Excellent point.

I won’t be able to answer these tech questions for you. I can run circuits from the box, but that’s the limit of my electrical ability. I have only gotten as far in the project as generally reviewing the various systems for what might be right for my house. Another friend of mine is in the process of having one of these systems installed, so I will know more when I see his completed.

I don’t know what is used for storage. In the more distant future, I plan to make a wind power system for outdoor power supply that uses deep-cycle batteries for storage. That is something within my technical grasp.

Anyway, you may like to contact him yourself. Here is a link to a renewable energy symposium at which he presented recently. His company is Oak Grove Fabrication out of Alta Vista, Kansas. Contact info is at the bottom of the page: http://dyckarboretum.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&eventID=188 I’m sure my bias as a friend is coloring this recommendation, but professionally he is competent, honest, damn good people, and, very importantly, he knows how to make shit.

Dead nuts on!

A friend of mine owns a solar panel installation company. We talk about this tariff issue frequently. In the near future, I will be buying what is now a $20,000 Chinese-made system from him. The effect of this tariff will be precisely to limit the number of new solar users because the up front cost will be too much. If the Obama administration cares about renewable energy–which is most assuredly does not (Obama refused to even have the old Carter-era solar panels installed on the WH)–then they can subsidize domestic production. This is all about protecting the fossil fuel industry.

We have been hearing little whispers over the last 6 months or so in the mainstream media about how solar panels aren’t really cost effective, etc., etc.. You know, put the public off a little to solar power to prep them for the tariff. The fossil fuel folks are out to wreck the renewable energy industry. If they get their way, domestic producers of panels will be just as out of work. This has got fuck all to do with job creation.

“Brown wrote to President Obama in December expressing his support for a petition filed by a coalition of U.S. solar manufacturers with the U.S. Department of Commerce and International Trade Commission seeking relief from illegal Chinese trade practices. The petitioners alleged that Chinese imports of crystalline silicon solar cells are being dumped into the U.S. market far below their fair value, and that Chinese solar cell and panel producers receive massive subsidies from the Chinese government.”

That any US policy-maker can talk with a straight face and clear conscience about the illegality of a country subsidizing a product and then dumping it below value on another country’s market is one of nature’s great mysteries.

TCU,

The NRA only helps white people with guns. This is one of its unwritten rules. Shit, much of the reason many of its members have guns in the first place is to “defend” themselves from brown people. There is no reason to suspect in this case. Can you imagine what would happen to its reputation and membership if the NRA came to the aid of Chicanos with guns? For the NRA to do that would be suicidal: Every white anti-immigrant gun owner from LA to Corpus Christi would tear up their membership card and swear a blood oath against old LaPierre.

“Joe Iosbaker (another one of the twenty-three antiwar/solidarity activists targeted by the FBI), says, “The FBI has a technicality and claim it is seen in the eyes of the law as a felony.””

Translation: The Law does not make the State, the State makes the Law. If the State has enough power, it can make the Law say whatever it wants it to say. This ability puts the lie to the idea that if a citizen has done nothing illegal then they have nothing to hide or fear. Here we have one of the many recent examples that can be offered to those who say, “The War on Terrorism will not impact me because I have done nothing wrong.” The problem is that when the State writes the Law, you don’t need to do anything wrong to end up jailed, tortured or killed.

““There is an increase in repression,” Montes contends. “They are using the excuse of the “war on terrorism” to [not only] infiltrate organizations but also initiate acts.”

It’s not the excuse. It’s the reason. What has happened to Montes is the purpose of the War on Terrorism.

The god of monotheism needs pain, suffering and evil or else his existence is meaningless. His punishment of Job was just a demonstration of this necessary construction for all to see. The line Margaret quoted explains it: Because God is God, and as such needs evil. Without it, why would Job worship him. Take away Evil, Hell and Satan and the whole monotheistic racket comes crashing down. Poof!

I’m still waiting for any minister to explain how the injunction from the book of Ecclesiastes to eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you’re worm food just like any other animal fits together with the entire rest of the Bible.

And don’t kid yourself. Little white lies on Sunday are exactly what get you sent to hell. :)

Ding!