Category Archives: Current Issues

Eddie’s amazing Rocket Heater

Posted on December 11, 2013 by | 8 comments
The Cantina area of Eddie's and Val's home is just under 1000 square feet, uninsulated mostly. The wooden doors open to a patio and you can see daylight through them.

The Cantina area of Eddie’s and Val’s home is just under 1000 square feet, uninsulated mostly. The wooden doors open to a patio and you can see daylight through them.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Last year when I visited here Eddie and Val were heating The Cantina with a fireplace and a propane heater kicking in when things became uncomfortably cool.  He was troubling himself about the price of having Mesquite firewood hauled here.

https://sofarfromheaven.com/2012/12/21/la-cantina/

This year it’s an entirely different matter.  During the summer months Eddie researched the rocket stoves being utilized in 3rd world countries, turning out an amazing amount of heat on a few twigs.  Finally, he altered the designs somewhat and built one from a scrap pressure tank for his well, mortar-mix Vermiculite for the heat concentration, and a small firebox constructed from stovepipe.

The fuel?  Free pallets from the local businesses.

Total firewood requirement to keep the Cantina warm for the coldest week thus far in 2013? Three pallets.

Total firewood requirement to keep the Cantina warm for the coldest week thus far in 2013? Three pallets.

This past week was the test.  Temperatures below freezing for a week.  The Cantina was toasty all week, and all week long they awoke to comparative warmth in the Cantina despite the fire having been out for hours.

That perpendicular piece of stovepipe is the firebox. Eddie's redesigning it somewhat to make for easier cleaning.

That perpendicular piece of stovepipe is the firebox. Eddie’s redesigning it somewhat to make for easier cleaning.

The exterior appears fairly commonplace.  It’s inside where the Secrets of fuel economy reside.

rocket heater under construction2

What appears to be concrete is a hardened mixture of mortar mix, vermiculite, and stovepipe ….. wood ash mixed with the mortar/vermiculite to provide stability when the pipe melts or rots from the center.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Country Life, Current Issues, Outdoors

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Much ado about much ado

Posted on October 15, 2013 by | 5 comments
Fresh crisis ideas welcome. No return on empties.

Fresh crisis ideas welcome. No return on empties.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I see over on Yahoo News I was made a monkey of by my own severely gullible nature, fretting about what the politicoists were pretending they were doing.  Suckered again.  Allowed myself to take them seriously.  Another Gulf of Tonkin, Cuban Missile, Berlin crisis with different stage props and settings.  Veterans in wheel chairs, war monuments, chunky beef-fed cops bullying, threats of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding in spreading plague and famine.

But oh gracious gollygee, deep sighs of relief.  Seems they got sudden new ability to come to the kind of agreement allowing them to play the same tune after the short attention spans of the public wander elsewhere.

But sheeze!  Gasoline prices are dropping, and we have a surplus of natural gas.  Price dropping on that, too.  They’ll need to devote their attentions to getting that out onto a marketplace where the prices can be jacked back up.  Buy some new fleets of government vehicles that burn more fuel.  The DEA, Homeland Security, Department of Agriculture, Department of Environment, you name it, employees need stretch limosines and a lot of travel to handle this crisis.

Lalalalalalalalala.  And the beat goes on.

Still nobody talking about invading Mexico, though.  And extending the Promised Land to the Panama Canal.  Making all those people Chosen People instead of [those that come north] illegal aliens.

Likely they’ll get around to it when something’s good on television or India and China get into a world-threatening argument about Tibet.  Or they manage to sell some nuclear weapons to Iran and claim it was North Korea done it.

They use Hollywood playwrites and celebrity promoters to figure this stuff out, I figures.

Old Jules

5 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

401Ks and IRAs touring Atlantis

Posted on October 13, 2013 by | 8 comments

Speaking of savings and shell games.

Privatizning the Social Security Administration ought to seal things up. Close the doors and call the law to get the vagrants off the streets.

Privatizing the Social Security Administration ought to seal things up. Close the doors and call the law to get the vagrants off the streets.

My friend Rich worked most of his life for one of the phone companies going around testing and fixing whatever the hell goes wrong with them.  Spang came nigh unto getting runned over by out-of-control cars, getting electrocuted, all the dangers of being a working man.

But he was prudent.  Constantly did the wise, advised thing every month, investing in 401K and IRAs just as wise advisors said a person ought to so’s to have some security in old age retirement.

Had himself a comfortable pile of money in there when it came retirement time, looked forward to his remaining years without financial worries or woes.

Then he noticed his money was going away without him touching it.  Spang, suddenly the value of his 401Ks and IRA shrunk, then shrunk some more, vanished into the Twilight Zone.

Hell of a bargain for him because he didn’t have to go to the trouble of spending it.  Whatever the hell happened to that money, evidently someone somewhere else who didn’t go to the trouble of saving it must have stuck in his pockets, bought a new Mercedes, snorted some really good stuff.

So now old Rich draws his Social Security pension and tries to live on it, same as so many others.  Doesn’t have to worry about what kinds of things he might buy if he had that money.

All he has to worry about now is whether the US government will keep paying him his Social Security pension, or whether they’ll turn it over to the same people who handled his 401Ks and IRAs.

Life goes on.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues, Education

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Too much non-military spending is the problem

Posted on October 10, 2013 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

The cats and I were trying to understand what all those useless eaters were fighting about in Washington DC.  Decided it must be unhappiness about the way the money was spent in 2013, so I went for a look.

As you can see, a huge percentage of the discretionary money wasn't spent on National Defense in 2013.

As you can see, a huge percentage of the discretionary money wasn’t spent on National Defense in 2013.

Turns out there are two types of spending going on.  Mandatory spending is one, discretionary is the other.  The chart above depicts where they spend the money coming out of taxes and they can tweak.

The “Social Security & Unemployment” and “Medicare & Health” take on a major fraction of the federal spending, amounting to about 58% of the total outlays, whereas “Military” spending appears to amount to just 18%. The problem with this representation is that the Social Security & Medicare are parts of the mandatory spending directly financed by the dedicated revenue raised from payroll taxes, as imposed by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), not through the Federal income tax and thus represents a different Treasury account.

If we separate the mandatory spending and look only at the discretionary spending component appropriated by Congress on an annual basis and for which all the federal programs compete, a very different picture arises.

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/10/us-military-spending-the-17-foot-tall-insectoid-robo-warriors-from-the-planet-zandor-2788430.html

Probably that enormous portion of the budget being frittered away on non-defense spending is what has those people upset and shutting down the government.  Each one of those non-defense slices could be halved or quartered easily so’s to provide a means of continuing and even increasing defense spending without anyone feeling the pinch.

There's no way any US citizen has any business feeling safe when we aren't even matching the combined rest of the world in military spending.

There’s no way any US citizen has any business feeling safe when we aren’t even matching the combined rest of the world in military spending.

The US isn’t even spending half as much on national defense as the rest of the world combined is spending on theirs.  It’s no wonder those elected representives and senators are digging in their heels.  They’re scared.

Congress knows their primary responsibility is to protect the citizenry from foreign invaders and likely they won’t give an inch until they know they’re doing it.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues, Government, Military

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The European circumcision crisis

Posted on October 5, 2013 by | 3 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Most of us probably go through life without doing a lot of thinking about circumcision.  I know I have, though I recall being fairly pleased I’d been through it as an infant when my old friend Vic had to have it done at the age of 30.

But in Europe I suppose someone decided just anyone ought not go around cutting the foreskins off male babies unless they’d had a bit of medical training.  They passed a law saying so.  Which thoroughly pissed off Israel, who pronounced it racist.  Evidently Jews and Arabs do it all the time and it’s worked out more-or-less okay.

I suppose if I had to choose and someone was going to take a knife to my pecker I’d rather they knew a little something about what they were doing, but I honestly don’t have a clue.  Mine might have gotten chewed off by a space alien for all I know.

Back in the 1960s there was a joke about a guy, said he got a job at a hospital as a circumcisor.  Said it paid 30 skins a week and a chance to get a head.

And during the ’70s Homer Henderson and the Dalworthian Garden Boys recorded a song, Hillbilly Pecker, about a kid who wasn’t circumcised.  Experienced some trauma when he discovered everyone else was.

HOMER HENDERSON Hillbilly Pecker .

But other than that I haven’t done much thinking about it.  Don’t know whether it’s racist, or not, just anyone taking a blade to a foreskin.

Likely there’ll be shots fired over it before the Europeans and Israel get it worked out.

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2013, Current Issues

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Israeli standup comedian in the United Nations

Posted on October 2, 2013 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  I had to throw this in because it’s so outer space.

Hotshot Israeli talking to the United Nations had them all gasping with laughter yesterday when he, with a perfectly straight face, told them all they couldn’t trust Iran.

How the hell do they come up with this stuff?

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Gorilla war in Columbia – perfect timing, cheaper and more dope than Afghanistan

Posted on October 2, 2013 by | 3 comments
That gorilla's loaded to the gills with nose candy. It's no mystery why that war's lasted 50 years.

That gorilla’s loaded to the gills with nose candy. It’s no mystery why that war’s lasted 50 years.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I saw on Yahoo news yesterday there’s a gorilla war going on in Columbia.  The what?  President?  Prime Minister?  Dicktater? anyway the sadly weakened strong-man in Columbia was saying they needed help from Cuba or Venzu-whatchallit-wala to put an end to it.

Help from  Cuba?  Hell man, we can send General Arnold Swartzkopff some trucks and move Fort Hood Texas straight through Mexico be down to help them in a New York minute.  While the government’s shut down.

Corner the market on addictive drugs worldwide quicker than you can tell about it.  Have the rest of the world vomiting and trembling and begging us for something to snort or shoot that’s more satisfying than shooting Muslims.

Sure, there’s the shale oil probably in Mexico we’ll pick off on the way down there, but oil is so damned 20th Century.  Cocaine’s where the future is.

Strike while the iron’s hot and Congress can claim they didn’t know because they were fretting about the budget.

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues, Government

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sheeze – A LITTLER bittier pissanter Russia? Catherine the Great and John Paul Jones reverse cowboy style replayed

Posted on October 1, 2013 by | 5 comments

See readers, there you are.  I haven’t even barely just wrapped my atrophied mind around the USSR spang being a little bitty pissant place but what damned if it doesn’t threaten to get smaller.

And naturally it’s worrying the bejesus out of the same people who used to fret and chew their fingernails about it being the WHEW great big old USSR.  And then the ones who discovered they were scared crapless of it when it was little bitty.

So now, nobody less than the freaking Heritage Foundation’s running around in increasingly small circles because Oh shit oh dear it might get even smaller.

But you gotta remember these are the same people who fret over the threat North freaking Korea is to the peace and dignity of the United States.  And the threat Iran is to the United States.  And the ugly threat Syria is to the United States.

I’m thinking the whole damned thing is an effort to keep the Chosen People from recognizing the obvious fact we need to invade Mexico, soonest.  Then wossname, Guatamala.  And anything else that gets in the way between there and the Panama Canal.

Russia?  Haaaa!  Russia’s never done anything for the US besides Catherine the Great fornicating with famous US sailor sailor John Paul Jones reverse cowboy style.  It’s all been downhill since then.  Unless we can find another John Paul Jones to send over there what the hell does a little bitty pissant Russia have to do with anything?

Old Jules

5 Comments

Posted in America, Current Issues, Government, Politics

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

You couldn’t make this crap up

Posted on August 30, 2013 by | 11 comments
  1. Guy in the US White House trying to come up with a time since the Revolutionary War when France wasn’t a liability for its allies,
  2. China prohibiting reincarnation without government permission,
  3. Circus Clown muscle man Putin, Poooootin, Russian Some-Damned-Thing-or-Other, flexing his muscles wanting to arm wrestle someone.  Threatening, I’m not BSing you, to bomb Saudi Arabia?
  4. Female women in the US seriously and with straight faces discussing Hillary Freaking Clinton as a candidate for US President????
  5. Some bunch of yokels comparing themselves to the Boston Tea Party doers, carrying signs and pretending to have read the US Constitution?  Wanting more of what the guy before this one gave International Bankers and Corporations, WMDs, and everyone else who flies First Class when they travel???
  6. Another bunch of kneejerks looking the other way every time another lie comes out of the mouth of this White House guy, then praising him?
  7. Did I mention Hillary Clinton?

It’s almost enough to make me question representative democracy.

Old Jules

11 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues, Government, History, Human Behavior, Military, Politics

Tagged , , , ,

Intelligent, peace loving non-Zionist Jews – Maybe the only hope for Israel

Posted on August 30, 2013 by | 6 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

One of the tragedies of the modern-day Israel is that it’s succeeded in riding the German holocaust and exploiting that tragedy in such a way as to allow accusations of anti-Semitism whenever anyone criticizes Israel.  The only people exempt from this manipulation and guilt mongering are Jewish.  The sane ones living all over the world who haven’t fallen into the pit of Zionist self-aggrandizing devil-take-the-hindmost NAZI land grabbing and war mongering.

Nobody wants to see Israel destroy itself.  Nobody wants to see it manipulate the US and other powerful allies into wars among themselves for the ultimate ‘benefit’ of Israel, a few more yards or miles of Zionist-occupied territory.

All over the world Jews have demonstrated ability in their fields, have become vital and valid parts of the countries they occupy.  Many of those Jews are as critical and horrified by the behavior of Zionists as non-Jewish peace-minded people.

But those sane Jews have an advantage no non-Jewish person can exploit.  They could approach the people in power in the US and other countries where they reside and point out the disaster Israel is in the Middle East.  And Zionists couldn’t accuse them of being anti-Semitic, as they do all other comers.

Sane Jews everywhere could pressure their governments to cease providing military aid to Israel until the Zionists agree to make honest efforts toward peace with their neighbors.  Until they withdraw from territories and real estate they have no business occupying.  Until they get rid of the nuclear weapons they’ve acquired.  And until they cease rocket-rattling and tend their own affairs.

Hopefully eventually Jews who are just regular people will be able to recognize they’re the only ones who can do it.  Maybe they can save Israel from destroying itself through bronze-age zealotry.  Maybe Masada won’t have to fall again to bring some peace and quiet to the Middle East.

Old Jules

Tagged: Zionism, Zionist, Israel, Jews, religion, politics, Middle East, Masada, anti-Semitism

6 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues, Education, Government, Military

Tagged , , , , ,