_Holding Their Own II: The Independents_ by Joe Nobody

[Lynn McGuire]

_Holding Their Own II: The Independents_ by Joe Nobody
http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Their-Own-II-Independents/dp/061563642X/

Second book in a series of seven books about the
economic collapse of the USA in 2015.

Umm, the first book in this series was published
in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was
really getting cranked up. The book had crude
oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in
2015. Not gonna happen so the major driver of
economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the
book.

That said, the book is a good story about the
collapse and failure of the government in the USA.
The inevitable civil war is getting cranked up
and there is a cliffhanger ending. The series is
centered in Texas which makes it very interesting
to me since I am a Texas resident. I have the
third book and plan to order a couple of more in
the series.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (153 reviews)

Lynn

[astigm...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, April 17, 2014 4:53:31 PM UTC-7, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> _Holding Their Own II: The Independents_ by Joe Nobody
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Their-Own-II-Independents/dp/061563642X/
>
>
>
> Second book in a series of seven books about the
>
> economic collapse of the USA in 2015.
>
>
>
> Umm, the first book in this series was published
>
> in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was
>
> really getting cranked up. The book had crude
>
> oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in
>
> 2015. Not gonna happen so the major driver of
>
> economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the
>
> book.
>
>

> Lynn

I'm not sure how he arrived at his price for gas.
Oil has been running at $100/barrel and gas at about
$3.50/gal. Oil at $350/barrel suggests gas closer to
$12.25/gal.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Friday, 18 April 2014 02:34:23 UTC+1, astigm...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, April 17, 2014 4:53:31 PM UTC-7, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> > _Holding Their Own II: The Independents_ by Joe Nobody
> >
> > http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Their-Own-II-Independents/dp/061563642X/
> >
> > Second book in a series of seven books about the
> > economic collapse of the USA in 2015.

All written and published, luckily. (Too bad about
the covers.)

Otherwise, you'd expect that completion of the series
would be overtaken by the economic collapse of the USA,
and spec-fic replaced by "the pen scratchings of scholars
as they laboured into the night over smug little treatises
on the value of a planned political economy."

> > Umm, the first book in this series was published
> > in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was
> > really getting cranked up. The book had crude
> > oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in
> > 2015. Not gonna happen so the major driver of
> > economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the
> > book.
>

> I'm not sure how he arrived at his price for gas.
> Oil has been running at $100/barrel and gas at about
> $3.50/gal. Oil at $350/barrel suggests gas closer to
> $12.25/gal.

Let's see how long the shale stuff lasts. Probably
through 2015.

Some people find the real prices pretty shocking.

As you need to use more of the fuel in order to extract
what's left of the fuel, the price goes up a /lot/.

See also ethanol.

The writer may have chosen to suppose that concern about
environmental pollution would kill the shale business,
in which case satire has been committed; au contraire.
America will open the Hellmouth or jump up and down
in heavy boots on the Yellowstone super-caldera if
gasoline comes out.

And the ethanol may be reserved for drinking...

[Robert Carnegie]

On Friday, 18 April 2014 02:34:23 UTC+1, astigm...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Thursday, April 17, 2014 4:53:31 PM UTC-7, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> > _Holding Their Own II: The Independents_ by Joe Nobody
> >
> > http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Their-Own-II-Independents/dp/061563642X/
> >
> > Second book in a series of seven books about the
> > economic collapse of the USA in 2015.

All written and published, luckily. (Too bad about
the covers.)

Otherwise, you'd expect that completion of the series
would be overtaken by the economic collapse of the USA,
and spec-fic replaced by "the pen scratchings of scholars
as they laboured into the night over smug little treatises
on the value of a planned political economy."

> > Umm, the first book in this series was published
> > in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was
> > really getting cranked up. The book had crude
> > oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in
> > 2015. Not gonna happen so the major driver of
> > economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the
> > book.
>

> I'm not sure how he arrived at his price for gas.
> Oil has been running at $100/barrel and gas at about
> $3.50/gal. Oil at $350/barrel suggests gas closer to
> $12.25/gal.

[Lynn McGuire]

Close but it is non-linear as the gas tax here
in The Great State of Texas is 38 cents/gallon
(state and federal). So at $350/barrel, gasoline
should be about $8/gallon. And the driver in USA
gasoline prices right now is the 10% ethanol per
gallon at $10/gallon.

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

The shale oil in Eagle Ford is project to expand
to six million barrels per day:
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/blog/eagle-ford-shale-insight/2014/04/feds-say-eagle-ford-and-bakken-could-lead-to-end.html

"Net oil imports to the United States could
plummet to zero by 2037 because of booming
production in South Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale and
North Dakota’s Bakken Shale, a branch of the
Energy Department projected in a new report."

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

In article <liq1fh$t1u$1...@dont-email.me>, l...@winsim.com says...

> production in South Texas? Eagle Ford Shale and
> North Dakota?s Bakken Shale, a branch of the

> Energy Department projected in a new report."

I saw an earlier prediction that it would be in this decade. I guess
Fearless Leader has put the brakes on development. I just hope that the
Democrats run Hillary instead of another moron.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Friday, 18 April 2014 03:15:10 UTC+1, J. Clarke wrote:
> In article <liq1fh$t1u$1...@dont-email.me>, l...@winsim.com says...

> > "Net oil imports to the United States could
> > plummet to zero by 2037 because of booming
> > production in South Texas? Eagle Ford Shale and
> > North Dakota?s Bakken Shale, a branch of the
> > Energy Department projected in a new report."
>
> I saw an earlier prediction that it would be in this decade. I guess
> Fearless Leader has put the brakes on development. I just hope that the
> Democrats run Hillary instead of another moron.

It says "This is the first time the Annual Energy Outlook
has projected that net imports' share of liquid fuels
consumption could reach zero," so, I don't know who told
you different.

Also, clearly they /do/ mean 2037, and, on the other hand,
they don't really think that they know what's going to happen
between now and then. It's one of a range of answers they've
got, apparently the most optimistic one. Presumably, therefore,
that's also the theoretical maximum possible not-using-gasoline-at-all
scenario. I wonder though if they've allowed for sea level rising
and how much more of the U.S. will be underwater by then.
Maybe the gasoline is for jet skis.

[Cryptoengineer]

Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote in news:lippi9$hqq$1...@dont-email.me:

> _Holding Their Own II: The Independents_ by Joe Nobody
> http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Their-Own-II-Independents/dp/06156364
> 2X/
>
> Second book in a series of seven books about the
> economic collapse of the USA in 2015.
>
> Umm, the first book in this series was published
> in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was
> really getting cranked up. The book had crude
> oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in
> 2015. Not gonna happen so the major driver of
> economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the
> book.

This summer I was paying $8/gallon in Iceland.
Europeans too, would say 'huh?' at the idea of
$6 gas as something disruptive.

pt

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

I wouldn't consider $6 gas disruptive. A pain in the ass, yes.
Disruptive would be $20/gallon.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Lynn McGuire]

I would not change my driving habits until $10/gal.
And I drive a Ford Expedition. About $300/month
on gasoline. But, it is long paid for (2005 model
with 140K miles on it).

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

On 4/17/2014 11:19 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> On 4/18/14 12:15 AM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote in news:lippi9$hqq$1...@dont-email.me:
>>
>>> _Holding Their Own II: The Independents_ by Joe Nobody
>>> http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Their-Own-II-Independents/dp/06156364
>>> 2X/
>>>
>>> Second book in a series of seven books about the
>>> economic collapse of the USA in 2015.
>>>
>>> Umm, the first book in this series was published
>>> in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was
>>> really getting cranked up. The book had crude
>>> oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in
>>> 2015. Not gonna happen so the major driver of
>>> economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the
>>> book.
>>
>> This summer I was paying $8/gallon in Iceland.
>> Europeans too, would say 'huh?' at the idea of
>> $6 gas as something disruptive.
>
> I wouldn't consider $6 gas disruptive. A pain in the ass, yes.
> Disruptive would be $20/gallon.

The problem is that $6/gal is disruptive for the
general population. And since the majority of
fuel is used by the transportation industry, the
shipping costs of everything would double. At $4
/gal for diesel, most school districts are already
paying 10% of their budget for school bus fuel.
$6/gal would be a major problem for them to absorb.
You might see the school districts idle 1/4 of the
buses at $6/gal for diesel. Etc, etc, etc and
these things tend to spiral.

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

In article <liqc5a$ecn$1...@dont-email.me>, l...@winsim.com says...

If they can idle 1/4 of the buses they didn't need them in the first
palce. The school district is obligated by law to provide an education
and in many localities providing bus transportation is required by a
court order.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <XnsA3132931A6...@216.196.97.131>,

True, but European economies are not based on cheep gasoline and
long commutes are therefore less common and shorter. And there seem to
be in the American psyche enormous resistance to high gas taxes,
perhaps because you have to sit there and watch as the meter rolls.

--
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed. Me.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <liq94c$9k$1...@dont-email.me>,

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

> I wouldn't consider $6 gas disruptive. A pain in the ass, yes.
> Disruptive would be $20/gallon.

At $20 kiss your equity in your distant suburb MacMansion goodbye
disruptive, yes. Six dollar gas would suck out a lot of discretionary
spending.

[J. Clarke]

In article <proto-F31D2D....@news.panix.com>, pr...@panix.com
says...

There is general resistance in the US to taxation as a means of
implementing idealistic social policies--high gas taxes just because
some greenie thinks it's virtuous to use less gas offends our
sensibilities.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <liqbth$c5p$1...@dont-email.me>,

There are a lot of people closer to the edge than you.

[William December Starr]

In article <MPG.2dbadad3e...@news.newsguy.com>,

"J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> said:

> There is general resistance in the US to taxation as a means of
> implementing idealistic social policies--high gas taxes just
> because some greenie thinks it's virtuous to use less gas offends
> our sensibilities.

Oh look: argument-by-belittlement.

(Not to mention fuck you for claiming to speak for all of us.
Which you did, despite including an "Oh, I never said that"
weasel-out clause in the form of the word "general".)

-- wds

[Cryptoengineer]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in
news:proto-5E7942....@news.panix.com:

That's true, but there's a lot of adaption that can
take place. People can shift to more fuel-efficient
transport - hybrids, electrics, plug-in hybrids,
motorcycles, car pools, etc. I could halve my gas
consumption easily by buying a Prius, or even a Mercedes
E250.

In the longer run, as Sea Wasp points out, the low
density exurbs with their long commutes would become
less attractive, unless remote work becomes more
established.

The issue for transport costs of goods is harder
to solve, but we'd see increased reliance on railways.

ATM, its my impression that the transport costs
associated with most goods are small fraction or
their end price; increasing that 50% wouldn't
increase the final price that much.

pt

[James Nicoll]

In article <liqc5a$ecn$1...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>
>The problem is that $6/gal is disruptive for the
>general population.

Are Americans so close to the edge a 50% increase in fuel
prices would push them over it?

http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasoline_inflation_chart.htm

Suggest that in the past Americans weathered larger price increases. I
bow to your native knowledge whether the USA is no longer up to that
task. I have to say your oligarchs don't seem to be doing a very
good job of leaving a legacy for their grandkids.


--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

[Lynn McGuire]

On 4/18/2014 11:33 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <liqc5a$ecn$1...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>>
>> The problem is that $6/gal is disruptive for the
>> general population.
>
> Are Americans so close to the edge a 50% increase in fuel
> prices would push them over it?
>
> http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasoline_inflation_chart.htm
>
> Suggest that in the past Americans weathered larger price increases. I
> bow to your native knowledge whether the USA is no longer up to that
> task. I have to say your oligarchs don't seem to be doing a very
> good job of leaving a legacy for their grandkids.

Yes. Those government welfare checks don't go
very far filling up a 1988 Buick.

Lynn

[Brian M. Scott]

On 18 Apr 2014 10:37:40 -0400, William December Starr
<wds...@panix.com> wrote in
<news:lirdbk$eot$1...@panix2.panix.com> in rec.arts.sf.written:

What do you expect from someone stupid enough to believe
that it would have much of anything to do with ‘idealistic
social policies’?

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[Lynn McGuire]

An interesting side note. This book (and its other
series members) were printed on demand. The dates
of printing are on the last page. The POD date of
the second book is 04/01/2014 and the third book is
04/06/2014. I did not know that they could publish
and sell POD books for under $10. We get our POD
software manuals printed at www.lulu.com and they
are not that cheap. Of course, we are printing in
the 8.5x11 format.

Lynn

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2014-04-18 16:50:49 -0400, Lynn McGuire said:

> An interesting side note. This book (and its other
> series members) were printed on demand. The dates
> of printing are on the last page. The POD date of
> the second book is 04/01/2014 and the third book is
> 04/06/2014. I did not know that they could publish
> and sell POD books for under $10. We get our POD
> software manuals printed at www.lulu.com and they
> are not that cheap. Of course, we are printing in
> the 8.5x11 format.

The large format is significantly more expensive, but also Lulu is
significantly more expensive than CreateSpace or Lightning Source.

It's got far more options -- you can't GET 8.5 x 11" at CreateSpace,
for example -- but it's definitely a high-cost service.





--
I'm serializing a new Ethshar novel!
The twentieth chapter is online at:
http://www.ethshar.com/ishtascompanion20.html

[Lynn McGuire]

On 4/18/2014 4:26 PM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On 2014-04-18 16:50:49 -0400, Lynn McGuire said:
>
>> An interesting side note. This book (and its other
>> series members) were printed on demand. The dates
>> of printing are on the last page. The POD date of
>> the second book is 04/01/2014 and the third book is
>> 04/06/2014. I did not know that they could publish
>> and sell POD books for under $10. We get our POD
>> software manuals printed at www.lulu.com and they
>> are not that cheap. Of course, we are printing in
>> the 8.5x11 format.
>
> The large format is significantly more expensive, but also Lulu is
> significantly more expensive than CreateSpace or Lightning Source.
>
> It's got far more options -- you can't GET 8.5 x 11" at CreateSpace, for
> example -- but it's definitely a high-cost service.

$17.26 for an 462 page 8.5x11 perfect bound with
a colored cover and we do not have any profit in
there at all, just the www.lulu.com cost.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/winsim-inc/design-ii-for-windows-user-guide-version-120/paperback/product-21467341.html

I suspect that we are the only buyers but, I do
not know. Of course, we also have the PDFs on
our website:
http://www.winsim.com/doco.html

Is Lightning Source cheaper? We only print
five to ten copies at a time (with a complete
set of five manuals).

Lynn

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 4/18/14 1:10 AM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 4/17/2014 11:19 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>> On 4/18/14 12:15 AM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>>> Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote in news:lippi9$hqq$1...@dont-email.me:
>>>
>>>> _Holding Their Own II: The Independents_ by Joe Nobody
>>>>
>>>> http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Their-Own-II-Independents/dp/06156364
>>>> 2X/
>>>>
>>>> Second book in a series of seven books about the
>>>> economic collapse of the USA in 2015.
>>>>
>>>> Umm, the first book in this series was published
>>>> in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was
>>>> really getting cranked up. The book had crude
>>>> oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in
>>>> 2015. Not gonna happen so the major driver of
>>>> economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the
>>>> book.
>>>
>>> This summer I was paying $8/gallon in Iceland.
>>> Europeans too, would say 'huh?' at the idea of
>>> $6 gas as something disruptive.
>>
>> I wouldn't consider $6 gas disruptive. A pain in the ass, yes.
>> Disruptive would be $20/gallon.
>
> The problem is that $6/gal is disruptive for the
> general population.

Dude, I'm PART of the general population. I live paycheck to paycheck.
But I could handle $6 gas, somehow. It's not even double what it is now.

Now, scale it up to nearly an order of magnitude more, THAT is disruptive.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Lightning Source is complicated. On a direct comparison copy-by-copy
basis, yes, it's significantly cheaper, but then there's set-up and
catalog fees, so it depends on exactly what you're doing.

[Lynn McGuire]

OK. Sounds like they get you one way or
another.

Thanks,
Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

I bought an office building in the suburbs and
moved my business into it along with a couple of
other tenants. That was my adaptation of cutting
my commute.

BTW, we are already seeing a vastly greater usage
of the railroads for transport. We have a new
railroad from Sugar Land to the Mexican border
that just opened. BTW, the over the road truckers
are going slowly broke with diesel at $4/gal.

100000 mile/year * gal/6 mile * 4 $/gal = $66,667 $/year for diesel

Crank that to $6/gal and life is tough, very tough.
Historically, the transportation industry has had
problems passing their fuel cost increases to their
customers. I know that I have really cut back on
shipping stuff from my business as we used to have
UPS visit us every day. Now it is just once or
twice a week and I push people to the website.

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

In article <lirk4i$drh$1...@reader1.panix.com>, jdni...@panix.com says...

>
> In article <liqc5a$ecn$1...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
> >
> >The problem is that $6/gal is disruptive for the
> >general population.
>
> Are Americans so close to the edge a 50% increase in fuel
> prices would push them over it?

A lot of us are at this point.

> http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasoline_inflation_chart.htm
>
> Suggest that in the past Americans weathered larger price increases. I
> bow to your native knowledge whether the USA is no longer up to that
> task. I have to say your oligarchs don't seem to be doing a very
> good job of leaving a legacy for their grandkids.

In the past there was a healthy middle class, now there's just rich
people and broke people.

[David DeLaney]

On 2014-04-18, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in

>> There are a lot of people closer to the edge than you.
>
> That's true, but there's a lot of adaption that can
> take place. People can shift to more fuel-efficient
> transport - hybrids, electrics, plug-in hybrids,
> motorcycles, car pools, etc. I could halve my gas
> consumption easily by buying a Prius, or even a Mercedes E250.

Um. Er. People close enough to the edge that a couple dollars'/gallon rise in
the price of gas will cause them Difficulties are extremely unlikely to be
able to AFFORD to adapt in the manner you describe, cuz they can't just go
out abmnd buy a new (or used) car or motorcycle on a whim. Carpools are
cheaper but mean you have to find someone to coordinate with, coordinate with
them, and agree on times - they cost your TIME.

You may want to shift the necessary adaptation onto the communities involved.
(Considering the usual state of even dense-city communal transit modes, good
luck with that...)

> ATM, its my impression that the transport costs
> associated with most goods are small fraction or
> their end price; increasing that 50% wouldn't
> increase the final price that much.

But making changes that are needed to rely on higher-priced gas themselves
would cost a good deal more than the gas price increase, because the USA's at
least partly entrenched on relatively cheap gas, and has been for some time.
And a lot of it's been built around that assumption and isn't all that easy
to change.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 4/19/14 12:33 AM, David DeLaney wrote:
> On 2014-04-18, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in
>>> There are a lot of people closer to the edge than you.
>>
>> That's true, but there's a lot of adaption that can
>> take place. People can shift to more fuel-efficient
>> transport - hybrids, electrics, plug-in hybrids,
>> motorcycles, car pools, etc. I could halve my gas
>> consumption easily by buying a Prius, or even a Mercedes E250.
>
> Um. Er. People close enough to the edge that a couple dollars'/gallon rise in
> the price of gas will cause them Difficulties are extremely unlikely to be
> able to AFFORD to adapt in the manner you describe, cuz they can't just go
> out abmnd buy a new (or used) car or motorcycle on a whim. Carpools are
> cheaper but mean you have to find someone to coordinate with, coordinate with
> them, and agree on times - they cost your TIME.
>

Yeah. Buying a Prius or a Mercedes ANYTHING means that I either need to
have tens of thousands of dollars on hand that I can spend right away
(to buy it outright) or have an additional three, four hundred dollars
per month I can afford to spend out of my house budget. That's a
ridiculous assumption. The extra cost on gas for my car isn't going to
cost NEARLY that much even if it's six or seven dollars a gallon.

No one who's really going to feel the pinch of that extra cost is ever
likely to be able to just buy a better vehicle. And even the "better"
ones aren't TWICE or more as efficient, in general.

[Greg Goss]

David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>Um. Er. People close enough to the edge that a couple dollars'/gallon rise in
>the price of gas will cause them Difficulties are extremely unlikely to be
>able to AFFORD to adapt in the manner you describe, cuz they can't just go
>out abmnd buy a new (or used) car or motorcycle on a whim. Carpools are
>cheaper but mean you have to find someone to coordinate with, coordinate with
>them, and agree on times - they cost your TIME.

Cheap Chinese motor scooters are about CAD$2000 here. Mine had a new
value of about $2600, though I got it for $1500 used.

The switch from car to motorcycle is not that high when you consider
daily gas consumption. But I live in a place with real winter, so you
still drive the car for a third of the year.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[William December Starr]

In article <lirk4i$drh$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:

> Suggest that in the past Americans weathered larger price
> increases. I bow to your native knowledge whether the USA is no
> longer up to that task. I have to say your oligarchs don't seem to
> be doing a very good job of leaving a legacy for their grandkids.

? Consider this quote I just made up:

"Because of what I do today, my children and their children will
live like kings, while your children and their children will live
life serfs."

-- wds

[James Nicoll]

In article <brfejg...@mid.individual.net>,

Plus there is the whole automobile driver hostility to motorcycles/
depraved indifference towards motorcyclists thing to consider.

(and when I worked in emerg, the worst accidents involved donorcycles)

[James Nicoll]

Huh. This was pointed out in comments at my LJ:

http://www.bigskywords.com/1/post/2014/01/should-you-sue-your-ebook-reviewers.html

[J. Clarke]

In article <liu4mp$753$1...@reader1.panix.com>, jdni...@panix.com says...

>
> In article <brfejg...@mid.individual.net>,
> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
> >David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> >>Um. Er. People close enough to the edge that a couple dollars'/gallon rise in
> >>the price of gas will cause them Difficulties are extremely unlikely to be
> >>able to AFFORD to adapt in the manner you describe, cuz they can't just go
> >>out abmnd buy a new (or used) car or motorcycle on a whim. Carpools are
> >>cheaper but mean you have to find someone to coordinate with, coordinate with
> >>them, and agree on times - they cost your TIME.
> >
> >Cheap Chinese motor scooters are about CAD$2000 here. Mine had a new
> >value of about $2600, though I got it for $1500 used.
> >
> >The switch from car to motorcycle is not that high when you consider
> >daily gas consumption. But I live in a place with real winter, so you
> >still drive the car for a third of the year.
>
> Plus there is the whole automobile driver hostility to motorcycles/
> depraved indifference towards motorcyclists thing to consider.
>
> (and when I worked in emerg, the worst accidents involved donorcycles)

The suggestion to buy more economical cars is a typical do-gooder "rich
people's solutions to poor people's problems" approach. Someone who is
trying to get by on 500 bucks a month and food stamps can't afford to
buy a car. Or a motorcycle. Or a pair of shoes for that matter.

Then there's the issue of weather. I've ridden year round in New
England. It can be done. But it's bloody dangerous--one ice patch at
highway speed and you can end up dead. Even if you don't end up dead or
seriously injured you can end up with a busted bike that is going to
cost a surprising amount to repair (if it is a major brand) or just be a
writeoff if it is a cheap Chinese scooter for which there is no real
support organization. In my case it was a surface-street commute with
no speed limit above 35 and I managed to avoid injury or serious bike
damage more by dumb luck than anything else.

As for the notion of a cheap Chinese scooter, if your commute is all on
25-35 mph urban surface streets it can work. If there's any highway
mileage involved it becomes nonviable simply because the government does
not allow scooters on the highway unless they have enough power to keep
up with traffic. About the smallest bike that's a practical highway
commuter is a Kawasaki EX250, which can be had for under $2000 for ten
year old models but a new one is going over $6000.

[Don Kuenz]

Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
> _Holding Their Own II: The Independents_ by Joe Nobody
> http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Their-Own-II-Independents/dp/061563642X/
>
> Second book in a series of seven books about the
> economic collapse of the USA in 2015.
>
> Umm, the first book in this series was published
> in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was
> really getting cranked up. The book had crude
> oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in
> 2015. Not gonna happen so the major driver of
> economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the
> book.
>

> That said, the book is a good story about the
> collapse and failure of the government in the USA.
> The inevitable civil war is getting cranked up
> and there is a cliffhanger ending. The series is
> centered in Texas which makes it very interesting
> to me since I am a Texas resident.

One Amazon critic, who liked the first book, complained that Holding
Their Own II devolves into yet another Rambo yarn. One "rough man ready
to do violence." (OTOH the online survivalist community leads me to
believe that a community trumps Rambo, at least in places such as the
former Yugoslavia.

I read _Molon Labe!_ because it is set in my state of Wyoming. "Molon
Labe" is a favorite phrase among people who agree with Thomas Jefferson
that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
blood of patriots and tyrants." Many former soldiers, well trained in
in the practice of institutional violence, belong to the "Rough Men and
Women" community.

"Molon Labe" means "come and take them" in Greek. It's the taunt that
the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae hurled back at Xerxes after he requested
that the Spartans lay down their weapons.

Under the aegis of fiction _Molon Labe_ lays out a blueprint for "rough
people" to use elections to wrest control of Wyoming away from the
Republican machine, one county at a time. It also delivers anonymous
exotic slow painful deaths to a couple of villains: a Federal judge and
a US Congressman.

---

Don Kuenz

[Lynn McGuire]

A lot of very popular books in the last 20
years could be characterized as Rambo stories.

I am listening to Tom Clancy's _Dead or Alive_
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Alive-Jack-Ryan-Clancy/dp/0425263533/
audiobook right now in my truck. That could be
characterized as "Son of Rambo" with the Jack
Ryan Jr. character. The _Locked On_ book in the
series ends with several governmental officials
and lawyers being arrested for treason.

Lynn

[Robert Carnegie]

On Saturday, 19 April 2014 20:17:09 UTC+1, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 4/19/2014 1:40 PM, Don Kuenz wrote:
> > Under the aegis of fiction _Molon Labe_ lays out a blueprint for "rough
> > people" to use elections to wrest control of Wyoming away from the
> > Republican machine, one county at a time. It also delivers anonymous
> > exotic slow painful deaths to a couple of villains: a Federal judge and
> > a US Congressman.
>

> A lot of very popular books in the last 20
> years could be characterized as Rambo stories.
>
> I am listening to Tom Clancy's _Dead or Alive_
> http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Alive-Jack-Ryan-Clancy/dp/0425263533/
> audiobook right now in my truck. That could be
> characterized as "Son of Rambo" with the Jack
> Ryan Jr. character. The _Locked On_ book in the
> series ends with several governmental officials
> and lawyers being arrested for treason.

Note that <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Rambow>
is a lot different to that sort of thing...

I don't know about "popular", but in the 1970s there
were several presumably /cheap/ series about a heavily
armed man going from one American post-apocalyptic town
to another like a cowboy protagonist a hundred years
earlier, with a series title like "The Itinerant" and
a volume count in dozens.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

A motorcycle is non-isomorphic with a car in just about EVERY way that
matters. It has sucky transport capacity, it's open to the weather, it
has no protective value in a crash, and it requires a different license
to operate and different skills to use.

An individual person might decide the switch was still worth it,but a
family? No. My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a
motorcycle. And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.

[Greg Goss]

"J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> wrote:

>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

>> >Cheap Chinese motor scooters are about CAD$2000 here. Mine had a new
>> >value of about $2600, though I got it for $1500 used.
>> >
>> >The switch from car to motorcycle is not that high when you consider
>> >daily gas consumption. But I live in a place with real winter, so you
>> >still drive the car for a third of the year.

>As for the notion of a cheap Chinese scooter, if your commute is all on
>25-35 mph urban surface streets it can work. If there's any highway
>mileage involved it becomes nonviable simply because the government does
>not allow scooters on the highway unless they have enough power to keep
>up with traffic. About the smallest bike that's a practical highway
>commuter is a Kawasaki EX250, which can be had for under $2000 for ten
>year old models but a new one is going over $6000.

My Tomos Nitro 150 has a top speed of 95 KM/H (60 MPH). It takes a
while to get there (zero to sixty in 35 seconds) but I'm willing to
drive it on the freeways. The vehicles barred from the freeways are
the ones incapable of 60 Km/H (40 MPH), and even my wife's Yamaha 125
is willing to do 70 Km/H under my 400 pounds. My previous Saga 150
had more power, with a top speed of 110 Km/H and zero to sixty in
about eighteen seconds under my 400 pounds.

The people who say you need 250 to keep up with traffic puzzle me.

However, most commuters don't use freeways. Most of the really poor
would take transit in from suburbia, and only use the bike to get to
the train station or bus loop.

I could ride the Saga for hours, but on the Tomos, my butt starts to
complain at about the half hour.

[Robert Carnegie]

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidecar> ?

Also, these days, groceries can be delivered - although
that has to include the cost of transport, too.

[lal_truckee]

On 4/19/14 3:13 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:

> My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a motorcycle. And
> groceries for six? Not on a cycle.

Have you ever been to modern Vietnam?
It's the wife and kids, the groceries, and like as not some furniture,
on a 125cc cycle. By the thousands.

The way we're going it might really be our only choice.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:liuvgm$12s$1...@dont-email.me:

> On 4/19/14 3:13 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>
>> My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a
>> motorcycle. And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.
>
> Have you ever been to modern Vietnam?
> It's the wife and kids, the groceries, and like as not some
> furniture, on a 125cc cycle. By the thousands.

Have you ever driven a motorcycle in real traffic? Apparently not,
because you're still alive.

>
> The way we're going it might really be our only choice.
>

Yeah, the world's coming to an end. You should kill yourself now, to
avoid the Christmas rush.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Ahasuerus]

On Saturday, April 19, 2014 6:13:56 PM UTC-4, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
[snip]

> An individual person might decide the switch was still worth it,but a
> family? No. My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a
> motorcycle. And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.

A couple of 20 lb bags of rice should be certainly doable. And it's long
past time to do something about this outrageous prosperity thing anyway!
Where is George Santayana when we need him?..

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 4/19/14 6:44 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Saturday, 19 April 2014 23:13:56 UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>> On 4/19/14 10:13 AM, Greg Goss wrote:
>>> The switch from car to motorcycle is not that high when you consider
>>> daily gas consumption. But I live in a place with real winter, so you
>>> still drive the car for a third of the year.
>>
>> A motorcycle is non-isomorphic with a car in just about EVERY way that
>> matters. It has sucky transport capacity, it's open to the weather, it
>> has no protective value in a crash, and it requires a different license
>> to operate and different skills to use.
>>
>> An individual person might decide the switch was still worth it,but a
>> family? No. My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a
>> motorcycle. And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidecar> ?

Which doesn't really help. I don't even want to imagine a six-person
motorcycle (two on cycle, two in a sidecar on each side?).

And doesn't address the weather and protective value issues.

>
> Also, these days, groceries can be delivered - although
> that has to include the cost of transport, too.
>

I can't imagine trusting someone else to pick out my produce or meat.

[Greg Goss]

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

> Which doesn't really help. I don't even want to imagine a six-person
>motorcycle (two on cycle, two in a sidecar on each side?).

Occasionally pictures drift through the web social sites of motorbikes
from east or southeast asia. I'm sure i've seen one with six people
on it.

[Cryptoengineer]

David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote in
news:rdqdnVVyUoEKYczO...@earthlink.com:

> On 2014-04-18, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in
>>> There are a lot of people closer to the edge than you.
>>
>> That's true, but there's a lot of adaption that can
>> take place. People can shift to more fuel-efficient
>> transport - hybrids, electrics, plug-in hybrids,
>> motorcycles, car pools, etc. I could halve my gas
>> consumption easily by buying a Prius, or even a Mercedes E250.
>
> Um. Er. People close enough to the edge that a couple dollars'/gallon
> rise in the price of gas will cause them Difficulties are extremely
> unlikely to be able to AFFORD to adapt in the manner you describe, cuz
> they can't just go out abmnd buy a new (or used) car or motorcycle on
> a whim. Carpools are cheaper but mean you have to find someone to
> coordinate with, coordinate with them, and agree on times - they cost
> your TIME.

A used 2012 Scion IQ can be bought for $11,300 in my area. 37 mpg.

Not quite as good on gas as a hybrid or Mercedes, but not bad at all.

Being poor sucks. I'm not denying that. Some people would simply have
to move to where they don't need to drive so much; I myself lived
without a car for 10 years in NYC.

But most people, could, with some pain and sacrifice, deal with a
50% increase in gas prices. After all, they've done it several times
in the past 30 years:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/02/chart-gop-gas-price-attack-obama

pt

[Lynn McGuire]

Does that six include you and wife? If not, wow!
I have a friend with six kids. Three have escaped
now and he traded his 12 passenger Dodge van in
for a truck. The truck gets better mileage.

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

On 4/19/2014 7:02 PM, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
> lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com> wrote in
> news:liuvgm$12s$1...@dont-email.me:
>
>> On 4/19/14 3:13 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>>
>>> My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a
>>> motorcycle. And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.
>>
>> Have you ever been to modern Vietnam?
>> It's the wife and kids, the groceries, and like as not some
>> furniture, on a 125cc cycle. By the thousands.
>
> Have you ever driven a motorcycle in real traffic? Apparently not,
> because you're still alive.
>>
>> The way we're going it might really be our only choice.
>>
> Yeah, the world's coming to an end. You should kill yourself now, to
> avoid the Christmas rush.

For some reason that was actually funny in a
horrid sort of way!

Lynn

[Ahasuerus]

On Saturday, April 19, 2014 10:47:39 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 4/19/2014 5:13 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:

[snip-snip]

> > And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.
>

> Does that six include you and wife? If not, wow! [snip]

I have it on good authority that SF writers and their spouses have to
eat too :)

[Don Bruder]

In article <brgoup...@mid.individual.net>,

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
> > Which doesn't really help. I don't even want to imagine a six-person
> >motorcycle (two on cycle, two in a sidecar on each side?).
>
> Occasionally pictures drift through the web social sites of motorbikes
> from east or southeast asia. I'm sure i've seen one with six people
> on it.

Which simply proves that for any "I don't even want to imagine..."
concept someone can come up with, it's almost certain that someone can
come up with an example of some idiot who'll claim it's possible - For
some values of "possible". (usually those values that don't even have a
nodding acquaintance with the concept of "practical")

I'm certain that given enough motivation, a "motorcycle" able to carry
48 passengers could be built. Although I doubt the object created would
bear any resemblance to what a rational person would a motorcycle - case
in point: Evel Knievel's (pathetically failed) attempt to jump the snake
river canyon in his so-called "sky cycle". Yeah, it was cool-looking and
everything, but let's face reality: That particular bad joke of a device
had almost as much relation to a motorcycle as a bulldozer has to a
goldfish, and was about as practical as trying to empty the Atlantic
ocean by bailing it out with a teaspoon.

--
Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

[Lynn McGuire]

> Which doesn't really help. I don't even want to imagine a
> six-person motorcycle (two on cycle, two in a sidecar on each side?).
>
> And doesn't address the weather and protective value issues.

Weather is what tarps are made for. Also, don't
go fast.

One of the things that I find amusing here is
that you all are assuming that the transition
from cheap gasoline, $4/gal, to expensive gas
will be orderly. In my life experience, these
changes tend to happen quite traumatically and
swiftly. In fact, I am more convinced that we
will transition swiftly to no gasoline than
expensive gasoline.

In other news, the largest electric utility in
the Great State of Texas is going bankrupt next
week. This may be interesting.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/04/15/energy-future-holdings-misses-filing-deadline/

EFH, aka TXU, is the largest owner of lignite /
coal power plants in the USA. The environmental
groups are advocating that the coal plants be
shutdown permanently during the bankruptcy.

Lynn

[Kurt Busiek]

Pff. A myth, fostered by agents trying to get their clients more money.

kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[David DeLaney]

On 2014-04-20, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>> Which doesn't really help. I don't even want to imagine a
>> six-person motorcycle (two on cycle, two in a sidecar on each side?).
>>
>> And doesn't address the weather and protective value issues.
>
> Weather is what tarps are made for. Also, don't go fast.

...Tarps let rain and snow in. Also, not going fast means this 'alternative'
eats more TIME than automobile commuting. Especially if you can't use
interstates, or aren't confident of your ability to handle interstate speeds
with nothing between you and all the moving air and moving cars and moving-
backwards roads and posts and fences and stuff. Also also, driving a motorcycle
takes a LOT more actual bodily motion, attention, and balance skill than driving
a car ... even when it's not overloaded with half the amount of stuff
that can fit IN even an ordinary VW Bug.

> One of the things that I find amusing here is
> that you all are assuming that the transition
> from cheap gasoline, $4/gal, to expensive gas
> will be orderly. In my life experience, these
> changes tend to happen quite traumatically and
> swiftly. In fact, I am more convinced that we
> will transition swiftly to no gasoline than expensive gasoline.

Mmm. See you on the other side of the dystopian apocalypse, then.

> EFH, aka TXU, is the largest owner of lignite /
> coal power plants in the USA. The environmental
> groups are advocating that the coal plants be
> shutdown permanently during the bankruptcy.

...so they want to replace them with nuclear, which is much much safer,
cleaner, and easier?

Dave, no, that would be silly, these are ENVIRONMENTAL groups, and you can't
spell that without "MENTAL" and "RONNIE"...

[David DeLaney]

On 2014-04-20, Cryptoengineer <treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
> David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote in

>> On 2014-04-18, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in
>>>> There are a lot of people closer to the edge than you.
>>>
>>> That's true, but there's a lot of adaption that can
>>> take place. People can shift to more fuel-efficient
>>> transport - hybrids, electrics, plug-in hybrids,
>>> motorcycles, car pools, etc. I could halve my gas
>>> consumption easily by buying a Prius, or even a Mercedes E250.
>>
>> Um. Er. People close enough to the edge that a couple dollars'/gallon
>> rise in the price of gas will cause them Difficulties are extremely
>> unlikely to be able to AFFORD to adapt in the manner you describe, cuz
>> they can't just go out abmnd buy a new (or used) car or motorcycle on
>> a whim. Carpools are cheaper but mean you have to find someone to
>> coordinate with, coordinate with them, and agree on times - they cost
>> your TIME.
>
> A used 2012 Scion IQ can be bought for $11,300 in my area. 37 mpg.

... that is half again my YEARLY earnings, in the last few years.

> Being poor sucks. I'm not denying that. Some people would simply have
> to move to where they don't need to drive so much; I myself lived
> without a car for 10 years in NYC.

Being poor means you can't AFFORD to move. Moving takes MONEY. Just noting that
for the "still looking at this from a non-poor viewpoint" callout. Unless you
want to only move a small amount of possessions total, like what could fit in
the back of a pickup truck or two...

Dave

[J. Clarke]

In article <XnsA314E33CA7...@216.196.97.131>,
treif...@gmail.com says...

>
> David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote in
> news:rdqdnVVyUoEKYczO...@earthlink.com:
>
> > On 2014-04-18, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in
> >>> There are a lot of people closer to the edge than you.
> >>
> >> That's true, but there's a lot of adaption that can
> >> take place. People can shift to more fuel-efficient
> >> transport - hybrids, electrics, plug-in hybrids,
> >> motorcycles, car pools, etc. I could halve my gas
> >> consumption easily by buying a Prius, or even a Mercedes E250.
> >
> > Um. Er. People close enough to the edge that a couple dollars'/gallon
> > rise in the price of gas will cause them Difficulties are extremely
> > unlikely to be able to AFFORD to adapt in the manner you describe, cuz
> > they can't just go out abmnd buy a new (or used) car or motorcycle on
> > a whim. Carpools are cheaper but mean you have to find someone to
> > coordinate with, coordinate with them, and agree on times - they cost
> > your TIME.
>
> A used 2012 Scion IQ can be bought for $11,300 in my area. 37 mpg.

That's nice. Where is somebody living on the edge going to get $11,300?

> Not quite as good on gas as a hybrid or Mercedes, but not bad at all.
>
> Being poor sucks. I'm not denying that. Some people would simply have
> to move to where they don't need to drive so much; I myself lived
> without a car for 10 years in NYC.

If you're poor moving may not be an option. Moving costs money too you
know.

[J. Clarke]

In article <livegh$uh1$1...@dont-email.me>, dak...@sonic.net says...

It's not a matter of building some special kind of motorcycle, it's that
Asians do the best they can with what they've got and the kind of loads
they manage to carry on very ordinary motorcycles has to be seen to be
believed.

[J. Clarke]

In article <livfbl$gar$1...@dont-email.me>, l...@winsim.com says...

>
> > Which doesn't really help. I don't even want to imagine a
> > six-person motorcycle (two on cycle, two in a sidecar on each side?).
> >
> > And doesn't address the weather and protective value issues.
>
> Weather is what tarps are made for. Also, don't
> go fast.
>
> One of the things that I find amusing here is
> that you all are assuming that the transition
> from cheap gasoline, $4/gal, to expensive gas
> will be orderly. In my life experience, these
> changes tend to happen quite traumatically and
> swiftly. In fact, I am more convinced that we
> will transition swiftly to no gasoline than
> expensive gasoline.

Don't hold your breath.

> In other news, the largest electric utility in
> the Great State of Texas is going bankrupt next
> week. This may be interesting.
>
> http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/04/15/energy-future-holdings-misses-filing-deadline/
>
> EFH, aka TXU, is the largest owner of lignite /
> coal power plants in the USA. The environmental
> groups are advocating that the coal plants be
> shutdown permanently during the bankruptcy.

The environmental groups should be required to provide a generator and
fuel for every household in the affected area if they are going to
advocate shutting down power plants.
>
> Lynn

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article,
<e8e88f5f-2a1a-4762...@googlegroups.com>,
rja.ca...@excite.com "Robert Carnegie" observed:

> Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>> Greg Goss wrote:
>>>The switch from car to motorcycle is not that high when you consider
>>>daily gas consumption. But I live in a place with real winter, so you
>>>still drive the car for a third of the year.

>>a motorcycle is non-isomorphic with a car in just about EVERY way that

>>matters. It has sucky transport capacity, it's open to the weather, it
>>has no protective value in a crash, and it requires a different license
>>to operate and different skills to use.
>>An individual person might decide the switch was still worth it,but a
>>family? No. My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a
>>motorcycle. And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.
>
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidecar> ?
>Also, these days, groceries can be delivered - although that has to
>include the cost of transport, too.

- s/the cost of/a flat fee for/ if you live within the (quite
large) delivery area of a branch of the uk supermarket which
has a delivery operation. most, but not all of the uk super-
market chains do, and between them cover north-wet england's
fells - isolated houses & cottages as well as hidden hamlets -
which is about as low density of inhabitation as england has
to offer; i don't know how well they - or traditional grocers,
who may well still offer delivery services on an organised ba-
sis, just as they have done since the 1890s, or wheneveritwas
the particular emporium was established - cover scotland - or
wales, & i suspect any delivery services to the shetland isles
and orkneys do not offer delivery within specified ten - twenty
minute bookable slots during the day, seven days a week...

- bubble-cars were - some still are - motor-trikes with more-
or-less weatherproof bodies, courtesy of such well-established
manufacturers as heinkel, iszetta (sp?), dornier etc. (iirc the
heinkel or a similar car may've possessed four road wheels: one
pair was sufficiently close together to count, legally, as one
wheel, and thus allow it to be accounted a tricycle for taxation
purposes etc. (cf. the robin reliant, and the robin van beloved
of fans of the tv series, "minder", which're true three-wheelers.)

- sf fans & readers, at least, should have little difficulty imag-
ining motor-bike, trike & quaddie-based alternative possibilities.

- love, a ppint. as has personally witnessed a heinkel being
used for a family weekly grocery shop...
[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--
"The people all paint themselves red, and eat monkeys,
whereof there is an inexhaustible supply in the hills."
- Histories, Book Four - Herodotus

[Robert Carnegie]

On Sunday, 20 April 2014 02:56:58 UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> On 4/19/14 6:44 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> > On Saturday, 19 April 2014 23:13:56 UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> >> An individual person might decide the switch was still worth it,but a
> >> family? No. My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a
> >> motorcycle. And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.
> >
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidecar> ?
>
> Which doesn't really help. I don't even want to imagine a six-person
> motorcycle (two on cycle, two in a sidecar on each side?).
>
> And doesn't address the weather and protective value issues.

Wear clothes. Also, how about two three-person motorcycles?
Or making more than one trip, when it's necessary.

Presumably you are taking the children somewhere to leave them
there for a while. So, in a society that can't afford transport,
you would have to leave them somewhere nearer home.
This increases the risk they will find their own way back.

> > Also, these days, groceries can be delivered - although
> > that has to include the cost of transport, too.
>
> I can't imagine trusting someone else to pick out my produce or meat.

You trust someone else to provide them.

We do have telecommunications now, so probably you could
select your groceries by video camera.

[Lynn McGuire]

I was thinking trailer for the motorcycle.

EFH is nuclear also. Almost 100 power plants.

Lynn

[Don Kuenz]

David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Being poor means you can't AFFORD to move. Moving takes MONEY. Just noting that
> for the "still looking at this from a non-poor viewpoint" callout. Unless you
> want to only move a small amount of possessions total, like what could fit in
> the back of a pickup truck or two...

A homeless mom with two children lives out of a car that she parked on
the Walmart lot. Her little girl uses the big green recycle containers
as a playground. A place to play "hide and go seek" while mom sorts
straightens the family's worldly possessions on the tailgate. The older
boy acts embarrassed by his "home."

A homeless man finds shelter beneath a bridge on the bike path across
Cherry Creek from the King Soopers. The store is open 24 hours a day,
which gives him access to water and toilets. At night he sleeps in his
sleeping bag on the embankment to keep clear of the traffic on the path.

A moderately disabled vet makes a home out of his VA hospital. It offers
food and a bed in addition to water and toilets.

The convict knows his prison cell as home. It imposes a certain level
of discomfort by design. The metal doors of his "home" are thick and
heavy and contain an equally thick, small, shatter proof glass window
that enables outsiders to observe him.

---

Don Kuenz

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 4/20/14 7:35 AM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Sunday, 20 April 2014 02:56:58 UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>> On 4/19/14 6:44 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>>> On Saturday, 19 April 2014 23:13:56 UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>>>> An individual person might decide the switch was still worth it,but a
>>>> family? No. My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a
>>>> motorcycle. And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.
>>>
>>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidecar> ?
>>
>> Which doesn't really help. I don't even want to imagine a six-person
>> motorcycle (two on cycle, two in a sidecar on each side?).
>>
>> And doesn't address the weather and protective value issues.
>
> Wear clothes. Also, how about two three-person motorcycles?
> Or making more than one trip, when it's necessary.

This is exactly the same dismissive sh*t that people without the issue
use on those with the issue, whether the issue is transport, sexism,
racism, or anything else.

Come up here in winter and ride a motorcycle, please. Tell me how many
clothes you need, and how close you come to death because of the issues
of the roads and the drivers. My dad used to ride a motorcycle. There
was a reason he didn't use it in the winter, and another reason he
stopped entirely.

>
> Presumably you are taking the children somewhere to leave them
> there for a while.

And why do you presume that? When my wife has to go to a doctor's
appointment, or shopping, or whatever, she CANNOT LEAVE THE KIDS BEHIND.
You can't leave them alone in the house. So you have to drag them
everywhere you go.

[Greg Goss]

v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk ("ppint. at pplay") wrote:


> - bubble-cars were - some still are - motor-trikes with more-
> or-less weatherproof bodies, courtesy of such well-established
> manufacturers as heinkel, iszetta (sp?), dornier etc. (iirc the
> heinkel or a similar car may've possessed four road wheels: one
> pair was sufficiently close together to count, legally, as one
> wheel, and thus allow it to be accounted a tricycle for taxation
> purposes etc. (cf. the robin reliant, and the robin van beloved
> of fans of the tv series, "minder", which're true three-wheelers.)

This brings up examples I had forgotten. We're talking about an
America facing recession with high fuel prices. Bombed out post WW2
Europe faced something similar and the various
halfway-between-bike-and-car vehicles that came out of that situation
are what would likely appear in an America with ultra-high fuel
prices.

> - love, a ppint. as has personally witnessed a heinkel being
> used for a family weekly grocery shop...

I've seen a few of the Japanese Kei-cars around Canada. I've seen
(and wondered at the success of the name) a Nissan S-Cargo around
Calgary within the past few years.

>><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidecar> ?
>>Also, these days, groceries can be delivered - although that has to
>>include the cost of transport, too.
>
> - s/the cost of/a flat fee for/ if you live within the (quite
> large) delivery area of a branch of the uk supermarket which
> has a delivery operation. most, but not all of the uk super-
> market chains do, and between them cover north-wet england's
> fells - isolated houses & cottages as well as hidden hamlets -
> which is about as low density of inhabitation as england has
> to offer; i don't know how well they - or traditional grocers,
> who may well still offer delivery services on an organised ba-
> sis, just as they have done since the 1890s, or wheneveritwas
> the particular emporium was established - cover scotland - or
> wales, & i suspect any delivery services to the shetland isles
> and orkneys do not offer delivery within specified ten - twenty
> minute bookable slots during the day, seven days a week...

Wasp cannot imagine letting someone else choose his veggies. But a
quality shopkeeper might see value in shipping only acceptable
produce. And most of us aren't as fussy as he is. I'm not sure about
the economics of a shop with a vehicle delivering to fifty customers a
day versus fifty customers with a vehicle each. It sounds like it
should make sense, but the stores making deliveries in the fiction of
my youth are incomprehensible in today's North America. I looked at
delivery services a few years back and the prices were wildly higher
than the places I shop at.

Our family has a car each, but I use my motor scooter by choice for
most errands when the weather is good. I've carried probably
twenty-five pounds of groceries on it in five bags(two in the back
trunk, one in the underseat trunk, and two on the helmet hook by my
knees)

[Greg Goss]

David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:


>> EFH, aka TXU, is the largest owner of lignite /
>> coal power plants in the USA. The environmental
>> groups are advocating that the coal plants be
>> shutdown permanently during the bankruptcy.
>
>...so they want to replace them with nuclear, which is much much safer,
>cleaner, and easier?

Some of us do.

>Dave, no, that would be silly, these are ENVIRONMENTAL groups, and you can't
> spell that without "MENTAL" and "RONNIE"...

--

[Robert Carnegie]

On Sunday, 20 April 2014 18:03:57 UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> On 4/20/14 7:35 AM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> > On Sunday, 20 April 2014 02:56:58 UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> >> On 4/19/14 6:44 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, 19 April 2014 23:13:56 UTC+1, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> >>>> An individual person might decide the switch was still worth it,but a
> >>>> family? No. My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a
> >>>> motorcycle. And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.
> >>>
> >>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidecar> ?
> >>
> >> Which doesn't really help. I don't even want to imagine a six-person
> >> motorcycle (two on cycle, two in a sidecar on each side?).
> >>
> >> And doesn't address the weather and protective value issues.
> >
> > Wear clothes. Also, how about two three-person motorcycles?
> > Or making more than one trip, when it's necessary.
>
> This is exactly the same dismissive sh*t that people without the issue
> use on those with the issue, whether the issue is transport, sexism,
> racism, or anything else.
>
> Come up here in winter and ride a motorcycle, please. Tell me how many
> clothes you need, and how close you come to death because of the issues
> of the roads and the drivers. My dad used to ride a motorcycle. There
> was a reason he didn't use it in the winter, and another reason he
> stopped entirely.

I ride a bicycle - but not when it's frosty. I don't drive...
but also I don't have kids.

Come to think, I expect I could cope with ice if basically
my vehicle had three wheels or more.

> > Presumably you are taking the children somewhere to leave them
> > there for a while.
>
> And why do you presume that? When my wife has to go to a doctor's
> appointment, or shopping, or whatever, she CANNOT LEAVE THE KIDS BEHIND.
> You can't leave them alone in the house. So you have to drag them
> everywhere you go.

What did people do before there were automobiles? Do that.
Have a neighbour or a relative watch the kids, probably.

Once the gas prices apocalypse happens, I mean. Unless you
consider that it already did.

Another way that people could save gas and they don't,
is to drive slower.

[David Johnston]

On 4/18/2014 9:51 AM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in

> news:proto-5E7942....@news.panix.com:
>
>> In article <liqbth$c5p$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 4/17/2014 11:15 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>>>> Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote in
>>>> news:lippi9$hqq$1...@dont-email.me:
>>>>
>>>>> _Holding Their Own II: The Independents_ by Joe Nobody
>>>>> http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Their-Own-II-
> Independents/dp/061
>>>>> 56364 2X/
>>>>>
>>>>> Second book in a series of seven books about the
>>>>> economic collapse of the USA in 2015.
>>>>>
>>>>> Umm, the first book in this series was published
>>>>> in 2011 just as the shale oil and gas boom was
>>>>> really getting cranked up. The book had crude
>>>>> oil at $350/barrel and gasoline at $6/gallon in
>>>>> 2015. Not gonna happen so the major driver of
>>>>> economic collapse in the USA is invalid for the
>>>>> book.
>>>>
>>>> This summer I was paying $8/gallon in Iceland.
>>>> Europeans too, would say 'huh?' at the idea of
>>>> $6 gas as something disruptive.
>>>>
>>>> pt
>>>
>>> I would not change my driving habits until $10/gal.
>>> And I drive a Ford Expedition. About $300/month
>>> on gasoline. But, it is long paid for (2005 model
>>> with 140K miles on it).
>>>
>>> Lynn

>>
>> There are a lot of people closer to the edge than you.
>>
>
> That's true, but there's a lot of adaption that can
> take place. People can shift to more fuel-efficient
> transport - hybrids, electrics, plug-in hybrids,
> motorcycles, car pools, etc. I could halve my gas
> consumption easily by buying a Prius, or even a Mercedes
> E250.
>

If you can afford a Prius or a Mercedes E250 you're a long way away from
actually worrying about fuel costs.

[Lynn McGuire]

I hope beyond hope that things keep on rocking
on.

Since when are environmental groups liable for
their actions? In fact, the way that the laws
are written, the environmental groups get their
legal bills paid for even if they lose. I can
not imagine a system that is more wonky.

Lynn

[Cryptoengineer]

Don Kuenz <gar...@crcomp.net> wrote in news:lj0t2k$32j$1...@dont-email.me:

> David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Being poor means you can't AFFORD to move. Moving takes MONEY. Just
>> noting that for the "still looking at this from a non-poor viewpoint"
>> callout. Unless you want to only move a small amount of possessions
>> total, like what could fit in the back of a pickup truck or two...

I feel like we're moving the goalposts here.

The OP was about a book which claimed that $6 gas would be be widely
disruptive to US society.

My point was that it seemed unlikely. $6 gas would be considered cheap
in much of Europe (I just checked: $8.58 atm in Belgium).

Most people cope. They spend less on other things; they take jobs
closer to home, or move closer to work. They carpool, take public
transit, make sure their next vehicle gets better mileage.

These are evolutionary changes. A 50% rise in gasoline prices
hurts, but isn't going to result in civilisation going down the
toilet.

Yes, there are people living on the margins for which this would
be very, very, bad. As I said, being poor sucks. Every societal
change totally fucks over some people.

The goal I was shooting at was 'won't cause widespread societal
disruption'.

Please don't move the goalposts back to 'won't hurt anyone at all'.

pt

[Cryptoengineer]

David Johnston <Da...@block.net> wrote in news:lj151v$n33$1@dont-
email.me:

As I type, gasoline in Oslo stands at over $9.90/gallon.

Yet, somehow, Norwegian civilization hasn't collapsed. In
fact, by most peoples standards, they enjoy a higher standard
of living than we do in the US.

pt

[Lynn McGuire]

The $6 gasoline was just the start. The unemployment
rises to 40% over a couple of years and then there is
a terrorist attack in Chicago that kills 50,000 people.
The current President of the USA nukes Iran with EMP
airbursts as the sponsor of the terrorist attack.

The accumulations of these cause widespread panics and
shutdowns of basic services like electricity and water
for large cities. The electricity grids fail due to
employees not showing up to work at the plants. Then
the refineries shutdown due to the lack of electricity.

Houston is specifically outlined here with a large
fire (several square miles) due to laid off firefighters
and lack of water. Then a large hospital in Houston
enters bankruptcy and people do not show up to work
due to lack of paychecks. Then things go bad.

BTW, Houston is having problems getting all shifts of
firefighters staffed right now due to budget costs
and no trainee classes.

Like I said for the original book, every time there
is an event, things get worse. Real life is not that
bad.

Lynn

[hamis...@gmail.com]

A lot of people don't live that near their family anymore and a lot of families have both parents working which makes neighbours watching kids somewhat problematic.

>
> Once the gas prices apocalypse happens, I mean. Unless you
> consider that it already did.
>
> Another way that people could save gas and they don't,
> is to drive slower.

Check what speeds fuel economy is actually best at...

[David DeLaney]

On 2014-04-20, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I feel like we're moving the goalposts here.
>
> The OP was about a book which claimed that $6 gas would be be widely
> disruptive to US society.
>
> My point was that it seemed unlikely. $6 gas would be considered cheap
> in much of Europe (I just checked: $8.58 atm in Belgium).

Well, part of the problem is that isn't a fair comparison; a great deal of
Europe is built a LOT closer together, and/or was built when horses were The
Bomb in transportation so that 40 miles was an all-day-and-evening trip, and
was specifically NOT built around the automobile and cheap gasoline. (Indeed,
much of it was built before 'gasoline' was a concept.)

The USA, on the other hand, hasn't been here long, but has built out in great
wide sprawling cities, towns, suburbs, farmscapes, etc., and a lot of it is
designed to take easy access to automobiles, trucks, vans, etc. into account.
And even on the crowded East Coast, where there's some evidence that towns and
hamlets were built before the turn of the 19th century, people will live way
outside the NYC downtown area and commute there on trains, if they can afford
to do so.

So it's like comparing oranges and Androids really. Many fewer Europeans
commute 25 or 50 miles each day and back to a job, and very few I think commute
200 or more miles in a day...

> These are evolutionary changes. A 50% rise in gasoline prices
> hurts, but isn't going to result in civilisation going down the
> toilet.

If it's gradual, it can be adjusted to, but will still drive some of the poor
through the bottom of the barrel.

> The goal I was shooting at was 'won't cause widespread societal
> disruption'.

It would cause widespread societal CHANGE, and if you're being a conservative
that's nearly as bad. And tell me, how fast was research into electric cars
going here in the USA when gas was still under a dollar a gallon? Right now
it's nearly $tree-fitty where I am...

[David DeLaney]

On 2014-04-20, Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
> What did people do before there were automobiles? Do that.

Hmmm. Had much higher infant mortality, not-very-effective birth control,
little protection against disease or tooth decay, tended to stay within 20
miles of where they were born all their life for a LOT of folks and/or moved
to a reeking dirty crowded city because the slave-labor job opportunities
there were better than life on the farm, oh, and tended to not get any more
educated thn they could pay for either.

Or are you thinking about the slim percentage who happened to be on the top
of the heap? I'm fairly sure your dice wouldn't have rolled to make you one of
them, nor myself either.

> Another way that people could save gas and they don't,
> is to drive slower.

Which eats away at an even more irreplaceable resource: your TIME. You've got
the leisure time now to sit and argue with people on Usenet who are trying to
convince you there's stuff you're seriously missing from the point of view
you're taking. You wouldn't have had back then, had it existed then, and had
you been taught how to read and write.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Exactly. In the Old Days, you lived very close together, in general.
And doctors, who were not specialists or using lots of fancy and
generally immobile equipment, tended to come to you. And you COULD leave
a 10 year old in charge of the house for a few hours if you wanted and
not have CPS bust in on you for that. And a whole bunch of other things
that amount to "not a useful piece of advice for today".

>> Once the gas prices apocalypse happens, I mean. Unless you
>> consider that it already did.
>>
>> Another way that people could save gas and they don't,
>> is to drive slower.
>
> Check what speeds fuel economy is actually best at...
>

Yep. Gas economy peaks at a somewhat variable level depending on the
particular car, but it's not improved by going slower, in general;
slower means lower gear.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 21 Apr 2014 07:07:43 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E.
Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
<news:lj2u61$8gm$1...@dont-email.me> in rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> Exactly. In the Old Days, you lived very close together,
> in general. And doctors, who were not specialists or
> using lots of fancy and generally immobile equipment,
> tended to come to you.

I even remember house calls. The last one that I recall was
when I was about ten, and it was unusual: we generally went
to Dr. Gage’s office, but this was a possible emergency. It
was at the start of my hay fever season, and we were just
building up the dosage of the weekly injections of
allergenic extract that I’d get through the season. My
father gave me the injection, and before very long I broke
out in a maddening case of hives. It had never happened
before, so he was understandably concerned, especially since
he’d no idea what might be appropriate treatment: he had
adrenaline available for an emergency, but I didn’t seem to
be in that kind of danger. At any rate, the doctor came
out. As I recall there wasn’t much that he could do, and
the reaction subsided after several (rather long) hours.
That would have been around 1958. It’s just barely possible
that our doctor in Richmond (1960-2) paid one housecall.

> And you COULD leave a 10 year old in charge of the house
> for a few hours if you wanted and not have CPS bust in on
> you for that.

Though not if that meant leaving him in charge of an
eight-year-old, a six-year-old, a four-year-old, a
three-year-old, and a one-year-old!

> And a whole bunch of other things that amount to "not a
> useful piece of advice for today".

Like my walking eight and a half blocks to school by myself
in kindergarten and first grade in Berkeley.

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[Robert Carnegie]

That depends on the speed you're driving slower than.
And where. And on the quantity of groceries and kids
in the car, but presumably that's basically constant.

The greater the mass, then, I'm assuming, the greater
is the extra cost of speeding up and slowing down,
compared to /not/ speeding up every time you can.

My statement implies that "people" drive faster than their
optimum, which they do. Perhaps you do. Perhaps you don't.

I've seen cars that display MPG in real time, but
I don't know if that's standard.

[Greg Goss]

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:


>> Check what speeds fuel economy is actually best at...
>>
>
> Yep. Gas economy peaks at a somewhat variable level depending on the
>particular car, but it's not improved by going slower, in general;
>slower means lower gear.

Back when I owned an early hybrid, its gas mileage peaked around 90
Km/H (50 MPH) and fell off pretty rapidly above that.

[Greg Goss]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>I've seen cars that display MPG in real time, but
>I don't know if that's standard.

It becomes pretty easy with modern fuel injection metering the
gasoline being used. Whether or not you want it on the dashboard
involves trade-offs on meter clutter and whether you're willing to
confuse (or supply extra data to) your user.

[Cryptoengineer]

David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote in

news:QbOdnZxW0OxuRMnO...@earthlink.com:

> On 2014-04-20, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I feel like we're moving the goalposts here.
>>
>> The OP was about a book which claimed that $6 gas would be be widely
>> disruptive to US society.
>>
>> My point was that it seemed unlikely. $6 gas would be considered
>> cheap in much of Europe (I just checked: $8.58 atm in Belgium).
>
> Well, part of the problem is that isn't a fair comparison; a great
> deal of Europe is built a LOT closer together, and/or was built when
> horses were The Bomb in transportation so that 40 miles was an
> all-day-and-evening trip, and was specifically NOT built around the
> automobile and cheap gasoline. (Indeed, much of it was built before
> 'gasoline' was a concept.)
>
> The USA, on the other hand, hasn't been here long, but has built out
> in great wide sprawling cities, towns, suburbs, farmscapes, etc., and
> a lot of it is designed to take easy access to automobiles, trucks,
> vans, etc. into account. And even on the crowded East Coast, where
> there's some evidence that towns and hamlets were built before the
> turn of the 19th century, people will live way outside the NYC
> downtown area and commute there on trains, if they can afford to do
> so.
>
> So it's like comparing oranges and Androids really. Many fewer
> Europeans commute 25 or 50 miles each day and back to a job, and very
> few I think commute 200 or more miles in a day...

That's true, but you've an exaggerated idea of how far
Americans commute, and how little Europeans do.

You Can Look This Stuff Up

The number of Americans who commute 200 or more miles a day is
miniscule.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/commute-statistics/

Shows that the median American commute is under 20 miles
round trip. Only 8% are more then 70 miles round trip,
and 2.6% are more than 100 miles.

For Britain:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fil
e/230553/Commuting_and_business_travel_factsheet___April_2011.pdf

Mean length of commute 17.3 miles.

pt

[Lynn McGuire]

I paid $3.59/gal for regular gasoline in Dallas,
Texas last week.

Lynn

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote in

news:livciv$2ac$2...@dont-email.me:

> On 4/19/2014 7:02 PM, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:
>> lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com> wrote in
>> news:liuvgm$12s$1...@dont-email.me:

>>
>>> On 4/19/14 3:13 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>>>
>>>> My wife has to transport kids; that's not happening on a
>>>> motorcycle. And groceries for six? Not on a cycle.
>>>

>>> Have you ever been to modern Vietnam?
>>> It's the wife and kids, the groceries, and like as not some
>>> furniture, on a 125cc cycle. By the thousands.
>>
>> Have you ever driven a motorcycle in real traffic? Apparently
>> not, because you're still alive.
>>>
>>> The way we're going it might really be our only choice.
>>>
>> Yeah, the world's coming to an end. You should kill yourself
>> now, to avoid the Christmas rush.
>
> For some reason that was actually funny in a
> horrid sort of way!
>
So is lal_truckee. What makes it funny is there really is a Christmas
rush on suicides.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[William December Starr]

In article <liu4q5$793$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:

> Huh. This was pointed out in comments at my LJ:
>
> http://www.bigskywords.com/1/post/2014/01/should-you-sue-your-ebook-reviewers.html

1. Did you attach this post to the wrong thread?

2. That Greg Strandberg comes across here as being one weird dude,
and I don't think I mean that in a good way.

-- wds

[James Nicoll]

In article <lj3nua$opk$1...@panix2.panix.com>,

William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <liu4q5$793$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:
>
>> Huh. This was pointed out in comments at my LJ:
>>
>>
>http://www.bigskywords.com/1/post/2014/01/should-you-sue-your-ebook-reviewers.html
>
>1. Did you attach this post to the wrong thread?
>

Doesn't the link also involve Joe Nobody?

--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

[William December Starr]

In article <lj1at5$u17$1...@dont-email.me>,

Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> said:

> Since when are environmental groups liable for
> their actions? In fact, the way that the laws
> are written, the environmental groups get their
> legal bills paid for even if they lose. I can
> not imagine a system that is more wonky.

For what actions do you believe that environmental
groups should be held legally accountable?

-- wds

[William December Starr]

In article <cf384351-e6f7-49a6...@googlegroups.com>,

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> said:

> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>
>> And why do you presume that? When my wife has to go to a doctor's
>> appointment, or shopping, or whatever, she CANNOT LEAVE THE KIDS
>> BEHIND. You can't leave them alone in the house. So you have to
>> drag them everywhere you go.
>
> What did people do before there were automobiles? Do that.

I believe that what they mostly did was live in a different time
with a different culture.

-- wds

[William December Starr]

In article <liufsu$ob0$1...@dont-email.me>,
Don Kuenz <gar...@crcomp.net> said:

> I read _Molon Labe!_ because it is set in my state of
> Wyoming. "Molon Labe" is a favorite phrase among people who agree
> with Thomas Jefferson that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed
> from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Many
> former soldiers, well trained in in the practice of institutional
> violence, belong to the "Rough Men and Women" community.
>
> "Molon Labe" means "come and take them" in Greek. It's the taunt
> that the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae hurled back at Xerxes after
> he requested that the Spartans lay down their weapons.
>
> Under the aegis of fiction _Molon Labe_ lays out a blueprint for
> "rough people" to use elections to wrest control of Wyoming away
> from the Republican machine, one county at a time. It also
> delivers anonymous exotic slow painful deaths to a couple of
> villains: a Federal judge and a US Congressman.

Melon label. Melon label. Melon label.

-- wds (it had to be said)

[William December Starr]

In article <lj3o4p$f0m$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:

> William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) said:
>>
>>> Huh. This was pointed out in comments at my LJ:
>>>
>>> http://www.bigskywords.com/1/post/2014/01/should-you-sue-your-ebook-reviewers.html
>>
>> 1. Did you attach this post to the wrong thread?
>
> Doesn't the link also involve Joe Nobody?

Well yeah, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with the post of
mine to which you were responding.

(s/wrong thread/wrong sub-thread/ then.)

-- wds

[David DeLaney]

On 2014-04-21, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> So it's like comparing oranges and Androids really. Many fewer
>> Europeans commute 25 or 50 miles each day and back to a job, and very
>> few I think commute 200 or more miles in a day...
>
> That's true, but you've an exaggerated idea of how far
> Americans commute, and how little Europeans do.

You may think so. But there's a REASON I-40 in Knoxville gets clogs all along
its length during rush hours each day, ansd I personally have about a 20-mile
drive to my part time job. Granted, many live in Oak Ridge proper who work
there ... but many more live outside it, or down in the Knoxville area, and
commute, and similarly going the other way and in and out of Knoxville
downtown and its suburbs. (Even though some loft/gentrification living spaces
have opened up in downtown Knoxville in the last decade, there's nowhere near
enough to hold everyone - and the _immediate_ vicinity consists of a university
to the west (which has its own issues with housing and commuting, and which
eats about all the housing available right there), Magnolia and environs to the
east (which is populated by people mostly not the right color to work
downtown), South Knoxville to the south (duh) (which is populated by people
mostly not the right income tier to work downtown), and northwards is the only
nearby middle-class suburbia...

> You Can Look This Stuff Up
>
> The number of Americans who commute 200 or more miles a day is
> miniscule.

Comparatively yeah. But 2.6% of All of Us is a few _million_. I'm betting that
a lot fewer even in Europe, both by weight and by volume, do so, and similarly
at the 25-mile level.

> http://www.statisticbrain.com/commute-statistics/
>
> Shows that the median American commute is under 20 miles
> round trip. Only 8% are more then 70 miles round trip,
> and 2.6% are more than 100 miles.

And "under 20 miles round trip", for most of that category, STILL requires a
car, public transport, or at the very least a motorcycle and little ability to
avoid weather and carry cabinets or three kids around. Let us know how many
have a commute of under, say, _four_ miles round trip; that's more than most
people would want to have to WALK to work, and back, every day, every weather,
especially if any hills are involved.

Powered vehicles are a great deal more convenient than human-driven ones, and
enable a much wider spread of both workplaces and shops/stores/schools/daycares/
anything else you want to go to and obtain goods or services from and come back
from. Trying to minimize the impact that raising the cost of the power would
have by denying that it's going to HAVE any sort of major impact except maybe
in a few isolated cases, or for types of people Who Don't Matter and can thus
be left out of the worldview, is a bad arguing tactic.

> For Britain:
> https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fil
> e/230553/Commuting_and_business_travel_factsheet___April_2011.pdf
>
> Mean length of commute 17.3 miles.

Which takes how long, twice a day, to walk? To bicycle? And how common are
businesses that have showers and changing rooms on the premises?

[Lynn McGuire]

First, when they sue somebody and lose, they
should pay their own legal bills. And they
should pay the legal bills of the people / entity
that we were suing.

Second, when they sabotage various projects and
block access to construction projects. We just
had a bunch of people chain themselves to trees
in the Lower Keystone pipeline project here in
Texas.

Lynn

[William December Starr]

In article <lj3pps$hs7$1...@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> said:

> William December Starr wrote:
>
>> For what actions do you believe that environmental
>> groups should be held legally accountable?
>

> First, when they sue somebody and lose, they
> should pay their own legal bills. And they
> should pay the legal bills of the people / entity
> that we were suing.

There are all sorts of laws/rules/precedents that govern who pays
whose legal fees in all sorts of situations. I'm somewhat dubious
that environmental groups receive any special treatment from the
courts.

> Second, when they sabotage various projects and
> block access to construction projects. We just
> had a bunch of people chain themselves to trees
> in the Lower Keystone pipeline project here in
> Texas.

And nobody arrested them?

-- wds

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 21 Apr 2014 10:25:06 -0700, Gutless Umbrella
Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:XnsA31669FBDF2...@69.16.186.7> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> What makes it funny is there really is a Christmas rush on
> suicides.

And other holidays. Which is why there is a group
alt.suicide.holiday, though the posters were certainly not
consciously focussed on holidays when I read it for a while
years ago.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in news:s2gmoey1p2j5
$.b72uhww9...@40tude.net:

> On Mon, 21 Apr 2014 10:25:06 -0700, Gutless Umbrella
> Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in
> <news:XnsA31669FBDF2...@69.16.186.7> in
> rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> [...]
>
>> What makes it funny is there really is a Christmas rush on
>> suicides.
>
> And other holidays. Which is why there is a group
> alt.suicide.holiday, though the posters were certainly not
> consciously focussed on holidays when I read it for a while
> years ago.
>

If it's typical of usenet, they will talk about everything *but*
suicides, holiday, and, well the <Alt> key.

[Cryptoengineer]

David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote in

news:mKidnf8Kdrx0-8jO...@earthlink.com:

The OP talked about a rise in the price of US gas to $6/gallon. That
would definitely make most people's commutes more expensive, but as
I showed, it's hardly an extinction level event. I've experienced a
300% increase in gas prices over the last 15 years.

Now all of a sudden you want me to justify a situation where people
have to *walk* to work.

Did you mount the goalposts on castors? They're retreating rapidly into
to far distance. Sheesh.

As for I-40, this is the typical 'my single anectdote disproves your
statistically valid data' argument.

pt

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:15:01 -0700, Gutless Umbrella

Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in

<news:XnsA31686CA928...@69.16.186.7> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in news:s2gmoey1p2j5
> $.b72uhww9...@40tude.net:

>> On Mon, 21 Apr 2014 10:25:06 -0700, Gutless Umbrella
>> Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in
>> <news:XnsA31669FBDF2...@69.16.186.7> in
>> rec.arts.sf.written:

>> [...]

>>> What makes it funny is there really is a Christmas rush on
>>> suicides.

>> And other holidays. Which is why there is a group
>> alt.suicide.holiday, though the posters were certainly not
>> consciously focussed on holidays when I read it for a while
>> years ago.

> If it's typical of usenet, they will talk about everything *but*
> suicides, holiday, and, well the <Alt> key.

Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Suicide was pretty nearly
the ONLY topic of discussion.

[Ahasuerus]

On Monday, April 21, 2014 4:34:12 PM UTC-4, Cryptoengineer wrote:
[snip-snip]

> The OP talked about a rise in the price of US gas to $6/gallon. That
> would definitely make most people's commutes more expensive, but as
> I showed, it's hardly an extinction level event. I've experienced a

> 300% increase in gas prices over the last 15 years. [snip]

Well, Lynn subsequently explained that there were other Bad Things
happening at the same time, but I am not 100% sure what the chain of
causes and effects was.

That said, a 50-100% rise in the price of gas as *the* cause of collapse
would be hard to swallow given what we have experienced over the last
40+ years.

OTOH, *any* kind of plausible non-catastrophic path (i.e. no major wars,
civil or otherwise, no supervolcano eruptions, no asteroid encounters,
etc) from Here And Now to a post-apocalyptic future is hard to pull off.
Our WSOD is based on what we have experienced personally or vicariously
and what we can extrapolate from our experiences. A fictional road-to-
perdition that goes against our picture of recent history would be hard
to do convincingly.

On the third hand, much depends on what the intended audience's "picture
of recent history" is. When writing for fringe groups the WSOD rules may
be different -- vide the Shaver Mystery a few threads over. Here is a
perfectly good example:

"These surface "MERCHANTS" are as bad as the Ray Guards, and they get
control of the ancient, antique wonders which would revolutionize the
medical world and bring telepathic miracles; but that would put the Ray
Guards and surface merchants out of business. The OIL BARONS,
TRANSPORTATION and COMMUNICATIONS control the supplies and needs on the
surface, the same as in the cavern world. You can recognize the surface
Portals by going to any "slum area" where the PAWN SHOP MERCHANTS THRIVE;
you can detect portal rays around their stores, by using your own camera
and color film. Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas is where most
"STOLEN GOODS" are transferred to pawn merchants in MEXICO, and it often
finds its way into the caverns in the various states in the Southwest,
but especially into the Cavern World in the San Madero Mts. of Mexico.

--Taken from Shavertron #13"
(http://www.softcom.net/users/falconkam/teros20.html)

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in

news:11xba1maohcek.1oy1g267a2nmy$.d...@40tude.net:

> On Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:15:01 -0700, Gutless Umbrella
> Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in
> <news:XnsA31686CA928...@69.16.186.7> in
> rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in news:s2gmoey1p2j5
>> $.b72uhww9...@40tude.net:
>
>>> On Mon, 21 Apr 2014 10:25:06 -0700, Gutless Umbrella
>>> Carrying Sissy <taus...@gmail.com> wrote in
>>> <news:XnsA31669FBDF2...@69.16.186.7> in
>>> rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>>> [...]
>
>>>> What makes it funny is there really is a Christmas rush on
>>>> suicides.
>
>>> And other holidays. Which is why there is a group
>>> alt.suicide.holiday, though the posters were certainly not
>>> consciously focussed on holidays when I read it for a while
>>> years ago.
>
>> If it's typical of usenet, they will talk about everything *but*
>> suicides, holiday, and, well the <Alt> key.
>
> Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Suicide was pretty nearly
> the ONLY topic of discussion.
>

I guess usenet will do that to you.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:XnsA316A88DA1...@216.196.97.131:

If we're going to play that game, then I disprove his entire
premise, because my daily commute is about one mile each way - and
I live in the most car-centric place in the US.

I remember the first gas price crisis, in the 70s, with the
original oil embargo. Same hysterical rhetoric about the end of the
world because gas prices were above 50 cents/gallon, and yet, the
world didn't end. Go figure.

Gas prices are up by about 1,500% since I started driving. A bit
ahead of inflation, but not that much.