Justice and the Law

The days keep blowing by, and I keep getting more Libertarian. We need to radically revamp our justice system. Drug laws need to be changed. We need to stop ruining the lives of people who commit nonviolent crimes. And yet, white collar crimes could use harsher punishments. Sex offenders should not be allowed on the streets. Kidnappers should not be allowed on the streets. I am not kidding. This current system is f*cked, people. Go on the Megan's Law website and take a look at all the sex offenders that live in your neighborhood. The day is coming when these people will be rounded up by citizen posses and taken off the streets. These offenders gave up their rights when they willfully committed their crimes. Come on, let's be clear here. Let's be responsible adults. The only way we can ever truly function as people and as a society is if we all take responsibility for our own lives and our own actions. Personal Responsibility. It's the operating platform we were always meant to function on. I'm ranting, but I'm upset because yesterday a woman walked into a local police station and explained that she was kidnapped 18 years ago, at the age of 11, and has been kept captive in a local house all that time...during which she had two children who were fathered by her abductor. It makes me ashamed to be a man, and ashamed to be an American, to hear this. The man who abducted her and held her captive as a sex slave for 18 years does not deserve an expensive trial. He deserves a brief hearing where the evidence is presented, and then he deserves something far, far less expensive than prison and/or Death Row. Someone should cap him before he reaches the police station. This tears me up, to see such injustice.

Zombie Haikus

Brains on the ceiling.
Brains on the floor. However,
No brains in my head.

Guns in the kitchen
and brains in my head. I'm not
a zombie yet, man.

Single-ought brainshot
Ought to knock the marbles off
A hungry zombie.

I may be loaded
for bear, but -- trust me! -- I'm real-
ly hunting zombies.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. Driving
Without headlights. Are those thumps
Speed bumps or zombies?

Chainsaw in one hand,
Morning Star in the other.
Dance with me, Zombie.

Managed to drive out
of Oaktown. Now I'm stalled in
A herd of zombies.

Zombies on the lawn.
Zombies on the porch. I fear
They will eat my brains.

Staggering, cold brains,
Screaming humans, my low moans:
I am a zombie.

More Cool Energy Sources

The treadmill is one of my favs. There is a drawing of a horse-powered treadmill in an old Sears catalog. A 1-horsepower engine, so-to-speak. The treadmill powers a belt which is attached to a driveshaft that runs across the ceiling of a workshop. All the power tools in the shop are hooked up to the drive shaft. No electricity required.

Steam engines can power the same above setup. So can PTOs on tractors.

Small-scale alcohol production. Why not use scrap organic matter to distill potent alcohol that can power an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell?

Wood gasification. One of my favs. You can use this technology to power modified internal combustion engines. This would be really useful in areas like the Pacific Northewest, which are heavily forested.

More on steam engines. A small 2-hp steam engine can be fired up every few days for a couple of hours to charge batteries, and the hot water generated will heat a house til you fire up the engine again. You can also farm your trees in such a way that you always have wood to burn and always have a forest and always sequester more CO2 than you emit.

Compressed Air Batteries

Batteries are necessary for storing energy. In particular, many alternative forms of energy are based on electricity, and thus batteries are crucial for storing energy which may have to be generated at one time, and used at a later time. I am talking solar, wind, tidal, hydro, etc. Unfortunately, chemical batteries are highly toxic and wear out over time. And so I am interested in alternatives to the chemical battery.

One alternative that exists and is in current production is the flywheel battery, which has limitations and so far finds its greatest success in providing Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS) in industrial settings. EG: If the electricity fails in an office, a flywheel battery can seamlessly kick in and provide emergency power while computer systems are securely shut down.

But the battery which I hold the highest hopes for is the compressed air battery. In a nutshell, the compressed air battery works like this: A power source forces air into a cylinder, where the compressed air remains stored indefinitely. When energy is required at a later time, the compressed air is released thru a turbine, thus generating electricity.

Now, note that this system does not have to use compressed air to function. It is the compression that is crucial, not the air. You could probably compress one of any number of fluids and/or gasses to achieve the same result. But for the sake of simplicity I will refer to this system as a compressed air battery.

Also, the compression could occur by different means. For instance, a solar panel could electrically power an air compressor. But conceivably, a wind turbine could mechanically compress air, thus negating the need to first generate electricity.

Furthermore, power could be generated from the compressed air both by generating electricity via a turbine, or by generating torque via mechanical pistons (once again bypassing the need to generate electricity).

Compressed air batteries could server different purposes. Smaller, portable cylinders could be used to power compressed air engines and small tools and compressed air vehicles (which already exist) and rifles (which also already exist). Larger, stationary batteries could power machine shops, electric appliances, computers, household lighting, etc.

Air could be compressed via power generated by PV panels, wind turbines, water turbines, human exertion, biodiesel, alcohol, fuel cells and horses.

My favorite systems are ones that utilize as much mechanical power -- and as little electrical power -- as possible. The reason being that every time you convert energy from one form to another, some of that energy is lost. So, the more direct the use, the more efficient the use (roughly, and theoretically -- at least to my mind). But also, mechanical systems are low-tek and thus, in a sense, simpler. I also wonder if mixing hi-tech materials such as metals built in a molecular foundry, and low-tek mechanics such as gears and rods, might produce superior energy systems.

Check it out: On the outback ranch of tomorrow, perhaps a horse will spend the morning walking on a treadmill, which will mechanically charge the compresed air cylinders on the work truck, which is powered by a compressed air engine.

I want to live on that ranch.

The Rise of the Great White Waves

The day is coming when the Earth will roll, and heal itself at last from the damage that humanity has inflicted upon it for the last 200 years. When that day comes, the seas will rise up and inundate the coasts across the world. The oceans will boil, and great, white waves will wipe the seaboards clean. Forests will fall, coastlines will be scoured away. Cities will drown. Lowlands will flood. The best house you can have on that day is a steel house built on a gimble, as Edgar Cayce once advised. And the best place your house can be on that day is high above the waterline, far from the coast. And the best skills you can have on that day are sound gardening skills, because when that day comes, money will have no more worth forevermore, the oil pipelines will burst for the last time, and nations and governments will cease to exist. The waves will wipe our slate clean. On that day, each of us will realize, at last, that man has never had dominion over nature, and never will.

The Earth is our Mother. The Earth reigns supreme. The Earth holds us in Her blue embrace, and we, as Her children, would be wise to remember our proper place.