n some junk in the trunk, and the road being maybe just a tad up hill to boot.Now that's without burning no rubber neither.Is that fast?
Well, I gotta dual quad four speed positraction 409 Chivverlay in my garage- just like the ones the Beach Boys sangs about- owned her for right at forty five years now. Ain't been rained on for the last thirty years.She's worth more than my next four cars put together an I been offered way more 'n enuf for her to buy me a new Tesla, but she ain't fer sale, cause o' too many happy memories about drag racing and one certain young woman I married forty four years ago-memories from back in the days back when I was young enuf n dumb enuf to work hard all week and blow it all ever weekend .
Me'n my Sweet Pea's too old 'n fat to play in the back seat these days but ,but we still set in it once in a while 'n think about it.We're ah showing air age but our 409 Bel Air is still looking damn near new.Making her look brand new agin would knock thirty or forty grand off of the price of her, cause she's 'riginal, never been worked on.So she ain't never gitting no new paint 'n upholstery .
She won't do zero to sixty in under 5.9 seconds with street tires on her even if you smoke 'em bad 'n take a chance on ripping out the clutch 'n transmission. 'N she ain't stock neither- not even close. They got clutches at Napa, but them kind of transmissions start out at four or five thousand bucks used these days, and I aint about to be drag racing her no more. I have got all the original parts to put her back to stock agin if I ever sell her.There aint ah 409 that ever did git close to 5 seconds, not unless it wuz special set up for drag racing.
So the answer to the first question is this- will ah ''lecterc car run? ''N the answer to it, at least if it's a Tesla, is that she'll run like a bat out of hell, and drive about as good as anything on the road in the same price class, 'n better than anything that sells much cheaper.
N' the second question- will it go fur enuf on ah charge to be practical?Two hunnert miles is fur enuf, in my 'pinion, cause most folks who kin afford a real nice new car kin afford to rent a gas car once in a while if they ain't got two or three cars anyway.'N when gas gits high enuf, people that can't afford but one car will jist git used to staying close ter home er take ah bus er ah train to visit Granny.They ain't going to be flying much cause flying is going to go back mainly to being fer rich people when karoseen hits ten or fifteen bucks a gallon, and jet fuel ain't really nothing but karoseen.
Third question 'n the biggest one, in my 'pinion, when it's all said 'n done- will it last, and what's it gonna cost to buy ah lecterc car 'n keep up it up 'n run it? Now listen close- from here on out, till I say otherwise, we ain't talking about hybrid cars- we're talking about ah pure 'lecterc car that don't have no gaserlene er diesel motor ah tall- jist ah 'lecterc motor 'n a batry to run it.
All I kin say fer sure about the batry's is that just about everbody in the car bizness thinks they er going too last at least good enuf that people who owns batry cars will be satisfied, even if they have to buy a new batry sooner or later.It don't hardly cost peanuts to drive a batry car one day to the next compared to ah gas car.Five dollars worth of juice will honest to Jesus take you as far as fifteen or twenty dollars worth of gaserlene. Now there ain't no doubt in mah mind that yer lecterc bill is going to go up some from here on out, jist about ever year probly. But my 'pinion is that lectricity won't go up nowhere near as fast as gaserlene 'n diesel.
'N 'sept fer the batry, it most likely ain't going to cost peanuts to maintain a batry car neither.First off, ah 'lecterc motor ain't got nothing but a couple o bearings in it to wear out,'n they ain't nothing going up and down to put a beating on them two bearings like in ah piston motor. They's plenty of 'lecterc motors running ever day that has been running-ever day- for forty or fifty years 'n still running as good as new.There ain't no crank shaft nor no balance shaft nor no camshafts and timing belts nor no valves nor no heard gaskets nor oil pump nor no starter motor nor no alternator about ah electric car motor. Jist one big moving part that goes round and round, not a thang ah going up and down.no distributor, no water to leak out, no fire ah burning in it to heat up the oil to where it needs changing ever little bit.Not even no oil to need changing.No head gaskets to blow an no rod bearings to git to knocking. They just ain't no reason at all that the motor in ah batry 'lecterc car , what they call ah pure ' lecterc car , won't last jist about forever, without ever being touched, so long as it's made out of good stuff to start with.
'N as far as the transmission goes, well, there ain't no transmission , so you won't never have to spend a dime fixing it There is some switches that changes the motor from forward to reverse, so the car will go both ways too, 'n they will be high, like any new car part these days, but it won't take but a few minutes, most likely, to put in new ones.
You won't need ah brake job but maybe once ever hunnert thousand miles, cause when you hit the brakes, unless you hit 'em hard, the computer will throw the motor over from "make her go" to "make her stop" and charge the batry up ah little bit while you're slowing down, ruther than wearing out the brakes to stop. The reg'ler brakes is just for emergencies, mainly.You won't never need a new muffler, or ah cat converter, or a fuel pump,or a water pump, or a radiator, or new spark plugs, or new plug wires, or ah oil change, or new antifreeze, cause yer new batry 'lecterc car won't have none of them parts on it to give out er need changing two er three times ah year..
Now this stuff adds up to real money right quick, n if you don't do all your own work, which not hardly nobody does these days, you can spend four or five thousand dollars real easy in ten years just on smog tests 'n brakes jobs n oil changes n tune ups.
People that works on car motors 'n transmissions are gonna have to find a new job when 'lecterc cars finally takes over. But it ain't gonna happen overnight, it'll be years'n years happening, and it ain't even going to git started good for a few more years yit. Most likely old motor 'n transmission mechanics will retire fast enough to leave plenty uv work for the young guys coming up that want to work on motors and transmissions for a god while yit. A new gas cat that's took keer uv oughta last twenty years,'n they gonna be building gas cars mostly for a long time to come.
You got to unnerstand I ain't saying that we are jist going to plain 'n simple run out of gas 'n diesel one of these days- no siree. But the price of 'em is 'ventully going to git so high that most everybody who can still afford to to drive ah tall is gonna drive ah 'lecterc car, cause the only thang that costs more about one is the batry, 'n them batry's is gitting right much cheaper from one year to the next. There ain't nobody that knows for sure, but most people in the business seems to be thinking that they can sell the bartys cheap enuf in another four or five years that ah ever day git cha to work 'lecterc car won't cost hardly no more than a reg'ler car the same size.
Now 'summing they last ok -'n cept for the batry they ought to last way better 'n any gas er diesel car- an the price of 'em, there ain't but two big questions to keep people from buying 'em- how far they'll go 'n where to charge 'em up n how long it'll take.
I' m thinking' that there's plenty of people who will be satisfied with a car that will go go a hunnert miles, cause they don't hardly ever go anywhere out of the neighborhood where they live, and most people with families have two or three cars anyway, and they will just drive their their gas cars when they want to go on a trip.You take a Leaf now, like they're making right down the road- you can put two dollars worth of juice in her and drive sixty miles round trip to work, or seven dollars worth of gas in the same car with the gas motor.Add on saving another five dollars a week on oil and antifreeze and brakes and mufflers n tune-ups 'n one thing n another the gas car needs that the 'lecterc car don't and she'll run close to fifteen hunnert dollars year cheaper to gitcha to work. It ain't gonna be no contest between the 'lecterc car n' the gas car for the git to work car in a two or three car family after the batry's come down 'n they git to building a whole lot of Leaf's , cause the more they build the cheaper they can build 'em.
'N as far as charging her up- well it don't actually take nothing but a clothes dryer circuit to git a full charge b'tween lights out 'n lights on agin, and if if you don't need her ever day, you can charge her up with just a plain old extension cord. A clothes dryer circuit ain't no big deal- most any 'lectrician with a helper kin put one in a day where you can git to it with a car.
'N you don't think the Walton's is gonna miss a bet as good as putting in chargers 'n selling you two dollar worth of juice for four dollars , do ya?Not anybody else neither, once 'lecterc cars git common 'n they want you to hang around their business ah half ah hour or more spending yer money. Some of 'em is gonna be so glad you stopped they don't even charge you for the juice so long as you buy yer dinner er a ticket to see the show er fifty dollars worth uv groceries or whatever.
'N I got one last thang to say about chargin' up yer 'lecterc car when ya git it- cause you gonnna git one, one o these days, if you're still young.If you got the sense to buy a house ruther than rent, 'n look out for the long haul, you kin charger her up half the time or more at home by making yer own juice. One'er Mac's perfesser buddies that lives in Ahwiee has put them solar cells all over his roof 'n they make enuf juice he don't have to pay the power kumpney no more, they pay him, most months.
This buddy o' Macs sez he could drive a couple of hennert miles a week east off of what his panels put out if he owned a Leaf, but he has got ah old Honda that still runs good and he don't drive much no more , so he ain't gonna buy ah 'klecterc car 'less maybe the Honda dies on him.
I done looked into it, and ya kin buy enuf of them panels to keep make enuf jucie to drive ah Leaf hunnert miles a day, if it's a good sunny day, for around twenty five or thirty grand, installed , 'n they er gitting cheaper ever year, while gas goes up most ever year. Them pv's ain't got no moving parts 'n they last for at least twenty years, 'n that's sump'n worth thinkin' about. Thirty grand in the bank ain't gonna git ya more' a few hunnert bucks in inerst these days but it'll git ya power bill down to next to nothing when the suns out good from here on out maybe for as long as yer live 'n then some fer yer kids after that.
'N if they comes ah nuther time when you jist can't git no gas, like in WWII, or maybe jist ah gallon er two ah week,you'll be ah sitting purty 'n laughing at the people who wuz laughing at you when you got yer 'lecterc car 'n yer panels. '
N gas is gonna keep going up, and 'lectricity too, but probably not as fast as gas..
Ya kin put them panels up yerself if ya handy 'n knock off a whole lot of the price.
But it won't work out right 'less you live where they have what they call net metering' which means you sell to the power kump'ne when the sun 's ah shining good 'n buy it back frum 'em when yer car is plugged up 'n gitting charged when you're ah watching television 'n snoring.You can't charge yer car up straight from yer own panels unless it 's setting at home in the middle of the day when the sun is the best.We ain't got net meterin' round here but a lot of places has got it.
Now Mac sez his typing finger is gittin' sore,'n its time to quit. But they's still a thang er two I ain't got to yit that we'll git to purty soon.
Now this is the last I got to say 'bout lecterc cars fer the time being, but some time or nuther I'll come back 'n say something bout hybrid cars, maybe in a week or two.
I been standin' round here listening to all my buddies a bit chin 'bout the people what buys 'em ah hitting money off of their taxes.I ain't got no edjicasshin like Mac does, but I do know a few things, 'n cause I make ah point o' listening to people that knows stuff.If it wuz left up to me, I would probably say the guv'mint ain't got no business ah giving money away to one to nobody, 'n specially not to one bunch of people when they already got plenty, and not to people that ain't, like when they give you six er eight thousand dollars off yer taxes if you buy a new Tesla.
But it ain't up to me, an it ain't up to you , neither, brothers 'n sisters.'N most of the people who is raising so much cain about it is either ignerent er hippercrits pure'n simple.
Less jist come clean with Jesus, 'n I'll be the first one to stand up 'n admit that I'm a sinner.That tricked out f250 ah setting in my driveway- well, I got a tax break on it worth about five grand to me, in the name o' stimlerlatin the 'conome 'n keeping the UAW 'n Ford Motor Kumpne happy.
'N I bought most of my land with a low real innerest guv'mint loan.saved me fifty tjousand bucks over jist the last ten years. 'N my private lake - what you ain't allowed to fish'n swim in ' less you're my buddy- well, Uncle Sam made me a gift of 90 percent of what it costed to build it, in the name uv flood control. Some uv yer might 'member i said right up front I vote 'publican too- The guvmint hands out money right'n left thought no consideratshin of race religion, sex , natshunul 'origins, er political party, cept in some cased you have to just about hafta be ah democrat to git it, 'n in others you jist about hafta be a 'publican.You ain't apt to git no Acorn money if you wear ah NRA t shirt.
Mac has always admitted that the only real reason he ain't spent his life looking at a mules tail end an ah breathing mule farts is that he got a good bit of free to him money out o' the guvmint to go to college ' long with some other scholarship money.
'N half of you that happens to read this is probably got cheap money to buy the house that yer lives in thru ah FHA loan 'n saved a ton o money in innerest.
'N the richest man in the town closest by here what owns a big furniture factory free and clear 'n not a dime o debt to nobody- well, the guv'mint jist lately give him two million dollars to buy new machinery fer his factory.I know, cause he gits up in front of his 'mployeez twice a yer 'n tells 'em 'bout how their jobs er safe cause his kump'nee iain't ah gonna close up in spite of all the other furniture plant's around here closing up already.Some uv them 'mployeez is kin o mine. He ain't said nuthin ' bout the free two million at the meeting's , but there wuz plenty 'bout it in the local paper.
I' could go on all day ah telling you bout people ah gittin money one way or 'nuther off of the guv'mint.Caterpiller just lately got up in the millions to build a new factory down the road apiece from here.
Ya can't buy ah ko koler no more with real sugar in it cause the guvmint has fixed it so a few rich people kin git about twict the price fer sugar here in the US as what it ought ter cost, n what it does cost ever where else.
The bitchin you hear bout people gitting' paid to buy 'lecterc cars is mainly jist from hippercrits that has skin in the game one way or 'nuther, or works for people with skin in the game ,or else frum people that orter keep their mouths shut cause they don't know enuf they ought to open it , 'cept maybe to ask ah question.
'N on top of lll of this giving it away to people that don't really need it, the guv'mint gives it away right 'n left to people that do, like some of my kin people that has got old 'n crippled up 'n can't work no more , 'n never made enuf to save a dime in spite of workin' ever day..
'N the guv'mint gives away a sight more to people to sorry to work that has figured out how to live on welfare better'n they can ah working at any job they got a shot at gitting- besides not having to be botherin' 'bout going to work.I got neighbors 'n some kin of that kind too.I know two wimmen that lives real close by - closer than a mile, which is the same thing as next door out in the country -that is getting free lunches 'n doctoring fer their kids, and free rent, and food stamps, and heatin' 'ssistance, 'n help from the church, n' who knows what else- without ever striking a tap at uh snake.Both of 'em is perfect able to work, cause I seen 'em do it inside the last month, for cash when people round d here is a planting and gitting in the crops. One of ' em is on disability , for sure, 'n I hear the other one is ah trying to git on it..
I know both of 'em fer a fact will do a little house cleaning er baby settin' for cash cause I know people that hires 'em. 'N both of them got steady boyfriends that lives with 'em but has their address somewhere else . One of them two boyfriends has a real good job but the other one won't hardly work ah tall.
'N jist in case anybody is ah wonderin- these wimmen is snow white places where the sun don't hit 'em.
The guv'mint gives money away right'n left cause that's how things are these days, that's people ah hitting their itches scratched turn about.They might as well give some of it to people that buys'lecterc cars as anybody else who don't need it, 'n when gas gits too high to pay fer it anymore, or there ain't none for sale on account of a war, most people will be glad they is some 'lecterc cars fer sale without having to wait fer the factory to get built .
Now this is the last I got to say 'bout lecterc cars fer the time being, but some time or nuther I'll come back 'n say something bout hybrid cars, maybe in a week or two.
Opps, I posted first posted this comment on another thread below. It pertains to this thread.
ReplyDeleteAre you surprised at the extent to which industrial agriculture has taken hold? Do you have any regrets?
I grew up on a farm in the late forties and fifties when industrial framing was just getting started. Then it involved miking machines and chillers, self propelled combines, and small tractors. However, we still did many things that my grandparents the way my grandparents did so they would have felt right at home. I was still milking our milk cow by hand. Our chickens and turkeys were free ranged. Our beef was grass fed. Today, our 80 acre farm is home to multiple 2000 foot turkey houses (my parents sold farm in the early 60's) and I would have trouble recognizing the land if I did not know the location. Even the location can be difficult to find since hedgerows, fences, homesteads, and entire roads are gone so that massive tractors can be used to produce wheat, soybeans, and corn unimpeded.
There is no farmstead to go back to. It is gone replaced by a machine.
I find it quite sad, yet I know that it is much more efficient, but it is also much more complicated.
As an example I talked with a strawberry farmer a couple of years ago. He described his operation on 50 acres. First the strawberry plants were started in Canada, then processed in California and finally shipped to him in Florida. New strawberry plants were planted for each season with automated machines laying plastic mulch and strawberries. Only the picking is still done by hand (I suspect for not much longer). The resulting strawberries have a good shelf life, are large, and not very tasty when compared to home grown strawberries. On the surface I this somewhat insane, yet it is rational and demanded if you want to be a farmer making a living.
By the way, I forgot to say that the strawberry farmer needed a working $500,000 line of credit to produce his strawberries year after year.
All this of course is made possible by cheap energy.
Hey Ron, if this is you from PEAKOIL BARREL then I am writing to let you know that they turned off my email and deleted quite a bit of my comments I believe to silence me. My email is david@dbchocolate.com. I will send you the entire thread as I have it if you would like. I truly believe if this is you I will be hearing from you. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI just went back and am not sure if any of my comments were deleted. Anyway, my argument has been silenced. My retort to FRED is was this but I couold not publish it. (By the way I know this is you, I remember you saying you were a teacher.
ReplyDeleteWell your RUDENESS and TRICKORY has BROUGHT ME back to defend my THAT MY ACTUAL QUESTION gets ANSWERED!
My Quote from above to Ron++++++ "Seriously Ron, Please. I’m pretty sure you need Universal theory of GRAVITY to explain why we stick to a round ball rotating on its axis at 1000mph, circling the sun at 70 thousand mph, while the sun hurls through space at 600,000 THOUSAND mph, all while the galaxy is moving at something in the hundreds of thousands of mph , and best yet all this while the universe is expanding at some uncomprehensible number- THATS WHAT YOU BELIEVE- cause it sure as HELL is not a fact! I DARE you to publish this comment.
I will debate anyone here openly and lets see who comes out on top. But you won’t, cause YOU can’t prove SHIT with a THEORY can you? I am saving this and I will make sure that people here see it some way.
So tell me I am wrong when I say you are using a THEORY to PROVE the earth is round which REQUIRES BELIEF! Treat me like an idiot. I DARE you to answer the gravity question and post it, but I assure you, you will make up some reason in YOUR mind for not posting this and giving a reply whether the theory of gravity proves your argument, hint- It cannot, a theory is NOT a FACT.".+++++++
FRED GODDAMIT, Can you COMPREHEND FUCKING ENGLISH with ALL YOUR PHD's ? I hope EVERYONE here sees
a PERFECT example of somebody so smart they are STUPID. Can you not see how once again FREDDY needs to rely on VOODOO SCIENCE-
I am 100% confident I said prove the earth is a ball using the physicality of earth and you come back again and say DUHHHHHH- Cosmic radiation this, big bang happened that, Micro wave this WTF?????
Same with his response to FOUCAULTS PENDULUM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMxLVDuf4VY
Dartmouth Professor Discusses Foucault’s Pendulum
YOU GOT TO HAVE GRAVITY FOR THAT VOODOO NONSENSE ALSO!!!!!! Can not EVERYONE here on this Board COMPREHEND that he isn't answering MY question? If you cannot I have wasted FAR FAR FAR too MANY HOURS here. YOU GOT TO HAVE GRAVITY FOR THAT VOODOO NONSENSE ALSO!!!!!!
I feel like some of my responses are missing????? Is that true?? I WILL Check to see if you started to "control" what everyone sees.
I TOLD YOU RONNIE! YOU opened a can o worms here!!!!! AGAIN I have saved the entire converstation so if it is all not here somehow you people will find out!!!
I could make it easy for you folks, don't bother trying to prove me wrong, I'm 99% confident you DO NOT HAVE A CHANCE!
Click to EditDelete (43 minutes and 14 seconds)
aim preposterous ideas that help to dicredit any rational person from investigating on there own.
You said-OK -you ARE an idiot.
ReplyDelete"When you use the telescope to observe a ship, the part you can see is above the line of curvature. And the farther the ship is away, the LESS of it you can see, due to the curvature, telescope or not.
With a GOOD telescope, the very last thing you can see is the tip top of the highest point of the ship as the distance increases.
Ditto the mountain peaks. The higher one is , the farther away you can see it, and the higher your own elevation, the more of it you can see. In my part of the world, you can never see anything from a point on the ground, even from a mountain top, even as far as a hundred miles away, less actually, except maybe the very tip of ANOTHER mountain.
Admit it, you must be trolling, nobody who can talk and type could possibly be so stupid."
The ABOVE IS WHAT YOU SAID. I am dissapointed in YOU calling me an IDIOT. DID you do that to any of your students questions from the past????? OF COURSE YOU DID NOT!!!! LIKE I said I know you!!! By that I mean I have read enough to know you are a btter person then to resort to name calling.
As educated as you are you are not quite up to snuff on perspective of the eye. Read up on it (perspective of the human eye) and you will be able to negate your own rebuttal against me. You know I am am not stupid, YOU KNOW IT!
They silenced me OLDFARMERMAC because they had the chance to when I said I would no longer post unless invited back. They , YOU, ME, nobody can - you want to know why - IT IS THE TRUTH. Even more important these flat earthers say (NOT ME YET ON THIS) but by acknowledging we live on a flat plane you are supposed to then only be able to explain it with god. I have been the RUDEST athiest since about 3 days after my mom dragged me to church. I am really leaning more torwards a fricking GOD existing now. NOT in a MILLION years did I ever think I would utter those words and yet here I am. Yes, by the way I am typing and thinking frenetically because a CORE belief of mine has been SHATTERED!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteOpen your mind and stop trying so hard to disagree to what your senses and intuition are TRYING to tell you- I know what you are actually thinking and that is this- NOBODY has put up an argument on peakoilbarrel that has refuted what he said. How is that??????????????
Now imagine that I did not find your blog and write you here, it is very likely you would have accepted your own beliefs possibly, forgotten all about my insanity and moved on with your life and then RONS blog and all the science religionsts would win while never even having proved me wrong. WOW!
It really looks like no one at the peakoilbarrel wants to offer up actual proof to me. By the way, I am NOT THAT SMART!!! I swear watch the dude who I learned this from, I am really just parroting the research he did. Did you watch this video?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcgxBTrmIhU
You know I was going to ask if you would let everyone know that I can no longer post. It makes me feel like RON PATTERSON has no integrity to at least state that he kicked me off his site. The silence from him is deafening, isn't it????
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if the posted or not at peakoilbarrel
ReplyDeleteFor a while I was not able to respond that is weird. I posted a few responses on your blog page when that happened: here they are-Now that I can respond I will try and answer EVERY single person here who asks a logical question pertaining and WITHIN the parameters of my most simple of questions. Please prove a BALL EARTH using the physicality of the earth itself WITHOUT using ANYTHING that rests on a THEORY! I if the questions fallwithin these parameters will ATTEMPT top disprove it.
I'll start with an HONEST response starting with yours oldfarmermac.
The idea of God nauseated me from about age 10 or 11 to age maybe 43 or so, when upon hearing of the SIMULATION THEORY- which is an argument that with enough computing power it is possible that the earth and our environment is a simulation. I TRULY accept that as a theoretical POSSIBILITY. When I accepted THAT, in my mid who ever created the simulation would be my "GOD".
Soooo after considering that I decided that, even further, there could be a god even without simulation theory- because I had NEVER even considered simulation theories possibilty, what else have I not considered.
Do I sound like a FUCKING TROLL right now? Please You guys are coming up with anything to discredit me without addressing my question. BUT I UNDERSTAND even better now that I think about it. It is probably even harder to hear what I claim when you (everyone hear) consider yourself so much smarter than the rest of the population, and by the way believe it or not I think most of you here are of above average intelligence higher than me for sure, but that does NOT make me an idiot either.
I think you are wrong about my math skills- I did pretty well on verbal sat's from back in the day but horrible in the math, oh well. I think my total was around 987 or so and I took it in 1989 or so..... So I am certainly not claiming nor do I think of myself as a genious. But I know logical arguments when I see them and the earth being a ball is no longer logical to me. So here I am, getting a wicked lesson in programming and groupthink form people who think I AM THE ONE WHO IS INFECTED lol. I guess I deserve it at some level because I used to be you.
Below are some things I posted at 8 am when I woke up thinking about this stupid converation and could not log on.
Nope, I have been kicked off haha- the above post was in response to your comment I must be religiuos nut or troll....
ReplyDeleteI can no longer log into peakoilbarrel. Sounds fair to me - oldfarmermac.
ReplyDeleteI now officially consider RON PATTERSON a piece of SHIT. Nowhere, did he mention on the thread that he kicked me off. Wow. If I am incorrect I apologize.
ReplyDeletePOSTED BY:
ReplyDeleteDennis Coyne says:
03/09/2017 AT 12:23 PM
"Just because a lake might be flat, proves very little, could simply be a matter of surface tension. The not flat Earth is proved by ships and planes circumnavigating the planet. So far no edges have been found. Until there are the “theory” of somewhat spherical nature of the planet will remain a pretty good working hypothesis. 🙂
As Javier says, the scientists often get this stuff wrong, so perhaps somewhere on the planet someone is living on the “edge”. 🙂
For those who don’t get sarcasm.
I don’t believe the Earth is flat.
Some people believe anything they read."
I guess it is not possible we live on an infinite plane BUT we can have an infinite universe? I think your logi is weak but please try again without looking at one single video I attached. I am specifically referring to the engineers, pilots and sailors video. Mind programming is a bitch I tell you. Look at you accepting an infinite universe such that it is as easy to comprehend as an orange that you hold in your hand.
By the way, someone bought up my universal law of gravity and YES I meant general theory of relativity, but I do not pay much attention to the voodoo NON PROVABLE science. Now tell me you can prove the General theory of reletivity!
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation”
ReplyDeleteI just read an old thread on a site where you were arguing over the dorvak method I guess I will call it of typing. Funny thing is you sounded like me to yesterday to the group you were lecturing. DavI'd hicks
ReplyDeleteMORE RAMBLINGS from the troll otherwise known as DAVID HICKS
ReplyDeleteBelow is a conversation I am having regarding a flat earth bashing article. The question is posed below (in ITALICS) by the poster. Please explain my fault in logic for I "believe " there is NONE!
Look, I'll tell you what. If you can make just one correct prediction -- just one! -- based on the flat earth model, and that the globe-earth model can't make accurately, then I will blow you.
I'm talking about real science here, Dave. Science means using your hypothesis to make predictions, it doesn't mean bending over backwards to make everything fit your preconceived notions. With the globe earth, I can predict the movements in the sky of all the heavenly bodies.
I can predict how long it will take to circumnavigate the globe at a particular velocity -- predict, Dave, not retroactively come up with some ridiculous explanation of how time moves differently at different latitudes. I can predict that when I look out the window of an airplane at the horizon, or when I send a GoPro up in a balloon, that I'll see the curvature of the earth. I can predict that when it's day here it'll be night on the other side of the world, and it IS, and that makes a lot of sense.
So predict something, Dave. Use the flat earth to predict something, ANYTHING, that the globe earth can't correctly predict. Not explain -- PREDICT.
_____________________________________________________________________
My reponse:
On a FLAT EARTH a plane can fly 20 ft above water at 500 mph while the ENTIRE TIME its GYROSCOPE will remain perfectly level without needing to compensate up or down for the curvature of the earth.
I hope you can agree with me that that statement CANNOT be true on a ball earth. At 500mph that jet would be travelling approx. 8 miles per minute, with a "drop" or "curve" of the earth of 42ft! per every 8 miles or MINUTE! In 10 minutes at 20 ft above water a pilot would have to correct up or down 420 ft, NOT a small amount of CORRECTION considering we started off only 20 ft above the water.
The calculator that determined the amount the above statement on curvature is smokescreen dot com The math on the calculator predicts with plenty of accuracy but if you do not believe it come up with your own math.
Thus flying over a ball earth the pilot MUST adjust the planes attitude in order to keep from "gaining" or "losing" altitude. Now here you can either trust what I say or ask a PROFESSIONAL pilot. ANY PROFESSIONAL PILOT.
Pilots DO NOT adjust for the curvature of the earth at very low altitudes, nor at ANY altitude, and THEIR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY AFTER TAKING OFF IS KEEPING their GYROSCOPE LEVEL at ALL TIMES!!!!!.
I hope you would agree that the last sentence above should be IMPOSSIBLE on a BALL earth. I believe also that note what I made is a PREDICTION of something that PILOTS SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO ON A BALL EARTH.
I look forward to your response.
Last edited by daveflat on Fri 10 Mar 2017, 13:51:03, edited 2 times in total.
DAVID the troll HICKS RESPONSE to flat earth questions:
ReplyDeleteWow. Thank you for replying with such a well thought out post. I am tired of raising questions and only receiving responses that are completely sarcastic or where no thought has really been given. I think I can learn something from you! I hope you can/will give me equal consideration in my ability to broaden your scope of knowledge.
I would imagine you will believe me when I tell you that sad as it is to say, only two weeks ago I would have accepted all of your points without even investigating the ballers side argument. I am usually not that closed minded, but when I heard flat earth, I thought at first that was enough time to spend on that and had a good laugh!
Read this quote carefully.
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation”
I hope you do not take offense to it, I just use it so that you might take a moment and think about it. By ending your argument with "hope this helps", I detect a level of certitude as in can you "already know" why I am wrong, I could be mistaken but that is the way I understood it. The quote applies to me as much as too others but I am AWARE of the idea, so I can at least try to not think in that manner. Please when you detect any "contempt prior to investigation" call me out on it, it only increases the likelihood of me learning rather than getting stuck in my own world view and belief system. I also hope that you are following my line of thought and not thinking I am trying to muddy the waters with esoteric talk.
I would like to start by stating upfront that I would prefer to only accept such math based proofs that are fact and indisputable. I hope you can agree with that premise so long as we are taking those Laws to there logical conclusion. By that I mean you have to "believe" in gravity to explain how we stick to this ball. Why you might ask (or not), when gravity is a LAW? I agree that mathematically the law of gravity can be predicted and explained.
Unfortunately, and correct me if I am wrong but, (I am stronger in my verbal skills than my math by far unfortunately) but in order to explain both large and small bodies in relation to gravity we need to use Einsteins THEORY of general relativity, of which I think you should agree with me, is NOT an established accepted fact because it cannot accurately predict everything as it should be able to? I could be wrong here so this is where I will learn something.
I will now address your point regarding your statement , "When NASA communicates with a sufficiently distant object like Voyager II, they need to calculate to higher dimensional curvature of spacetime to target the craft. This experimentally confirms general relativity." The words experimentally and confirms are very difficult for me to rationalize as fact as, can you not agree that the most rigid of scientist actually do not accept your premise or we would thus have "The Law of General Relativity".
continued from above more DAVID HICKS TROLLING-I hope you will agree with my statement that much rests on General Relativity and that in FACT, at this moment in time it is ONLY a theory.
ReplyDeleteTo continue on the statement regarding spacetime curvature, again we have to rely on the Theory of General Relativity, and again as of this moment it remains only a theory. So with that said I hope you can agree with me that we must conclude that as of this time we cannot accept ANY use of any gravity related proofs here on Earth to describe any action seen here on earth because we must extrapolate gravity to its furthest conclusion because the earth is inclusive of the larger space universe and to do so we end up forced to accept the Theory General Relativity as fact of which we know it is not. There may be holes in the logic and reasoning of that argument so poke away I am not an expert.
Even with leaving out Gravity I would think that from the examples you provided that there are still many option left to prove a ball earth. I will address each of your points one by one. Before I begin I am not sure if I wrote this in my first post to you but I do not claim to know for fact that the earth is flat or whatever shape. My bigger problem is that I no longer "believe"that it is a ball shape. I am going to end here and then address your points one by one tomorrow. Thanks again-Dave
Railroad Builders evidence of flat earth. ALRIGHT done with being immature- do I still sound and act like I am being silly or just thinking critically????
ReplyDeleteHere I respond to his first point the poster who is try to prove to me the earth is round, AGAIN please tell me my errors in reasoning. I do not see any?
He said in italics:
Starting with Point 1) "The nature of curvature is related to scale. Mathematically, if you chose a point on a sphere, and put the point in the center of a circle inscribed on the surface of the sphere, as the circle gets smaller, the portion of the sphere the circle bounds gets closer and closer to the condition of flatness, without ever reaching it"
___________________________________________________
My response:
I do not not understand this first point but if it at is at all based on the General Theory of Relativity, we KNOW that this is still yet to be proven a FACT or LAW as may be the more proper way of calling it. More importantly it seems to me you are taking one of the most difficult routes to prove the earth is a ball. Your average guy out there is going to think that is chinese no?
I am not trying to poke fun at you AT ALL. It just seems kinda unusual that point 1 starts "The nature of curvature...", when I would expect an argument the layman like me could comprehend easily, since it really should be easy to be proven right here on this planet, NOT needing to use anything outside of this EARTH's realm-Gravity (rests on general Theory of Relativity) as does space time as I would imagine.
Sooooo, I will allow that I could possibly be wrong in my reasoning regarding my above point (I do not believe I am) but lets say I am- Should it not still be extremely easy to prove the earth is a ball even without using theLaw of Gravity, General Theory of Relativity or any other math that mere mortals like myself cannot comprehend? I think the logical answer must be YES, there are more than one way to skin this cat so I will move on to your comment about not needing it's curvature engineered to make railroad projects and canals.
I THINK you will find this point about your comment ("The first two minutes (as far as I got) talk about how canals, roads, etc, do not need to be engineered for curvature. A road lying on the Earth's surface does not need its curvature "engineered": it takes on a curved form already, and appears flat on the small scale of human perception")
SO HERE I GO- First you state "appears", so I would agree with that statement because it means in actuality that they do in FACT ACCOUNT for curvature no? In the video (Surveyors, Engineers, Pilots and Sailors Expose the Flat Earth on youtube) that you made it two minutes through or so the narrrator states that railroad builders( I believe it was) were given construction instructions that ACCOUNTED for the curvature of the earth BUT not once were they ever needed!!!!!
Please read that and consider it carefully. The designers of the railroad INCLUDED in their CALCULATIONS the curvature of the earth, YET the BUILDERS KNEW the EXTRA material (RAILS) were NOT needed to ACCOUNT for the curvature of the earth. Over the distance of 2500 miles the curvature of the earth should come to approximately 723.2731 MILES!!!!!!!! of curvature.
I used the curve calculator here to compute that number-smokescreendesign dot com The implications of such an enormous curve are a Hella amount of extra track should be required to account for said curvature NO????? I will wait for your reply to this post because this little diddy should get you wondering how extra rails (to account for the curvature) could possibly NOT be needed over that distance. I really hope you see I am trying use use logic and reasoning here. Maybe I have missed something, I really hope you do watch the rest of that video because It goes far beyond just this one single point. TTYS
Hey oldfarmermac, I asked RUNE LIKVERN to post that I was kicked off the site but he just deleted my post. I contacted him on his website below.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-06-28/oil-interest-rates-and-debt/
I "knew" he would not let peakoilbarrel board know I was BOOTED so I copied my last post for sort of proof. SAD HUH......
I see you did not post my post. No problem I copyed and pasted it you FRAUD. I am next going to open a peakoilbarrelfraud website (go ahead and try an buyem all cause I 'll come up with differnet ones) and expose the entire thread! I'm am quite sure oldfarmermac will be IMPRESSED with YOU and SCUMRONS dishonesty.Thanks DAVID "the troll" HICKS. PATHETIC.
Oldfarmermac, I agree, Snowden, Manning are heroes. They can be nothing else. Chose prison to speak truth.
ReplyDeleteSO FUNNY.
ReplyDeleteI asked the guy who made the video on youtube called “moon hoax not” about how he could possibly think it would be easier to go to the moon then fake it, a question.
I copy and pasted our conversation below.
Can anyone see what a FAIL in logic that is OR he is a LIAR.
Top comments
David Hicks (ME)
David Hicks1 day ago
Why don’t you explain all the things that actually make people wonder if we went to the moon rather than talk about it in technical jargon that less than 1 in 100,000 people will understand and I am probably overstating that by at least a factor of one or two.
Yes, I imagine it is much more difficult to make a film about a moon landing thanto actually go to the moon. Perfectly logical. I guess that’s why we have gone back so many times since.
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DUDE who Made Video
Reply
sgcollins
sgcollins1 day agoHighlighted reply
hi david, who did you mean by ‘you’ in this message? if you meant me, my reason for not talking about those things is because i have no knowledge of them.
Reply
David Hicks (ME)
David Hicks1 second ago
So HOW can YOU then so easily disclaim that it was NOT a HOAX like YOUR video is TITLED?
This quote applies as much to YOU as it DOES to ME?
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation”
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David Hicks
David Hicks1 second ago
OOOOOPs backed yourself into a corner ehhhhhh????? lololololololol
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David Hicks
David Hicks1 second ago
I have also copy pasted this conversation to another site, no memory hole for this GEM!THANKS
Reply
Leave a Reply
SEE ho the THRUTH always RISES no matter what??????
Come on, how can you not see all these new fricking messages !!!
You sure you were a teacher, your behavior on the forum would have set a poor example for kids no???
ReplyDeletehttp://peakoil.com/forums/math-is-religion-pythagoras-proved-earth-not-a-sphere-t73312.html
peakoil losers deleted my whole thread (and acct) when I had two of their members OPENLY DISAGREE with each other lolololololololo
Delete3/10/17 5:42 Your words below:
ReplyDelete"I believe sunshine is the greatest possible disinfectant when it comes to curing rot in the body politic, and so far as I am concerned, the only really relevant question is whether the emails, etc, are genuine."
I'm sorry oldfarmermac your ACTIONS (on 3/3/17 peakoilbarrel non oil thread) BETRAY YOU. Name calling someone with very good evidence who YOU did not believe or even listen too one moment were YOUR actions, come on, I still think you ARE better than that, you just got temporarily affeected by groupthink. DAVID HICKS
oldfarmermac, sorry to say I do not trust that this webpage will not be "memory holed" by you at some point so I have screen saved the ENTIRE page, so dissapointing.
ReplyDeleteHey oldfarmermac, I am 2 months into believing earth is flat and my life has improved drastically. It is AMAZING, I found out on May 2, that my entire life was me living a lie, never even listening to one person, I hope if you read these you contact me because from your reaction when I first spoke on peakoilbarrel I think you may have you have much to learn about the deception that is being perpertrated on us. david@dbchocolate.com
ReplyDeleteI read your comment today on peak oil barrel non oil thread where you talked about how there is so much evidence against trump and that is why I wrote my comment above. Oldfarmermac, you are getting the same treatment YOU gave me, you have EViDENCE but no one on peak oilbarrel will even look at it or acknowledge it is true, and that IS what YOU did to me with Flat Earth. I believe you are stuck thinking that politicians are actually even trying to help the common man, there is some power or something controlling ALL of this, it gets crazy but you are right at the door, you just need to walk through it, or (down the rabbit hole lol).
ReplyDelete