Idea Files: Tread Mills

[Bobby-Joe]

Conservatism teaches us that we must look backwards into the past to fix the problems of the future. As we have seen with families, the economy, foreign policy and health care that backwards thinking has been a great success for our country. Therefor we must apply this proven method to two problems that face us; the deficit and crime.

From England comes the latest Backwards Idea. In the 19th century the English penal system used treadmills to punish criminals. Well the British Ministry of the Exchequer asked English citizens for ideas to reduce the deficit and a TRUE Englishman named Mercian has revised tread mills for the 21st Century.

In Victorian times, prisoners had to walk a treadmill or turn a hand crank before they were fed. Nowadays these devices could be made to generate electricity. This would save money by saving electricity bills for the prisons, and possibly even selling someback to the Natioanl grid. It would also make prison more of a deterrent, thus making criminals less likely to offend.

Just thinking, with American being the world's largest incarcator of its owns citizens treadmills would an instant success. Beyond the possibility of massive electric generations (take Hollywood and your Matrix movie) it would also stop our prisons from turning into the wealfare handout and mental hospitals of last resort like they have been.

Tread mills now! It's a backward idea who time has come again.

[Nobar King]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

I would be cautious about this, Brother BJ, prisons have already limited the time that inmates can use excercize equipment because they become huge violent monsters capable of serious damage.

If you give them access to treadmills, they'll just be able to escape faster.

[Trent Harvey, Jr.]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

We must do all we can to break the habits of the welfare queefs, so I will be investing in your project the moment those lazy government bureaucrats bring my parents their social security checks.

[WilliamJenningsBryan]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

The idea of deriving power from human prisoners is fascinating, and we certainly know that the old ways are the best. After some investigation I am beginning to suspect that this "old" idea is somehow linked to the progressives (and Lord knows they have been after prison reform for some time). It is well known that socialist ideas were coming to prominence during the 19th Century in Britain, although jails were known in Biblical times (and mentioned in the Bible).

Human produced energy appears to be somewhat limited according to Wikipedia:

"Most humans can exert only less than one-half horsepower for a duration of a few minutes."

With the proper conversion factor (1 hp = 745.69987 watts) we can conclude that the upper limit is around 370 watts, but this does not take into account conversion losses and other factors – including just what would be sustainable for the average prisoner.

After much research on a number of enviro-wacko-hippie web sites (and making myself nauseous in the process), I found that there are a number of pedal type devices on the market to generate human powered electricity, along with numerous disclaimers as to their effectiveness and energy potentials. I concluded that a typical sustainable rate might be about 100 watts. If a prisoner (or fat farm attendant for that matter) were to pedal for 10 hours it would generate 1 kilowatt hour, or about 10 cents worth of electricity at today's typical rates.

A typical American diet of 2,000 calories per day is equivalent in energy terms to 2.33 kilowatt hours, or 0.0644 gallons of gasoline. On a 24 hour basis this is equivalent to 96.9 watts (or 0.123 horsepower). In metabolic (basal rate) terms a human consumes about as much energy as a 100 watt light bulb.

In summary, the amount of energy a human can produce approximately equals his base metabolism (the energy it takes to keep him alive). Working 10 hours a day generating energy will produce about $36.50 a year in electricity, which hardly puts a dent in the average of $24,000 a year in incarceration costs. Then there is the capital cost for acquiring the generators, which by my estimate will take 10 years to pay back given the amount of energy produced. You can see why I am beginning to smell a DemocRAT somewhere.

At some point Al Gore is likely to weigh in on this whole scheme, pointing out that this is not likely to be sustainable given that most food is produced with fertilizers derived from oil. Add to that the methane produced by the prisoners is likely to add to global warming (truly caused by humans in this case).

We conservative True Christians™ really need to return to the old ways of the Bible (KJV1611) when it comes to retributive justice and once again adopt an "eye for an eye". Crucifixions, floggings, and indentured servitude also come to mind, along with the old idea of penal colonies that might be more cost effective.

[Bobby-Joe]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

well keep in mind that $25K a year per prisoner is because prison guards are UNION members. If the freemarket were allowed to decide guard wages I am sure were could cut down down on the gold plated prisons and we could easily reduce the cost to $12K or even $6k a year.

Another big cost is health care, since far too many Americans are getting themselves incarcerated to get the free health care prisons offer. We cut out that prison entitlement mentality I am sure we can easily end up spending only $1K to $2K a year on prisoners.

[Bobby-Joe]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

Another REAL American weighs into with a backward thinking idea to help out welfare recipients.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/08/carl_paladino_turn_prisons_int.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino said he would transform some New York prisons into dormitories for welfare recipients, where they would work in state-sponsored jobs, get employment training and take lessons in "personal hygiene."

Paladino, a wealthy Buffalo real estate developer popular with many tea party activists, is competing for the Republican nomination with former U.S. Rep. Rick Lazio. The primary is Sept. 14.

I agree with Mr Paladino. Why should only criminals benefit from the lush economic opportunities of prison. The time is right for 19th century workhouses to make a come back.

[Rev. M. Rodimer]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

The idea of deriving power from human prisoners is fascinating, and we certainly know that the old ways are the best. After some investigation I am beginning to suspect that this "old" idea is somehow linked to the progressives (and Lord knows they have been after prison reform for some time). It is well known that socialist ideas were coming to prominence during the 19th Century in Britain, although jails were known in Biblical times (and mentioned in the Bible).

Brother, what wonderful research you've completed!

How well would this alternative work:

• Take away prisoner exercise equipment
• Extract unnecessary healthy organs (one kidney, half of liver, maybe a retina)
• Provide unlimited sodas during "recovery" (sweetened only with high-fructose corn syrup), to supplement diet of chips, cookies, candy
• Withhold insulin
• Render deceased obese diabetic inmates for biodiesel
• Dehydrate and pulverize flesh into protein powder for livestock feed
• Grind bones into bone meal for fertilizer

Would it be cost-effective? I realize that they'd burn more calories than the total extracted, but given the low, low cost of HFCS and junk food, plus the value of those organs, there could be a real cost benefit to the taxpayer here.

[WilliamJenningsBryan]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

I must say I'm impressed at the creativity and fountainhead of ideas that this thread has unleashed, like rivulets of thought and inspiration by examining the past. The Military-Industrial complex has kept our great country free of foreign invaders, and the Prison-Industrial complex shows definite signs of eliminating crime entirely and leading our country to economic recovery.

[_The Earthling_]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

Oh you poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, rich people.

Let me tell you a story about someone who actually know what knows what pain feels like.

Actually, just watch this movie: Touching the Void

This dude climbed an unclimbable mountain, ran out of water, broke his leg, fell into a crevice, crawled out of that crevice, crawled across a glacier (dodging a bunch of other crevices) and also crawled across a bunch of rocks (did I mention that everyone though he was dead? And it took him days to do all this, you assumed this, right?)

So right, you're thinking, that sounds nasty, but nothing like what I have to go through as a rich person, right?

Here's the bad part: through this whole thing he had a song stuck his head. You know what song it was? It was this one:

So please. PLEASE. Tell me how much it s*cks to not be that guy. I beg you.

[WilliamJenningsBryan]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

Aside from the general incoherent and stunningly pointless nature of your post, the real painful part of it is the steel drum music. Kindly refrain from posting that music to spare the faithful the experience.

One last thing, this is a thread discussing that application of tried and true ideas for taking back the prison system from the dominance by failed LIEberal ideology.

[Benedict A. Davis]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

One question for any budding mathematician out there. How many treadmills would it take to power up and properly operate an electric chair?
This could be a big money saver for an active state like Texas and if the chair doesn't operate properly, as I understand there has been several misfires over the years, this way it would be the prisoners fault for not pedaling fast enough. Death penalty advocates would lose another excuse for stopping justice from being carried out.

[Sister Charli]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

One question for any budding mathematician out there. How many treadmills would it take to power up and properly operate an electric chair?

I am sure it would be considerably cheaper than lap banding for the grossly obese so maybe medicare should look at this as an alternative government funded treatment option.

[Bobby-Joe]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

One question for any budding mathematician out there. How many treadmills would it take to power up and properly operate an electric chair?
This could be a big money saver for an active state like Texas and if the chair doesn't operate properly, as I understand there has been several misfires over the years, this way it would be the prisoners fault for not pedaling fast enough. Death penalty advocates would lose another excuse for stopping justice from being carried out.

Well they don't use the electric chair anymore on the grounds that it frequently ends up only burning people and not killing them. To be fair the real concern is for the guards who have to carry out the execution. After all they are killing another human being in cold blood and that is never a pleasant experience.

I think the correct fix is to fully embracing Backwards Looking Thinking and have the prisoners do the executions themselves. We can force them to commit suicide by torturing them until they do, or we have the prisoners murder each other in gladiator matches,broadcasted on national TV to pay expenses. Alternatively we can have criminals who are condemned to life imprisonment be the actual executioners as a way for atoning to Jesus for their crimes.

More creative solutions would be to release handcuffed prisoners into the wild to be hunted for sport by rich people. Periodically flood the prisons to drown the inmates or release poison gas into the building. We also can't rule out using the dead prisoners corpses as food for other prisoners to reduce costs.

[Rev. M. Rodimer]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

Well they don't use the electric chair anymore on the grounds that it frequently ends up only burning people and not killing them.

Hmm, are you thinking what I'm thinking . . . witches

[Bobby-Joe]

Re: Idea Files: Tread Mills

Hmm, are you thinking what I'm thinking . . . witches

Interesting idea Reverend. Who ever we still have the same basic issue; who will throw the switch on the witch. I'd say we make the witch herself do it so it is suicide. That way she gets one last chance to ask for Jesus' forgiveness before she kills herself.