As always, I always put up a reminder for Americans to fly your flag on national holidays that are honoring our nation and those who served. Today is no exception.
Yes, that’s my electric car in the driveway.
In comments, some folks think the car is ugly or small, it is actually larger than a SmartCar. I’ll let you be the judge.
To pokerguy, who despairs about the lack of tax increases. Here is the President’s 2012 budget proposal http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/tables.pdf. Here is a summary of the proposed outlays for the next 10 years in trillions of dollars:
2012 – 3,729
2013 – 3,771
2014 – 3,997
2015 – 4,190
2016 – 4,468
2017 – 4,669
2018 – 4,876
2019 – 5,154
2020 – 5,442
2021 – 5,697
Is it realistic to assume that outlays should just keep going up and up year after year? Is it reasonable to assume that GDP and tax receipts will keep going up year after year? We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.
It looks like a Johnny Cab.
Happy birthday Americans, good work for 232 or so years,
@ur momisugly u.k.(us) Anthony’s choice of vehicle.
car
It can go up to 100 miles on one charge
http://wheego.net/more/2011/06/07/my-first-electric-car-11-wheego-whip-life-niela-eliason-st-petersburg/
Washington D.C. – California 2.200 miles
airplane
T.SS.A control. also something to recover from .
Jesse Ventura Suing TSA, DHS For ‘Warrantless Rubbing of the Genitals’
Ron Paul Goes After The TSA
I hope he had to recover from the car trip.
“goldie says:
July 4, 2011 at 10:19 pm”
Exactly. They don’t hang about either, would not like to “passed” by one of them in summat I could not overtake in. The number of drivers I see driving in a lane parallel to a “Semi” or “B-Double” or one of the tripple trailer road trains with ZERO intent to pass I cringe. In certain conditions these things can create a draft which could draw your car under them. Also, depending on “box/container” type loads, can easily topple in certain wind conditions.
My son had one of those cars when he was little, but I wouldn’t let him take it out of the driveway.
Happy Independence Day!
A bit late on this… Yesterday, Tyler Ferrar became the first American to win a stage in the Tour de France on the 4th of July.
Flemish television tried to probe the intentions of American riders before the race, and their feelings afterwards… http://www.sporza.be/permalink/1.1058925
(You will have to work your way through some Dutch – Ferrar is excellent in Dutch – before your will hear English, but it gives a nice picture of the atmosphere…)
That should read Tyler FARRAR, of course.
Anthony, Please get a safe car!!! That thing is a death trap. As they say you never see it coming.
The TSA is an embarrasment, we’re working on that. I find is so amusing that all the Leftists that reamed out Bush for 8 years don’t make a peep now that real authoritarian wanna be is in the Oval Office. More of everything you hated about Bush, plus sexual assault and child molestation!
USA isn’t perfect, but I don’t think I’d want to be anywhere else. We need to roll back the authoritarian, nanny-state agenda, I think we can do it.
pokerguy says:
July 4, 2011 at 1:53 pm
“… refusing to raise taxes on those who can truly afford it…”
Under what moral right does anyone get to decide “who can truly afford it”? Looking in another man’s wallet is practicing envy and violates one of the commandments “thou shalt not covet”.
How does that little rollerskate of a car do in snow, frost heaves, and pot holes?
Land of the free and home of the….well people who drive cars that small =P
Kidding aside, I hope everyone had a great Independence day and I’m glad we live in a country where, for the time being, car choices are still a matter of personal preference and not legislative decree. I don’t see the appeal of the “roller-skate” car, but if it suits Anthony’s lifestyle and tastes that’s his business.
Personally this is much more my speed:
http://h3prices.com/h3/colors/green.700.jpg
Pokerguy didn’t respond to my query. (See my earlier post at 4 July 2011, at 6:06 PM.)
The question was: How much should each group (percentile of taxpayers) pay in taxes for Pokerguy to think that they had paid enough? How much would be “fair”?
So, for the rest of you who might like to know the numbers, here are the percentages of Federal income tax paid by each of the following groups.
(Source: IRS web site. 2008 is the latest year for their published data. After all, they are a government entity.)
Table 5.–Returns with Positive Adjusted Gross Income (AGI):
Number of Returns, Shares of AGI and Total Income Tax,
AGI Floor on Percentiles in Current and Constant Dollars, and
Average Tax Rates, by Selected Descending Cumulative Percentiles
of Returns Based on Income Size Using the Definition of AGI for Each
Year, Tax Years 1986-2008
[All figures are estimates based on samples]
Total income tax share (percentage):
year; 2008
percentiles
Top 0.1 percent: 18.47 percent of all Federal income tax
Top 1 percent: 38.02
Top 5 percent: 58.72
Top 10 percent: 69.94
Top 25 percent: 86.34
Top 50 percent: 97.30
And, yes, you read it correctly: The top ten percent paid 70% of all Federal income tax. And, you will note that the table lists only the top 50%. That’s because the bottom 50% paid only 2.7%. Their contribution is trivial.
The next question is:
Tax “fairness” is a hot topic. The Donks are continuously talking about making the rich pay their “fair share”, witness Pokerguy’s original statement. And the so called “Main Stream Media” repeats each accusation about the rich cheating the poor out of what they deserve. I assume that most of you didn’t have much of an idea as to the answer above. So…..the question is:
“If the topic is deserving of sooooo much coverage, why didn’t YOU know the above percentages, at least in the “ballpark”?”
The answer is:
The people who tell you what to think LIED TO YOU by omission! They didn’t tell you what the numbers are deliberately because you are too simple to understand. You might question the entire Donk Agenda. Just like the AGW hoax. Or, perhaps they are ignorant and too lazy to figure out the truth.
The last question is:
These people who tell you what to think. Are they just lazy and stupid? Or, are they evil?
Well, one more last question:
These people have used you badly. (My sailor friends would understand if I said that they had done improbable and loathsome things to you with a marlinspike!) Why would you ever trust them again? About anything? And why would you encourage them by buying their product (printed matter)?
(In my case, if the local rag says it is Tuesday, July 5, I check my computer calendar, my cell phone, AND the dead tree calendar!)
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
My flag waves. USAF 1970 – 1976
JULY 2, 1776: Congress declared independence from Great Britain. This declaration took place when Congress adopted the Richard Henry Lee Resolution that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states….and that all political connection between them and The State of Great Britain is, and of right ought to be, totally dissolved.”
July 4, 1776
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
One of the great lines of the Declaration.
And some did just this. Several signatories died and several who survided lost all, families and fortune. All however held onto thier honor which had no price.
USNavy (1968-1992)
@Jason, @Kaboom,
yes, for a non-American its a difficult concept to follow. Until I have been living here for a while I didn’t understand it either.
In a nutshell, the country (USA) is defined by its Constitution. It owes nothing to its head of state, or any other politician. They fought a war to get rid of the idea of owing allegiance to any person (King), and were not about to put another person (President) in that place.
The idea of pledging allegiance to the constitution dosn’t really have much appeal. Its a piece of paper, although the words on that paper represent much more, and there is only one. The flag, on the other hand makes a very good symbol of the country.
The pledge of allegiance is to the flag, but more so to that which it stands for: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag, and to the Republic for which it stands…”.
For an American, the flag *is* the country. That is why they get so annoyed when people burn the flag. Its not just disrespect for a symbol, its disrespect or the whole country and its people.
The UK armed forces pledge allegiance to the Queen (or King, as appropriate), in the US, it is not to the President, its to the country, through its embodiment in the flag.
(No idea what the German armed forces pledge allegiance to ….).
REPLY: Costs about 5 cents per mile – A
No. I think he meant what it costs on level ground without peddling, without a tailwind, and after you used up your meager California lifeline allowance of monthly kilowatt hours and the higher price for juice kicks in.
To those Europeans who don’t understand allegiance to a flag…
I believe you’re in the process of discovering that formation of a lasting union involves a lot more than establishing a common currency. Common language, values, and culture are also necessary. Our flag respresents all those things. Unfortunately we are also in the process of discovering what’s necessary for the union to endure as an increasing number of poor thinkers too distant in time and space from the founding fathers and their hard won ideals to appreciate these things. It’s becoming everybody should do their own thing and ignore the glues which actually bind a union. Very sad.
re; 5 cents per mile electric vehicle
Let me reverse engineer that a bit. Call it a sanity check.
I’m going to realistically assume that your normal home electrical usage consumes your tier one and tier two allotment so the electric vehicle is powered is effectively powered at tier three rate of approximately $0.20/kwh. I think this is true, or possibly conservative, as I seem to recall Anthony complaining that he was paying something like $0.40 for top marginal bracket and he was reaching that into that bracket.
So lets the vehicle is travelling at 60mph/hour for one hour. At $0.20/kwh and 5 pennies to the mile that means the vehicle is using $3.00 worth of electricity in that hour or 15 kilowatt hours. 15 kilowatts is equal to 30 horsepower.
Is it realistic for a small enclosed 4-wheel passenger vehicle to maintain 60mph on dry level road with 30 horsepower?
YES it is! Rule of thumb is it takes about 24 horsepower to overcome air resistance in a medium size passenger car at 60 mph.
Sanity check complete and passed. It might not work out so well if your residential electric usage sans electric vehicle already pushes you into tier 4 marginal rate and it won’t hold true for long as California electric rates rise a projected 7-10% annually but for now it appears to be a rather economical mode of transportation if short range and limited passenger/cargo space aren’t deal breakers. But I’m not going to be trading in my Accord for an electric vehicle at least until there are 24-hour charging stations always guaranteed to be well within battery range of each other all over the country. I already have two personal vehicles, a 4WD diesel pickup truck for hauling large loads and/or poor traction situations and a Honda Accord for everything else. Everything else includes some cross country driving that makes an electric vehicle impractical and the operating cost savings for everyday driving isn’t enough to justify owning and insuring yet another vehicle.
Oh I’m sorry. It’s a little more iffy than that. My watts to horsepower calculation was wrong. That’s what I get for doing it in my head. Anthony is effectively claiming that his vehicle can sustain 60mph on 20 horsepower. That’s a bit on the low side of believable for that vehicle. 30HP was credible but 20 is stretching it. I don’t think he’s basing that on tier 3 electric rates in California. Tier two maybe.
I meant to post this yesterday, but was too busy celebrating. To jason, Joe, and the other Brits, the Americans owe the UK for most of the ideals found in our Declaration. Samuel Adams, in particular, quoted lines from this poem in one of his earlier writings:
But even now, after two world wars, Britannia persists.
So, I try to always, in celebrating, to remember the strength of the founders and to never forget from whom we inherited our ideals.
OK S.
Anthony,
Just remember, they all laughed at Henry Ford, and joked, “Get a horse.”
Also be glad people have only joked your car is missing a backside. They could have said it looks like one.
In 1974 I had a whopping $2400 saved up, and wanted a new car. Back then a new VW bug was $2800, and a Fiat was $2650. A little-known Japanese company named Toyota had a car called a Corolla, with a 1600 cc engine, but even that was $2600. However there was one Corolla with a tiny, 1200 cc engine, and I bought it because it was only $2350.
The thing sounded like a deranged sewing machine when you got it over sixty, but I did get it up to 100 mph on a long downhill stretch of the Mass Pike, one time. (I was twenty-one and curious about limits.) However my friends still kidded me qite a bit about my itty, bitty car, until the gas prices doubled, about a year later. Then they were asking me, “That thing gets HOW many miles a gallon?” I’d smile and say, “Thirty-two.”
He who laughs last laughs best.
Electric cars, are like what Ghandi said about Christianity – or was if SDemocracy? – a good idea if anybody actually did it.
Here in Australia we don’t fly our flag all over the place, because we don’t believe that ours is the most important country in the world. If I had to choose one that was, I’d say China.
So Mr H.
Range choices on the superb Model S currently 160, 230, 300 mi. and energy densities may be increased soon by up to 10X. = 3,000 range between charges in the full sized family saloon (charged up by the DPF gen set at your local perhaps?)
Sounds good.
Malcolm Miller says: on July 5, 2011 at 4:40 pm
“Electric cars, are like what Ghandi said about Christianity – or was if SDemocracy? – a good idea if anybody actually did it.”
Here’s what the Bapu actualy said;
Journalist: Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of western civilization?
Mahatma Gandhi: I think it would be a very good idea!