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All Over America, Government Officials Are Cracking Down On Preppers

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Why would the government want to punish people that are just trying to work hard, become more self-sufficient and take care of their families?  There are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today, and often they appear to be singled out for punishment by bureaucratic control freaks that are horrified at the thought that there are families out there that actually want to try to become less dependent on the system.  So if you use alternative methods to heat your home, or if you are not connected to the utility grid, or if you collect rainwater on your property, or if you believe that parents should have the ultimate say when it comes to health decisions for their children, you could become a target for overzealous government enforcers. 

Once upon a time, America was the land of the free and the home of the brave, but now we are being transformed into a socialist police state where control freak bureaucrats use millions of laws, rules and regulations to crack down on anyone that dares to think for themselves.

For example, people have been burning wood to heat their homes since this country began.  And this is still very common in rural areas.  But the Obama administration does not like this at all.  The Obama bureaucrats at the EPA fear that our little wood stoves may be contributing to “global warming”, so they have outlawed the production and sale of 80 percent of the wood stoves that are currently in use.  The following comes from a recent Forbes article

It seems that even wood isn’t green or renewable enough anymore. The EPA has recently banned the production and sale of 80 percent of America’s current wood-burning stoves, the oldest heating method known to mankind and mainstay of rural homes and many of our nation’s poorest residents. The agency’s stringent one-size-fits-all rules apply equally to heavily air-polluted cities and far cleaner plus typically colder off-grid wilderness areas such as large regions of Alaska and the American West.

 

While EPA’s most recent regulations aren’t altogether new, their impacts will nonetheless be severe. Whereas restrictions had previously banned wood-burning stoves that didn’t limit fine airborne particulate emissions to 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, the change will impose a maximum 12 microgram limit. To put this amount in context, EPA estimates that secondhand tobacco smoke in a closed car can expose a person to 3,000-4,000 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter.

 

Most wood stoves that warm cabin and home residents from coast-to-coast can’t meet that standard. Older stoves that don’t cannot be traded in for updated types, but instead must be rendered inoperable, destroyed, or recycled as scrap metal.

Does that make you angry?

It should.

There are other preppers that try to use very “clean” methods to power their homes, but that is still not good enough for some government control freaks.

For example, one prepper down in south Florida that had gone “off the grid” was recently ordered by a court to connect back to the grid or face eviction from his home.  The following is an excerpt from a recent article by Guiles Hendrik

Think you are still free to make choices in your life? Do you think the government will allow you to live independent of their utility monopolies? If you think so, try opting for renewable non-grid tied power and utilize environmentally friendly composting toilets and your own self-sufficient water supply. Today, those life choices could land you in jail if you live in South Florida. Take the case of Robin Speronis.

 

Robin Speronis has lived off the grid, independent of the city’s water and electric system. A Florida court ruled this off-the-grid living illegal last week and has given Robin until March to connect her home to a municipal water line or face possible eviction. Further, officials in the city of Cape Coral have justified this by deeming Robin’s home “unsanitary,” citing the International Property Maintenance Code. First of all, since when did we begin to locally recognize “international codes?” Where in the US Constitution does it provide for international jurisdiction over local codes? Ironically, this “international” code mandates that homes be connected to an electricity grid and a running water source, even though most of the world lives without reliable electricity and municipal water and sewer. Further, the code is outdated and obsolete because it was written without consideration to both old and new technologies that relegate the need for grid tied power and municipal water as unnecessary and expensive; especially, in locations where it simply isn’t feasible to have grid tied utilities. Nonetheless, Speronis’ home does in fact have power and water through far cheaper and more environmentally friendly means — solar panels and rainwater, but that reality is ignored by the local government.

Incredibly, most Americans still seem to believe that we live in a “free country”.  But we don’t.  Our lives are very tightly constrained by literally millions of laws, rules and regulations, and more are being added every single day.

Even some of our most basic fundamental rights have been seriously eroded.  One of these is the right to make basic health decisions for our own children.  In New York state, children that have not received all of the designated vaccines can now be banned from attending public school, and this requirement was recently upheld by a federal appeals court

New York state’s requirement that children be vaccinated before attending public school does not violate their constitutional rights, a federal appeals court in Manhattan said on Wednesday.

 

In affirming the requirement’s constitutionality, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also upheld a previous ruling by a federal judge that students exempted from the requirement for religious reasons can be barred from school when another child has a disease preventable by a vaccine.

 

The decision was the latest to go against three parents from New York City who say their religious rights were violated when their children were kept out of school as a result of the immunization policies. The parents’ lawyer, Patricia Finn, said her clients planned to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

So what are we free to do without government interference these days?

Not much.

In fact, in some states we can’t even sit on our own land and collect the rain as it falls from the sky for our own personal use.

If you do this in the state of Oregon, for example, you could go to prison

Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property surrendered Wednesday morning to begin serving his 30-day, jail sentence in Medford, Ore.

 

“I’m sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty,” Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Ore.) Jail.

 

Several people held signs that showed support for Harrington as he was taken inside the jail.

And of course these are just a few examples.  Almost every single day there are more stories in the news about government bureaucrats cracking down on preppers.  They almost seem to relish the opportunity to go after the “non-conformists”.

But the good news is that the number of Americans that are seeking to become less dependent on the system just continues to grow.

So what about you?

Are you a prepper?

My friend Daisy Luther recently wrote a piece entitled “45 MORE Signs That You Might Be One of Those Crazy Preppers“.  The following are some of the most interesting “signs” from her list…

*You spend your days off digging an underground bunker in your backyard.

*Your family doesn’t dare take something from the food stockpile without marking it off the list.

*Your kids know how to don a gas mask in 30 seconds.

*Everyone in your survival group carries the same firearm so that ammo is standardized.

*Your family is no longer surprised when you announce, “Hey, we’re going to learn how to make (insert anything here)!”

*You have long since accepted the idea that if you’re not on someone’s list, you’re probably not doing it right.

*You don’t just rotate food, you rotate ammo.

*Moving to a new house is no longer “moving”, but “strategic relocation”.

*Your kids think it’s a fun game to see who can find the most potential weapons in a room.

*Your EDC includes a knife, firearm w/extra mag, flashlight, mylar blanket, Chapstick, and an ounce of silver — and that’s just for when you’re walking the dog.

*One criterion for your new winter coat is that it fits over your body armor.

You can read her entire article right here.

America was built by people that loved their families, worked hard and were self-sufficient.

Now our government is specifically targeting those kinds of people.

What in the world is happening to us?

 

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Fri, 01/09/2015 - 19:59 | 5644115 wolfnipplechips
wolfnipplechips's picture

Bring it bitchez!

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:04 | 5644141 BigJim
BigJim's picture

 What in the world is happening to us?

Marx has won.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:15 | 5644167 Publicus
Publicus's picture

We head closer to the Crisis of 2020. It'll be far worse than the Crisis of 1940, and the Crisis of 1860, Crisis of 1780 combined.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:22 | 5644202 Billy the Poet
Billy the Poet's picture

 

 

Who is John Galt?

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:30 | 5644228 dirtscratcher
dirtscratcher's picture

Me.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:37 | 5644251 Billy the Poet
Billy the Poet's picture

 

 

Me too. I'm also Spartacus.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:50 | 5644321 0b1knob
0b1knob's picture

When wood burning stove are illegal then only CRIMINALS will own wood burning stoves.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:58 | 5644351 Billy the Poet
Billy the Poet's picture

They can have my wood stove when they take it from my warm, dead hands.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:06 | 5644381 CH1
CH1's picture

And yet, they keep obeying.

Who's stupid?

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:29 | 5644460 Keyser
Keyser's picture

Get out while you can, it's not too late....

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:06 | 5644537 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

No can do, Max.

I will hold as long as possible (even unto death).

After the fall of the United States and it's Constitution, there won't be any safe place anyway. I prefer to stay and fight for the rights of us all.

That shit about 'peak oil'; it's a bullshit story, Max.

Don't worry. I still respect you, brother.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:21 | 5644695 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

It would be nice to see who 'downvoted' me.

Let us come to a place where there is no threat to either, and 'palaver'.

PROBABLY, though, it is a TROLLISTA.

Max Keiser didn't do it (I know his persona too well).

 

 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 00:15 | 5644841 manofthenorth
manofthenorth's picture

I burn a fire in my cookstove close to 300 days a year. It will be a most unfortunate day for the SOB from whatever agency that interferes with its operation.

MOLON LABE MOTHERFUCKERS

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 00:23 | 5644864 cifo
cifo's picture

Don't they disconnect your water if you don't pay for it???????

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 03:05 | 5645093 Zero Point
Zero Point's picture

No. They take your house.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:33 | 5645359 Took Red Pill
Took Red Pill's picture

Snyder, this is incorrect! The link you posted to the Forbes article is a year old! If you dug deeper, you'd find their info wrong. Rep. Thomas Massey (R-KY) asked EPA Gina McCarthy at a November 2013 hearing before the proposed regulations were introduced. McCarthy confirmed  “The proposed rule would not affect existing woodstoves and other wood-burning heaters currently in use in people’s homes,” 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:16 | 5645430 Solar
Solar's picture

Not existing stoves.....yet.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:35 | 5645458 tarsubil
tarsubil's picture

I've hung out with EPA fu.. folks. It is just a matter of time. Ever had an overbearing mom, girlfriend or wife? Pretty much filled with Hitlery types.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 12:39 | 5645709 Hitlery_4_Dictator
Hitlery_4_Dictator's picture

We are ready for Hitlery buddy! 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 13:16 | 5645789 InjectTheVenom
InjectTheVenom's picture

i got news for 'ya ... ain't gonna be no Hitlery .  Or Bush.  Or Romney or Christie or Perry or Cruz.  Obola is here to stay, just watch...of course I don't know exactly how he'll (or should i say, his handlers)pull it off , but get ready folks ... you heard it here first. 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 20:11 | 5646916 JRev
JRev's picture

Don't rule out the Wild Card. Rand Paul has done well to win the favor of AIPAC and Karl Rove's neocon "electoral exploratory committee" over the past few years. The recent photo-ops with George P. (as in Prescott) Bush in Texas perfectly capture the depth of Rand's complicity. He's their new Trojan Horse. 

Elect the "Libertarian-minded," fuck shit up, blame "freedom." Game, set, match. Just watch.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 11:34 | 5645569 Payne
Payne's picture

no way to regulate existing.  This is all a repeat from the past.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:16 | 5645937 Socratic Dog
Socratic Dog's picture

Steel stoves don't last forever.  Particularly efficient ones.  When you come to replace your existing stove, I think you will find the new ones rather expensive.

Efficient stoves burn less wood....but they are under the control of .gov beaurocrats.  What to do???

Where I am they have "spare the air" days when use of wood-burning stoves is "illegal", unless it is your sole heat source.  They don't like to mention that last little caveat.

Cunts.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:37 | 5645464 Ralph Spoilsport
Ralph Spoilsport's picture

The Forbes article sucks as it's fear mongering by saying people would have to scrap their old stoves and buy new ones. Fox managed to get it right.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/07/epa-proposes-new-restrictions...

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 11:14 | 5645534 SuperRay
SuperRay's picture

Gee, I wonder if you've every heard of the novel notion called PROCESS.  Everything is in Process.  Fox managed to get if right?  How fucked up are you?  This is just one more step in a series of steps that have been IN PROCESS since the CIA (run by wall st bankers) was founded.  Step by step, inch by inch (for Abbott and Costello fans) we are descending into the Orwellian/Huxleyan vision.  Who gives a shit if it's 'just new stoves?" Don't be so fucking concrete. It's just another step...

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:54 | 5646193 Ralph Spoilsport
Ralph Spoilsport's picture

All I was saying was the Fox version wasn't as misleading as the Forbes article. How fucked up are you to take me to task for pointing that out?

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:02 | 5646041 actionjacksonbrownie
actionjacksonbrownie's picture

Actually, up in canada the insurance companies did the dirty work, and forced anyone with a wood burning stove that didn't have a certain label attachde to it, to either remove the stove, or lose their insurance. Since the labeling process only began a couple years earlier, that forced many to scrap their existing, perfectly safe and efficient stove.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 16:19 | 5646253 Ralph Spoilsport
Ralph Spoilsport's picture

That sucks. We didn't have to worry about that because we can't get home insurance for anything close to a reasonable price since we are too close to the water. Big companies we talked to refuse to insure it at any price and that was before we installed the wood stove. The house is completely paid for so we just have to be real careful. The stove sits inside a large fireplace and has 20" of fire brick in front of it so the biggest hazard is coals falling out and rolling onto the floor.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:46 | 5645483 PT
PT's picture

First step to fixing bad legislation:  Names and addresses of those who introduced it to parliament, and those who voted in favour.

First step to losing:  Your oppressors remain faceless and/or live thousands of miles away.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 18:47 | 5646681 Tek Kinkreet
Tek Kinkreet's picture

Great point, which is also why it is important to start localizing everything. Make sure you and your community are preparing and we weather this fine, all in small groups. Small localized government can easily be controlled and held to the will of the people.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 01:46 | 5645009 Ralph Spoilsport
Ralph Spoilsport's picture

This is only for new stoves. If you like your current wood stove, you can keep your current wood stove.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:29 | 5645354 sleigher
sleigher's picture

And if I build one from a steel drum and 1/4" plate?  Then what?  I go to jail for manufacturing? 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:54 | 5645391 DaveyJones
DaveyJones's picture

build your own rocket stove. they'd have a hard time detecting it. Most efficient heat design there is. and only puts out steam

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:33 | 5645454 Ralph Spoilsport
Ralph Spoilsport's picture

Rocket stoves really seem to work. The only ones I have actually seen were in homes most suburbanites would call "rustic". The neighbors also burn wood so nobody is ratting anyone out.

What sucks is that the EPA regulations for 2019 will put most stove manufacturers out of business.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/07/epa-proposes-new-restrictions...

I have a non-catalytic EPA stove and it burns very clean with the secondary combustion going on but you can't completely close the draft on these new stoves. With a high indoor/outdoor Delta T and and high winds, the draft will start eating up your wood. People get around this by installing dampers in the flue to cut back on the draft.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:23 | 5645953 Socratic Dog
Socratic Dog's picture

I replaced an old non-EPA stove, top of the line in it's day, with one like yours.  Wood use has halved, heat generated has gone way up.  Never had to use the flue damper, there seems to be a trickle of air through the secondary combustion tubes but that seem sensible to me.  We don't have much wind, so that's not a problem.

Rocket stoves... seems to me most of the heat would go straight up the chimney.  I use a portable one for cooking outside, camping, etc.  Not for heating.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 16:10 | 5646236 Ralph Spoilsport
Ralph Spoilsport's picture

I have a Hearthstone and they only advise using a damper when you have a tall chimney and too much draft measured in inches of water column. These things seem to self regulate since on a not-so-cold day with no wind, you use a lot less wood. The other thing with ours is that it takes a while to get them really hot due to the soapstone top and sides. Cast iron stoves heat up a lot quicker and the older ones needed a damper to keep the heat from going up the stack too quickly.

The indoor rocket stoves I saw had a long run of stove pipe running horizontally to the outside chimney. They built a sort of bench you can sit on around the pipe that was made out of some weird concoction of mud and straw. It set up hard like concrete but wasn't porous like cement. It was easily painted to match the room's color scheme. Once that thing got warm, it was toasty in there and stayed warm for a good while even if the fire went out. They can get away with burning small pieces of wood which would be kindling for a regular stove.

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 06:18 | 5647801 Idaho potato head
Idaho potato head's picture

Also look into a Russian stove aka finnish stove, super efficient and thrifty.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 23:05 | 5647355 goldsaver
goldsaver's picture

wrong type of rocket stove, you are thinking this one:
http://diyready.com/how-to-make-a-rocket-heater/

I think they mean this one:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VD35U7cXNBg/UTVFXtc3vlI/AAAAAAAAAQk/kLjS9LWHxv...

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:49 | 5644772 Blano
Blano's picture

I brought 2 kids into this world before I this country became the third rate shithole that it is.  I owe it to them to stay and help them as best I can.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 11:20 | 5645542 SuperRay
SuperRay's picture

So true. I'd have left already, but my kids haven't got a clue as to what's coming and think I'm just a crazy Vietnam veteran with wild ideas.  I've given up trying to convince them, and now I'm just waiting so I can try to help them through the transition, if there is one.  I feel for them.  They have big ideas (like all millenials) but remain insulated from reality (so far).

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 12:42 | 5645717 Hitlery_4_Dictator
Hitlery_4_Dictator's picture

Sadly, you are not helping them. Stop coddling these pussy millenials. Cut them loose. 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:27 | 5645960 Socratic Dog
Socratic Dog's picture

Disagree.  He can leave them to their own devices, but be there as a safe haven if/when needed.  That's not coddling.

How old were you when you woke up?  I was in my 40's.  Very difficult for youg people to come to grips with just how fucked up things have become.  Not their fault.  Or maybe it is.  But they're your kids, and natural selection dictates that you will do your damnedest to help them survive.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 05:33 | 5645173 Dubaibanker
Dubaibanker's picture

They say that airlines should do well with the oil price down....hahaha

While Cyprus Airways may be a small airline with 6 planes and more than 1,000 employees, but having the EU Govt shut it down shows how crazy the bankrupt Govt's are becoming and behaving without thinking of social consequences! While the US Govt focuses its energy on rainwater and gas stoves! Another haha...

The purpose of a state owned corporation is not just to make profits but also to provide for social stability by generating employment for thousands!

That's another 1,000 jobs gone and another meme broken that airlines will prosper!

Cyprus Airways closed down after EU state aid ruling
Sat, 01/10/2015 - 20:55 | 5647055 lincolnsteffens
lincolnsteffens's picture

Yeah, like, where is the long arm of the Cabal not able to reach?

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 03:50 | 5645118 TheRideNeverEnds
TheRideNeverEnds's picture

Exactly.  If instead of 

Several people held signs that showed support for Harrington as he was taken inside the jail

we saw 

Several people held up rifles as Harrington was freed from jail; there were no surviving government officials in the vicinity available for comment.   

Things would change right quick.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:39 | 5645471 tarsubil
tarsubil's picture

I just don't think violence will win against the Federal government. Murdering large masses of innocent people is the only thing it does well. Burning down the infrastructure without killing anyone might work.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:29 | 5645968 Socratic Dog
Socratic Dog's picture

Tell it to the Iraqui's.  Etc.

Cojones, friend.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:39 | 5644485 Stuck on Zero
Stuck on Zero's picture

Make your own wood burning stoves bitchez:

http://theselfsufficientliving.com/12-homemade-wood-burning-stoves-and-h...

 

 

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:13 | 5644571 General Decline
General Decline's picture

It's very easy to make your own wood burning stoves.  Ya'll should be practicing your welding skills anyway.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 05:00 | 5645159 Rakshas
Rakshas's picture

I have a funky design for pallet stoves,  stack up about a half dozen pallets pour a little kerosene on em and light er up, burns for about 4 hours....

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 08:01 | 5645263 Citium
Citium's picture

I was thinking this as well. 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 07:25 | 5645249 RealFinney
RealFinney's picture

It's a shame the National Stove Association never got off the ground, but for some reason they seemed to have brand issues with preppers...

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 08:00 | 5645262 Citium
Citium's picture

lol, I see what you did there. 

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:56 | 5644517 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

Dear E.P.A.:

I own and operate an Astroflamm Integra first-generation pellet-burning stove, serial number 7639, built and first sold in July 1992.

I understand that you wish to outlaw this stove, as it does not incoroprate a precious-metal catalytic converter (whose precious metals come from Mainland China and Russia and South Africa), and that you are on the payroll of the multinational oil and energy companies as you are re-regulating its' emissions to make it ILLEGAL (under CODE) to re-sell as an operating unit. Actually, I can't know this fact, as my 'ash micrograms per decaliter' or whatever bullshit test you deem as 'LEGAL' has never been actually run (but if the machine was inefficient, I would have replaced it long ago; as it is my primary source of heat in the winter here in the Pacific Northwest). It almost seems as though you (as a corporate-facsist enforcing entity) wish me to freeze to death (or allow any others as well as myself to face penalties of imprisonment, fines, and rape at the hands of a cellmate named 'Bubba'; should I decide to sell it to them when they are faced with a choice of freezing to death).

Hell. I can't build a Koi pond on the property (because it might be reclassified as a 'wetland'), and NOW, you want me to be forced to fire up the old and inefficient oil-fired furnace in the basement (because it pollutes LESS, because I suppose you totalitarian geniuses have it figured out).

You'd best come try to take my stove from me NOW (and don't forget to tell the DHS where you're going, as well as the medical 'first responders', and the local LEOs with the MRAPs). I might try to SELL IT to a PRIVATE PARTY, and we all KNOW how 'ILLEGAL' that is.

'Preppers' are those that think ahead (like, for example, it might get COLD in the WINTER, so it's best to prepare for that possibility).

Have you ever heard the old Klingon proverb, 'Revenge is a dish best served cold'? It's VERY COLD over here, E.P.A..

MontgomeryScott

P.S.

Could your boys get ahold of the DHS and scope out some 7.62 x 54 rounds for my new sniper rifle (to enable me to protect my assets)? I KNOW they've got PLENTY to spare.

OH. I didn't think so...

 

 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 00:51 | 5644917 Osmium
Osmium's picture

My wood stove was not manufctured in the USSA.  I thought it was because we don't manufacture here, but I beleive it was because of all the damn regulations. 

My Varmebaronen Vedolux 30 was manufactured in Sweden.  Good thing the wife knows how to operate it.  She can keep the house warm when they toss my ass in jail.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 04:04 | 5645127 pomlad5
pomlad5's picture

I am yours brother.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 07:19 | 5645245 Ctrl_P
Ctrl_P's picture

Me and my wife, we're Brian!

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:12 | 5645335 Wile-E-Coyote
Wile-E-Coyote's picture

No. I'm spartacus

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:12 | 5645420 jimmytorpedo
jimmytorpedo's picture

I'm a grilled cheese sandwich.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:51 | 5646018 OBRon
OBRon's picture

Je suis John Galt.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:02 | 5644353 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Indeed, from the article above:

"It seems that even wood isn’t green or renewable enough anymore. The EPA has recently banned the production and sale of 80 percent of America’s current wood-burning stoves, the oldest heating method known to mankind and mainstay of rural homes and many of our nation’s poorest residents."

And yet, for the contractually protected, not so much.

Let me introduce everyone to Gaineville Regional Utilities "biomass energy plant", built in the heady days of Hope-n-Change. This thing is fed by trees that were growing just last week, trees ground up into digestable mulch size pieces for this incenerator. Trees that are grown on crony-socialist connected land, then trucked by diesel fuel burning trucks, sometimes for a 100 miles to the plant.

Amercian Renewables LLC has a 30yr contract (and receives the FEDERAL TAX CREDITS) for the plants operations. Did I mention this is a publicly owned utility, owned by the city of Gainesville? I should also mention that when the plant shuts down for periodic maintenance, the customers rates actually GO DOWN as their energy needs then come from the COAL FIRED PLANT on the same property (ironically called, Deerhaven).

And, to top it off, there's a more economical railroad line that passes right in front of the plant, so why the trucks burning diesel and beating the shit out of the roads to burn wood imported from five different counties?

Because its gaaarrreeennnn?

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:03 | 5644370 Billy the Poet
Billy the Poet's picture

It isn't easy being green.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:02 | 5644531 Implied Violins
Implied Violins's picture

Ignorance is Strength.

War is Peace.

Brown is Green.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:14 | 5644576 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Krugman would say, the DOT and their road contractors need federal funding for their work too ;-)

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 06:04 | 5645190 cossack55
cossack55's picture

Funny, the Der Boehner-meister finds it very easy to be orange.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:17 | 5645339 Wile-E-Coyote
Wile-E-Coyote's picture

Well if he wasn't orange he would be green, which would give it away that he is a Lizard...well that's according to David Icke anyway.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:39 | 5644629 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

nmewn,

In the mid 1980's, my older brother was working on his Master's Thesis in Chemical Engineering. His presentation was to be a way to convert biomass into fuel. He entitled it 'Diapers To Diesel Fuel'. He had an issue with the mechanical constrictions of his reactor, and came to me (the 'mechanic') to solve the issue. It seems that he was having an issue with the metallurgy; and kept blowing the electrical initiation device right out of the initiation device. I solved his problem for him in about 24 hours... He got his degree, and more (because he sold the patent rights to a little company named 'Dow Chemical').

BUSH the YOUNGER signed the legislation that had to do with 'reconvertible energy sources', nmewn. It ALSO made incandescent light bulbs ILLEGAL in the CONUS, by the way; and mandated the use of CORN for FUEL ('Cornahol', sic.).

I worked on an experimental EMD engine that made over 3,800 ft/lbs of torque using a base of a 16-645 E3B, with a 19-blade turbo impeller instead of the 18-blade one. There was an issue with the block, that put too much pressure at a particular location at the in the bottom of the pressed-in bore liners (which I found, figured out, and informed the Eastern European investors about; as the head of the dynomometer testing operations). Bear in mind that the best-tuned engines of this class are limited to about 2,400 ft/lbs. When it ran, it went past the limits of the dynomometer (which I was in charge of operating). The Polish engineers who came up with this were limited in their post-cold-war thinking. All they had to do was to raise the deck height by about a half an inch... they were like a kid who sees a Honda car and tries to 'tweak' it, without building up a new block to compensate for the extra power...

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 07:09 | 5645237 Frankie Carbone
Frankie Carbone's picture

I hold a ton of patents. By law, if he added some unique feature to your invention, or even a non-novel feature that was implemented in a unique manner, then he must also be a co-inventor on the patent. I hope that you added him to the filing papers because if not, a competitor can use that to invalidate the patent believe it or not. 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 11:07 | 5645526 post turtle saver
post turtle saver's picture

coal is pretty tough to beat for large scale centralized power production... the only real contender short of nuclear (omg teh evil nukular) is natural gas, and that because you typically get 50% greater thermal efficiency out of a natural gas turbine farm vs. a coal fire plant... biomass plays only truly work if they're actually natural gas (methane)... wood pellets? lol no way... you're living with a heavily subsidized science experiment right there, which just happens to have a captive load audience... that's dirty pool but, like you say, contractually protected...

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:55 | 5644656 FlSapo
FlSapo's picture

We are ALL John Galt

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:15 | 5644409 pFXTim
pFXTim's picture

>  Does that make you angry?

> It should.

 

it's going to take a lot more than getting "angry" to reverse this decades-long trend...

 

 

Sun, 01/11/2015 - 00:03 | 5647469 mkkby
mkkby's picture

The rain water story is bullshit.  Oregon man was arrested for diverting streams that don't belong to him.  Not for colecting rain water.

The other articles are bullshit too.  You can use wood buring stoves if you bought them before the reg changes, or if it is your only heat source.  Only manufacturers are affected.

So there really is no crackdown on preppers.  This article is just clickbait.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:54 | 5644765 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

BigJim:

That is an idiotic comment!

Messianic Marxism was promoted by the international banksters. The banksters have "won." Any superficial view that some other ideological label has been victorious is based on deliberately ignoring the evidence that all of the so-called fascists and communists that became publicly significant did so because they were funded by the international bankers. None of the stupid, dialectically used labels, e.g., communism versus capitalism, etc., really make sense, because there is actually only ONE system everywhere, which works through the fractal patterns of the applications of the methods of organized crime.

THAT is also what has happened to America. There is a runaway plutocracy, where the greatest "wealth" of that plutocracy is the legalized ability of privately controlled banks to make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts. THAT is the root cause of the development of the police state: the plutocracy needs it to continue to advance its agenda.

Anyone who blames "socialism" or "communism," or the intellectuals that promoted those ideologies, tends to be a political idiot that is deliberately ignoring the ways that those who control the SOURCE of the public money supply have done so through vicious spirals of the funding of the political processes. America is NOT suffering from anything like the dictionary definitions of "socialism" nor "communism."

(Many people make those kinds of silly statements on Zero Hedge, while it seems to me that nobody who makes those kinds of statements is able and willing to change their knee-jerk responses to make those kinds of statements. Such political idiots are like Pavlov's dogs, who have been conditioned to believe in false flag attacks, and blame the wrong enemies, such as Marxism, while their actually worse enemies are something they appear to want to continue to be utterly oblivious of!)

Early Marxism was relatively scientific, given its 19th Century science context. However, the politically significant Marxism was messianic. That Marxism, made famous by Russia and China, was another system run by professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, where the political realities were pretty well totally diametrical opposites to their bullshit theories. That was NOT an accident. There is plenty of good material to show that both Russian and Chinese "communism" were driven to become significant by the international bankers, similar to how fascism also was.

The deeper levels of political realities were that those with the most money, including the power to make more money out of nothing as debts for everyone else, which frauds were enforced by governments, were able to use that overwhelming advantage to control all of the socially significant opposition groups, including those who successfully conducted "revolutions" which totally betrayed their principles, and actually ended up mass murdering their own populations, because the people who gained power were mostly puppets of the international banksters, which otherwise would have never come to have the political power that they were able to exercise within the context of their own countries.

America IS suffering from the fractal patterns of organized crime dominating the political processes, which legalized private banks counterfeiting the public money supply, THAT then cascaded down from there, through lower levels of society, as the fish rots from the head to the tail ...

I will give just one recent link, to back up my point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M1KD7Dnq4s

China and the New World Order

... organized crime &
controlled opposition ...

P.S.

In my opinion, it is practically impossible for the 1% or so of the population that is trying to "be prepared" to actually do so, since 99% are not, and, as the article above indicates, the worst enemy of those who endeavour to become prepared for emergencies will probably become government agencies, which situation is so bad that there are no practical ways to become effectively prepared, since the more prepared one becomes, then, paradoxically, the more one would become a target for the governmental agencies, in ways that one could not be prepared to cope with.

I am NOT saying "do not try to be prepared." I am saying that the article above in another typical example of a Zero Hedge articles grossly understating how bad the situation really is, and therefore, grossly overestimating what one could do to effectively cope with that reality.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 00:26 | 5644872 Pareto
Pareto's picture

I tend to agree with your clarification on Marxism - even though I "get" the point from Bigjim.  Marxism does not equal what we have today.  For Marx, the state eventually "whithers away".  The state will NEVER whither away under democratic socialism because by definition, it can't.  Moreover, its not enough for the workers to "lose their chains" - they also have to acquire economic freedom from permanent enslavement through taxation.  We are bound to the state at every turn - and this is a reality that Marx never ever proposed.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 16:16 | 5646229 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Yeah, Pareto, I also "got" the point from BigJim too, in the sense that it is a popularly short-hand way to express how the intellectual content of "Marxism" actually was a tool to advance the banksters' overall agenda. Every different ideology was exploited, to overall advance the global goal of effective privatization of public powers, so that a tiny minority can control the vast majority. NOTHING remotely close to the ideals of what "communism" was supposed to be ever existed, and could not exist. Only the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies actually exists. The less people face those basic facts, then the more unbalanced the actual systems become, due to most people believing in bullshit.

I think "communism" was bullshit, which had an ulterior agenda. The various components of the Marxist Manifesto are being implemented in America, but NOT to advance "communism," but rather to advance plutocracy.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 06:45 | 5645218 LoneCapitalist
LoneCapitalist's picture

Hey BigJim. Radical Marijuana just called you an idiot ( in a very long winded way ). Are you gonna take that from him?

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 08:18 | 5645274 Citium
Citium's picture

Bankers backed all factions throughout the 20th century between socialism, fascism,  communism. That is why I cannot understand the BRICS worshipers as saviours from the West. US, UK, EU, Japan form of socialism vs. the China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuban, USSR form of communism is a red herring. 

 

What true republic is left? If you want to mention Russia in this context, yes, they are probably the least of the factions above on the surface but Russia is an oligarchy and oppressive state just the same as the US. I have a theory that China is selling their worthless Treasuries to help Russia during their time of sanctions and oil price collapse. 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 08:33 | 5645292 flapdoodle
flapdoodle's picture

Bravo Senor Radical Weed on your comments about the fiction of a difference between capitalism, communism, and socialism. It is just the same "red blue" breakdown on another level which does not hold up to analysis.

The preppers have a slightly better chance for survival when TSHTF not so much because of the material things they have set aside (which will help for a while) but, at least for some of them, the mental preparation they have by first realizing that things are not as the MSM says they are, but second actually (to some degree) thinking things through as to what could happen during a reset: its likely quite a few preppers are "paying attention" (not all - some see it as a big game, entertainment even as in "oh goody, time to go to Costco to buy some more toilet paper and ammo")

So, the mental thing is certainly an advantage.

To TPTB, preppers are the future resistance.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 16:10 | 5646239 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

I agree, flapdoodle!

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:50 | 5645491 LikeyMikey
LikeyMikey's picture

Answer: Letting our Governments control us....

 

DIdn't someone smart say something like.... "When Governments fear the people there is Freedom.  When People fear the Government, there is tyranny."?

 

Maybe there is something to those words....

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 12:51 | 5645745 DanDaley
DanDaley's picture

Ultimately, either you kow-tow to the government or the government kow-tows to you...it's just that simple.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:10 | 5644155 Barnaby
Barnaby's picture

One becomes a target
when a Target card
is maxed chock full of
                     duct tape, tampons and tarp

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:08 | 5644548 Implied Violins
Implied Violins's picture

God help you if you buy targets...

BTW, anyone else out there live where they fingerprint you if you buy ammo? I have to leave Sacramento to get stuff w/o that BS.

The kicker was when they wanted my fingerprints just to SELL GOLD. Like I'll be doing THAT now...AS IF.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:09 | 5644678 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

STFU.

S.U, S.U., OM, (STFU, asswipe. Your transmissions are interfering with the transmissions of the rich and famous on the R.M.S. Titanic).

I'm working Cape Race...

 

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:28 | 5644714 metastar
metastar's picture

Don't worry about buying or selling gold. There will be a hugh black market here before you know it.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:52 | 5645494 LikeyMikey
LikeyMikey's picture

yeah....  Gotta Love California...

 

YOU are DEFINITELY on a LIST and being watched!!!!

 

HAHAHAHAHA

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 13:56 | 5645882 northern vigor
northern vigor's picture

It's getting hard to find .22 ammo. 

We syncronized all the arms to be .22...figured we could use the big stuff on the long shots, and pepper them with .22s when they come in the yard....the raccoons....I did mean the raccoons.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:02 | 5644669 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

Walmart keeps sending me the 'pre-approved' application offers in the mail, Barnaby. These fuckers never give up, I suppose.

Target sent me several in the past, but finally gave up when I didn't respond.

Sears and J.C. Penney try also, from time to time.

I can get 'zero percent interest' if I sign up for automatic debit shit through my 'financial institution'. Naturally, all information about my 'transactions' will be automatically sent to 'third parties' who have only my 'best interests' at heart (as authorized by USAPATRIOT).

SO:

I SEE that you are buying TAMPONS and DUCT TAPE, comrade. Let's take this a little further, shall we? Do you have any 'unauthorized' transactions of 'FERTILIZER' for your 'off-grid' GARDEN? Have you ever heard of 'improvised explosive devices'?

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 01:09 | 5644938 Perimetr
Perimetr's picture

You want my stove, guns, and gold?

come and get it you SOBs

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 05:18 | 5645169 Bokkenrijder
Bokkenrijder's picture

Although it's good to prepare, I think these preppers are a little bit nuts with their bunkers, guns and stacks of toilet paper.

Law 18 from the 48 Laws of Power says: "do not build fortresses to protect yourself, isolation is dangerous." http://48laws-of-power.blogspot.de/2011/05/law-18-do-not-build-fortresse...

I tend to agree. What you want is to prepare for LIFE, not for every single EVENT/calamity because that effort is futile. Scenarios change, and perhaps one day that great bunker you've built is in the wrong citty/state/country because laws change. All that money and effort for nothing.

Same with guns, they're perhaps good for home defence in a country where this is legal but traveling (especially international) is difficult if not impossible. A much better preparation IMHO would be to get a second passport in case you have to leave the country, and do a good self-defence course in Jiu-Jitsu or kickboxing. These later two are also very good for stamina, coordination and perhaps you also meet likeminded people.

p.s. For all the anti-semites here, perhaps you should join Krav Maga because when it comes to solidarity, sense of community, cooperation, self-defence, dealing with calamities, trying to avoid normalcy bias and prepping, we can all perhaps learn a thing or two from the Jews! Shalom!

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 05:31 | 5645175 Kotzbomber747
Kotzbomber747's picture

Agreed, furthermore any preparation that is not portable is of very little use.

Sure, wood stoves are great and give off a very pleasant warmth, but the problem is that you can not 'prep' against the stupidity if millions of brainwashed voters. Look at Nazi Germany, China during the Cultural Revolution or Vietnam during the communist takeover. I yet have to see someone trying to load a wood stove into a USMC helicopter on the roof of a U.S. embassy. ;-)

Unfortunately, one day you might have to say: " fuck it, I'm leaving..."

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:29 | 5645350 overmedicatedun...
overmedicatedundersexed's picture

bokkenrij, you hit some nails dead center..you forgot to add: be lucky. bad luck will kill you no matter how good you are at what is listed by you and others here.

edison was full of bs with his :"99% is preparation 1% inspiration"..good luck and blessings given to the few, (the rich and powerful jews sometime are examples of good luck and such, if you discount the german solution of WWII era.

one of the lucky men of recent history Einstein, said his theory just came to him sitting on a trolly car. he was lucky in that he was paid to do very little but what his own desire was..teach and study, with never a care of where his next meal was coming from. we should all be so lucky..

tongue in cheek a bit but still some truth to be lucky - having survived a war, I do hold luck in high esteem.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:54 | 5645497 LikeyMikey
LikeyMikey's picture

YOu should read about history a little more .....  Or maybe you think IF (big IF) this happens in the United States it will be different...

 

is that correct?

 

Passport will be too late and many do not have the resources and funds to just relocate to another country EVEN if permitted or you get out in time!    Try to think more about what would happen IF the currency collapses and virtually all food supplies break down.  Then you might understand what many preppers are preparing for....

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:58 | 5645506 rubiconsolutions
rubiconsolutions's picture

I just returned from Palestine three weeks ago and what I saw there shocked me to my core. There's a narrative painted by the media that says - "Palestinians = Terrorists". Nothing could be further from the truth. I was not there on tour but rather went with a human rights organization so was a little off the beaten path. In Hebron I witnessed first hand, up close and personal children being tear gassed and hit with flash bang grenades for five days in a row. Children as young as eight years old on  their way to school. I personally escorted young children through tear gas launched by (supposedly) adults at them. We were detained by the IDF on many occasions. Palestinians have travel restrictions like you would not believe. I'm guessing we went through a thousand metal detectors and turnstiles during our two weeks there. Israel is South Africa on steroids. Apartheid, ethnic cleansing, horrible stuff.

What does that have to do with America? For my entire time there I kept thinking to myself - this is coming to America very soon. The Israeli government is a large exporter of violence just like the US. The militarization of the police in the US is very much a strategy of the Israeli government. And in fact a lot of the equipment used in Ferguson was Israeli. The Chinese government retained the Israeli government and IDF to train them on how to remove people by force from their homes so that they could clear 1.2 million people from their homes to make way for the Olympic facilities.

I don't always agree with the purveyors of "prepper porn" but I do believe that at some point in time in the very near future our world here in the US will look very much like the West Bank in Palestine, an Orwellian world where people lose their essential freedoms and humanity. I'd put a link to my website but that seems a little tacky.

 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 15:11 | 5646073 Socratic Dog
Socratic Dog's picture

Butbutbut....Rabbi Rand says we need to support Israel!  You must have been in Moscow, or North Korea, or somewhere.

Good comment.  Agree that that shit is coming here.  When, I don't know.  Lots say this year, but I've been hearing that every new year since 2009.  The militarization of local police didn't happen by accident.

I really wonder about our guns, whether they will ever mean anything.  We take whatever they throw at us.  When will citizens take a stand?  What will it take?  Coud be that our passivity leads the authorities to finally overstep, and ignite a firestorm.  Or not.  I'm fucked if I know.

Waco....22 years ago, and I'm still amazed it went down so easily.  Burning children on prime time TV.  To most it was just entertainment.

At least Palestinians have the balls to throw rocks.

 

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 17:28 | 5646458 rubiconsolutions
rubiconsolutions's picture

Regarding Rand Paul and his proposed legislation to cut off aid to the Palestinians - Why not introduce legislation that would tie Israel’s foreign aid to the withdrawal of illegal settlements from the West Bank? Or better yet, suspend foreign aid altogether to Israel? Israel is often touted as the “Middle East’s only true democracy” which is far from the truth. Palestinians have absolutely no say in Israeli politics. In truth Israel is not a democracy. Israel has no constitution and no bill of rights. In addition, its history of legislating apartheid, unequal civil rights, privileges and access to public funds make a disqualifying mockery of the definition of “true” and the concept of “democracy.” That may earn a few thumbs down but I've seen the truth first hand. The day I witnessed Israeli settlers spitting on Palestinian shopkeepers and children in the old city of Hebron (while bravely surrounded by dozens of IDF soldiers of course) I changed my mind about a lot of things. And the first time I walked through a fog of tear gas holding a little girls hand to go to school I became acutely aware of just how depraved the government and military of Israel really is.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:07 | 5644131 booboo
booboo's picture

Umm, I live without municiple water and sewer, have for 30 years. Millions do too, it's called a septic system and well, and the fucking government can't force you to turn on a light or run around in a t shirt when it's 20 degrees outside and the furnace is blowing flames out the register...yet.

 

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:27 | 5644220 Billy the Poet
Billy the Poet's picture

Got the wood stove going right now. Outside temperature is 12 degrees, furnace is set at 45 degrees but I'm enjoying a balmy 60 - 70 degrees depending on the room. Finding and cutting wood and loading and cleaning the stove is like a part time job but it's worth it. And watching the flames is far more entertaining than television.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:39 | 5644260 NuckingFuts
NuckingFuts's picture

Got 200 acres, wood, spring fed water, greenhouses and no you can't come over.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:40 | 5644268 Billy the Poet
Billy the Poet's picture

No time, no time.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:07 | 5644393 NoDebt
NoDebt's picture

I have my own well and a septic system.  I don't recall ever living in a house that DIDN'T have a well or septic system.  I'm not even a "country boy", just way out in the far burbs.  I realize, however, that not all areas of the country can you utilize those sorts of systems (Florida comes to mind or any low-lying area close to the ocean).

I'm seriously considering installing solar panels on the back of the house (the back side of the roof faces almost due south) but there's one HUGE silver maple on my property that would have to come down to get maximum effect from them and I can't bring myself to cut it down.  It really shades the house from the sun in the summer months.

 

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:34 | 5644457 Billy the Poet
Billy the Poet's picture

 

 

If the silver maple increases efficiency leave it alone. That's silver which shouldn't be stacked. Finding extra space for projects can be a problem. I'm wondering where I can shoehorn in some artichokes. I could get a bit more room by cutting back a giant hundred year old rhododendron but the birds use it for cover so it stays.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 08:07 | 5645265 Arnold
Arnold's picture

Silver maples have a general lifespan of 50 years. Last fall I had one taken down for an expansion project, 40 years old, 42 inch dbh. Btu value is not the best but it seasons well and works up well.

The rock maples in the yard are slower growing, about 1/3 the size after the same 40 years, but are are a better alternative to the brittle, dirty silvers.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:40 | 5644261 NuckingFuts
NuckingFuts's picture

Dupe

But since I have the space, still love the avatar even if no one else knows.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:46 | 5644306 Barnaby
Barnaby's picture

If we're not done for, upgrade to pellet, add a chipper and a pelletizer via tractor PTO and you have a blast furnace. Even horseshit is fuel.

Did you ever paint pinecones as a kid to burn in the firebox? Horeshit glows red from summer piles and green from winter piles!

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:01 | 5644358 Billy the Poet
Billy the Poet's picture

I'll burn anything that isn't moving.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:00 | 5644361 Calmyourself
Calmyourself's picture

Be sure to get about 10,000 gallons of fuel to run the pellet stove.  Or big battery pile with panels.... Split 50% wood is the easiest.  Btw, most folks know nothing about these regs,  check around..

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:51 | 5644512 dirtyfiles
dirtyfiles's picture

same here:wood stocked.I didn't use any other source of heating now for 5-6 years its labor intense but I enjoy it.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 00:16 | 5644847 Pareto
Pareto's picture

love hearing about this from you guys.  and its not even "prepping" really.  its about doing more with less, conserving one's wealth, etc.  i've often heard that a good life is one where you leave more on this planet than what you take from it.  i think this kind of behaviour/mindset is a demonstration of that.  kudos

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 11:38 | 5645543 Raging Debate
Raging Debate's picture

Pareto - Well said, the cost of living is very high here in the U.S. For many the solution is downsizing, learning to do more with less. If you have any sort of pot to piss in these days best to have a few grand saved for a decent lawyer.

Life isn't fair but I wager this woman Robin in the story would have won her case with a decent lawyer. Another strategy is to seek out the local press for support. Perhaps she did this or we wouldn't be reading this story.

I live in Ft. Myers, the next town over from Cape Coral where the story took place. To it's credit, the local media has begun reporting on the corruption.

I haven't decided if I'll stay here or head back north. I came to recharge my batteries after a few years of looking after others. I now feel refreshed. If I do stay, I'll run for city council because as of now there is only one person I see on it trying to fight corruption. Perhaps soon there will be two :/)
I am under no illusions I can do much at the federal level but local is a different matter. And I am inspired by a great city manager that recently retired from Sanford Maine that made the right choices and didnt't choose a police state for taxation to keep it running smooth. He was pleasantly surprised in early 2013 when I walked in his office and did some things to help the local government. He said "We don't get many of your type walking up to help us out." I said, "I am just following your leadership sir and this is our town, it deserves our best."

As for the rest of many localities that cose police for taxation, you can suck it. Ill pay the lawyer $10k to avoid you getting my $6k.

I admit I learned the hard way, one can compromise by learning and evolving but when you capitulate you and the society lose.

Your best hedges are your health and to preserve wealth knowing how to pay minimum tax rates. And if your not going to downsize and go the other way as I like to then prepare to spend even more on lawyers. I like to compete, as Kahn says in Star Trek 2 when asked why he has to pursue Kirk "Because he tasks me."

I agree with Radical MJ the central bankers have conquered the globe. The problem is they make loans. They don't do well running things so catastrophe is unfolding and will do so until some balance of power is reached. But I do not condone you calling contributors 'idiots'. That seems to be your only solution. The solution to the human madness is:

1) Slow the descent into hell
2) Survive the restructuring with some seed corn for your family and a sharp pen to assist in rebuilding which includes slightly better system brakes for step 1. Evolution continues and it happens in cycles, not a straight line.

If serving you get tired take a break! We all in the end just do what we can do for posterities sake. You sound burnt out and 100% negative RM.

I am imperfect and make mistakes but I can try and one thing I can do is not prey on the little guy like this last crop of degenerate rulership in the US.

I leave with a quote from someone at the CIA that helped slow the descent into hell (and also thank you William Buckley):

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has" - Margret Mead
http://mobile.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/margaret

Or how about music?

"Those in high places must be the ones to start to build a better reality closer to the heart." - Rush

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:10 | 5644399 kito
kito's picture

have zh followers lost their critical thinking skills. synder, as always is nothing more that a fabricated doomer salesman..he is FULL OF SHIT.....the poor guy who was "collecting water" actually built 10-20 foot dams and collected 13 million gallons of water...DO SOME RESEARCH PEOPLE....YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN THE SHEEPLE WHO FOLLOW MAINSTREAM MEDIA IF YOU BUY INTO SYNDERS BUNK......

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:27 | 5644439 runningman18
runningman18's picture

He built resevoirs for collecting rainwater that weren't interfering with any other property or water collection facility.  He wasn't hurting anyone.  The state also issued permits to him for the ponds and then cancelled them for no reason.  Fuck the state governments, fuck the EPA, and fuck you.  If it's on his property then it doesn't matter how much water he collects.  The law that he supposedly broke is one that claims that ALL water is publically owned water, and the government interprets that to mean that the water belongs to THEM, not you and I.  You should take your own advice and do some research, buddy.  You are the only sheeple full of shit here...

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:05 | 5645408 DaveyJones
DaveyJones's picture

remember the movie CHinatown

if we thought oil is a criminal control game, just wait with water 

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:10 | 5644400 kito
kito's picture

have zh followers lost their critical thinking skills. synder, as always is nothing more that a fabricated doomer salesman..he is FULL OF SHIT.....the poor guy who was "collecting water" actually built 10-20 foot dams and collected 13 million gallons of water...DO SOME RESEARCH PEOPLE....YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN THE SHEEPLE WHO FOLLOW MAINSTREAM MEDIA IF YOU BUY INTO SYNDERS BUNK......

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:30 | 5644461 Kassandra
Kassandra's picture

Thank you for supplying the clarifications that I was having trouble with. I do believe his "collecting water" was impacting the Big Butte Springs water supply, that supplies the entire population of the Rogue Valley. And he was warned many times to stop doing that.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:34 | 5644471 runningman18
runningman18's picture

His water collecting wasn't interfering with ANY water supply for any municipality.  Not sure where you heard that garbage.  Sounds like the same bullshit they were spreading about Bundy while Harry Reed was trying to steal his land and turn it into a Chinese solar farm.  The state ISSUED the guy permits for the resevoirs, and then cancelled them with no explanation. 

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:55 | 5644520 Kassandra
Kassandra's picture

Umm..I lived down there at the time.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:31 | 5644721 MontgomeryScott
MontgomeryScott's picture

OMFG!

'Snyder' collected 'WATER' without a 'PERMIT' from the 'PTB'!

Call 'KITO', immediately, before you too fall into the 'BUNK' story!

HOW DARE HE? HOW DARE HE!

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:41 | 5644752 NuckingFuts
NuckingFuts's picture

I know we all go on and on about our shit, but here I go again. 90x140 greenhouse, where do you think all that fresh clean rain water goes? It fell on my property and I am keeping it... In a nice pond. And water is the least of my concerns given my set up. Fuck them it's mine. Thank the Gods I live in a state and am so rural that no one give a shit what I do...... For now anyway.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:21 | 5644696 ed31337
ed31337's picture

You and Kassandra are either part of the gov't paid "online discussion steering team" or you've never seriously thought about dams. To the layperson looking at a giant gov't owned dam, all you see is a huge pile of water behind the dam, and you think, my god, they've completely eliminated the flow of the river! But if you look down at the very bottom of the dam, you'll see a little trickle of water coming out the bottom, and that trickle (averaged over time) is exactly the same amount of water flow that the river had before the dam was installed! 

I don't care how many gallons of water that guy collects, I guarantee you, his dams will eventually be full and the flow of water into the Big Butte tributaries will resume at the original rate that it always had going into it. 71% of the entire Earth's surface is water. Water never stays put, it constantly moves from seas, to clouds, to rain, to rivers, to water tables, and back out to sea again. There is more water than there is land! Therefore, it is physically impossible for one man to stop the flow of water and prevent people downstream from getting water. All dams eventually fill and the flow the water MUST resume, no matter what. 

Don't let the gov't ever trick you into thinking otherwise. The gov't wants you to pay your monthly fee to receive water and electricity from their dam. The gov't doesn't want you to own your own dam, because that breaks their monopoly.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 03:35 | 5645108 Kassandra
Kassandra's picture

If you knew the climate of that particular area of Oregon,and the full story...

Well...I've been called worse than a government shill..

Carry on...

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 04:24 | 5645148 TheMerryPrankster
TheMerryPrankster's picture

There's actually more land than water. There is land underneath all bodies of water supporting them. The earth is mostly earth, hence the name. The water., like the atmosphere is a relatively thin layer, that exists at or near the same plane where we all live. go down 10 feet below the ocean and its dirt all the way to the core

I don't give a dam about dams. Because i lives east of the mississippi river where it rains more than enough to ensure no cacti reproduce

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 07:14 | 5645241 ed31337
ed31337's picture

Thin layer or not, there's still no shortage of water in the sea. 

Glad you have so much rain that you don't give a damn about dams. I hope for your sake that the rains never stop. If climate change ever sends a drought your way, you might be wishing someone had built a dam or two while you had it so good.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 08:49 | 5645308 Ghordius
Ghordius's picture

dams? for perspective, on the greater landmass we have whole countries bitching about dams and their gross/net effects. It's a specialized and cross-related field of study. Beware of simplifications, it goes very deep and it's already full of bunk and sponsored propaganda and paid studies

well, Bush Junior was a Big Oil Friend, wasn't he? i.e. Not friendly to alternatives to oil

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:15 | 5644134 JustObserving
JustObserving's picture

CDC lied about MMR vaccine and more than 250,000 black kids got autism from it:

At LEAST 250,000 African-American male children could have been spared if the CDC scientists had told the truth when the increased risk was first known to them in 2001

http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/08/cdc-whistleblower-and-probability-of-...

The polic vaccine was contaminated with a monkey virus, SV40, and yet the government doled out 98 million doses of it substantially increasing the incidence of cancer in these United Sates.

 

Cancer risk associated with simian virus 40 contaminated polio vaccine.

These data suggest that there may be an increased incidence of certain cancers among the 98 million persons exposed to contaminated polio vaccine in the U.S.; further investigations are clearly justified.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10472327

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:16 | 5644185 WillyGroper
WillyGroper's picture

That's the purpose of Chertoff's TSA ionizing radiation Xray machines.

We're buying & rebuying our own death from cancer.

Aluminum nano in chemtrails is turning us into antennae to speed it up a notch.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:22 | 5644205 Handful of Dust
Handful of Dust's picture

I personally know two kids who got a form of polio from the polio vaccine sugar tablets. That's when they had a choice between being shot in the arm or taking a pink vaccine sugar tablet they said "was totally safe."

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:31 | 5644232 Billy the Poet
Billy the Poet's picture

I knew a guy with mental retardation and a withered arm. I heard that this was the result of a bad vaccine he was given as a child probably in the 1950s but I don't recall the specifics. Does anyone know what the vaccine might have been?

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:57 | 5644349 Miffed Microbio...
Miffed Microbiologist's picture

I have a very large scar from the small pox vaccine I received in the early sixties. I had such a bad reaction to it I was hospitalized. All for a disease never seen in this country. Needless to say I am not a vaccine advocate. Before your next vaccination, please read the package insert to its efficacy and counter indications. You may change your mind.

Miffed

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:23 | 5644442 Oldballplayer
Oldballplayer's picture

Read a little history. We pretty much wiped out the indigenous American population with small pox.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:19 | 5644583 Implied Violins
Implied Violins's picture

Read a little history?

Why don't YOU do a little research on vaccines yourself?

http://healthimpactnews.com/2011/did-vaccines-really-eradicate-polio/

It's true smallpox decimated the Indians, but vaccines don't work like people think they do. Overcome the cognitive dissonance and do some reading, it will open your eyes.

BTW, I have a Master's in Molecular Biology and Genetics. I once bought into the system.

I don't any more.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:46 | 5644769 NuckingFuts
NuckingFuts's picture

I do not doubt that vaccines have maimed and killed a few, but saved millions. I will take those odds. I spent a few years in the third world as a "ambassador" of .gov and got every jab in the book. Here I still stand. I happen to like my liver and hepatitis is not on my bucket list... Especially given my love of drink.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 03:52 | 5645119 Miffed Microbio...
Miffed Microbiologist's picture

This is true but primarily in South America. There was a large outbreak in the 1600s in New England I forgot about but this was limited to the eastern seaboard to the Great Lakes. Hardly worth the reason to insist on vaccinating a 3 year old in 1964 in San Francisco.

Miffed

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:26 | 5644401 JustObserving
JustObserving's picture

Does anyone know what the vaccine might have been?

It has to be the Salk polio vaccine which was contaminated with the Simian Virus 40.  Dr Ochsner, president of the American Cancer Society, tried to demonstrate the safety of the polio vaccine by using it on his grandchildren.  Within 48 hours, his grandson was dead and his granddaugher had contacted polio:

Dr. Alton Ochsner, who becomes important later on, even tested the vaccines on his own grandchildren. Dr. Ochsner, a past president of the American Cancer Society, ended up killing his own grandson and crippling his granddaughter with the faulty vaccine…apparently not all the polio had been “inactivated.”

Back to Bernice Eddy: In October 1960, she gave a talk to the New York Cancer Society, and without warning the NIH in advance (oops!) she announced that she had examined monkey kidney cells in which the polio virus had grown and found they were infected with cancer-causing viruses.

 
This was a big mistake on her part.

NO suggestion of cancer-causing monkey viruses in the polio vaccine was welcome at the NIH. They proceeded to crush her professionally. They took her lab, destroyed her animals, put her under a gag order, and delayed publication of her scientific papers 

Between 1955 and 1963, about 200 million Americans were exposed to SV-40. It’s estimated that 1 out of every 200 people will have cancer caused by SV-40. SV-40 explains the enormous rise in soft tissue cancers. Other cancers haven’t been increasing too significantly, but lung, breast, prostate, lymphoma, brain and melanoma have skyrocketed. Similarly, smoking has gone down, yet lung cancer has gone up.

https://publicconspiracy.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/what-do-the-polio-vacc...

 

Dr. Mary's Monkey: How the Unsolved Murder of a Doctor, a Secret Laboratory in New Orleans and Cancer-Causing Monkey Viruses Are Linked to Lee Harvey ... Assassination and Emerging Global Epidemics

http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Marys-Monkey-Cancer-Causing-Assassination/dp/19...

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 23:07 | 5644677 Billy the Poet
Billy the Poet's picture

Thank you for the expansive reply.

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 09:23 | 5645344 Oh regional Indian
Oh regional Indian's picture

Watch/listen to this and BLOW YOUR MIND....The story for Dr, Mary's Monkey....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ5-liXcXLI

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:32 | 5644233 oddjob
oddjob's picture

He is the walking face of death.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:48 | 5644645 JR
JR's picture

CDC, it appears, also is lying about vaccines causing autism.

A registsered nurse whose granddaughter has been designated as autistic told me recently that studies show that early vaccines are causing autism in children.

The daily web newspaper of the Autism Epidemic, Age of Autism, says the government knows it but is keeping it hush-hush. But CDC whistleblowers have confirmed it.

“When vaccines cause autism, a vaccine injured is left high and dry.  That’s because the vaccines industry is protected by the government, the same government that evidently knew that vaccines cause autism.  Rather than looking out for and protecting the ones they’re meant to serve, the vaccine industry and those who oversee it have chosen to protect each other.” -- Cathy Jameson

http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/08/vaccines-cause-autism.html

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:04 | 5644140 Barnaby
Barnaby's picture

Best prep: liquid assets. Cases of bourbon. Cheap, useful calories mice can't get to.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:11 | 5644168 Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture

Alcohol and lots of guns.

What could go wrong /s.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:16 | 5644184 Sub MOA
Sub MOA's picture

nothing as long as the alcohol is used as a lamp fuel or wound care ;)

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:33 | 5644235 dirtscratcher
dirtscratcher's picture

What!?!  That's blasphemy!!

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 20:51 | 5644323 kill switch
kill switch's picture

No that's alcohol abuse!!!!

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:00 | 5644356 Soul Glow
Soul Glow's picture

I tried to hoard alcohol but I drank it all up.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:00 | 5644532 22winmag
22winmag's picture

Pace yourself.

 

Scotch and tequila for barter, bourbon and vodka for myself.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 22:29 | 5644603 Implied Violins
Implied Violins's picture

I actually have two 750's each of vodka, whiskey, gin, tequila, rum, and brandy stashed at the bottom of my lake right now. Thinking of doubling that over the next couple weeks...gotta be careful though because alcohol is less dense than water. I need to get some more lead to keep them weighted down...is 7.62x39 also corrosive on the outside? I hope not...

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 10:11 | 5645418 DaveyJones
DaveyJones's picture

alcohol is the most resilient best tasting currency ever invented.

Fri, 01/09/2015 - 21:03 | 5644368 Calmyourself
Calmyourself's picture

Still, corn, sugar easy...

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 03:06 | 5645095 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

You don't even need the sugar.  You can grow the corn, but unless you're in Florida, you probably cannot grow sugar cain.  I suppose you could use sugar beets, but if we're in a situation where preppers are using their preps, you might as well assume that you're not going to be getting large quantities of sugar.  You can, however, grow lots of corn if you have the inputs and land, then you can malt some of that corn, and use that malted corn and the enzymes produced in the malting process to break corn starches down into sugars.  

Sat, 01/10/2015 - 14:13 | 5645933 stant
stant's picture

Maple syrip and honey ?

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