signal12's Blog

The Demise of the RV

• RV's hit the skids: How record oil is putting the brakes on this season's
  wanderlust.

• Eric Fry, reporting from Laguna Beach, California…

The summer driving season has arrived, but many Winnebagos will never leave the driveway. The soaring price of gasoline will force RV owners to curtail their gas-guzzling wanderlust.

"I never would have bought [my motor home] if I thought that gas would go this high," a retired firefighter in Westchester County told the Hudson Valley's Journal News. "My wife always wanted to go to Napa Valley," the firefighter lamented. "But with gas so high, it probably would be cheaper to fly and rent a car, rather than take the motor home."

The firefighter is probably right. We did the math:

Assuming gas mileage of 10 miles to the gallon, a 31-foot motor home would consume about $2,500 worth of gasoline to journey from the Hudson Valley to the Napa Valley, and back again. By comparison, two roundtrip plane tickets from JFK to San Francisco would run about $375 each. Even after paying another $450 to rent a midsized car for a week, the fly/drive combo would only cost about $1,200 – or less than half the cost of the RV's gas.

Of course, the fly/drive vacation would also incur the costs of staying in hotels. So after all is said and done, the direct cash costs of these two vacation options would be very similar, assuming you ignored the tens of thousands of dollars one must pay to buy an RV in the first place and the thousands of dollars one must pay to insure and maintain the thing.

Non-owners of RVs are probably making similar calculations, which is probably why RV sales are plummeting.

According to a forecast by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center, wholesale shipments of RVs will slump about 14 percent this year to 304,700 units - down from 353,000 units last year and about 390,000 units during that delightful "cheap gas" year of 2006.

Not surprisingly, the Hudson News reports, "the slowdown is having a large impact on the profits of major RV manufacturers such as Winnebago Industries Inc., the industry giant based in Forest City, Iowa. Revenue for Winnebago's fiscal second quarter fell 17.5 percent to $164.2 million. Net income plummeted 66.6 percent to $2.5 million. In response to weaker orders, Winnebago cut 300 jobs, or 9 percent of its work force, through layoffs and attrition.

"The weak RV market also is taking a toll on industry suppliers that include Drew Industries Inc. of White Plains. Drew, which supplies windows, doors, chassis and other components for RVs," the Hudson News continues. "Drew has closed 20 of its 51 factories in the past 18 months and laid off 130 salaried workers and more than 200 hourly workers."

But Drew is not alone. Fleetwood Enterprises, a leading motor-home manufacturer, is also boarding up factories at a rapid clip.

"Last year, we closed half our plants. We somewhat underestimated the magnitude of the decline in sales," Fleetwood's CEO recently admitted. "Our dealers tell us, however, that sales of new, improved models have been hampered by existing inventory of older product, and we are working with them on moving these aged units."

Good luck!

Aged units, virginal units, neither one is selling. Business is bleak, as the downward sloping price trend of Winnebago's share price testifies. Curiously, the share price of Fleetwood has barley budged during the last few months. At least not yet.

Joe Finch, sales manager at Best Buy RV’s, said the price of RVs has not had to be adjusted to stimulate purchases. Trailers and RVs run from $20,000 to about $160,000.

“Somebody who is seriously looking for an RV will not care about cost,” he said. “The price of gas has eliminated the casual looker.”  This arrogance will be the demise to many RV dealers, who think the fuel cost will eventually drop back to normal.

Just a reminder to those complaining about fuel costs, remember the RV owners are in worse shape than you.. ;o(

I recently visited a couple websites which tried to explain how to run a car on water. The sites are selling e-books or manuals on how to do the conversion yourself for a few hundred dollars. They even claim that you will qualify for Federal tax credits for converting to a “hybrid” car, as this one infers:

http://water-for-gas-reviews.com/RunYourCarOnWater
.html

(I do not even want to link to them on the fear that it will legitimize their scheme, but you can make your own decisions.)

I won’t even address the possible trouble with the IRS on this topic, since in effect you are designating your car as a a hybrid without any certification. Check the tax code yourself on the IRS.GOV website. You will have to stretch your, and your auditor’s imagination a bit to get that one.

After deciphering the poorly written explanations of how the technology is supposed to work, it appears that the proponents (shall we call them snake-oil salesmen?) are telling you to use your car’s electricity to create electrolysis, or the process of breaking water down into its component parts of hydrogen and oxygen. Hopefully, they have two paths of collection for the gases so they remain separated prior to injection into the fuel line, but they dont. That would be quite a modification to do by yourself.

Then, some of these site discuss the resultant gas, HHO as increasing the combustion rate of engines. I wonder why the automobile manufacturers couldn’t figure that one out? Oh, I forgot - these sites are implying that the automakers are knowingly creating inefficient cars! If that were the case, Toyota wouldn’t have had to sell its Prius to conquer the fuel-efficient car market - Toyota could have done this couple-hundred-dollar modification itself and saved the money on the hybrid drive system and the expensive batteries. Of course, that’s part of the conspiracy - Toyota wants to sell these expensive cars to us unsuspecting customers!

Another thing that concerns me, is that if this system does inject hydrogen into the combustion process, wouldn’t that create more moisture in the engine? Yes, moisture is created in gasoline and diesel combustion too, and can be a major problem if you don’t run your engine long enough to create the heat necessary to evaporate the moisture from the engine and exhaust systems. This is called wet stacking and will reduce the engine’s life. I suspect that if the gas-to-water system really works, then it would only aggravate that problem.

Another consideration is whether the hydrogen adds power to the fuel-air mix? Maybe it adds a little bit, but since energy is neither created nor destroyed, it had to come from somewhere. Did it come from the water? No - water is a stable molecule which does not burn, and thus, does not give any energy via combustion. Then, the extra energy had to come from the hydrogen, right? Yes, it did. But the hydrogen was separated from water by adding energy via the electrolysis process. That energy came from the car battery, which was charged by taking energy from the drive train, which derives it from the engine, which is powered by the gasoline or diesel fuel. Since a perpetual motion machine has never been developed due to frictional and heat losses, we have to assume there are losses in this system too. Reference the Wikepedia article on HHO, which clearly states: “The energy required to generate the oxyhydrogen always exceeds the energy released by combusting it. (See Electrolysis of water:Efficiency).”

This would be similar to a homeowner trying to generate his own electricity by buying an electric motor connected to his home utility grid, and connecting it to a generator into which he plugs his appliances. Sure he generates electricity, but the power ultimately comes from the utility grid, and he loses some of the power due to friction in the drive train between the motor and generator, and the resistive heat losses of the circuits. By the way, I have seen this proposed on the internet as a way of “generating free electricity.” The inventor of that system, like the inventor of the gas-to-water system, also mysteriously disappeared due to another conspiracy.

So far there is very little information availible on the scam part of this water 4 fuel device.  I'm guessing I wouldnt admit being duped into giving someone money for something that sounded too good to be true.... Would you?

The Difference:

John McCain, Hillary Clinton & Barak Obama were walking down the street when they came to a homeless person. The McCain gave the homeless person his business card and told him to come to his business for a job. He then took twenty dollars out of his pocket and gave it to the homeless person.

Hillary Clinton was very impressed, and when they came to another homeless person, she decided to help. She walked over to the homeless person and gave him directions to the welfare office. He then reached into McCain's pocket and gave the homeless person twenty dollars. She however kept fifteen dollars for her adminastrative fees and gave the homeless man five dollars.

When they came upon yet another homeless person, Barak Obama told him to have Hope.... Change was coming, and gave the homeless man nothing.

Now do you understand the difference?

Think you know who this man is?

This possible President of the United States !! Read Below and

ask yourselves, is this REALLY someone we can see as the

President of our great nation!!!!

Below are a few lines from Obama's books; In his words!

From Dreams of My Father: 'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.'

From Dreams of My Father : 'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'

And FINALLY the Most Damming one of ALL of them!!!

From Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'

As if the high cost of gas wasn’t enough, credit and debit card users who pay at the pump have to face a new way to be gouged at the pump: skimmers.

Skimmers are inconspicuous electronic devices that thieves install either inside or outside a gas pump. These small and inexpensive devices record card numbers as you pay for your petrol. Free-roaming fraudsters and gas station insiders then help themselves to the card information in the skimming devices, then go out and use the stolen card numbers to make fraudulent purchases.

According to electronic payments Inc.  the 1.36 million gas pumps in the United States, an estimated 700,000 gas pumps accept pay-at-the-pump — and not one of those pumps is secure against skimming.

Some skimmers also incorporate the use of tiny remote cameras to capture PIN numbers of debit card users who enter them at pump-side.

More technologically advanced skimmers are turning to wireless technology, to intercept signals some gas stations use to transmit card data from the pumps to their central computers. Instead of manually installing the equipment on the pumps, they can lurk in their cars nearby while downloading your card information to a laptop, says Jeff Wakefield, a vice president with VeriFone, the largest secure payment terminal vendor.

But the basic technique for getting credit and debit card data from gas pumps is not rocket science: Crooks simply attach card-skimming devices to exposed wiring inside the pump to collect card data before it is secured, according to Wakefield.

Other skimming technology attaches outside the pump. The devices can cost anywhere from $50-$600 and can be as small as a pager and attach with magnets. The card swipe is essentially captured twice: once for the gas purchase and then again for the crooks. The devices are then removed from the pump at a later date or time.

Point of sale’ a weak link
Visa first noted a rise in credit and debit card skimming at the pump in its November 2006 data security alert. According to the alert, skimming operations have been targeting gas pumps at increasing rates. At least 60 percent of people buy gas using pay-at-the-pump, says Jeff Lenard, vice president of communications of the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).

Gartner, a leading global technology analyst firm, predicts that in 2008, most attacks against retailers will target their point-of-sale hardware, which includes pay-at-pump terminals. Its prediction is based in part on its 2007 study of 160 cases of credit card data being compromised. Of those, 128 took place at a brick-and-mortar retailer’s point of sale. Crooks have found a weak spot in point-of-sale terminals and are exploiting it, according to Avivah Litan, a vice president and analyst with Gartner.

Skimming occurs in bursts, says Mike Urban, senior director of fraud solutions at Fair Isaac Corp., the company behind the FICO credit score. “There are periods of time during which criminals try to compromise several terminals, then they start using the card information,” says Urban. Skimming operations by insiders (those who contract with or work for the gas stations) compromise as many as 2,000 cards at a time, while outside operations compromise a few hundred cards at a time, he says.

Consider these stories:

• In March 2007, an Orange County man plead guilty to skimming credit and debit cards at pumps at Arco/AM-PM gas stations, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. The man stole information from 90 cards, using it to create phony cards. He then withdrew $186,000 from the victim’s accounts at ATMs.
• In August 2007, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported that someone had installed a skimming device at a USA Gas Station in Agoura Hills. The same gas station had fallen victim to skimming a few months prior, costing victims thousands of dollars.
• In January 2008, crooks skimmed credit and debit card information from at least nine customers at a Newport Beach Exxon station.

Fraud graduates to wireless
Some retail outlets connect their gas pump hardware to their main computers wirelessly, creating a new weak spot. Crooks who can identify such a station can bypass the risk of installing skimming machines. Instead, they hack in via a wireless connection and download credit and debit card information directly from retailer computers, according to Gartner’s Litan. Once they’re “in,” they can simply sit somewhere in signal range, stealing via a wireless-connected a laptop.

According to a Visa USA Inc. Data Security Alert, Visa is addressing this by urging retailers to comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standard, which requires retailers to separate wireless networks from those that carry sensitive cardholder information.

While shoring up weak points with standards is possible, stamping out the crime is a different matter. “It’s hard for the credit card companies to mandate to the fuel industry what they need to do when there hasn’t been any solution that stops skimming,” says Wakefield.

How to protect yourself
To prevent your credit or debit card from being skimmed at a gas station:

• Go in the store to process transactions and sign all credit card receipts, recommends Jean Ann Fox, director of financial services of Consumer Federation of America.
• Check your statement as soon as it arrives or online and report inconsistencies quickly, adds Fox. “This is especially true with debit cards. If you don’t report it fast enough, you can lose the opportunity to get your money back,” Fox says.
• If you do suspect skimming, call law enforcement immediately. “Let the station attendant know, but don’t rely on them to call the police,” says IDTheftSecurity.com CEO Robert Siciliano. Until the industry has answers, consumers are their own best protection.

This is a New Twist on the ever popular card skimming practice... To which I have fallen victim to this week.. See I normally only use my ATM card for fuel, I only use it for the Pay at the Pump refuels.. My bank called me and said my account had been frozen due to a charge made in Montrial Canada, this week.... So I just had to go through all that crap this afternoon.... From now on I will have to start pulling on those card readers too.....

It's the old addage of getting something for nothing....

I spoke with a Man that had fallen victim to several different versions this scam, not once but  six times..

You've probably been courted by the Nigerian scam.  It comes in e-mail or letter form and may start, "Dear Sir, I got your information from a confidential source.... " The letter then goes on to tell you a story of a large amount of money hidden overseas or his accounts are going to be frozen, and  that the writer of the letter/email wants to put some in your bank account. In return, he promises you a big cut of the cash or offers you a large amount of cash for your trouble.

Bounced checks and counterfeit money orders

Long story short: Any checks you receive from this person will be fake. The con will ask you to keep part of the money and send him the difference. Shortly after you send him the difference by mail or wire, his check bounces, and you owe the total amount to your bank. Warning: Sometimes, people are told by their banks that the check has cleared, so they wire the difference to the Nigerian scammer. But don't be too sure: The scammers sometimes forge a cashier's check, which fools the bank into prematurely reporting the check as "cleared." Once the forgery is discovered, the bank will try to hold you liable. In some cases counterfeit money orders take the place of cashier's checks. The payment type isn't that important because either way the victim will be held responsible by their own Bank.

 He will claim it is in a special account but to get it he needs five thousand dollars to get it out and asks that you help. He will next offer you a portion of these dollars if you do indeed help this poor individual who is just trying to retrieve what is rightfully theirs. He will tell you to deposit the money in an account and when the money is transferred from the main account he will give you access to your free money. This form of fraud is sometime referred to as an advanced fee scheme.

Nigerian scams work all too well

Despite constant reports of Nigerian scam swindles in the media, people continue to be fooled. It should be noted that con artists have been perfecting Nigerian scams for decades. It may be hard to believe but this type of scam has been around since the 1920s when it was called the Spanish Prisoner Con. Back then the letter requesting funds were mailed the old fashioned way rather than arriving via email. The schemes were somewhat different in that they involved breaking the heir of a wealthy family out of a Spanish prison.

 Large sums of money were promised to anyone willing to help finance an operation designed to smuggle the heir out of the jail. The plan was in place but money was needed to bribe the guards, provide a means of transportation or whatever else the scammers might dream up. Each attempt would end in failure but the next one was certain to succeed! The specific details of the fraud may differ but it's essentially the same thing as a Nigerian 419 scam. Every year there is a new angle to play and it's a sure bet that someone will take the bait.

Falling for a Nigerian scam will leave the worst kind of taste in the victim's mouth. Not only will you have been ripped off but you will have willingly allowed it to happen and been an active participant. Most like to say that get-rich-quick schemes don't work but this one actually does for the Nigerian scam perpetrators! The victim is left with nothing but a hard lesson. The Police rarely can do anything about the scam because the perpertrator is in another country.

More information is availible regarding these scams:

http://www.potifos.com/fraud/

http://www.fraudguides.com/internet-email-scams-2007.a
sp

Remember knowledge is power, so arm yourselves!

Counterfeit Cashier's Check

How the scam works . . .

How to Protect Yourself

If you are selling online, be extremely skeptical of any offers

•  from overseas to a party you do not know
•  paid by cashier's check
•  from buyers sending more than the purchase price of the item
•  from buyers who seem more worried about payment than the shipment of the item to them once payment is made
•  from buyers who show little or no concern to the condition of the item they are purchasing

Also, a bank may make money "available" to you almost at once if you deposit a purported bank cashier's check, but that's NOT a guarantee the check is authentic. It could be returned as counterfeit up to three years later, and the bank will hold you responsible for the money. Ways to verify a check include:

• Inspect the check carefully to ensure it contains all the legal elements of a check.
• Amount of the check, in figures and words, should match. Often this amount is machine “impressed” on official bank checks.
• Account number should be encoded in MICR ink (should not be shiny in appearance).
• Ensure the drawer’s signature appears on the check; watch for tracing lines, “shaky” writing.  Often facsimile signatures are used on official bank checks, with a second, original signature required for amounts exceeding a designated dollar amount.
• Perforations – checks are generally perforated on at least one side.
• Routing and transit numbers appearing in the MICR line and elsewhere on the check should be consistent. 
• Inspect the check for erasures, errant marks, such as additions or deletions, or other alterations.
• Contact the financial institution on which the check is drawn for authentication that the check is valid with no outstanding claims for loss, stolen or destroyed instrument. Verify if the person whose signature appears on the check on behalf of the bank is authorized to sign official checks of the bank.
• IMPORTANT: Independently verify the item to verify its authenticity. Do not rely on information printed on the face of the check, such as phone numbers or name/location of bank, because in a convincing scam, these numbers will often connect directly to the scam artists or their associates.
• Find the bank’s telephone number from a reliable source, such as a bank directory, the bank’s web site or directory assistance.
• Verify as much information as possible – check number (is it in normal sequence of other official checks issued by the bank), payee, issue date, amount and authorized signatory. Ask if the bank’s official checks bear any security features, such as watermarks, security threads, background patterns, high-resolution borders, void pantograph, etc.

•  If there is any doubt as to the collectibility of the check, do not accept the check for deposit or encashment.  Send the check to the issuing financial institution for collection.  Ask that proceeds be wired directly to the customer’s account.

• As an alternative to sending the item for collection, deposit the check to the customer’s account, and place a Reg. CC exception hold.  Under Reg. CC, the entire amount of non-local checks can be held for up to 11 business days before making the money available for customer’s use, if the bank can evidence “reasonable cause to doubt collectibility.”  In the case of a cashier’s check or other official check of a bank, if the check contains any questionable feature, erasures, alterations, etc., the depositary bank has a “reasonable cause to doubt collectibility.”
      

Guess again, In europe they are in worse shape.. For some reason the media isnt covering "Europes Recession" thats due to rising fuel costs, read below

Source : Cox News Service, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Posted: Jun. 12, 2008 11:06 a.m.

If high gas prices have you thinking of buying a new hybrid, act fast.  They're vanishing from dealer lots faster than factories can make them.

USA Today reports, "While sales of conventional small cars soared last month, sales of the most popular gas-electric hybrids were flat or down because dealers had fewer left. There was plenty of demand, but hybrid assembly plants are running as fast as they can, and some are short of components, particularly batteries."

The Wall Street Journal adds, " At the end of May, a new Prius averaged just under 17 hours on a dealership lot before being sold, compared with an average 3.5 days at the end of April. For comparison, Toyota's average passenger car spends about 25 days at the dealership, according to the company." 

"So, how do you get one of these hot sellers?" asks Kicking Tires.  "Either get on a waiting list or buy used. Waiting lists for the Prius, we’re told, are roughly four to six months. The Civic Hybrid was less, at three to four months on average."

Oddly enough, the waiting list may be the cheaper option.  "Listings of used Priuses on Cars.com show models across the country -- with quite a bit of mileage -- going for more than their original asking price when brand new. This is almost unheard of in the automotive marketplace."

Research the most fuel-efficient small cars and hybrids with U.S. News' car rankings and reviews.

****************************

Janice and Jim Violette, of Oakland, exemplify the trend. About two months ago, as gas prices spiked, they bought a two-door, 2008 Honda Civic, a model that gets about 28 city/35 highway gas miles per gallon.

"We traded in our 1997 Ford Explorer," said Janice Violette, 48, an account manager at TD Banknorth Insurance in Waterville.

"It was in great shape, but we were getting 15 miles per gallon," she said.

Her husband had used the old Explorer to commute to Bucksport, where he works as an electrician at Verso Paper.

"We had been paying around $700 a month; now it's down to $250," she said of their savings at the pump.

The price of gas has gone up 60 cents per gallon since her last calculations, she said.

Back in February, when gas was still around $3 per gallon, small and mid-sized cars represented only 34 percent of the market. By April, that figure rose to 47 percent, according to AutoObserver.com

The car sales trend is not escaping local dealers.

"People work on a weekly budget. Anything that gets 30 miles per gallon or better right now is very much in demand," said Steve Frend, sales manager at Charlie's Honda in Augusta.

Econo-cars like the Civic, Ford Focus, Honda Fit, Chevy Aveo and Toyota Yaris have been strong sellers for some time, Frend and other local dealers said.

But the current, dramatic shift hasn't been seen since the '70s, they noted.

National sales of the subcompact Yaris increased 46 percent in April, and the Honda Fit had a record month, according to a May 2 article in The New York Times.

That month, Ford Focus sales jumped 32 percent from a year earlier. About one in five vehicles sold in the United States in April was a compact or subcompact, a trend called a first by industry analysts, the article said.

Sales of four-cylinder engines also surpassed six-cylinder models; 42 percent of all vehicles sold that month were equipped with four-cylinder engines, according to the research firm J.D. Powers & Associates.

Car buyers are taking notice of hybrids, like the Toyota Prius. And, with that model, demand is not keeping up with supply, LeClair noted.

"There's none on the lot. We're selling them ahead. People are waiting a month or two for the Prius. We can't get the battery packs," he said.

"The Yaris and Prius have an extremely big backlog. There are only enough cars, in general, at the dealer's, to stock to two days worth of business. People are pre-selling before they get here," he said.

Yet, not everybody is buying small, he said. Some customers go from their full-sized pickup to a four-cylinder Toyota Camry that gets about 32 miles per gallon on the highway.

"A lot of people that had trucks for the family vehicle are going to the mid-sized car; those who had mid-sized are going smaller. They're not going from a big SUV to a four-seater," he said.

But the Ford Escape hybrid, a model that gets about 34 miles per gallon, usually needs to be ordered. And, so far, there is not a big demand for the Escape.

"A couple of people a month inquire. We sell 10 or 12 a year -- maybe one a month," he said. The Ford Edge, a crossover between a van and an SUV, is also moving, he said.

"Van sales are off. They don't make a van anymore," he said of models like the Windstar.

Glance northward on Highway 50 right around the 59th Street overpass, and you’ll glimpse the future. At least that’s what the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Ford Motor Company, Daimler AG, BP and the U.S. Department of Energy would like us to believe. Unfortunately, the shiny new solar-powered hydrogen vehicle fueling station that recently spread its gossamer wings just east of the SMUD yard is anything but the future. It’s the desperate waking fantasy of a casino culture that can’t shake the feeling that the next jackpot is one pull of the lever away.

That’s not to say the $3.2 million the aforementioned entities paid for the project is a waste of money. As a research test bed, it will undoubtedly help demonstrate the utter unfeasibility of the so-called “hydrogen highway” touted by President George W. Bush, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and for all I know, the Dalai Lama. However, its primary value is as a propaganda device. SMUD & Co. want us to know that they’re busily preparing for the climate-impaired, energy-depleted future, even though as far as hydrogen is concerned, they know better.

Consider the glowing assessment of hydrogen as a fuel source offered on the utility district’s Web site. “Hydrogen could offer a sustainable approach to energy development that meets the needs of the customers and the environment in the future. It is considered the ultimate clean motor fuel since hydrogen-fueled vehicles produce no harmful tailpipe emissions, just water.”

Furthermore, we’re instructed that hydrogen has “the highest energy content per unit weight of any known fuel.” It’s the most abundant element in the universe and can be extracted from water via electrolysis or through a process called steam reforming that separates hydrogen from natural gas. BP uses the latter process. “For more than 40 years,” we’re told, somewhat breathlessly, “BP has been producing enormous amounts of hydrogen—routinely and safely—at its refineries around the world.”

Fair enough, as long as we’re talking about a galaxy far, far away, where the second law of thermodynamics no longer holds. The one inescapable fact not mentioned by SMUD, or for that matter the West Sacramento-based California Fuel Cell Partnership, is that no matter what method is used for producing hydrogen, it always takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than is actually provides. To be blunt, it offers a poor energy return on energy invested, or what engineers refer to as EROEI.

For example, when oil was first discovered in the 19th century, its EROEI was 100, meaning it took one barrel of oil to produce 100 barrels of oil. That ratio has steadily dropped, because we’ve used up most of the “easy oil,” and the majority of what’s left is more difficult to extract. Today, it takes one barrel of oil to produce three barrels of oil.

On the other hand, as author James Kunstler notes in The Long Emergency, a grim portrayal of the energy-depleted future he and many other observers are predicting, the average EROEI for all the methods of producing hydrogen is less than 1, since it takes 1.4 units of energy to produce 1 unit of energy.

Unless there’s some totally unforeseen technological development in the future, there’s simply no getting around the second law. As energy expert and Post Carbon Institute fellow Richard Heinberg puts it, “The second law of thermodynamics insures that hydrogen will be a net loser every time since some usable energy is lost whenever it is transformed.

“It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the hydrogen economy touted by well-meaning visionaries will by necessity be a much lower-energy economy than we are accustomed to,” Heinberg continues. “In the low-energy social environment toward which we are inevitably headed, it will be possible for only a tiny wealthy minority to navigate over disintegrating streets and highways in sophisticated, highly efficient Hypercars.”

Yet according to California Fuel Cell Partnership spokesman Roy Kim, the very existence of this amalgam of automobile manufacturers, energy conglomerates and government agencies is predicated on the idea that one day in the near future, most if not all of us will be driving hydrogen-powered cars. Kim said that currently there are 250 hydrogen-powered test vehicles and 25 fuel stations in the state, mostly located near large urban areas.

SMUD spokesman Bill Boyce was considerably less exuberant about hydrogen’s potential and stressed that the district’s new solar-powered hydrogen fuel station is strictly experimental and “a good way to marry up a lot of different alternatives in one test bed.” He noted that using solar energy to produce hydrogen “is one of the least efficient ways to do it.” The station currently makes 12 kilograms of hydrogen per day, roughly equivalent to 12 gallons of gasoline

Protecting Your Front Door from Unwanted Entries
 
Did you know?
       Most residential burglaries occur during the day
       Burglaries cost victims an estimated $4 billion in lost property*
       The average loss per burglary: $1,834*
*National statistics gathered from Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Report 2006.

Many residents do not realize that most front doors can be easily kicked in, even those with a deadbolt, unless reinforcement of the door jam or frame is made. There are products available that have been made specifically for the purpose of door jam reinforcement. Consult with a hardware specialist for further recommendations.
*An example of these types of products can be found at the following links, http://www.jambbrace.com   or http://www.asafehome.net/

Knowledge is Power, So arm yourselves !

Heres the story;

I met a woman today, she said shes been emailing a nice man on the net. Well after a week of emails (the womans married) she gives the man her # and they secretly talk hes in mn shes here, he tells her his assests are frozen could he send her a check for $6500. She says sure, so two days goes by and she recieves the check and deposits it and cashes it and sends him 6k & keeps the 500 as a gift from him for doing the favor...

Whats wrong with this story??????

The Cast:

Woman:  in her 40's

Man: unknown

Location: florida & MN. / england / Nigeria

the check was mailed to MN then to England and was to be forwarded to Nigeria.!

The Save: the england bank caught it and sent the check back to the original issueing bank and they contacted the woman.

This happens everyday of the week, no matter how much info is put on the news or the net! these people still fall for it every time.  It make you want to beat your head into the wall ....  (this person was very lucky)

Just like dragnet only the names where changed to protect the innocent.... ;o)

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co., which is closing plants and cutting jobs in an effort to improve results from its North American auto business, said yesterday that it will shutter assembly plants in Norfolk, Va., and St. Paul, Minn., in 2008. The two plants employ about 4,300 hourly and salaried workers.

''A decision to end production at a plant is not an easy one, and I'm deeply mindful of the impact this decision has on Ford employees, families, and communities," Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, said in a statement. ''Unfortunately, these are necessary steps we must take to move the business forward."

The nation's second-biggest automaker said in January that it would close 14 plants by 2012, but identified only five. It said at the time that it would name two more plants later in the year.

Ford said the staff reductions in Virginia and Minnesota are part of the 25,000 to 30,000 job cuts disclosed in January.

Ford's bigger rival, General Motors Corp., also is in the midst of a major restructuring and plans to close 12 plants by 2008.

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2006/
04/14/2_ford_factories_to_close_in_2008/

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Now the world's largest automaker by sales needs to figure out how it can sell enough cars to make money in a shrinking U.S. market and stay ahead of the bill collectors.

The automaker said it would idle pickup and SUV factories in Janesville, Wis.; Oshawa, Ontario; Moraine, Ohio; and Toluca, Mexico, as it tries to deal with a shift to smaller vehicles brought on by $4 per gallon gasoline. GM also took aim at the Hummer, one off the largest vehicles on U.S. highways, saying it would either be sold or get a remake.

The move cuts about 2,900 jobs in Oshawa, about 2,800 in Janesville, about 2,400 in Moraine and about 250 in Toluca, said GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson.

GM said the truck plant cuts, which will reduce capacity to produce pickups and large SUVs by about 35 percent, will save the company $1 billion per year, and when combined with earlier measures, by 2011 will save $15 billion over 2005 costs.

GM's moves, which come after a series of restructuring measures since 2005, are the result of a huge shift in U.S. consumer preferences for small cars and crossovers during the past two months.

"We at GM don't think this is a spike or temporary shift," Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said. "We believe that it is, by and large, permanent."

The automaker now will have to parlay its strong overseas sales and the lower North American costs into a profit by selling cars in the $15,000 to $20,000 range, half the price of its high-profit SUVs and pickup trucks.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/06/03/
gm_to_cease_production_at_4_pickup_suv_factories/p>

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Hybrid car sales jump 38% in U.S.

U.S. registrations of new hybrid vehicles rose to record levels last year, with Los Angeles being a major market for hybrids.

Sales were up 38 percent in 2007 to more than 350,000 vehicles, but that number translates to only 2.2 percent of all sales, according to R.L. Polk & Co.

Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City were the top three metro markets for hybrid cars last year. The Washington, D.C., area came in fourth, with 12,744 hybrid cars registered in the region.

The Toyota Prius remained the best-selling hybrid in 2007, according to R.L. Polk & Co., commanding 51 percent of the market. That's up from 43 percent in 2006 and in spite of an influx of new hybrid models.

California remained the top state for hybrid sales in 2007. Twenty-six percent of all hybrid registrations were in California. Florida, New York, Texas and Washington state followed.

More info on the prius,

 Dramatic Design, Midsize Roominess and Outstanding Utility
The Prius rides on a 106.3-inch wheelbase that allows generous interior room and a smooth ride. The five-door liftback design not only looks like nothing else on the road, it is also one of the most aerodynamic production vehicles in America. Its super-low 0.26 coefficient of drag (Cd) helps to minimize interior noise and enhance fuel mileage.

With its "monoform" design, the Prius provides 96.2 cubic feet of passenger room, making it a midsize car. The rear seat in Prius provides a generous 38.6 inches of legroom. Rear cargo room measures 14.4 cubic feet. The liftback design, combined with the standard 60/40 split fold-down rear seatbacks, gives the Prius outstanding cargo capacity and flexibility.

I guess nows the time to buy that hummer or large pick up, raise it off the floor in storage and keep it as a collectors item. ;o)

This Global Warming farse has gone far enough right??

Nope it gets worse,  The Brain washing of the sheeple just makes my head spin.. Thank god Bush said he would veto the bill...... But just know whats going on folks...

  Carbon Tax Provides Fairest Incentive For Curbing Global Warming:A carbon tax would be paid whenever a molecule of carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. Utilities would pay it based on their smokestack emissions and pass the cost to consumers in their monthly electric bill. Each of us would pay it when we fill up with gasoline, based on the content of fossil carbon in the fuel.

The emissions of carbon dioxide stem from many sectors of society -- from power plants and other industrial sources and from you and me, as we heat and light our houses and drive our cars on daily errands. No one sector can solve the global warming problem by itself. Even if it was a real problem (its a Theory).

A carbon tax would provide the maximum incentive for bright engineers to improve the efficiency of fossil fuel use in all sectors of society. It also would maximize the potential for important "cross-sector" transfers of efficiency. For instance, if engineers find efficient ways to reduce CO2 emissions from the power plants that provide our electricity, the utilities’ carbon tax savings could be passed along to consumers.

Mitch McConnell on Warner-Lieberman

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_060408/
content/01125108.guest.html

You must know your enemy! Today the liberal Party (Democrats) are the voice of Al-Qaeda! Today the liberals are in bed with America's # 1 enemy, Al-Qaeda! Today the liberals have decided that America is the problem in the world! The President is the problem in the world! America is at war with Terrorists and the Liberals are at war with America! The liberals have said that our President Bush is a Nazi! The liberals have chosen sides and it is not America's side! It is a sad day when our elected officials side with the terrorists! Next the liberals will have a bill of rights for Terrorists!

Get the perverbial waste basket out.......

http://www.opednews.com/liberalism.htm