Hello all,This in my first post but I'm going to pretend it's not. My first post will be in one of the tech categories and it will contain a paragraph or two about the excellence of this forum as well as the genius generosity and the helpfulness of it's members. Plus a lot of (I hope not too dumb) questions. I have already learned a great deal here. I had to post on this one especially when I see a fervent capitalist arguing their case all the while ignoring the white elephant in the room,the fact that we are owned by corporations http://www.storyofstuff.com/. Here's an example; The beginning of the chain (analogy intended) "And they've labored on it since,it's a ponderous chain" - Marley 's ghost to Ebenezer Scrooge. Ok William Randolf Hearst was a huge corporate force in the late 1900's and well into the 20th century',he owned a large media empire mainly consisting of news papers in almost every city,nation wide. He also owned a bunch of paper mills and thousands of thee filled acres to feed the mills pulp. He saw a threat in Hemp aka marijuana (not just cause it gives you the munchies) but he thought it was going to make in roads into the pulp market. So he put his entire media empire to wok demonizing hemp "Those reefer smokin' jazz musicians are going to drag this country into the gutter" Meanwhile you could still buy HEROINE over the counter, and I think cocaine too. Anyway he succeeded so well that hemp (which has been proven useful beyond measure) as we know is still illegal today.Check out a book called The Emperor Wears No Clothes,its about the history of hemp and details it's many uses, including biofuel, and no i'm not a pot smoking e biker. Anywho, this was just an early example of corporate manipulation probably not the first time but certainly not the last. I believe this stuff has been going on ever since but now they have got it down to a science. Now I'm still on the fence about the Kennedy assassination and I don't lean toward conspiracy theories and it sounds so cliche when someone says"The oil companies buy up all of these good patents and lock them up. That statement may be a bit simplistic but i believe it,as do most people you ask. Heck in 1968 40 YEARS AGO we sent guys to the moon and brought them back using a bunch of rocket fuel and a slide rule and here we are in 2008 and we are still averaging 30mpg. I don't think it's five guys in a room twirling their mustaches and hatching plots, but I do know that oil is a trillion dollar business, and 1 trillion dollars can buy ALOT of manipulation. Is it an accident that cabalysis AKA chevron got their mitts on the nimh patent. DIYers like yourselves can't get your hands on large format nimh cells and cabalysis stipulates no plug in EV's with their batteries. Just phev. THEN they get t heir greasy hands on the A 123's. Hell, I bet you if they foresaw people tearing apart the drill packs, there wouldn't be anything bigger than an 18 650 in there. I heard Ralph Nader speak; now THERE'S a guy i trust. He said, in a nutshell, that there is no possible way supply and demand caused the recent rise in oil prices, but you've schooled us that it's because of safety concerns during manufacturing coupled with the laws prohibiting them from drilling in the Alaskan wilderness. OR, record prophets=good old fashioned greed. As for this guy safe, I read alot of his posts when I first discovered ES, along with alot of other guys. What I've noticed is, the more I read different posts, the more they came into focus so to speak. But his posts never did. I've never learned ONE USABLE THING from any of his posts. I'm not a mean person but this guy is cluttering this forum.
