57 mpg? That’s so 20 years ago

This a pretty slick looking car with fantastic mileage. If Honda had any sense, they’d bring it back.

“Looking back at the 1987 Honda Civic CRX shows us why cars use so much more gas today and about the trade-offs we’ve had to make. The CRX HF got an Environmental Protection Agency-estimated 57 mpg gallon in highway driving. Today, the most fuel-efficient non-hybrid Civic you can buy gets an EPA-estimated 34 mpg on the highway. Even today’s Honda Civic Hybrid can’t match it, achieving EPA-estimated highway mileage of just 45 mpg. The Toyota Prius, today’s fuel mileage champ, gets 46 mpg on the highway. Why then, not now? One answer for the mileage drop is that the rating system has changed. Beginning with the 2008 model year, the EPA began using a more rigorous fuel economy test that means lower numbers for most cars. But that’s only a small part of the answer. If the old CRX HF were tested using today’s rules, its highway fuel economy would drop to 51 mpg, according to the EPA’s calculations. That’s still much better than any mass-market car sold today, including hybrid cars. The bigger answer is that the Honda Civic has changed a lot in twenty years. Honda no longer sells a tiny two-seat version like the CRX. Even Civics with back seats are much bigger and heavier today than similar versions were in 1987.” - Source

The Marvelous Chicken-powered Motorcar

If you’ve ever driven up through Missouri, Arkansas and other parts of the midwest and south you will have seen the huge buildings that house chickens and pigs. The waste products just beg to be harvested for fuel. Here is a great idea from many years ago.

“Harold Bate, chicken farmer and inventor from Devonshire, England says that you can power your motor vehicles with droppings from chickens, pigs or any other animal of your choice . . . even with your own waste! To prove his statement is no idle boast, Harold has been operating a 1953 Hillman and a, five-ton truck on methane gas generated by decomposing pig and chicken manure for years. He claims that the equivalent of a gallon of high-test gasoline costs him only about 3¢ and that the low-cost methane makes his vehicles run faster, cleaner and better than they operate on “store bought” fuel. Mr. Bate stands beside his famous Hillman. (Photos: Hillman modified Car. RIGHT: We find, secured by another twist of wire, the pressure tank of methane which fuels the Bate Hillman. In this case, the tank is a recycled “”camping gas”" bottle of a type common in England. Middle: The patented Bate Auto Gas Converter with all frills removed. This important piece of hardware and instructions for setting up your own methane plant is what you receive when you buy a converter from Bate. Lower Middle: There are days when being a world-famous chicken farmer-inventor is a royal drag.” - Source

Judge Judy not real?

I’ve always wondered how this TV court system works. Judge Judy is ok but she can sometimes be a strident harpy who I think is wrong when she insults those appearing. Though most of the time her rulings seem fair. Judge Joe Brown is the best, he is calm, collected and very fair in his determinations. Since they pay up to $5,000 so I guess the judges are instructed to try to keep it as low as possible?

“We were operating under the misunderstanding that Judge Judy was a broadcast of an actual small claims court somewhere, but then our legal beagle intern Alex informed us that it’s really just arbitration dressed up to look like small claims court.
The power the judge has over the parties is granted by the contract of adhesion they sign to appear. If the defendant loses, the tv product team pays the plaintiff the judgment fee. If the judge finds for the defendant, both parties receive an appearance fee. The judges are not bound by real rules of procedure, evidence, or even behavior. Since it’s a contract of adhesion, a decision can only really be successfully appealed if the decision falls outside the scope of what’s in the contract. - Source

Vertical Farming

Imagine towering buildings in cities all over the world which act as giant greenhouses to sustain the food needs of the local population. So much of our food is imported from many hundreds, even thousands of miles away. The holistic approach I believe is to eat foods grown as close as possible to maintain freshness. This is a tremendous market opportunity for builders and investors.

“For more than a decade, Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier has argued that agriculture needs to expand upwards, not outwards. Forget the noble farmer in his fields; enter the 30-story greenhouse running on solar energy and urban wastewater, churning out food year-round. Once seen as an amusing novelty, Despommier’s vertical farms went mainstream in 2007, garnering widespread press attention and investor interest. No wonder: by 2050, Earth’s population will swell to 9 billion people. Feeding them — especially if they demand protein-rich Western diets — will require a doubling, even a tripling of global food supplies.” - Source

20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity

This seems a bit harsh but I have to agree with most of it.

Most Christians I know, though closed-minded when it comes to anything that might test their beliefs, do try to live their lives without negatively impacting others.

I like this j-walkblog.com because he is pretty fearless about his take on religion and so much of the bull and error that surrounds it.

The article states; “Usually, in lists like this, a few items are bogus. But in this case, every item is valid.

• 1. Christianity is based on fear
• 2. Christianity preys on the innocent
• 3. Christianity is based on dishonesty
• 4. Christianity is extremely egocentric
• 5. Christianity breeds arrogance, a chosen-people mentality
• 6. Christianity breeds authoritarianism
• 7. Christianity is cruel
• 8. Christianity is anti-intellectual, anti-scientific
• 9. Christianity has a morbid, unhealthy preoccupation with sex
• 10. Christianity produces sexual misery
• 11. Christianity has an exceedingly narrow, legalistic view of morality
• 12. Christianity encourages acceptance of real evils while focusing on imaginary evils
• 13. Christianity depreciates the natural world
• 14. Christianity models hierarchical, authoritarian organization
• 15. Christianity sanctions slavery
• 16. Christianity is misogynistic
• 17. Christianity is homophobic
• 18. The Bible is not a reliable guide to Christ’s teachings
• 19. The Bible is riddled with contradictions
• 20. Christianity borrowed its central myths and ceremonies from other ancient religions” - Source

It seems like all the flavors of religion have been ‘tarted up’ by people claiming to be prophets or ‘inspired by god’ trying to setup their own little cult versions. The simple fact is religion has been directly responsible for more wars and deaths than any other cause including natural catastrophes.

For my money, after studying many religions, the closest I ever found to something that makes sense is Huna which has one guiding precept, ‘Hurt no one’. If you do, then you will suffer commensurate consequences for your actions. I guess Huna would be the libertarian version of religion. Write in Ron Paul for President!