Water Purification and Removing PFAS from Water

I like drinking bottled water, which reportedly may not be much different from tap water—unless it's labeled as purified. To save money and avoid the hassle of buying bottled water, I was planning to get a water purification pitcher.

I spent a lot of time yesterday comparing different brands. I first came across this website:
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home-products/g39110423/best-water-filter-pitchers/

It recommends the Brita pitcher, primarily due to its low cost per gallon. Brita filters produce about 120 gallons of filtered water, making them very inexpensive to use.

However, after doing more research, I found that a couple of other brands are significantly better at filtering water, especially when removing PFAS.  According to the video I referenced in my previous email below, PFAS are widespread in water supplies and can accumulate in the body over time, potentially posing health risks.

I saw a video comparing the Zerowater pitcher with Brita and Amazon-branded pitchers, and the Zerowater model performed far better, producing nearly pure water.

I initially planned to order the 10-cup version of the Zerowater pitcher from Walmart, but I found the 12-cup version at a lower price, so I ordered that one instead:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JA5H7GK

How much does it cost to use?

• Distilled water costs around $1.33 per gallon.

• Member's Mark purified bottled water from Sam's Club costs about $0.81 per gallon.

• The Zerowater pitcher is more expensive to use than other filter pitchers. Each $15 filter produces only about 15 gallons, roughly $1 per gallon.
  You can reduce the cost somewhat by buying filters in bulk, and some compatible generic filters are available for about half the price.

I also mentioned considering a reverse osmosis system for my home, which might be a better long-term solution.

On Wed, May 14, 2025 at 1:19 PM John Coffey wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC2eSujzrUY&t=1980s

Before seeing this video, I was planning on buying a water purification jug.  

The video makes me want to get a reverse osmosis system.  I already have one, but it is broken.

Why Western Culture Is the Best, and Multiculturalism FAILS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AyLt0KOvaM

Achieving Fusion…again! NIF surpass their own record for energy generated

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JXk_GPIXZgg

I don't see this ever becoming a practical fusion.   According to one YouTuber, the claim of getting more energy out doesn't include all the energy needed to do the experiment, by a ratio of like 10 to 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY

We might get practical fusion either around the year 2100 or sooner, by necessity, since we will be running out of fossil fuels.  But I don't think that it is likely in my lifetime.

According to Google AI, there is enough Uranium to power nuclear (fission) power plants for centuries.  So maybe we are looking at the wrong technology.  Much of the research is funded by the government, so I can't help but think that there is a mentality where we feel like we have to be the first to achieve it before our enemies do.

The Biggest Chemical Cover-up in History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC2eSujzrUY&t=1980s

Before seeing this video, I was planning on buying a water purification jug.  

The video makes me want to get a reverse osmosis system.  I already have one, but it is broken.

US budget surplus surges to $258 billion in April, year-to-date deficit tops $1 trillion

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-budget-surplus-rises-23-180957705.html

Consumer inflation slows to lowest rate since February 2021

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/11/economy/us-cpi-consumer-price-index-inflation-august

BUNK! Why Most of Robert Reich’s Ideas Are Just Wrong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoACN6M7YvU

How Nature Accidentally Created the Perfect Animal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Yf8Y1yo-o

Why Central Planning Can NEVER Work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgnjro-4VWo

The Prehistoric Killer That Nearly Ended Civilization

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7u80DyDvDo

Eight thousand years ago, early Egyptian civilization was starting.

Dogs That Will Send You to DOG Backwards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ceBmRxJeY

Why Ancient Ruins Are Underground

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyTOYEk_Z2Y

8 American Habits That Confused Me As a Brit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjViZDHR4HU

Windows 10 Is DEAD! What You NEED to Know Now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN3ShDRoQvQ

In the following comment, I conveniently omit that I purchased the iMac used for $380.  

@john2001plus
0 seconds ago
I am running a 2020 iMac with a powerful 8-core Intel Core i7-10700K processor.  The computer supports Windows 10, which is primarily how I use it.  (Mac OS sucks.)  

So, five years later, I am supposed to abandon a very good $2300 computer because it is supposedly outdated and the powers that be have decided to no longer support me.  There are hundreds of millions of less powerful computers that work just fine, and the company that made the operating system for every one of them has decided to abandon its user base and force people to buy a new computer.

This is criminal.

Rare images ONLY for the 0.01% pt.2

https://youtu.be/yTeW9b6ekbg?si=JgCeFMPvA72W_u68

America’s Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out From Under Us

America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out From Under Us

"We were taught in Economics 101 that countries could not for long sustain large, ever-growing trade deficits. At a point, so it was claimed, the spree of the consumption-happy nation would be braked by currency-rate adjustments and by the unwillingness of creditor countries to accept an endless flow of IOUs from the big spenders. And that's the way it has indeed worked for the rest of the world, as we can see by the abrupt shutoffs of credit that many profligate nations have suffered in recent decades. The U.S., however, enjoys special status. In effect, we can behave today as we wish because our past financial behavior was so exemplary—and because we are so rich. Neither our capacity nor our intention to pay is questioned, and we continue to have a mountain of desirable assets to trade for consumables. 

In other words, our national credit card allows us to charge truly breathtaking amounts. But that card's credit line is not limitless. The time to halt this trading of assets for consumables is now..."

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/growing.pdf

The Cult of Death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJY12ikmmGc

This Chinese breakthrough could change microprocessors forever

https://bgr.com/tech/this-chinese-breakthrough-could-change-microprocessors-forever/

A Scientific Discovery Could Feed 136 Billion People

https://jasondeegan.com/a-scientific-discovery-could-feed-136-billion-people-a-breakthrough-like-the-invention-of-fertilizers/

What CANOLA OIL does to your LIVER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_YaAmXr0U0

Climate Change Myths Part 2: Wildfires, Drought, Rising Sea Level, and Coral Reefs

China Blames U.S. for COVID

I Found the Dumbest Time Zone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz3jAEdzbbA

WWII Bombardier Recounts INTENSE COMBAT in a B-17 Flying Fortress

This is interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENfcv6shdg&t=386s

Something insane happened today

Spain, Portugal, and part of France lost power for ten hours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPvQ3A7oiCc&t=574s

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/06YnA-dz29g

Seed oil & Disease

China Threatens to Poison Americans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=men_oKrE_f0&t=683s

Ostriches are TERRIFYING

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rNhBc_1SQ9o

Smallpox Inoculation and Fertility Rates as Windows into the Construction of Ideological Divides

America’s Silent Inheritance: The Hidden $150 Trillion

I am hearing radio advertisements for this.  Maybe they are trying to get people to invest.  Maybe it is a scam.

I don't know how accurate this is.  If there were natural resources that could be used to pay off the National Debt, then that would be a good thing.

'"Trump's Supreme Court overturned the Chevron Doctrine," Rickards says. "It essentially gave so-called government experts 'kill shot' power… But now—for the first time in half a century—we can go get [these resources]!"

What's Actually Hidden?

According to Rickards, the "silent inheritance" includes an enormous supply of strategic materials—copper, lithium, silver, rare earths—buried beneath government-controlled land across the western United States.

"We have all these essential materials right under our feet," says Rickards. "Incredibly, insanely, however, the United States is the only nation in the world that locks them up."

The sheer value is hard to fathom:

"It's enough to pay off the national debt four-times over… enough to take a 100% stake in every company listed on the NASDAQ… and buy every private home in the United States."'

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/04/16/3062778/0/en/America-s-Silent-Inheritance-The-Hidden-150-Trillion-Asset-No-One-Told-You-About.html

You Won’t Be Able To Unhear This…

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Orh4mGiIxPA

Facts That Will Change The Way You See The World

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1GxjoTNY1bs

What If China Wins the Trade War?

'The Trump administration believes that it has the upper hand in this fight. "We export one-fifth to them of what they export to us," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently remarked, "so that is a losing hand for them." That view has things backwards. The fact that the American economy is hooked on Chinese goods is a massive weakness for the U.S., not an advantage. For many categories of goods, China is not only America's top supplier but also the world's dominant supplier, meaning that the U.S. can't simply get them from other countries. According to data gathered by Jason Miller, a professor at Michigan State University who specializes in supply-chain management, China produces more than 70 percent of the world's lithium-ion batteries, air conditioners, and cookware; more than 80 percent of the world's smartphones, kitchen appliances, and toys; and about 90 percent of the world's solar panels and processed rare earth minerals, the latter of which are crucial inputs to cars, phones, and several key military technologies.

Pivoting to producing these goods at home would take years, if not decades: It would involve forming new companies, building new factories, creating supply chains from scratch, and training fleets of workers. For it to happen at all, companies would have to be confident that the tariffs would be in place for the long term. China, meanwhile, is only heavily dependent on the U.S. for a small fraction of its imports, and most of those items, such as soybeans and sorghum, can be imported from elsewhere.

Chinese businesses will be hurt by losing access to the American market, but that is an easier problem to solve. China can redirect some of its exports to countries in Europe and East Asia, whose citizens also need phones, toys, and toasters. Beijing could also give money to its own citizens to create more demand for its products at home and provide subsidies to its businesses to help them remain solvent. This asymmetry gives China what the economist Adam Posen calls "escalation dominance": the ability to inflict disproportionate harm on its economic enemy.'

https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/04/china-trump-trade-war/682524/

Netflix Doesn’t Tell You This

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T959v9bdLfQ

We may have found life on another planet 124 light years away

K2-18b: Scientists using Webb telescope detect signature of life on an exoplanet, study suggests | CNN

Climate Change Myths Part 1: Polar Bears, Arctic Ice, and Food Shortages

Why Gravity is No Longer Enough to Drop Bombs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY8JrWGRQuw

German Engineering

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RWvnt966qzk

Death to Nickels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58SrtQNt4YE

We could stop making nickels and one-cent coins while keeping them in circulation. As more transactions become electronic, the need for cash should go down.

We should also encourage sales tax to adjust to a ten-cent currency.  Change for a quarter might be tricky, but there would still be nickels, and people would adjust if there was a shortage of nickels.

The smart thing would be to start with eliminating the 1-cent coin as a trial run.

Sorry America - WAN Show

I don't listen to three-hour live streams, but this one talks for 7 minutes about the disruption of the computer industry.

https://www.youtube.com/live/TWb2P-GGBcU?t=137s

In this 8-minute segment, he defends the United States.

https://www.youtube.com/live/TWb2P-GGBcU?t=1578s

Mr. Maher Goes to Washington | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxlopbcfXpQ

Douglas Murray on the Brian Kilmeade show

I found the following interesting...

https://www.briankilmeade.com/radio

Douglas Murray: The media hates Trump for doing what he campaigned on

Why Trade Deficits are Absurd and Irrelevant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi8Ee5Ll3gI

Trade deficits matter to the guy out of a job.

Yes, you should wear your seatbelt on planes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGu3Mdk4DIU

Trump Just Took Over the World

I'm sure that this is controversial.

Helicopters DON'T just fall from the sky

It Makes a Kind of Sense -- The Trump Tariff Tier List

'This is wild' | Columbus neighbors react to historic Bartholomew County floods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fivCkAzwoY

The flood peaked two days ago.  The day before, I took State Road 46 to get to the Interstate so I could get to Louisville.  State Road 46 was flooded the next day.

Reflections on America

@john2001plus

0 seconds ago
There are many restaurants in America, mostly chains, where one can enjoy a nice meal for $20 to $40. This is how most Americans dine out when not opting for fast food.

Cornbread is not cake; it is a dense bread. While I'm not particularly fond of the taste, it pairs well with BBQ, chili, or beans.

Many large cities in the United States have become dysfunctional, or they contain areas you'd want to avoid. Smaller cities tend to be the best places to live.

DOGE Is Not Cutting Government Spending

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpNg98tezbE