This 15-foot x 15-foot spacing , allows a 2-foot wide path all around the perimeter of each space. If your neighbor has the exact same thing, then you have created a 4-foot wide path or really a buffer zone between neighboring family plots. No one should be able to put up a fence although vertical frames or towers, tripods and beanpoles should be allowed inside each 4 x 4 planting block.

Types of Distillation Equipment

Distillers are commonly made of stainless steel, aluminum, and plastic materials. These materials do not absorb impurities from water and are easy to clean.

There are two types of distillers: batch units and continuous flow units (Figures 2 & 3).

Batch Distillers:

Water is poured directly into the boiling chamber. The unit is turned on and the water is heated to boiling. When all the water in the boiling chamber is evaporated, the unit shuts off. Distilled water is removed from the storage container for household use. Batch units can range from 1gallon countertop units to 10gallon floor units. Batch distillers produce from 3 to 10 gallons of distilled water per day. The smallest distillers are about the same size as a coffee maker.

Continuous flow units:

Continuous flow or automatic units are connected to the water supply line. The water level in the boiling chamber is maintained by a float valve connected to the water supply. As distilled water is removed from the storage tank, the unit turns itself on and starts producing more distilled water. A discharge line periodically removes the concentrated impurities from the boiling chamber. Distilled water is either stored in a container or is piped to the use area.

Distiller accessorie:

Additional storage containers, transfer pumps and special kitchen taps can be installed adjacent to a distiller. Increased storage capacity will only be advantagous for continuous flow units. For example, you can install a kitchen tap and an under-the-sink reserve tank that has a level switch to turn on a small transfer pump. This pump transfers water from the distiller to a storage container located under the sink (Figure 4). When the under-the-sink reserve tank empties it turns on the transfer pump to refill the reserve tank. When the distiller's storage tank empties, it turns itself on and fills the storage containers.

How are volatile organic compounds (VOC) removed?

Distillers can remove VOCs by three methods: 1) gas vents, 2) fractional columns and 3) activated carbon filters (ACF). Distillers that use a combination of VOC removal methods are more efficient than one single method.

Gas vents are small holes drilled into the passage leading to the cooling coils. Gas vents allow VOCs to escape the distiller before they enter the cooling section coils. These holes (one or two) are usually from .045 inches to .065 inches in diameter.

Fractional column distillers (Figure 5) use differential cooling to remove VOCs. VOCs are removed when they condense in a different section of the fractional column than where water does. Fractional distillers usually cost more than distillers with gas vents or ACF cartridges.

Activated carbon filters (ACF) trap VOCs (refer to Activated Carbon Filtration in the Treatment Systems for Household Water Supplies Series). The ACF units are normally located at the end of the cooling coils and remove the VOCs prior to entering the distilled water storage container. ACFs can also be placed in the water supply line to reduce VOCs entering a distiller.

Removal of VOCs in distillers without gas vents, fractional columns or ACFs can also be accomplished with some success by discarding the first pint (1/2 liter) of distilled water in the storage container.

Proper Maintenance

Minerals and other residues accumulate in the boiling chamber as water is boiled away. These minerals and compounds need to be removed occasionally. The boiling chamber of a distiller should be emptied about once a week. When distillation is continuous, the boiling chamber should be emptied more often. If these materials (scale and sediment) are not removed periodically, a distiller becomes inefficient.

Mineral scale buildup from hard water can be difficult to remove without the use of an acid-type cleaner. Commercial cleaning agents are available. The cleaners usually contain sulfamic acid or other organic acids. DO NOT use strong mineral acids like hydrochloric, sulfuric or nitric to clean distillers. Strong acids can damage stainless steel and aluminum. Check the owners manual or consult your local distiller dealer for the appropriate cleaner to use.

To remove the scale buildup from a distiller, fill the distiller with the proper acid mixture to approximately 1/2 inch above the mineral line. Let the acid solution sit for the proper amount of time, then discard and rinse.

An alternative cleaning agent is vinegar because it contains acetic acid, a weak organic acid. Pour a 50 percent solution of vinegar into the distiller to about 1/2 inch above the top of the mineral line. Let the unit sit over night, then discard and rinse. If mineral scale is still present, increase the vinegar concentration or cleaning time.

Other regular maintenance duties may include replacing the ACF cartridge and keeping the gas vent holes free of mineral deposits. These steps are necessary to ensure that distillation units equipped to remove VOCs will effectively perform that function.

Lifespan:

The lifespan of any distiller depends on the levels of impurities in the raw water supply, how often the distiller operates, and how often the distiller is cleaned. A good distiller should last 10 to 15 years with proper maintenance and routine cleaning. The most common repair for distillers is replacing a heating element or a cooling fan.

Cost of Distillation

Equipment Purchase Price

Distillers cost from $200 to $1500 for home use models. Counter top distillers will range from $200 to $500 and automatic models from $600 to $1500. In addition to the purchase cost, there are yearly operation costs. These include electricity, chemical cleaners, and possibly replacement ACFs. Yearly operation costs depend on how often a distiller is used.

Examples of purchase cost:

For about $250, you can purchase a 5 quart batch unit (about the same size as a coffee maker). Five quarts of raw water are poured into the boiling chamber. The unit is plugged in, and the distillation process starts. Distilled water is stored in an external plastic container. The unit shuts off automatically when the boiling chamber is empty. It has a maximum output of 4 gallons per day.

For about $1200, you can purchase a 10-gallon per day continuous flow unit with a 4-gallon storage container. When water is removed from the storage container, the unit refills the boiling chamber and begins distilling. The unit shuts off when the storage container is filled. Typical dimensions of this system are about 3 feet high by 2 feet wide by 1.5 feet deep.

Operation Costs

Distiller operation costs are directly related to the amount of distilled water you will use daily. The largest operation cost is electricity. Small batch distillers range from .25 to .30 gallons per kilowatt-hour (gal/KWH) and larger automatic continuous flow distillers range from .30 to .34 gal/KWH.

The electrical cost is easy to calculate:

Wattage of unit

Cost = 0.024 x ---------- x Cost of electricity ($/KWH)

Production (gal/day) or Wattage of unit, time to distill, cost of

Cost = x 1 gallon (hrs) x electricity ($/KWH) 1000

For Example:

1100 watt distiller produces 8 gal/day (3hr/gal) _and electricity costs $0.10/KWH

1100 cost = 0.024 x ---- x 0.10 = $0.33/gal or (33 cents/gal) 8

or

cost = 1100 x 3 x 0.10 = $0.33/gal

Typical electrical cost for a family of four will range from $275 to $400 per year (or $22 to $34 per month), because the average family of four uses 3 gallons/day (1100 gallons/year) of water for drinking and cooking. Consult the owners manual or check with a dealer for the cost of a ACF cartridge replacement for a particular distiller. Cleaning cost increases with increased distiller operation.

Total Cost over the life span of a distiller

The total cost of running a distiller includes the purchase price (or rental cost) and cost of operation (electricity and maintenance cost). Typical operational costs range from $0.35 per gallon to $0.50 per gallon. Bottled distilled water, in comparison, costs from $0.30 to $1.50. Based on the example below, it will cost an average family of four $38.60 per month for distilled water or $456.50 per year.

Example of Total cost of distilled water per gallon:

Lets assume for $800 you could purchase a 1100 watt distiller that would last 10 years at full production of 8 gallons/day and electricity costs $0.10/KWH. How much will a gallon of distilled water cost?

Cost assumptions:

electricity = $0.10 / KWH
repairs & cleaning = 10% of purchase price/year 10 year life span
1100 watt unit produces 8 gal/day
purchase price = $800

Total cost per gallon over ten years

Purchase price
$800/8(gal/day)/365(days/year)/10years $0.027/gal
(based on continuous operation)

Electricity
1100wt/1000(wt/KWH) X 3(hr/gal) X $0.10KWH = $0.33 /gal

Repairs & Cleaning

$800 X 0.10/8(gal/day)/365(days/year)
(annual cost = 10% of purchase price) = $0.027/gal
TOTAL $0.384/gal

A typical distiller might realistically only run 60 to 70 percent of the time. The above total cost per gallon was figured at full production. If the distiller ran 70 percent of the time, the cost per gallon would increase by $0.0314 per gallon. The distiller idle time varies with how much distilled water is needed by the user. Based on the example above, it will cost a typical family $38.60 per month ($456.50 per year) for distilled water.

What are the advantages of distillers?

Distillers remove almost all of the impurities found in water, produce sodium free water, and are relatively easy to maintain. Most distillers are mechanically simple.

What are the disadvantages of distillers?

Distillers have small capacities and use considerable energy to process water. Because of the small capacities, distillers are limited to point-of-use systems. Distillers without gas vents, fractional columns, or ACF units will not remove VOCs. Heat generated by a distiller must be dissipated into the surrounding environment.

Items to consider when purchasing a distiller

. Test your water for impurities. A distiller might not be the best treatment alternative.
. How much distilled water does your household need? (per day, per year)
. What type of distillers will fit into your needs?
. How easy is the distiller to clean and/or repair?
. What type of convenience level should a distiller offer? (manual or automatic operation)
. What will you do with the by-products of distillers -- waste water, waste heat, old ACF cartridges?
. Is it designed to remove VOCs? Some distillers are designed to remove VOCs but many are not.
. What is the cost of maintenance?
. Purchase price does not directly indicate a distiller's performance. A moderately priced unit might work as well as expensive units.
. Don't buy more equipment than you need.
. Choose a reputable dealer -- Get guarantees in writing and read them thoroughly.
. Beware of advertising that is too good to be true.

Arthur Silber brings the heat in his latest posts on the FISA "compromise." He cuts through the surface outrage over the Democratic-led, Obama-approved evisceration of the Constitution to expose the even deeper outrages beneath. And he takes on those progressive enablers who denounce critics of Obama's position for their freshman dorm cynicism" - i.e., calling a shameful action a shameful action, and decrying the Democratic candidate's active collusion in undermining freedom.

I. Silber's latest gives us the grim word that "FISA is Only the Prelude to Nightmare." As he puts it [see the original for links]:

...[As] odious and destructive of liberty and privacy as the new FISA "compromise" bill is, there is one perspective from which the momentous to-do about this legislation is very badly misplaced. The selective focus on FISA misses the crucial larger picture in a way that ensures that the ruling class's hold on increasingly tyrannical power will never be challenged -- which is, of course, precisely what the ruling class wants. In one sense, I certainly won't criticize those who protest the FISA legislation so vehemently, because I favor almost anything that throws a monkey wrench into the operations of our monumentally awful and oppressive federal government.

However, and it is an exceptionally large however, if their protests about FISA remain the sole (or even the major) focus of the complaints about the surveillance state, the protesters will make a very large gift to those who wish to oversee, regulate and control every aspect of our lives.

He then quotes Jack Balkin's pertinent observation that Obama approves the compromise because he very much wants to have those broad powers when he is president. As Balkin notes, it is the unheralded part of the bill -- which vastly expands "the executive's ability to wiretap and engage in much broader searches of communications than were permissible under the law before" -- that is actually its most egregious and far-reaching element. The legal immunity for telecoms that helped Bush violate the law is but the icing on this poison cake. Obama can score political points by criticizing this element of the bill, because it doesn't really matter. It's almost impossible that immunity will be stripped from the final bill, as Democratic leaders have already admitted. The big corporations will be protected, and President Obama will have those expanded powers in hand -- to be used only for good, of course.

Silber then moves to a telling point that he has hammered home many times before: the FISA law itself -- not just this "compromise" -- is a forceful, brutal rape of the Constitution, a shocking outrage against liberty that has been going on for decades:

I must immediately interject that to discuss these issues [pertaining to liberty and privacy] with regard to FISA is ludicrous in a much deeper sense. As Jonathan Turley [has explained], FISA itself is a secret court whose very purpose is to circumvent the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. The FISA court is no protection against illegitimate government intrusion at all. But as Turley notes, that we are fighting over whether to grant the executive branch and FISA still more untrammeled authority to disregard constitutional rights is a measure of how far we have already marched toward tyranny...

If we were genuinely concerned about civil liberties and privacy, we would return to the Fourth Amendment and the procedures it requires, and the FISA regime would be abolished entirely. That's right: it would be abolished. No one wants to do that. Too radical, doncha know. That's scary talk, much scarier, it would appear, than the tyranny which daily strengthens its death grip on all our throats. Nonetheless, if you want to understand the nature and scope of the decades-long attack on individual liberty, you had better remember what FISA is.

Watch the layers peel away. The FISA compromise bill is abominable, without question; anyone who supports it cannot possibly be regarded as a serious believer in constitutional democracy. Yet behind this truth is another one, noted above: the FISA system itself is an abomination for a free people. And behind this comes yet another, grimmer truth: the FISA system, either old-style or the new Obama-abetted version, is just a miniscule part of the "endless array of weapons"? at the disposal of the National Surveillance State:

With regard to FISA and issues of liberty and privacy in general, let me now ask you a few questions. How long do you think it would take you to identify, read, and understand every provision in every statute, regulation and other authorization that gives surveillance powers to the government? Furthermore: Would you know each and every place to look, or how to determine what those places were? Additionally: With a staff of 20, or 50, could it be done, even if you were provided with limitless time and limitless funds?

I submit to you, without qualification or reservation, that you could not do it. No one could. Consider that most legislators in Washington aren't even aware of much of what's in the bills they so eagerly vote on. Consider the prohibitive length and complexity of legislation that comes before Congress. That's true of what is going on now. If you tried to track down every piece of legislation, every regulation, every administrative agency ruling, and every other pronouncement still in effect that allows the government to surveil and otherwise keep track of you, me, the guy down the street, the woman next door and the man in the moon, based on alleged concern with and the need to protect us all from the ravages of drugs, "illicit" sex, any and all other suspected criminal activity and, natch, terrorism, how on God's green earth would you do it? You couldn't. I further submit to you that the only reason you appear to have some precious remnants of freedom left, and the only reason you remain at liberty, is that the government hasn't comprehensively focused on all the powers it already possesses and hasn't come anywhere close to utilizing them fully and consistently. This is the moment you should fall to your knees and thank whatever gods may be for the miraculous, close to perfect incompetence of the pathetically ineffectual blockheads in Washington.

Silber then goes through just a handful of these sinister instruments, garnered from a few moments of web research, detailing their forceful penetration into every aspect of our lives. In conclusion, he quotes the credo of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which tries to keep track of ever-spreading ooze of the Surveillance state, a 1928 quote from Justice Louis Brandeis: "The right to be left alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people." Silber concludes:

In terms of liberty and freedom, the right to be left alone is the most precious value of all. Regardless of what happens with FISA, and even if FISA were abolished altogether, you lost that right decades ago.

And if it is up to the ruling class, you are not getting it back.

Hot enough for you out there? Go read the whole thing, and you'll really start to sweat.

II. As noted above, Obama has taken some heat for his embrace of the Democrat's deadly FISA farce. Disappointment, even anger, is certainly rife across the progressosphere. For some stalwarts, it has induced a new sense of grim realism, ranging from "ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and I'm glad our guy's got the balls to do what he gotta do" offered by Jonathan Leigh Solomon, to the strange blast produced by Digby, which Silber, in another piece, rightly describes as "We're 2% less shitty than Pure Evil! It's all we've got!"

Digby too has criticized Obama's FISA move, albeit with the usual "I just can't figure out why he would do such a thing" trope, which she has had to apply to virtually every action taken by the Democrats in recent years. [The answer, of course, as Silber has often noted, is plain: they "do it" - sell out to corporations, to warmongers, to authoritarianism and unaccountable power - because they want to do it. It's what they believe in.] Her disappointment in Obama is palatable. Yet in responding to unnamed persons who have apparently deluged her with comments along the line of "a plague on both your houses," she comes back with this:

Democrats have certainly enabled [Republican authoritarians] over the years and will likely continue to. They are politicians, after all, not comic book superheroes. But there should be no doubt to anyone who isn't wrapped up in immature freshman dorm cynicism, that there is a distinct difference between those who believe in the concept of an imperial presidency and those who are simply weak and corrupt. They both undermine freedom, but the first is many orders of magnitude worse than the second.

Perhaps that's not much to work with, but it's all we've got and in the end there will be no one around to acknowledge the intellectual superiority of those who sat on the sidelines, starry eyed and impotent, railing about third parties and revolution, while the world went to hell. (See: Communist Party, Germany, 1932) But hey, everybody has a right to their own kind of therapy and ineffectual whining is as legitimate as anything else. Whatever gets you through the night.

So if you are someone like - well, like me, for instance - who says that Obama's actions and choice of advisers seem to suggest that he will not overturn, roll back or seriously challenge the long-running liberty-devouring, militarist, corporatist trends of the American Imperium, and could possibly even augment some of them - then you're just a German commie from 1932.

Well, I never. And here all this time I thought I was a Buddhist Jacobin in the Reconstruction Era - which is about as historically coherent as her allusion.

Digby seems to think that it was stay-at-home, stick-in-the-mud German Communists who somehow let Hitler obtain power in 1932. She also seems to think that the German Reds were some sort of starry-eyed, impotent "third party" sitting on the sidelines twiddling their thumbs while the Nazis strutted into office. In fact, the Communists were the second largest party in the country in the 1932 Reichstag elections. And in the last free election that year (or relatively free; a succession of right-wing governments had already introduced many of the authoritarian measures that the Nazis later extended), the Communists were gaining support, while the Nazis were losing voters. The Reds were also in the streets, battling it out with Brownshirts, putting their bodies on the line, and paying a heavy price - both then and later. Of course, this kind of thing is not real activism, not like, say, blogging, or clicking a "donate" button at barackobama.com. Still, "ineffectual whining" or even "starry-eyed impotence" might not be the best descriptors for people who were beaten, stabbed, shot and later put into concentration camps for fighting fascism.

What really opened the door to Hitler's rise to power was the collapse of the centrist parties' belief in democracy, and their acquiescence - and sometimes active collusion - in tyrannical measures that eviscerated the republic. Here one might attend to The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard J. Evans, a work described by top historian Ian Kershaw as "the most comprehensive history in any language of the disastrous epoch of the Third Reich."

At one point, Evans describes the events of July 1932, when Nazi stormtroopers invaded a working-class town outside Hamburg which heavily supported the Communists. The ensuing violence - when those impotent Red whiners poured out to defend the community - gave the increasingly authoritarian central government of Chancellor Franz von Papen an excuse to seize control of the "progressive" state government of Prussia - which covered more than half the country - and impose military rule there. Evans notes:

Papen's coup dealt a mortal blow to the Weimar Republic. It destroyed the federal principle and opened the way to the wholesale centralization of the state. Whatever happened now, it was unlikely to be a full restoration of parliamentary democracy. After 20 July 1932 the only realistic alternatives were a Nazi dictatorship or a conservative, authoritarian regime backed by the army. The absence of any serious resistance on the part of the Social Democrats, the principal remaining defenders of democracy, was decisive. It convinced both conservatives and National Socialists that the destruction of democratic institutions could be achieved without any serious opposition.

Historical analogies are just that: analogies, not exact parallels. Still, if one wanted to toss around comparisons between America today and Germany in 1932, one could do worse than point to the way that centrist parties - even "progressive" parties, like the Social Democrats - failed to stand up for democracy in the face of authoritarian encroachments. That would actually make more sense that comparing a few unnamed malcontents to a fantasy image of "starry-eyed," fence-sitting, marginalized German commies of yore.

But Silber finds implications beyond mere historical inaccuracy in Digby's piece:

...one of the keys to the intellectual rot and moral corruption underlying Digby's pronouncements will be found right here: "[T]here is a distinct difference between those who believe in the concept of an imperial presidency and those who are simply weak and corrupt. They both undermine freedom, but the first is many orders of magnitude worse than the second."

This is profoundly wrong, and exactly backwards. Think about this: as history has demonstrated many times, full actualization of a great evil such as the imperial presidency is only made possible by those who are weak and corrupt...

Silber later notes in an aside:

Does Digby mean to suggest -- honestly, truly and seriously, as in a conclusion supported by close study of the presidency in twentieth century America -- that Democrats are opposed on the basis of some kinda, sorta political principles to "the concept of an imperial presidency"? Honestly? Truly? Seriously?

Silber also contrasts the "frantic activity" and "frenzied motions" surrounding the entirely predictable Democratic complicity in the FISA bill - including energetic campaigns that have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars almost instantly to mount election challenges to Democratic supporters of the bill - with the near silence, and total non-action, that has greeted attempts to head off a war with Iran. Silber long ago proposed a plan for a national media campaign to rouse public opposition to military aggression against Iran. He undertook to carry out most of the work himself, or freely turn it over to others with better ideas and more resources - if even a modicum of proper financial backing for such a campaign could be found. With just a couple of posts, any one of the major progressive blogs could have generated sufficient funds to begin such an effort - as we have seen in just the past few days. None did.

That's their right, of course. Everyone is free to choose their own priorities. For some, it's stopping an act of mass murder that could lead to catastrophic suffering and upheaval on a global scale for decades to come. (An act which Obama has continually and forcefully - some might say maniacally - insisted that he is more than willing to perform.) For others it's holding the Democrats' feet to the fire - over and over and over again - in the wistful hope that they will perhaps someday be marginally less evil in their weak and corrupt undermining of freedom than the Republicans are. Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.

Let's face it, my fellow freedom and burger loving Americans. It is becoming painfully obvious that our non-negotiable American Way of Life is increasingly under attack. Yet while our meat consumption may be a wedge issue our foes are using against us, it can also be our salvation.

We are facing swarms of terrorists in the Animal Liberation Front, mobs of fanatical extremists at PETA, and hordes of Nazi-like, in-your-face vegans and vegetarians. Like deranged street prophets, they spout all kinds of nonsense about speciesism, the suffering of sentient beings, animal rights, compassion for livestock in factory farms, and other deluded ramblings.

Though we recognize their ridiculous utterances, beliefs, and acts to be those of mentally unbalanced losers who need a ridiculous cause in their miserable lives to prevent them doing the world a favor by committing suicide, how long can we afford to ignore these violent and dangerous individuals? Their numbers are growing way too rapidly for my comfort.

We also need to consider that our addiction to meat is also causing problems so deep that we can no longer maintain our dominant position simply by beating down environmental activists with our clever arguments and significantly larger wallets. The hideous truth is bubbling so close to the surface that we can no longer maintain the status quo with specious arguments and asinine sound bites disseminated by our allies like Fox, Viacom, the New York Times, and CNN.

Cattle, the source of our beloved beef, are now the number one source of greenhouse gasses. And even some of our staunchest supporters are beginning to admit that Climate Change is a real phenomenon.

Our meat habit is causing deforestation to accelerate at an alarming rate. Since we need the trees to cleanse the air of carbon dioxide and replenish OUR oxygen, we must preserve OUR remaining forests. I still can't abide those moronic tree huggers who fail to realize that the trees are OURS to do with as we please, but when OUR survival is threatened, it's time to do something!

Our supply of potable water is shrinking at a frightening pace. Those enviro idiots do have a point when they remind us that it takes far more water to raise livestock for meat production than it does to cultivate crops. Obviously we don't give a damn if millions of Third Worlders in places like Timbuktu die of thirst, but when treasures like Vegas are increasingly in jeopardy, we need to stir ourselves to act.

Much of the arable land we could use to produce more crops for human consumption is instead used to raise and feed livestock. 35,000 people die each day from the effects of starvation. We needn't concern ourselves about those people per se, but the deeper issue is that that number could amplify, people who matter could start dying, and riots or revolutions could threaten our free market system.

Animal loving freaks terrorizing us. Polar ice caps melting. Chaotic weather. Forests on the verge of extinction. Food riots. A rapidly dwindling water supply. Capitalism under siege. We are facing a nightmare, ladies and gentlemen.

AND the Earth is grossly over-populated. At 35,000 deaths a day, our de facto culling process is grossly inadequate to preserve OUR planet for those of us who count. Humanity has exceeded its carrying capacity and our numbers continue to grow exponentially. We've got to start killing off the expendables much more rapidly and efficiently.

So what to do?

It's quite simple, really. We must abandon all types of meat we now consume and begin satisfying our palates and protein requirements with human flesh.

I know the notion of cannibalism violates a long-standing taboo in most cultures, but if we abandon conscience, morals and ethics (which are nothing more than antiquated absurdities that impose ridiculous restraints on our behavior), logic dictates that we begin eating our fellow humans.

Our necessary humanitarian interventions and courageous efforts to advance the democracy of free markets are already justifiably eliminating millions of barbarians who stand in the way of the proliferation of the American Way. In fact, we are doing those wretches a favor by putting them out of their misery.

Yet instead of employing our military to kill our enemies and leave their corpses to rot, why not have our soldiers round them up and process them in factory farms designed to process humans?

We Americans are the fittest of the species, and hence the most well-equipped to survive. History has proven that beyond the shadow of a doubt. As the fittest, we have the right to utilize our inferiors to ensure our survival. So why not eat them?

We already spend nearly a trillion dollars a year defending ourselves from millions upon millions of evil savages. Rather than devastating the infrastructure of nations we are Americanizing with bombs and missiles, why not round up uncooperatives and carve them up into delicious steaks in Halliburton-constructed meat-packing facilities?

Imagine what a peaceful world it would be if we began serving Palestinian instead of KC strip.

A billion Chinese Commies would guarantee us an adequate food supply for years to come. And talk about solving the population problem!

For those who prefer sun-dried jerky, there'd be Arab, African and Persian cuisine on the menu. Those savage creatures are only standing between us and OUR precious resources anyway.

And let's not forget those bastards who beat us in Vietnam. After all, revenge is a dish best served cold.

For those of us living in the free world, where democracy, capitalism and Anglo culture reign supreme, the most appealing aspect to putting human flesh on our plates would be the elimination of the undesirables, useless eaters, and enemies in our midst.

Mexican illegals? Yo quiero Taco Bell!

Welfare queens, crack whores, and drug dealers? Dark meat anyone?

Gays and lesbians? Adds a whole new connotation to "taste the rainbow," doesn't it?

Repulsive homeless scum? Their meat might be a little tough and stringy but what's wrong with eating a little wild game once in awhile?

Domestic terrorists and anti-American dissenters? We'd savor that flavor, wouldn't we?

Close your eyes and envision a world defined by these conditions:

1. A sustainable human population level.
2. An end to the relentless efforts of those animal rights crackpots.
3. A cessation of food riots.
4. The elimination of the possibility of starvation for those of us who deserve to live.
5. A significant reduction of greenhouse gasses.
6. World peace (dissenters, non-conformists, and terrorists are pretty harmless once they're on our dinner plates!)

Implementing such a plan will be fraught with difficulty. It will also be quite an adjustment to adapt to our new source of the meat we crave.

However, our non-negotiable American Way of Life is at stake. If we want to preserve the safety, comfort, and pleasure to which we TRUE Americans are entitled, we must put aside our fears and silly moral inhibitions.

Good Morning America, your King of Simple News is on the air.

The King and Queen of Simple are going to be out on the road this week, checking out the hiways and byways of our nation (well, part of it). I hope to be able to access my site and post my finding along the way. Please feel free to comment on today's article and be patient, I promise to come back. Thank all of you sooooo much for your readership and friendship. Mike

U.S. NEWS: Okay, get out your pencil and paper; we're going to do a little math and economics today. Don't worry, it's not regular government math, it's Mikemathics and Mikeronomics.

Here's the first problem that I want you to solve. If a country imported 75% of their oil, and the countries that export that oil to them quit doing so, how much oil would the citizens of the import country have left?

Those who answered, "None, because the import country's government would confiscate the remaining 25% to wage war on the export country that cut them off," are correct. Those who answered "25%" haven't read the associated text, "The Biggest Lie Ever Believed."

Next question: The export country cuts back by 20% of the previous amount of oil sent to the import country, creating a shortage. How long would the line be at the gas station be and how high would the price go?

Those who answered, "Camping equipment should be standard on all trips to the gas station and having a co-signer would become mandatory for a fill-up," nailed the answer.

Here is problem number 3: If a country is a net importer of food and the countries that export that food quit sending it because they are currently eating all of it themselves, how much food will be left at the grocery 10 minutes after the news breaks that there is a food shortage?

Those who said, "There may be a couple of jars of hairy anchovies and one package of tripe remaining;" got this one right. You guys are good!

Now, this next question is more difficult so put on your thinkin' caps. Here it is: If the import country (which obviously can't support their own people without the help of countries that cut their citizens' heads off for jaywalking) were also in the business of importing more than a million additional people per year, would the food and fuel situation get better or worse?

I know this one is tough, so I'm going to help you a little. The million plus additional people definitely drive cars and eat... and have more kids.

Times up, put your pencils down. Who said, "No country in the world is that dumb?" Those who answered something similar to this get an "A" in economics and common sense, but I'm afraid that I have to fail you in American History; sorry.

One more general question before we take the final exam. If great big ships and giant airplanes that use massive quantities of a finite resource, such as oil, deliver the food and fuel to the import country, and if the resource, such as oil, became very costly, or worse, was not available, what would happen?

Those who answered, "Holy Mother of Jesus!" are right on target.

Pick your pencils back up and get ready for the final exam. Here's the final question: If there really were a country dumb enough to import the essential elements of life from nations that didn't even like them to start with, and at the same time, elected to also import millions of immigrants (and let a few million more sneak in when they aren't looking), how long would the elected officials be allowed to remain in office?

Everyone who answered, "232 years and counting," graduated from today's exam with honors.

Speaking in a time of war, Martin Luther King Jr. said: "Somehow this madness must cease."

Forty-one years later, young soldiers are returning to the United States from terrifying zones of carnage. The old claims of a justified war have melted away. So have the promises of a humane society back home.

Statistics about the war dead tell us very little about human realities. And familiar downbeat numbers about health care -- 47 million Americans with no health insurance, perhaps an equal number woefully under-insured -- tell us very little about the actual consequences or other options.

"The shocking facts about health care in the United States are well known," Yes! Magazine noted in the autumn of 2006. "There's little argument that the system is broken. What's not well known is that the dialogue about fixing the health care system is just as broken."

That's an apt description. For all the media focus and political rhetoric on health care, the mainline discourse is stuck in a corporate-friendly rut. But there are signs that a movement for a rational, humanistic health care system in this country is now gaining strength.

A few hours after writing these words, I'll be at a large demonstration in San Francisco. The lightning rod for this historic June 19 protest is a national meeting of America's Health Insurance Plans, an outfit that cheerily pitches itself as "a national trade association representing nearly 1,300 member companies providing health benefits to more than 200 million Americans."

As it happens, this meeting of America's Health Insurance Plans got underway just as news broke that the congressional "leadership" has devised a formula to fully fund more war. "Democratic and GOP leaders in the House announced agreement Wednesday on a long-overdue war funding bill they said President Bush would be willing to sign," the Associated Press reported. The bill would "provide about $165 billion to the Pentagon to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for about a year."

There's a lot of profit in death. Under the guise of national security. And under the guise of health care.

Today, across the United States, people are dying because they don't have access to health care. But policy solutions are available. In Congress, about 90 co-sponsors are backing H.R. 676, a bill to provide "comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents." Call it whatever you like -- "single payer" or "improved Medicare for all" or "universal health care with choice of providers and no financial barriers." What it adds up to is the policy option of treating health care as the human right that it is.

In the latest edition of "Health Care Meltdown," author C. Rocky White identifies himself as "a conservative Republican who has always held an entrepreneurial 'pull yourself up by your own bootstraps' free-market philosophy." A longtime physician, White describes "the frustration I began to experience while trying to provide compassionate, quality health care in the context of a market in which the accustomed rules of business economics don't apply."

Dr. White immersed himself in research on health care policy and finance. Then he pored through reams of the latest data on the tradeoffs of reform options. "No matter how I turned the cube," he writes, "the answer never changed. That answer was nearly impossible for me, a free-market Republican, to accept."

Here are Dr. White's two key conclusions in his own words:

* "Until we remove the motive of profit from the financing of health care, we cannot and we will not resolve our current health care crisis."

* "Any group that proposes reform policy that maintains the use of for-profit insurance companies in a so-called free market is being driven by one single motive -- to protect the golden coffers of their share of the $2 trillion cash cow!"

Dr. White adds: "To continue down this road is paramount to suggesting that we privatize our fire and police services and turn them into for-profit organizations. You do that and people will die -- just like they are dying now under our current health care system!"

Grotesquely, the insurance and hospital industries at the center of health care in the United States are, in effect, profiting from priorities that condemn many people to death and many more to avoidable suffering.

Meanwhile, corporate enterprises continue to make a killing from U.S. military expenditures now in the vicinity of $2 billion per day.

During a wartime speech in 1969, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist George Wald said: "Our government has become preoccupied with death, with the business of killing and being killed."

The preoccupation continues.

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people," Martin Luther King observed, "the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

It would be nice to think much of the ugliness is coming to an end.

It would be lovely to imagine the era of brutal Earth-mauling technologies, coal extraction and petroleum and industrial agriculture and strip mining and clear cutting and industrial fishing and all rest, all the more rapacious and unforgiving notions of how we exist on this planet are, after an era of unchecked capitalistic greed and waste and over-consumption right along with almost zero concern for consequences and the ethics of sustainability, finally moving toward obsolescence -- or rather, are quickly being shoved there by sheer necessity, brutal market forces, as supply runs dry and oil production slows and the Earth groans and spits and says, "enough already."

It is a pivotal time, and now more than ever, you get to choose the lens through which you want to watch it all unfold. Or implode.

Are we headed toward a brighter future packed like a Hooters Energy Drink with a renewed sense of hope and global cooperation? Or is our species plainly doomed to be crushed under the corn syrupy weight of our own gluttony and ego and entitlement? Are we waking up just in time to save ourselves from ourselves, or is that fistful of sociocultural Ambien we downed all those years ago merely causing us to sleep-drive into a wall of nuclear asbestos?

Choose your attitude, baby. Because on the one hand, you can cruise through cool conscious hipster mags like Grist or Treehugger and Dwell and Good and the like, and be happily inspired by all the latest ideas for sustainable development and socially conscious tech -- from micro-turbines built right into the skin of buildings, to amazing new solar panels, cool prefab housing, better batteries, microcars, electric mopeds, eco-nightclubs, dual-flush toilets and CFLs and bamboo everything, wind farms and urban solar initiatives and LEED-certified homes and even some tentative positive ideas from Big Auto. Hell, even toxic monolith Clorox has a green line of products that's actually, well, relatively green. Go figure.

Every major newspaper site has a green section. Every intellectual rag features weighty thought pieces on how we might stave off the encroaching calamities. Every pop culture magazine pumps out a heartfelt "green issue," despite how said magazine is usually printed on sweet virgin wood pulp and coated in petroleum-based wax and Chinese-made ink and if you lick the pages you will likely get cancer of the teeth. But hey, check out that sweet profile of Leo DiCaprio. Mmm, grass-fed hunkiness.

The goodness is spreading. Nearly all formerly soul-deadening supermarkets from Safeway to Wal-Mart to Ralph's now have large organic sections and multiple recycling bins and swell-sounding sustainability policies to match their new, softer lighting and friendlier layout, all designed to create a more welcoming vibe so you can feel like you're not contributing quite so painfully to the global petroleum-based corporate mega-economy when you buy that flat of strawberries in January.

And then there are the crazy inventors, the mad geniuses you can read about just about everywhere, the ones who've developed a Potential Answer to It All, maybe a new engine that runs on salt water and cat dander, or a new zero-point energy technology, or some sort of nano-cellular magnetic generator, or a method by which we can power the entire planet using only the energy created by mixing fingernail clippings and bat guano with whatever toxic gloop Ann Coulter is made of.

Indeed, it feels like incredible inventions are now pouring out of the woodwork, though this merely might be a reflection of our increased sense of desperation to find a magic bullet before it's too late. In other words, the mad geniuses have always been there, but we've never needed them so badly to really take notice.

Problem is, most of these nascent technologies come with a giant throbbing caveat: They're either still in concept stage, have barely been tested, or they only exist in the inventor's garage in happy rickety Make-style geekdom on an old Formica table next to a giant Death Star made of Legos. Almost none is provable at scale, none ready to be manufactured for the masses.

Add to this the fact that the forces of Bush Regime have slowed, stalled, blocked, or otherwise worked like bitter hellspawn to aggressively reverse every progressive (read: non-petroleum based) energy idea for nearly a decade, and all that positivism can be swiftly swallowed by the wary dragons of harsh reality.

Truly, before you get to too cozy with your low-VOC paint and organic grass-fed burger, it takes but a split second to shatter that green lens of hope and replace it with a crimson one full of blood and pollution and phthalates and cheap copper wiring in the form of e-waste, dumped into the slums of China and India, as the residual plastic floats out to the Pacific Garbage Patch and further chokes the collapsing fish and seafood stocks of the world.

How bleak do you want it? Tar sand extraction? Receding ice floes? Ocean food-chain collapse? Clean water crisis? Brutal food shortages? The plight of the rich who are struggling with being slightly less rich? Hell, you only have to glance at a single snapshot of those violently polluted Asian and Indian slums, or even of ominous shots of Beijing and Hong Kong and Mexico City and Las Vegas, to feel that we are still growing and lurching and sucking down resources far too quickly to understand how to do so responsibly.

For every bit of good news, bad seems to top it like a dirt clod on an ice cream cone. More than 10 years ago, we banned CFCs and as a result, the ozone hole is actually healing, which could theoretically help slow global warming. Then again, as the ice shelves melt, more trees grow, which, given the circumstances, might actually make things worse by reducing the albedo effect.

On it goes. Flooding in the Midwest has severely damaged corn and soy crops, further straining the food supply and washing tons of pesticides into the water table. Meanwhile, California is in drought, wildfires are spreading like, well, wildfire as the state endures its driest spring ever.

It's tempting to see it as one vicious tug of war, eternal dark forces pitted against eternal light, exemplified by, say, Big Oil CEOs on one side and hemp-loving biodiesel hippies on the other, a grand footrace to see if our rapacious capitalistic appetites will destroy us before our finer reason and good conscience saves us in the final minute.

Dear Unter Gruppenfuhrer Barrow,

Congratulations, you have just been awarded the "Vidkun Quisling Award!" Your name will now live throughout history with such past award winners as Marcus Junius Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold, George Stephanopoulos, Ralph Nader, Vidkun Quisling and last year's winner Volksjudge Anthony (Fat Tony) Kennedy.

Without your lock-step calling for the repeal of the Constitution, your support of our two coup d'etats, your total support for the wars and spying upon innocent Americans, Iraq and these many other profitable oil wars to come would have been impossible! With the help of our mutual friends, the other "Demoncratic Whores" you have made it possible for all of us to goose-step off to a brave new bank account!

Along with this award you will be given the Iron Cross 1st class with ruby clusters presented by our glorious Fuhrer, Herr Bush at a gala celebration at "der Wolf's Lair," formally "Rancho de Bimbo," on 07-05-2008. We salute you Herr Barrow, Sieg Heil!

Signed,
Vice Fuhrer Cheney

I was thinking maybe building a pipeline for the oil to Fairbanks might be a compromise between leaving the Refuge a true refuge, and turning part of it, the parts most vital to the polar bears, into a drilling operation.

The wild terrain and long distance to Fairbanks might make such an idea fiscally untenable, but transporting oil via the Arctic Ocean is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, what with icebergs and drunken captains and equipment failures and mishaps. Such a pipeline would also need to be elevated every half mile or so to allow the caribou to cross underneath it, too, I would think, but would defer to wildlife experts on that one, as should Congress.

It seems that there must be a better way than to take away a refuge from golden eagles and polar bears and reindeer and a host of other animals and plants. It would take seven years to get the oil going and it would not even necessarily lower the price of oil. A half of one percent of all the world's oil is there, so Brit Hume on Fox "News" reported.

Have you ever held out your hand to a baby polar bear? Thank God, Senator John McCain of Arizona is against the risk of destroying the beauty of the Refuge with an unnecessary risk.

But if there is more talk of drilling there in Congress, I hope they will invite members of the Alaska Wilderness League and other leading environmental groups to tag along on a trip to ANWR. I don't think any legislator should vote to destroy America's greatest refuge for Artic wildlife without seeing it and hearing from its strongest advocates.

It is about time our politicians think deeply and not be held sway to the oil lobby or whoever else wants them to risk the eternal destruction of a refuge that Teddy Roosevelt would surely defend with his big stick.

I visited Alaska in August 2000. I saw some reindeer, two grizzly bears, and a lot of other animals. I also saw Mt. McKinley at sunset.

I know we need to get the price of gasoline down, or at least keep it where it is, but we have to keep our thinking caps on. A refuge is a refuge. The polar bears did not raise the price of gas on us. Don't blame them.