I was watching an interview with actress Daryl Hannah. She was arrested at the White House protesting. She wanted to be free from dependence on fossil fuels. I agree with her. I would love to be energy independent too. Her only problem is that like President Obama, she has no plan. She goes here and she goes there talking all this green stuff and I think that is great. The only problem I see and it is a problem with all the "Green" folks, is that all that coming and going costs a lot of money. If you can afford it, that is wonderful. Go for it.

Trouble is, if you don't have a lot of money, it is hard to live at the speed of life that everyone wants to go. If you want to really live green all the good stuff that we require disappears. I'll bet Daryl flew in to Washington DC. I'll bet she did not ride her bicycle. Why? I bet she wanted to BUT a bicycle is just too slow. What if we all wanted to join her? I really dig Civil Protest. What fun! But I could not join her. Could you? Why? No money to live that fast, right?

We want to be green so badly. So we use a less powerful fuel, alcohol, in our gas and that fuel damages our cars so we end up spending more energy to replace those cars and car parts. We push jobs to China to build big windmills on the cheap for wind power and end up killing thousands of birds. We cut back on Nuclear power because it is too dangerous even though the US Navy has used it for years in combat conditions with no problems. Look at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. Japan lost over 12,000 dead to the earthquake. Deaths at the power plant? Four. Maybe only three. There was some question as to why the last guy died. So why not build some nice, new, clean energy, Nuclear plants?

The message is really clear. If you are not rich and want to be "Green" you had better slow down, do less and have less.

FLASH!!! This just happened. I was talking to a very good friend of mine who just happens to work in local county government. He was upset because we just got a new set of County Commissioners and they had cut some county employee benefits. His copay for medical insurance went from $175.00 a month to $225.00. His yearly deductible went from $100.00 to $400.00.

WOW, BUMMER DUDE.

At least until you consider that I pay about $375.00 per month for medical coverage that ONLY pays when I am in the hospital, His pays for doctor visits and everything. My yearly deductible? $5000.00.

You are right. I have trouble feeling his pain!

The way out is to be smart and efficient in our energy use, not politically correct and stupid. Four foot Florescent lights are efficient. Tubes get old and fail you replace them with new ones and reuse the electrical ballast that starts them. But when you use them as a replacement for bulbs you end up replacing the ballast every time you replace the tube. That is not very efficient. Oh yes, everybody says they are more efficient but if you start adding in all the levels of government incentives and subsidies are they really? I don't think so.

Same problem with the Alcohol they put in our fuel. It rots parts of the fuel system and has about 40% less power then gasoline. To get full power from Alcohol you have to have very high compression(13-14 to 1) because Alcohol is knock free. That is it will not pre-ignite. Try running those ratios with gas and it will blow your engine up. However, that is not the real problem with Alcohol. While we probably have enough land to grow crops to make it, we do not have enough WATER to grow those crops. Other problems like Alcohol's love of water (It will suck it right out of the air if given the chance) I will not go into. Lack of water kills Alcohol production. The only reason we have it is government subsidies and mandates.

We can have it all but we need to be smart and efficient, not politically correct and stupid. But Hey, at least we are green!

Curiously, a very good substitute for gasoline is Natural Gas but no one seems interested. The big problem with Natural Gas is enough high pressure fueling stations. Back in the late 1970s I worked for the Southern California Gas Company. All their trucks and cars ran Natural Gas. It worked just fine in town. It did have a 40-50 mile range limitation but in town that is not a problem. Also, if you ran out of Natural Gas just pull a lever and you were back on gasoline. The only other problems with Natural Gas is lack of power similar to Alcohol, but no damage to the engine and the weight of the compressed gas tanks.

The big plus of Natural Gas? We have lots of it available right now, it's cheap, it's clean and the technology is proven. Big problem? No refueling stations. Oh yeah, If you get a different car, just take the Natural Gas equipment off and put it on the new car. Why no one is interested puzzles me.

OK, How do I say this without being offensive. I am really interested in what you say but I don't give a flying passage of gas in a hot place about what you think!

WOW, what does that mean? Simply this. I am interested in what you say about the things I say and you can tell the truth to me because you can't offend me. That is because I don't care about what you think of me! You can FLAME me, Rant and Rave, say you love me or say you hate me, it's all the same to me!

I am interested in how you come to whatever opinion you have, why you say what you say. Lately, I keep hearing and reading about people who say they HATE, absolutely HATE Palin, Beck, O'Reilly, Fox, ETC. They are just liar, liar pants on fire. However, they never seem to be able to give proof or at least some kind of reason for what they say. I gave you reasons why I feel as I do so if you disagree with me can you give me some reason why?

So there you go. Tell me what you think. I promise to read what you say but I will not write back because I don't care what you think. I only care about what you say!

One last thing. This is for comments on my Blobs only. No motorcycle questions because I'm not writing back from this E-Mail address. OK?

If you have motorcycle questions click the motorcycle and follow my rules.