Free Republic

You apparently don’t understand the current condition of the FBI and DOJ. And that is scary.

OK, so you don't want to go to the FBI.

But, if you have evidence of a crime -- where is it?

If you know about a victim, who is he or she?

And if you don't have it, who does? And, what do they have?

You can't wave away these predicate requirements for an investigation, just by saying the FBI or DoJ wouldn't investigate.

And I'll reiterate: I want to see evidence of an actual crime, or a person that claims to be a victim.

I don't want to hear about things you don't like, or think are weird, or is associated with people you disagree with.

Do you have actual evidence of a crime? Where is it?

Do you have an actual victim? With all the publicity, someone would have come forward by now. Who are they?

I'm waiting.

Sorry, you don't get to link your conspiracy theory to a real crime, especially with sketches that look like half of the Caucasian men in the world.

Here's what is actually happening:

Scotland Yard to pursue new lead in disappearance of Madeleine McCann

According to The Sun, detectives are looking into a tip that traffickers from Europe kidnapped the then 3-year-old after taking photographs of her.

I’m pretty sick of you antis.

Not nearly as sick as I am of yours, and everyone else's. Free Republic is being destroyed by crap like this.

What's it going to take for you to see how stupid this is? Another "pizzagate" investigator going to harass someone, and getting killed?

You’ve scared off some very smart people with your bullying.

If they think "pizzagate" is real, they aren't very smart. The truly smart people are indeed departing, because they are sick of this.

But, demanding actual evidence or victims isn't "bullying". The true bullies are the ones that are accusing people of crimes with no evidence, or even a victim.

Yes, I get it: you don't like them.

Yes, I get it: they are into things you don't like.

But, you don't get to accuse people of crimes just because you don't like them.

If you do, then You are the bully.

This is exactly what went on in East Germany: the Stasi had around 20% of the population informing for them, and all it took was an unsubstantiated accusation to ruin someone's life.

If that's what you want, there are still a few garden spots in the world that would welcome you.

Why don’t you give it a rest?

I would ask you, and everyone else the same thing. Why don't you give it a rest? You don't have any evidence or victims, and you won't accept that you don't.

So, why don't you just take it somewhere else, where no one will challenge you? Or are you just another precious snowflake that can't handle someone that disagrees with you?

Sorry, I'm not playing your game.

If you have evidence of a crime, or evidence of a victim -- show it, or at least report it to the FBI.

But, you don't have any of those things, do you?

I'm not obliged to prove you have don't have anything. Its absence is all the proof that is needed.

So, you have nothing. Let me repeat that:

You have nothing.

You don't get to demand investigation of people you don't like, or disagree with, with no evidence of wrongdoing.

If that's what you want, then you would have been a great Stasi informer in the former East Germany.

So there is no upside for conservatives to use Pizzagate as a club?

No, there isn't. Because it doesn't take more than a few minutes to see that it's silly. And then, you just look silly.

I won’t go into details, but there are certain and undeniable facts about the Podestas, James Alefantis, David Brock and many others that really should be investigated.

If you really believe that, call the FBI. See how far you get before they escort you to the door.

At one time Watergate was a silly conspiracy theory and Ken Starr was a clown out on a fools errand.

Watergate started with a burglary. And Ken Starr was appointed to continue an investigation already in progress (Whitewater). In both cases, there was evidence of actual crimes.

Pizzagate has yet to yield one single crime, or even one single alleged victim. Amateur "investigators" try to convince you otherwise by claiming unrelated crimes are related -- again with no evidence.

This just popped up, and I think it's relevant:

When Everything Is 'Fake News'

Yesterday an idiot fired a rifle in a D.C. restaurant because he was trying to investigate "PizzaGate," the latest, dumbest variation on the decades-old series of rumors that the country is governed by secret pedophile rings. (Fortunately, no injuries have been reported.) Since the gunman was inspired by a false story, his crime was promptly blamed on "fake news." Then some pundits tried to link his assault to Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's pick to be national security adviser, on the grounds that Flynn had promoted the PizzaGate story. But it turned out the general had actually been alluding to a separate conspiracy theory, so naturally the accusation against Flynn was then dubbed "fake news" too.

In the long-gone days of early 2016, fake news mostly meant clickbait sites that publish hoaxes, some with a satiric veneer and some just flatly aimed at tricking people; the stories could involve anything from Willie Nelson dying to a woman trying on tampons in a WalMart aisle. These days "fake news" still means that, but it also gets applied to highly partisan outlets that may be sloppy with their facts; and content factories that just don't care about their facts; and Russian disinformation campaigns, real or alleged; and pretty much any conspiracy theory that finds a foothold online. (Like PizzaGate.) Even a police sting got the "fake news" label last week because the operation included a deceptive press release. And of course it's also a phrase that people throw back in the mainstream media's faces any time the press botches a story.

In other words, "fake news" has become a catchall term for saying something false in public, otherwise known as the human condition.

This does not bode well for people who think they can find a fix to "the fake news problem," given that clickbait and rumors and disinformation and sloppy reporting and so on are all different things. They overlap, sure, but they're not the same phenomenon, and you're not going to find a one-size-fits-all solution to them—not unless your solution is "Introduce a little more skepticism to your media consumption habits." Of course, that's a good idea whether or not the news is fake.

Is Pizza Gate fake news? I would tend to disbelieve Pizza Gate.

No, pizzagate is a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, by people that claim to have first found coded messages in Podesta's email. From there, it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy to find an ulterior meaning in anything tangentially related.

It's like a virus, spread by the mentally ill. They are sucking in otherwise rational and intelligent people, who throw their critical thinking ability out the window and accuse anyone that questions them as "defending the indefensible".

But seeing how much time and energy the MSM spends in denying it leads me to believe it must be true.

Normally, stuff like this is dismissed out of hand, and there would be no need to "deny" it. But it's become a real problem for the people and businesses that are alleged to be involved.

The guy that walked into the pizza shop with a gun to "investigate" wasn't the first person to do so. He was just the first person to show up while visibly carrying a gun. He is probably going to spend some time in jail, although the judge will hopefully order a psychiatric evaluation and treatment.

I'm really hoping that some of the people that believe in "pizzagate" will take the time for some self-examination, and ask how they are really different from him.

There are genuinely "fake news" sites:

• Denver Guardian: phony story about dead FBI agent.
• Christian Times Newspaper: phony story about ballot boxes (and a very badly photoshopped image)
• Baltimore Gazette: phony story about riots in Charlotte.
• National Report: phony claim by Yoko Ono of an affair with Hillary Clinton.

To be fair: these sites run a smattering of real news stories to appear legitimate. But the operators seed these fake stories on social media, to draw clicks to their website and collect from the ad networks.

The operator of the Denver Guardian admitted to NPR that he was earning thousands of dollars/month.

National Report has become an outright parody/satire website like "The Onion". The masthead has a disclaimer, warning that any resemblance to the truth is coincidental.

However, this list published by the Washington Post is more likely filtered by political ideology, than "fake" or "real".

We saw that episode — I was laughing because every one of them was “real”, or at least imagined by real-life millenials.

A flux capacitor was a component associated with the flux capacitance of a starship's warp matrix.

And I thought you were mixing up "Star Trek" and "Back to the Future".

Or, did Doc Brown invent the flux capacitor and Zephram Cochrane found a new use for it?

You may be seeing "surface charge" which is different from having been trickle charged or constantly charged over a longer time period (like a road trip).

No, it's the actual battery charge. When it gets to full charge, the charging system stops, and the regenerative braking is replaced with traditional disc brakes.

Like you said, storage cells can't instantly accept all that charge, or you could pull into a charging station and then leave in a few minutes...just like a fill-up.

Don't forget that a hybrid's battery is relatively small. It doesn't have the capacity of a fully electric car. For example:

The 2015 Toyota Prius plugin has a 4.4kWh battery, good for 11 miles in electric mode. It's doubled in capacity in 2017.

In contrast, the third-generation Prius (not plug-in) has a battery that is only 1.3kWh - about 1/3rd the capacity. So, if it could be locked into EV mode, it could only be driven a few miles.

My concept there (and it may already be in use, or under development) is to build a "battery" which is a combination of EV-cells (for durable charge) and a bunch of Megacapacitors (for instant charging) and probably some diodes to control current flow.

I'm actually surprised we haven't seen the use of ultra-capacitors in a hybrid, yet. Perhaps there is a safety issue with shorting them in a crash, although LiIon batteries have the same problem.

He said that? The state court should tell him to go pound sand.

Well, that explains the appeal to the 6th Circuit.

Hopefully, there will be a quick hearing and the judge will be reversed.

I posted on another thread: I think judges should be replaced if they are reversed more than a (relatively low) percentage of times.

This suit was filed because no state court can overturn the order by the U.S. District court.

I believe the US District court order was limited to "start on Monday, instead of waiting two business days until Wednesday".

I think the two day delay was to give the state time to appeal. That appeal was made to the MI court of appeals, and the hearing is tomorrow.

If the MI court says: "no recount", it's over aside from an appeal to the MI Supreme Court.

I don't know what the grounds for the appeal to the 6th Circuit might be, unless there's more to the US District's order.

So two suits to stop it now, one in the MI court of appeals by the AG, and this? Should be fun.

Darn, I was going to post the same thing.

I'm still surprised to see the Trump legal team staying out of this. But, perhaps they are keeping their hands off to avoid accusations of political interference.

There's really no harm in Trump letting Al Gore making his pitch, other than to legitimize Al Gore.

I presume that Trump will also let the other side make their pitch. I would simply point out that there has been no measurable warming in the past two decades, and all the models that predicted it (which is like 19 out of 20) were wrong.

From there, a pragmatist would ask: "What was wrong with your models, and why should I believe them now?"

Using the motors as brakes also works, but the term "regenerative" doesn't quite work yet as the technology doesn't exist yet to allow the batteries to absorb the braking energy (maybe if you were descending the Continental Divide)

Actually, the regeneration works quite well. In a car with a charge indicator, you can see the battery charge significantly with moderate braking at typical city cruising speeds.

The batteries can't absorb all the energy, due to the mechanical, electrical, and chemical losses. But, it's enough to provide at least some of the subsequent acceleration.

A smaller displacement, but high output turbo engine that would give you all the on-demand power for acceleration, lugging and towing. It would revert to a preset "best efficiency" RPM once cruising speed was attained.

This is what hybrids do -- they are programmed to run the engine at best efficiency and either supply needed torque from the electric motor, or channel excess engine power into the generator to charge the battery.

And some of them have high-output turbo engines that are smaller than would be needed without the hybrid systems. The BMW i8 has one, although it's certainly an expensive model.

Four motor/generators, one at each wheel to provide, all wheel drive, electric braking, and traction control.

I don't know if any car has four motors, but there are several with three: a single drive motor/generator on the engine transaxle, and one on each of the remaining wheels.

In the case of the Acura RLX Hybrid, the real wheels are differentially driven or retarded with positive or negative torque, and assist in turning the car at lower speeds.

The AWD Tesla's have one motor/generator for each pair of wheels.

I realize you are actually referring to a fully electric system that decouples the engine from the drivetrain, like a diesel-electric locomotive. The early models of the Chevrolet Volt operated like that most of the time. But, it still had a mode that would clutch into the drivetrain in certain circumstances. And, the 2016 Volt eliminated that in favor of a new system that acts like most hybrid systems: when the engine is running, it provides some torque to the drivetrain.

Perhaps an engineer can explain exactly why no one has gone to a pure electric drivetrain. I suspect it has something to do with delivering maximum horsepower to the wheels when the battery is depleted -- there will be a significant loss in the electrical system without the direct coupling.

And due to that loss, highway cruising will require more power than if the engine is providing it direct to the transaxle, resulting in lower gas mileage.

I believe that only means the recount must start today, rather than waiting two business days until Wednesday.

The delay is apparently intended to give the state time to made an appeal. The order simply says: start now, while the appeal is in progress.

This article says the hearing for the appeal is tomorrow. If they rule against it, the recount stops.

I'm glad to see that the Michigan AG is appealing. Hopefully, the Circuit Court is staffed with more reasonable jurists.

I've wondered why the Trump legal team isn't a more active participant, but maybe they are sitting it out to avoid the specter of political interference.

I'm sure that it would take a Constitutional Amendment, due to the doctrine of separation of powers, but I would love to see some sort of "Judicial Accountability Act".

If a federal judge is overturned on appeal more than a certain percentage of the time, he/she is automatically removed. US District and Circuit Court judges would be subject to the same criteria.

The 9th Circuit is probably the worst offender:

http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/373273/ninth-circuit-leading-pack-most-reversed-jonathan-keim

But in 2010, perhaps seeking to reclaim its position at the top of the heap, the Ninth Circuit was reversed a startling 19 times (79 percent), three times as many reversals as most circuits had cases before the Supreme Court. The same pattern continued in the 2011 (71 percent) and 2012 terms (86 percent), when the Ninth Circuit was reversed more than twice as many times as most circuits had cases before the Court.

My Lexus hybrid isn’t a “performance” hybrid it’s basically an “all arounder” and the V6+3 electric motors (one front and one at each rear wheel) give it a stronger 0-60 than a Cayenne V8.

The Acura RLX hybrid has the same arrangement. It does 0-60 in 5.1 sec, and 1/4 mile in 13.6 sec.

The otherwise identical RLX non-hybrid does 0-60 in 5.8 sec, and 1/4 mile in 15.7 sec.

I thought the RLX hybrid was sub-5 second for 0-60, but I apparently misremembered.