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Regarding civil asset forfeiture, the best personal defense is a recording device on your person. Like a video recording pen or key chain dongle. Found at Fry’s or Microcenter for around $90.
The long term solution is to work with your state legislatures to pass laws reeling in forfeiture without criminal conviction. The Institute for Justice has model legislation for this: http://ij.org/issues/private-property/civil-forfeiture/
This is done by several state bills. One forces the police to report to the legislature how much money that have taken. Another bill forbids them from forfeiture without a criminal conviction. Then there’s the anti-circumvention bill, which prevents cops from taking under the aegis of a federal agency, then getting a kickback from the federales.
All these are needed for a state to respect citizen’s 4th and 5th amendment rights.
An excellent video exposing civil asset forfeiture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhAa2vep1z0
For a trip down the rabbit hole, research AT&T’s “Hemisphere Program” and forfeiture…
On the wind turbine, they look cool and all but a friend of mine has been using both wind and solar since the 1970’s and has been keeping track of their production. Solar will beat wind for power production, no, they don’t produce at night but windmills don’t produce in calm. There tends to be more sunlight than useful wind.
He obviously doesn’t live in Wyoming!
Wyoming winds destroy common 400 to 600 watt wind generators – expect only a year or two of service until they fail.
On the wind turbine at Amazon:
Rated at 400 watts at 46 ft/s
46 feet per second x 60 = 2760 fee per minute
2760 x 60 = 165,600 feet per hour
165,600 divided by 5280 = 31.4 miles per hour.
I guess for marketing it sounds better saying 400 watts in a gale force wind rather than pointing out about 130 watts with a 10 mph wind.
…. unless you live in Wyoming.
Rather than looking at commercial wind turbines, which are greatly overrated for power outputs, it might be useful to look up homebrew options for wind/solar/micro-hydro. A useful site that has an abundance of information on the design and construction of such systems is http://www.otherpower.com. You can design blades to meet your nominal wind speeds and maximize your energy output rather than buying an off-the-shelf sub-optimal design.
I remember in 1974 seeing wind turbines at Pacheco Pass in central Kalfornia. They must be profitable by now….my point being that if you want to just use fat-burning lamps made from your own pigs by-products, they will work and you are welcome to do so for your sole energy source.
But it’s a far better thing to invest in some power generating equipment than to merely debate about comparative efficacy. Get something operational. Use it. For those like myself with limited imagination and skill, even the 100 watt solar kit at Harbor Freight on sale at $149 bucks is better to have than nothing.
A wind turbine costing less than a 5th or 6th spare weapon is a better choice, even if you arer only getting a 7 mph wind. I remember along the Big Horn Mountains from September through May we’d get so many days of 20+ MPH winds it would have been a great thing to have enough wind generators to even get one addition heating unit to keep our family warm.
Best wishes and God Bless
On the other hand, Missouri Wind and Solar has a 2kw wind generator complete with the prop and mount for about $800. Just build the tower, actually the most expensive part of the installation. Last I checked they had all the hardware in a kit for a 6kw solar power system for about $12k. That would be the panels, the racks, the charge controller and inverter, and cables and connectors. Just add the mounting base, the tracking mechanism, and the batteries. I’ve heard both good and bad about this company. Most of the bad comes from people who had unrealistic expectations. If nothing else watch their videos, it’s enlightening.
There is a reason why PV and wind energy requires a substantial subsidy. They generally don’t produce anywhere near their ratings/predictions. They cost far more than you thought they would and they can and do have maintenance/reliability problems. Most commercial PV and wind is simply a ploy to “mine” government subsidies.