Electric Glide in Blue

Ultimate Motorcycling reports that more than 50 police departments have adopted Zero battery-powered motorcycles for some of their patrol officers.

As the write-up notes, one advantage the Zero gives patrol officers is the absence of engine noise.  They are agile and fast.  I disagree with the view that they are better for the environment given a) that I do not consider carbon dioxide a pollutant and b) that the electricity to charge the battery comes most often from coal-burning power plants and c) that battery building is a dirty business.  Politically correct BS aside, however, I can see that electric bikes have a future in our urban jungles.  I think they are a beneficial application of the technology -- more so than electric cars in my opinion.

Off point, I also think, once they become popular, they will be stolen and chopped at very high rates because the components will be so valuable and easily traded.   

I can't imagine a scenario where I would buy an electric bike, but I do not have the (admittedly) irrational and visceral antagonism toward electric two-wheelers that I feel for electric four-wheelers.  I don't know what my problem is.  I even hate Cooper Minis, and I consider the Smart Car an automotive armadillo.  

Some day, if battery and charging technology continue to improve, it might be possible to "fill up" a plug-in bike with a range of a couple of hundred miles in ten minutes or so. Until that day comes, electrics will continue to impress with their acceleration and maneuverability under limited functional conditions. Municipal police patrols are a good current use.



 

War on Water

You've probably heard that Obama and the EPA are claiming sovereignty over all water in the U.S.

The EPA was created, as I recall, under Nixon.  It's not a bad idea -- in principle, however, as we were talking about earlier this week with the Department of Agriculture, it is now as much a rogue agency as the IRS or the ATF.  Dogs are good.  Mad dogs have to be put down. 

Common sense would suggest that navigable waterways do not include drainage ditches or fish ponds on private property.  Of course, common sense has nothing to do with it.  It is all about seizing power and control.  Property rights, including all-important water rights, mean nothing to tyrants, petty or otherwise.

I have my own little red line.  The day the government tries to come in and tell me what I can do with my pond or the little spring and stream I have on my property or my well is the day I begin practicing uncivil disobedience.  I'll put up with a lot of silliness and taxation and regulation and bureaucratic stupidity, but water is life, and I take it very seriously.  I don't think I am entirely alone in this.

A government that has no respect or regard for the most vital rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is a government unworthy of respect or regard. 

It is time to de-fund and dismantle the EPA. 

Possible Cottonmouth Fatality

Death from snakebites are rare, but, over the weekend, a man died after being bitten twice while wading in the James Rivers south of Springfield, MO. 

Gilbert DeLeon, 37, was wading at the Delaware Access Area of the James River when he was bitten on Friday.  Christian County Coroner Brad Cole says his girlfriend wanted him to get medical attention, but he refused and tried to treat himself.  His girlfriend told investigators that DeLeon was lethargic the rest of the evening.  He died early Saturday in his sleep.

In the video at the link, the reporter says DeLeon told his girlfriend he wouldn't go to the hospital because he could not afford it.  I will refrain from my usual tirade about how a perfectly good free market medical system was ruined by government intervention in the 1960s -- except to suggest that government policies and Obamacare may have contributed to Mr. DeLeon's death. 

I have known people to survive venomous snakebites without any sort of treatment.  My father claimed that he was doing all right until he was given the anti-venom, but I think that was a matter of timing.  We got him over to the clinic within about an hour after he was bitten by a copperhead, so about the time he got the shot is when he would have started feeling the full effect.  A bull-headed friend who survived an untreated bite from a copperhead just a few years ago suffered considerably in the process.  He thought he was going to die and told his wife he did not want to be buried in a blue coffin.  He might have been slightly delirious.

The reason I posted this was Ben's comment the other day about cottonmouths versus copperheads.  According the report, unspecified "experts" think the snake was probably a cottonmouth.  Copperheads certainly swim, but it is most likely a cottonmouth given the location and the fact that it happened in the water.  It is rather difficult to imagine what the man could have done to antagonize the snake.  The spokesman for the Department of Conservation mouthed the standard official-speak, "... it is best just to leave them alone ...", referring to snakes and other creatures.  It's possible that the victim cornered the snake or struck at it, but there is nothing in the body of the report to indicate deliberate aggression on DeLeon's part.

There won't be an autopsy but there will be a toxicology test.  The coroner was unsure if that would indicate the species of snake. 

It is a sad story.  The world can still be a dangerous place, and it is always wise to pay attention.

Abolish the U.S. Department of Agriculture

The USDA budget is about $135-140 billion annually.  Of that, approximately $2 billion is spent on food safety inspections and plant and animal safety.  I'm OK with that $2 billion -- though half of it is probably wasted.  We can keep that part.  The rest of the USDA should be shut down today. 

I was out over the weekend, and we passed by this farm near where I grew up.  There was a lot of corn planted.  I asked about it and was told it was for silage.  It's on a dairy farm run by what they said were "people from Sweden or some such place". 

The thing is, these foreigners were able to come into the States and set up a nice operation with financial help from the USDA.  In just one recent instance, it became known that this operation ran up a bill of about $30,000 at a local farm store. The bill was paid by the USDA. 

This is far too typical of the corporate cronyism in agriculture and other industries.  If you know the right people and are willing to jump through the various government hoops, you can make a good living on taxpayer dollars.  The family farm is being destroyed while corporate farms and agribusiness giants like Cargill and ADM prosper. 

Government dependence is bad -- whether one is a welfare queen in East St. Louis cranking out bastard babies for fun and profit or a business-suited CEO getting "free" money from the taxpaying serfs in this country. 

The Hedgehog's View

There is an ancient saying from the Greek poet Archilochus:  The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

The hedgehog's world view is centralized and simplified.  The fox is too engaged with the complexities of reality to formulate a general theory, since, to him, all theories are cutting off and ignoring obvious aspects of existence as it is.

I'm not entirely sure Raymond Ibrahim is using the metaphor quite the way I would in his American Thinker article:  "Obama, ISIS, and the Writing on the Wall".  Read it and see what you think.

You probably also need to read the earlier piece by Mr. Ibrahim to which he refers:  "Does Obama Need 'Time' to Defeat or Forget ISIS?"

Ibrahim predicted in the October 2014 essay that Obama's intention was never to defeat ISIS but to get them out of the headlines, to placate those who were offended by the Islamic State's videos of decapitations and other reported atrocities. 

The regime has succeeded.  Now "suddenly" we learn that Ramadi, the key city of the crucial Anbar province, is under the control of ISIS.

To quote from the conclusion of Mr. Ibrahim's AT essay (links in original): 

To fully appreciate the significance of this latest conquest by the Islamic State, consider the words of Anbar governor Ahmed al-Dulaimi, spoken back in November 2014: “If we lose Anbar, that means we will lose Iraq.”

Of course, none of these developments are surprising for those among us who were able to take a step back -- to transcend the distracting noise and nonsense daily grinded out by mainstream media -- and look at the big picture.  For those able to read the plain writing on the wall, the end game of Obama and IS was always easy to discern. 

Put differently, Americans need to start viewing the Obama administration with the eyes of a hedgehog, not a fox.

The fox might think Obama is incompetent as a political and military leader, unable to comprehend the complexities of the battlefield, unwilling to engage in a ground war for political reasons, and so forth.  The hedgehog has a simpler explanation.

Papa Needs A Brand New Bag

Times change and sometimes, even the most traditional of us, have to consider changing with them.  No, I'm not going on Fakebook, and I'm not getting a smart phone.

My favorite "weekender" bag ever was a little faux leather duffel or gym bag with pockets on the ends.  I carried that thing all over the country for years.  It's retired to the attic; I can't bring myself to burn it, although it is beyond all hope.  I currently have three or more duffels, none of which I really like -- too big, too small, too floppy, not enough compartments, etc.

I do like my laptop bag.  I still have to have a laptop for work, and this bag, though limited in capacity, is great to carry.  It holds my laptop, power cord, charger cords, and various miscellaneous electronic necessities along with pens, pencils, notebooks and even my tablet.  That's it, though, there's not much room for other gear. This laptop bag has a single strap for carry over the shoulder.  I like that, too.

I mentioned on the other blog that I have been thrown out of sync this week by the necessity of searching for a missing family member over the weekend.  It turned out to be no big deal, but it did start me to thinking -- often an expensive activity.

I thought, when I left the house, I might wind up staying away for an extended time, overnight at the very least.  I usually keep some basic travel gear in one of my duffel bags -- a small Dopp kit with toiletries, a couple of changes of underwear and socks, t-shirt, shorts -- enough to sleep and take a shower and brush my teeth the next day.  So I grabbed that bag, threw in a firearm, ammo, a serious blade, a couple of tools, water bottle, protein bar, that sort of stuff.  Then I grabbed my laptop bag and loaded it for work.  All I would need, if I were still away on Monday, would be a WiFi connection. 

Once I got everything in the truck and was rolling down the road, I became slightly annoyed that it had taken me so long to get out of the house and the fact that I had to bring two bags.  It seemed to me that I should have been able to have one bag to rule them all to haul everything.  I didn't have that much stuff.  And, I ought be able to keep it sufficiently stocked with "spare" gear (e.g., one or even two of my forty-seven knives) that I would not have to think too much about what I might need.  Undock the laptop, shove it in the bag, pick up the .40, shove it in the bag, and go.  Maximum five minutes.

So, why don't I have a bag like that?  

I looked at messenger bags.  Even if I could find one with sufficient capacity, they look like purses.  I know the man-bag/murse is now acceptable, but it's not for me.  I guess I could wrap it in buckskin and call it a possibles bag.  Probably because of my age and the time I went to college, despite having read The Complete Walker and the Outdoor Life camping column every month throughout my formative years, I have always associated backpacks with hitchhikers and hippies.  I never saw a hillbilly with a backpack. 

Still, that's what I'm considering -- a backpack that will protect my laptop, hold my electronic odds and occasional end with additional space for gear sufficient to get me comfortably through a night or two away from home and help me deal with most contingencies that might arise. 

I am open to suggestions and will report here on whatever I might eventually obtain.

 

Nothing Succeeds Like Secession

So this 28 Sherman guy has a couple of interesting maps and links that show the relative economic power of the various states.

Read it and see what you think.

Part of our historic power as a nation has always been in the economic diversity of our regions.  Natural resources and geography have combined to allow us to prosper as producers, traders, and creators. 

Technology makes the role of a central government far less relevant than it might been in the past.  We can find people and resources and make contacts without all the machinery of bloated and expensive bureaucracies and agencies. 

Any time there is talk of states pulling out of the Union, someone will say that the concept of secession was settled by the Civil War.  It is true that the secessionists lost the war, but that doesn't mean the concept was erroneous.  It was simply a matter of the North having more manpower and manufacturing capability to continue the war than was available to the South.  Slavery is wrong.  Secession isn't necessarily. 

Joss Whedon may be a liberal idiot but the words Malcolm Reynolds spoke ring true, "May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

I am not convinced that secession is the way to solve our problems, but I'm not convinced it isn't.  I am sure that the federal government is, as Reagan said, not the solution but the problem.